Fellow SEMA Members,
I am running for a seat on the YEN Select Committee, and would appreciate your vote. Some highlights on why I would be an ideal candidate include:
- I am a life-long enthusiast from a car family. My first car build ended up on the covers of Hot Rod and Mustang & Fords
- Over a dozen years in the industry, having worked 11 consecutive SEMA Shows.
- Media background: I have worked for Petersen, Primedia, Edmunds, and handled PR for the top brands in our industry
- Small business owner: I understand what it takes to run a small business in the current climate, and what it takes to succeed
- The manufacturer’s perspective: my best clients and friends are auto aftermarket manufacturers. I will represent the manufacturer’s point of view on the council
- Social Media Expertise: It’s what we do, every day. I will help bring fresh ideas to the table and would love to help fellow YEN members succeed
After a decade as a proud SEMA member, I’ve decided its time to give something back to the industry and organization that has been so good to me over the years. I’m running for a seat on the SEMA Young Executives Network (YEN) Select Committee. YEN honored me a few months ago with a nice profile piece on the SEMA site and in SEMA News, so most of my background can be found here.
In a nutshell: I started working in the auto industry in high school, working the sales counter at a well-known speed shop in Los Angeles. I honed my writing skills, then made the jump to magazines as a writer and photographer at 18. I went on to work at some of the best automotive media outlets in the country, including Petersen/Primedia, Edmunds.com and more. Eventually I made the leap to automotive PR, where I have run accounts for some of the biggest names in our industry. Eventually I started my own PR and Social Media Marketing firm in 2008 and haven’t looked back. I’m honored to have a fantastic group of clients and we are doing really exciting work pushing the limits of viral marketing and PR for the automotive aftermarket.
So why the YEN Select Committee? Because I’m a pretty young guy considering I’ve worked 11 consecutive SEMA shows, and I feel that our industry is filled with young, eager, forward-thinking entrepreneurs. From business owners and manufacturers to reps, dealers and media personnel, we’re all very fortunate to have a passion for cars and the ability to earn a living talking about what we love. I will help fellow YEN members in any way I can, keeping the committee focused on the needs of fresh new companies and fast-rising young executives. We should be heard, from our ideas on new media marketing to reaching Gen Y and Millennials. I will bring new ideas to the table about how to market the organization to business owners and how to help members move their businesses forward.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I encourage anyone with questions about my goals for the YEN Select Committee or even those looking for advice to email or call me anytime.
Sincerely,
Dan Kahn
President, Kahn Media
Dan@KahnMedia.com
818-881-5246
Here at Kahn Media we get sent a lot of photo and video-related content from our clients. We appreciate it, as it’s nearly impossible for us to shoot every event, meet, show, race, shop visit, etc. In an effort to maintain some quality control as well as reduce time burned, I have compiled this list of guidelines. The guidelines are universal and can make a world of difference in the end product and the process leading up to it.
We’ll start with video work since it demands more specific settings and consumes a lot more space.
Filming:
- Shoot with a tripod whenever possible. This is an effort to reduce the amount of shake and vibrations in our videos. When I’m out filming cars, I always have a tripod with me. For interviews, stationary shots, moving shots, pans, and everything else, these shots look a lot more professional. When the footage is more professional it shows that your company puts a lot of effort and thought into every little detail.
- Shoot everything in the same format. Now with HD cameras especially you are given plenty of options in how the camera will record its footage. Varying formats in the same project not only looks less professional, it also can be entirely incompatible.
- At Kahn Media everything as of right now is shot in 720p and the majority of footage is at 30fps. Why? Because the majority of our video goes online, and YouTube maxes out at 720p, but this format still looks good on a TV screen.
- Use a GoPro Hero HD? The setting R2 for 1080i/p is largely unnecessary for most internet-based projects and will just result in a larger file size.
- If you shoot something with the intent of it being turned into slow-motion footage, keep the 720p and shoot at 60fps. This is double the frame rate so the slowed footage will look much smoother.
- Normal Footage: 720p/30fps
- Slow Motion Footage: 720p/60fps (R3 on the GoPro)
- Import the Footage from the Camcorder. It is important that you import footage from the camera instead of dragging files over like a hard drive. Cameras don’t automatically record to an editable file format. The footage needs to be imported into an editing program. Cameras come with software to properly import footage and many other programs are also capable of doing this. I’ve been receiving a growing number of .MTS files lately as well as many other non-compatible formats. We have ways of making MTS files work eventually but it is very time consuming and just delays videos further. The exception to this being GoPros which record into a .MOV file format which is perfect for editing.
- Import footage – don’t just drag files over (Except for with Gopros)
- Desired files: Uncompressed .MOV Files
Photography:
- Shoot high-resolution. We don’t need or necessarily want RAW files for event coverage and/or blog posts. However, a high-quality JPEG can go a long way.
- Shoot with the sun to your back. This is for lighting/exposure purposes of course. You can do a lot with ambient (natural) light if you utilize it properly. This tip can help you eliminate a lot of unwanted shadows and will clean up the look of photos significantly.
- Show as much as you can. Take photos of everything going on. A cool car, a race, a funny story, a cool story, anything relevant.
- Avoid busy backgrounds. Nothing kills a shot quicker than having your competitors’ vehicles in the background. Always try to get your company’s car separate from anything that could make the photo unusable.
For Both:
- Get multiple shots of each car. Get overview shots and specific shots of your product. If possible, get photos that include the vehicle and owner’s info (Ex: A tag at a car show)
- Interview customers. Ask people questions that use your product. Film their reactions (use a microphone if possible). Take some notes, maybe a good write-up or caption could be tied into the photos. People also enjoy feeling like their voice is heard, especially if it’s by the companies that they have given their hard-earned money to.
- Show people having a good time. Get shots of people enjoying events you sponsor, or customers enjoying your products. This can be as valuable, if not more so than a traditional commercial. People like companies that not only have good products but also reinvest in the community and give that community a chance to enjoy themselves (Ex: Muscle car events for the Muscle Car Community). Make a point of showing that you support the community and that people are enjoying events you sponsor.
- Have fun. If you’re having a good time while shooting and experiencing the cars or races it’ll carry over to the footage. Our goal here isn’t just about showing company’s products, we want to show that our clients are into fun. All of our clients have products that are used in fun applications like races. We want people to see footage from events that our clients contribute to and/or participate in. If someone uses a client’s product in the race I will show that person using the product and usually interview him or her as well. It’s better to have more footage and sort through it than coming up short on footage when working on something.
It’s important that you put some effort into the quality of photo and video work for your company. Customers, both current and potential, will notice the quality of this and directly associate it with your product. The cleaner and better shot everything is, the better the company’s image. Follow these steps when possible and have a good time while doing so and it’ll work wonders.
I can’t wait to see what you guys can do.
Thanks,
-Alex Auerbach
Here at Kahn Media we get sent a lot of photo and video-related content from our clients. We appreciate it, as it’s nearly impossible for us to shoot every event, meet, show, race, shop visit, etc. In an effort to maintain some quality control as well as reduce time burned, I have compiled this list of guidelines. The guidelines are universal and can make a world of difference in the end product and the process leading up to it.
We’ll start with video work since it demands more specific settings and consumes a lot more space.
Filming:
- Shoot with a tripod whenever possible. This is an effort to reduce the amount of shake and vibrations in our videos. When I’m out filming cars, I always have a tripod with me. For interviews, stationary shots, moving shots, pans, and everything else, these shots look a lot more professional. When the footage is more professional it shows that your company puts a lot of effort and thought into every little detail.
- Shoot everything in the same format. Now with HD cameras especially you are given plenty of options in how the camera will record its footage. Varying formats in the same project not only looks less professional, it also can be entirely incompatible.
- At Kahn Media everything as of right now is shot in 720p and the majority of footage is at 30fps. Why? Because the majority of our video goes online, and YouTube maxes out at 720p, but this format still looks good on a TV screen.
- Use a GoPro Hero HD? The setting R2 for 1080i/p is largely unnecessary for most internet-based projects and will just result in a larger file size.
- If you shoot something with the intent of it being turned into slow-motion footage, keep the 720p and shoot at 60fps. This is double the frame rate so the slowed footage will look much smoother.
- Normal Footage: 720p/30fps
- Slow Motion Footage: 720p/60fps (R3 on the GoPro)
- Import the Footage from the Camcorder. It is important that you import footage from the camera instead of dragging files over like a hard drive. Cameras don’t automatically record to an editable file format. The footage needs to be imported into an editing program. Cameras come with software to properly import footage and many other programs are also capable of doing this. I’ve been receiving a growing number of .MTS files lately as well as many other non-compatible formats. We have ways of making MTS files work eventually but it is very time consuming and just delays videos further. The exception to this being GoPros which record into a .MOV file format which is perfect for editing.
- Import footage – don’t just drag files over (Except for with Gopros)
- Desired files: Uncompressed .MOV Files
Photography:
- Shoot high-resolution. We don’t need or necessarily want RAW files for event coverage and/or blog posts. However, a high-quality JPEG can go a long way.
- Shoot with the sun to your back. This is for lighting/exposure purposes of course. You can do a lot with ambient (natural) light if you utilize it properly. This tip can help you eliminate a lot of unwanted shadows and will clean up the look of photos significantly.
- Show as much as you can. Take photos of everything going on. A cool car, a race, a funny story, a cool story, anything relevant.
- Avoid busy backgrounds. Nothing kills a shot quicker than having your competitors’ vehicles in the background. Always try to get your company’s car separate from anything that could make the photo unusable.
For Both:
- Get multiple shots of each car. Get overview shots and specific shots of your product. If possible, get photos that include the vehicle and owner’s info (Ex: A tag at a car show)
- Interview customers. Ask people questions that use your product. Film their reactions (use a microphone if possible). Take some notes, maybe a good write-up or caption could be tied into the photos. People also enjoy feeling like their voice is heard, especially if it’s by the companies that they have given their hard-earned money to.
- Show people having a good time. Get shots of people enjoying events you sponsor, or customers enjoying your products. This can be as valuable, if not more so than a traditional commercial. People like companies that not only have good products but also reinvest in the community and give that community a chance to enjoy themselves (Ex: Muscle car events for the Muscle Car Community). Make a point of showing that you support the community and that people are enjoying events you sponsor.
- Have fun. If you’re having a good time while shooting and experiencing the cars or races it’ll carry over to the footage. Our goal here isn’t just about showing company’s products, we want to show that our clients are into fun. All of our clients have products that are used in fun applications like races. We want people to see footage from events that our clients contribute to and/or participate in. If someone uses a client’s product in the race I will show that person using the product and usually interview him or her as well. It’s better to have more footage and sort through it than coming up short on footage when working on something.
It’s important that you put some effort into the quality of photo and video work for your company. Customers, both current and potential, will notice the quality of this and directly associate it with your product. The cleaner and better shot everything is, the better the company’s image. Follow these steps when possible and have a good time while doing so and it’ll work wonders.
I can’t wait to see what you guys can do.
Thanks,
-Alex Auerbach
The last six months have been really interesting from a crisis PR standpoint. The combination of the public’s insatiable demand for information, the online media world’s never ending quest for clicks, and some unforeseeable circumstances have created some really interesting case studies on how a crisis can unfold and how companies should deal with them in the current new media landscape.
I know this topic has been done to death, but a month later now that the dust has settled, it’s interesting to see how things unfolded. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, the public had been clamoring for more info on the upcoming iPhone 4G, which Apple wouldn’t even acknowledge existed. Then, in late April, the news broke: Gizomodo, a tech blog owned by Gawker Media (which also owns two of our favorite sites, Jalopnik and io9), had possession of a top secret iPhone 4G prototype, dissected it, and they were telling all. Sounds like a hollywood gossip column piece.
As it turns out, an Apple engineer went drinking, forgot the prototype on his stool and an observant (but unscrupulous) passerby picked it up, figured out what it was, called a different tech blog, and when they passed called Gizmodo – who paid for it. They photographed the phone, posted the story, and it got so much buzz is promptly crashed the Gawker comment server. That same night, a lawyer from Apple swung by Giz editor Jason Chen’s house and picked up the phone. Then, the police raided Chen’s home, seized his property, and Apple made rumblings about theft and lawsuits. As it turns out all pretty much settled back down to normal, and Chen ended up scoring huge traffic for his site without anything more than a verbal slap on the wrists. Then the buzz began that Apple leaked the phone on purpose to generate buzz, a silly notion to anyone who has witnessed one of Steve Job’s well-orchestrated summer unveils at Macworld. This is a company that likes to control every minute detail of its message, so leaking a story to a snarky tech blog isn’t its style. Even Gizmodo says so.
At this point, the good news is the world is snapping up iPads like crazy and people are clamoring for the new 4th Gen iPhone. On the other hand, the company’s handling of the situation (denial, then a theft complaint resulting in a raid) makes the normally friendly feeling Apply seem pretty Orwellian. So… less than a week later when Ellen DeGeneres makes a cutesy little farse commercial for her talk show about how hard texting on the iPhone can be (she’s right… especially if you have fat thumbs), you’d think the Cupertino company would just roll with it. Nope… they made a stink with the network and demanded Ellen apologize. You can see the commercial and the apology here:
So… now the company has two killer products, one that’s selling like mad and another coming soon, and Jobs looks like Darth Vader piloting the Death Star. Not good. What could they have done differently? I’m sure the company has a few agencies on 7-figure budgets to tell them, but in my humble opinion they should have done the following:
1. Stick with “no comment” until the phone was confirmed missing
2. Once confirmed, own the mistake, admit it was a prototype phone, thank Gizmodo for finding it and returning it (even before they did so… put the pressure on) then make a statement explaining that every once in a while these things happen, they’re glad reaction has been positive, and thanks to Gizmodo for treating the phone with respect. Other changes are imminent, so this isn’t the final model, but everyone got a sneak peek.
Once the cat is out of the bag, ride the positive PR and buzz and move up the release date. Oh… and don’t put the smack down on the friendly dancing TV host. She makes a living being snarky and poking fun at things… why make the target on your back even bigger?
Apple's new iPhone and thoughts on crisis PR
The last six months have been really interesting from a crisis PR standpoint. The combination of the public’s insatiable demand for information, the online media world’s never ending quest for clicks, and some unforeseeable circumstances have created some really interesting case studies on how a crisis can unfold and how companies should deal with them in the current new media landscape.
I know this topic has been done to death, but a month later now that the dust has settled, it’s interesting to see how things unfolded. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, the public had been clamoring for more info on the upcoming iPhone 4G, which Apple wouldn’t even acknowledge existed. Then, in late April, the news broke: Gizomodo, a tech blog owned by Gawker Media (which also owns two of our favorite sites, Jalopnik and io9), had possession of a top secret iPhone 4G prototype, dissected it, and they were telling all. Sounds like a hollywood gossip column piece.
As it turns out, an Apple engineer went drinking, forgot the prototype on his stool and an observant (but unscrupulous) passerby picked it up, figured out what it was, called a different tech blog, and when they passed called Gizmodo – who paid for it. They photographed the phone, posted the story, and it got so much buzz is promptly crashed the Gawker comment server. That same night, a lawyer from Apple swung by Giz editor Jason Chen’s house and picked up the phone. Then, the police raided Chen’s home, seized his property, and Apple made rumblings about theft and lawsuits. As it turns out all pretty much settled back down to normal, and Chen ended up scoring huge traffic for his site without anything more than a verbal slap on the wrists. Then the buzz began that Apple leaked the phone on purpose to generate buzz, a silly notion to anyone who has witnessed one of Steve Job’s well-orchestrated summer unveils at Macworld. This is a company that likes to control every minute detail of its message, so leaking a story to a snarky tech blog isn’t its style. Even Gizmodo says so.
At this point, the good news is the world is snapping up iPads like crazy and people are clamoring for the new 4th Gen iPhone. On the other hand, the company’s handling of the situation (denial, then a theft complaint resulting in a raid) makes the normally friendly feeling Apply seem pretty Orwellian. So… less than a week later when Ellen DeGeneres makes a cutesy little farse commercial for her talk show about how hard texting on the iPhone can be (she’s right… especially if you have fat thumbs), you’d think the Cupertino company would just roll with it. Nope… they made a stink with the network and demanded Ellen apologize. You can see the commercial and the apology here:
So… now the company has two killer products, one that’s selling like mad and another coming soon, and Jobs looks like Darth Vader piloting the Death Star. Not good. What could they have done differently? I’m sure the company has a few agencies on 7-figure budgets to tell them, but in my humble opinion they should have done the following:
1. Stick with “no comment” until the phone was confirmed missing
2. Once confirmed, own the mistake, admit it was a prototype phone, thank Gizmodo for finding it and returning it (even before they did so… put the pressure on) then make a statement explaining that every once in a while these things happen, they’re glad reaction has been positive, and thanks to Gizmodo for treating the phone with respect. Other changes are imminent, so this isn’t the final model, but everyone got a sneak peek.
Once the cat is out of the bag, ride the positive PR and buzz and move up the release date. Oh… and don’t put the smack down on the friendly dancing TV host. She makes a living being snarky and poking fun at things… why make the target on your back even bigger?