As you may already know, we’re moving into a new office in Fishers, Indiana – meaning we’ll need some new furniture from IKEA.  Check out the video to see what a visit to IKEA is like when Media for Hire visits.

For those unaware, IKEA is a HUGE furniture store with everything you could ever need for your home or office (or anywhere you need… furniture).  Since there are no IKEA locations in Indiana, we went the Bolingbrook, Illinois location. 

After eating lunch at IKEA (which was actually really good), we made our way around the store to pick a desk and a few other things for the new office.

As far as the mouse at The Marketing Loft, it still lives to this day.  Greg has set out the trap, but hasn’t had any luck catching it yet.

As always, new episodes on Thursdays and teasers on Tuesday at mediaforhire.tv

In the latest episode, we left everyone with a little cliff hanger.   Watch below and find out what I mean by that.

So… what does this mean?  It means we’re moving… kind of.

We’re adding a Fishers, IN location.  We’ll have an office in the Yeager Properties II Fishers Office Suites (located off S.R. 37 and 141st street).  You’ll be able to find out more about the new office in the next episode.

Be honest: did you shed a tear watching the video above?  We’ve been at The Marketing Loft in downtown Greenfield for nearly a year now – and we’re really going to miss it.  Again, we’re not moving out completely just yet, but that is our intention in the near future.  So if you want come check out our Greenfield office, now is the time to do it.

Be sure to check out the new teaser on Tuesday and episode on Thursday at mediaforhire.tv – Rocky and I go furniture shopping  for the new place. :)

A logo should always feel new, fresh, and exciting.  With that in mind, we decided to re-brand Media for Hire.

Find out what I mean below.

Yes, we’re poking fun at Gap’s recent branding trouble.   Honestly though, who didn’t make fun of Gap’s logo?

What you may find more interesting about our video is my “evil twin“.

I’d like to make a video on how we did the split screen effect, but, ultimately, we took two different videos, both filmed on a tripod at the same spot, one with me at the podium pretending to see Rocky walk towards me, and one with me standing in the background as Rocky walks in front of me.  I’m of course referring to the second shot with the split screen effect.

In case anyone is wondering, we filmed the shot of me apologizing at the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce building (Thanks Retta!).

See all the new episodes at mediaforhire.tv!

Sweaty palms, paranoia, adrenaline.   Some of the things you feel just before a race.   After working with the Tony Stewart Foundation, Rocky and I wanted to experience these things for ourselves.   Watch the video to see what I mean.

So maybe our idea of racing is a little less exciting than Nascar.  Oh well.  It’s still fun.

I came up with the idea to make a video about racing, but it took the power of Greg (who shares an office with us) and Rocky to think of the slot cars being the punch line. 

We filmed all the scenes of the real cars one evening, and the slot cars the next morning.  Editing took about an hour and a half, which is pretty quick.

The video that we made for the Tony Stewart Foundation can be viewed here.

Be sure to look for our next video on mediaforhire.tv!

We recently started producing “This Week’s WOW” for The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, which is a bi-weekly web show.  For the first shoot we did for This Week’s WOW, we had to visit the Museum after hours (A.K.A. at night).  Check out what happened below…

It was definitely a lot of fun to go run around The Children’s Museum all night shooting video.  However, I will admit it was a little creepy — kept thinking of  all those TV shows when a few kids sneak off during their field trip and a mummy starts chasing them.

Before we shot the footage for Media for Hire (above), we just said “Hey, we should get some video for Media for Hire”.  Since I already thought museums at night were a little creepy, I said we should be scared and seperated from each other.

It would have been cool to animate a dinosaur skeleton moving, but it was already 8:xxpm by that time and everyone wanted to go home… maybe next time.

Our next Media for Hire video should be great.  Rocky and I will feel a need, a need for speed.

After 12 episodes ranging from 5-10 minutes, we finally decided to switch it up.  Instead of an episode about our work week, we are now making weekly videos about, well, anything.  Watch the video below to see what I mean.

Not to say we’ll never make a 10 minute video again, we’ll simply make most of our videos 1-3 minutes.  We’re switching to the new length for a few reasons:

• It’s easier on us to make a 1-3 minute video versus a 10 minute video
• More viewers will watch all of the video
• Viewers are more likely to share a 1-3 minute video

Enough about the new format,  on to the iSketch.  We plan on shipping a 5G and WiFi version to all major retailers by this holiday season.  Prices are expected to be $1400 for the WiFi and $2000 for the 5G.

The latest episode of Media for Hire features Blog Indiana and a few of the tweeps that were there.

Check out the episode below, then let’s go behind the scenes (of episode 12).

Blog Indiana… seems like it was yesterday.  September 20th, we went downtown to IUPUI, where the Blog Indiana conference was being held, for two main reasons – 1.) to stream the sessions using video via Ustream and 2.) because Rocky was presenting a session about ways to use Youtube.  For those unaware, Blog Indiana is a conference where bloggers, tweeps, and anyone interested in learning about social media come together to, well, learn from each other.

Now, throughout the episode, BgKahuna and Rocky are interviewing each other, as well as anyone they can find.  You may have noticed the camera keeps switching back and forth between BgKahuna’s and mine.  In this SPECIAL behind the scenes video, Rocky and I talk a little about how switching camera angles can be done very easily:

Going back to the point during the episode when I said I’m always behind the camera: I’m not sure why it is exactly, but I guess because Rocky is always in front of the camera and I’m always behind it, people assume he is the only one who works at 12 Stars, not realizing someone has to be behind the camera.  I suppose it may have something to do with me talking very little in comparison, but seriously, who would believe that?

Anyway.  At the end of this episode when Rocky’s phone was ringing, he actually came back, we started talking on camera for a moment, then his phone starting ringing again.  Thus, ruining all of our “end” interview.  I’m saying this to further explain how Rocky is the one who talks and I’m the one who works behind the scenes - I think our different personalities allow us to work well and efficently together.

Look forward to our next episode and talk about it on our Facebook page!

Rocky and I shared the honor of joining members of the Hoosier Chapter of PRSA as they went to Grissom Air Reserve Base in Peru, Indiana for an actual in-flight refueling mission on board a KC-135 Stratotanker.  We wanted to learn a little more about jets and planes so, naturally, we turned to Hollywood and watched Top Gun the night before.

The following is the result of our serious research…

This was an awesome experience for us. Flying in a KC-135, refueling a C-17, sitting in the cockpit, talking with the pilots and crew members… Whew! We went near the east coast to refuel the other aircraft, which took about four hours to get there and back.  The 434th Air Refueling Wing performs in-flight refueling on a regular basis, but they’d never had a “social media flight” until this summer!  It was cool learning about how the KC-135 can literally become a “gas station in the sky” as it circles round and round refueling planes on an as needed basis during combat or for training purposes.

The whole “Social Media Top Gun” thing at the end with Dave Woodson was the result of a Facebook contest we hosted. That contest received over 60 comments in less than 24 hours which, for us, is a lot.

Who knew when we started a reality series we’d soon be going around and doing such awesome stuff?  Anyway, be on the lookout for our next episode and, of course, if you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

EDIT: BTW, Rocky failed to mention to me how goofy my hair looked during the opening interview. Grr.

So, in this episode, Rocky and I were invited to head down to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to drive a Chevy Camaro SS around the track.  Awesome, I know.  Check it out…

I have to admit, I never thought I’d be able to drive around the Speedway, especially in a Camaro SS. Big thanks to Chris Theisen and Hare Chevrolet for making that happen.

Now, about the effects, most viewers probably thought the scene with Rocky jumping was made using a green screen — nope. We actually filmed that at the same spot we filmed the car driving by. I masked Rocky out from the background, kind of like when you cut out a person from a printed picture and made it appear as though he jumped a lot higher than he really did. This technique allowed us to have perfect lighting and color.

The second effect, when Rocky gets hit by the Camaro, was made using a green screen.  You can see our set-up at the end of the episode.  We used a table in place of where the car would be; Rocky acted like he got hit and jumped on top of the table, then rolled off.  Watching all of this was, of course, very funny from my position. : D

Our next episode will be all about the 434th Air Refueling Wing.  Check out the promo for it here!

In this explosive episode of Media for Hire, Rocky and I decided to blow up our printer! Yay! Check out the episode…

So, obviously we didn’t really blow up our printer.  However, we did set it on fire.  We poured the starter fluid on the printer and made a trail, but when we lit it, there wasn’t as strong of a flame as we had hope, so we didn’t use any of the footage.  Rocky was supposed to recycle that printer, I wonder if he actually did.  Anyway…

Contrary to my previous blog post, we had actually planned on blowing up our printer for a while –  Of course, I needed a little time to make the effects.  The actual fire was made in a 3D program called AutoDesk Maya, which I had absolutely no knowledge of before making this video.  I know it doesn’t look super-realistic, but my title isn’t “Zach Downs, Hollywood Special Effects Guy.”  : )

For those wondering, the printer we “blew up” was a Samsung CLP-315 Laser Printer.  We replaced it with a Brother something or other printer.

We visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the next episode.  Should be exciting!