Peter Shumlin

Deb Markowitz

Doug Racine (Patrick A. Parenteau)

Matt Dunne

Susan Bartlett

On Sept. 14, 2009, a lawyer representing Hansen Beverage Company contacted Matt Nadeau, owner and operator of Rock Art Brewery in Morrisville, Vermont, with intent to file suit against the brewery for trademark infringement. Hansen deemed Rock Art’s label of ‘Vermonster’ beer too close to that of its own, ‘Monster’ Energy Drink, in favor of Hansen’s future plans to enter the malt beverage industry.

Nadeau founded Rock Art, a small Vermont microbrewery, in his basement 10 years ago. The brewery now supports nine employees out of a warehouse in the small town of Morrisville, VT. Several lawyers advised Nadeau he would lose the legal battle due to the superior financial resources available to Hansen Beverage Company, regardless who was right or wrong.

On Oct. 2, Derek Hallquist and Austin Pritchard, partners at a Vermont-based production company, Green River Pictures (GRPVT), contacted Nadeau in support of Rock Art. They suggested the creation of an online video and its power to win a battle via the online community. It was an attempt to draw Americans to the side of the perceived weaker party.

On Oct. 13, Nadeau met with GRPVT at Rock Art Brewery. The production company recognized an interview-based video as the best method to convey the issue. They needed to create a carefully formulated distribution strategy to reach the right audience and gain momentum for the story. GRPVT and Nadeau created a clear-cut message, both compelling and poignant, to draw support through the nation’s innate distrust of big companies and big governments against the rights of the individual.

GRPVT made an educated decision of choosing YouTube as the best access point for fast penetration into the viral market, as it is the most well known. YouTube’s features including comment posting and video rating increased opportunities for the video to spread through additional social networking venues, as well as the ability to track the number of viewers. Rock Art’s video quickly began to average 10,000 viewers each day.

Monster’s actions were legal and understandable, as U.S. trademark law is such that a prudent business is wise to be vigilant and aggressive in protecting its brand. However, in this case, corporate America ran afoul of the power of social networking. The week following the Youtube video debut, customers and distributors were boycotting Monster Energy Drink. Letters from angry citizens nationwide were pouring in Hansen Beverage Company’s inbox.

On Wednesday, October 21st, 2009,  faced with a growing public retaliation from across the nation and the world, Hansen officially withdrew its complaint against Rock Art.

The Nadeau’s and Rock Art Brewery are happy with the outcome but hope their experience will stand for more than a personal business victory. Their story is a powerful example how strategic use of social networking media can give a little company a big voice. The video brought the public into the fray, and the strength of popular opinion kept Rock Art Brewery out of court.

IPHONE USERS

Green River Pictures attended its first Art Hop last weekend. Our office is located behind the South End Arts and Business Association’s (SEABA) office. SEABA works hard each year to put on one of Burlington’s coolest event, The Art Hop. During the Art Hop, artists take over Burlington, displaying a wide variety of art in many different forms.

GRPVT worked with SEABA over the summer to create a video to pass on to potential Art Hop sponsors. We have worked closely with them over the last few months. It was great to get a chance to participate in our first Art Hop and see all of everyone at SEABA’s hard work pay off. It was also really cool to get to display our own art and media portfolio.

Last fall, Derek strapped his trusty Canon 5D to the hood of his car and drove around VT during peak foliage, capturing over 65,000 images over a 12 hour period. These images were laced together to create an 12 minute video, set to the sounds of a techno Pink Floyd remix. While that alone is pretty cool, Derek came up with an even cooler idea. We decide that we were going to project the video onto the windshield of his wife’s Jeep, allowing the occupants of the Jeep to get a first person look at the video from inside the vehicle.

This was achieved through a lot of Internet research, ingenuity, and elbow grease. We knew that we could mount a projector on a stand and aim it at the windshield of the vehicle, but we needed to figure out the best way to project the image onto the windshield. In this case, the least expensive option was the best. After spending an afternoon fabric shopping, I called Derek with a newfound remedy- a simple shower curtain, a specific type of course, but simple and cheap, nonetheless. We added a powerful home stereo with multiple speakers, and the Jeep was ready. Derek dubbed the project “Cash for Clunkers”.

It was still light when we had everything setup. We did not have a chance to attempt a trial run before the event, so Derek and I were just as interested to see how the projection turned as the crowd that gathered around the jeep.

The projection turned out to be as good as expected, and the response from the viewers was extremely positive. We had a great time meeting new people, showing them our art, as well as some of our commercial work. To anyone who has never been to an Art Hop, don’t miss the next one! It is one of the best weekends of the year!

-Austin

Green River Pictures attended the 17th Annual Vermont Brewers Festival last week. The Brewers Fest is a two-day event that took place July 17th & 18th. The Festival featured 37 craft brewers from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Mass, Maine, DE. To commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the European discovery of Lake Champlain by Samuel de Champlain, breweries from La Belle province, Quebec also were present for the festivities. The outdoor festival took place in Burlington’s Waterfront Park, which has scenic views of Lake Champlain framed by the beautiful Adirondack Mountain Range.

There were three sampling sessions in which visitors were able to trade their tickets for glasses of different micro brews. Food vendors were also on hand to make sure the crowd stayed full and happy. Each session sold out, meaning that the grounds were full of cheerful people enjoying the surprisingly great weather.

Matt Nadeau, owner of Rock Art Brewery, was on hand for the event. We enjoyed catching up with him and having a chance to sample his newest creation, a different twist on a classic IPA. As always, he was great to work with in front of the camera.

Our goal was to interview some of the vendors and brewers, as well as attendees. We had a chance to meet some enthusiastic people and had a great time shooting the event and interviewing excited attendees, brewers and food vendors from all over. The Vermont Brewers Association did a great job putting on what appeared to be a flawless event, leaving every one eagerly awaiting next years Brewers Festival.

-Austin

Derek and I had the oportunity to shoot the VT Corp Cup Challenge & State Agency Race last week. The event is a is a 5 kilometer team running/walking event open to businesses, government and non-profit organizations in Vermont. It was a beautiful and sunny day, perfect for shooting. We were really happy to get a chance to be a part of a great event benifiting the Vermont Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

We shot everything in anamorphic 720x480 SD.  This allowed for a larger resolution in the final widescreen format.  We also shot some sequences in 720p 60fps.  This was then converted to the SD 30fps to give us a true slow motion clip.  The footage was all shot with Cinelike D gamma setting as well as expanded PED and color/chroma.  This  gave us more to work with in post in order to really rock the boat and make a 16mm old film look.  We took the footage and sent it to quicktime pro, where we then added the scratches, dust, hairs and old faded color look.  After that, we finally added credits and the title for the video. Hope you enjoy!

-Austin

While I admittedly already miss winter, I have finally relinquished all hope of snow, and am ready to embrace to the warm and sunny summer weather. We all look forward to summers full of barbeques, camping, hiking, swimming, and spending time with friends and family. At GRP, we look forward to all of those things, as well as long, warm, well lit days for shooting. No more snow days, frozen hands, or lack of color in the landscape.

Summer is the perfect time to create a video that will help showcase your company, your cause, or yourself. Take advantage of summer and help improve your image with GRP. We are helping to kick summer off on the right foot by introducing a package that will help integrate high quality video into your marketing campaign.  

Uncover the grill, make sure your bathing suit still fits, and don’t forget to call Green River Pictures to see how we can help you this summer.

-Austin

I have been kayaking for almost ten years. I first picked up a video camera on a multi-week paddling trip across Colorado and Wyoming a while back. I brought all of the footage back home with me and began the tedious task of learning Final Cut Pro and editing my video. It was then that I realized that I loved shooting action footage and I editing video. After that trip, there was always a place for a small, cheap, and most importantly, expendable, video camera in my boat. Until I met Derek and began formulating our ideas for Green River Pictures, my plan was to create a whitewater kayak video showcasing New England rivers and local talented boaters. When we were hired by the organizers of the New Haven Kayak Race to document the race, I was very excited, as this gave me a chance to once again shoot kayaking footage.

The upper New Haven is a creek run just outside of Bristol, Vermont. For those of you that do not know what creek boating is, take a look at our footage from Saturday’s race. Creek boating is done on steep sections of river and typically involves a combination of ledges, waterfalls, and slides. The New Haven Race was organized with the help of the UVM Kayak Club, as well as enthusiastic local boaters who have longed to see a race of this nature in Vermont.

To say the day was wet would be an understatement. It rained all day. There were three races scheduled; an Upper race, a Top race, above the commonly run creek section, and a Lower race, on the more mellow section below the Upper. When day broke, the river level was to the point where it was too high to run races on the Upper and Top sections, so they were postponed, and the Lower Race was run first. As levels began to drop, prospects for the Upper race increased.

Levels never dropped to an ideal level, but a few intrepid boaters decided to go for it anyway, high water be damned. Derek rappelled down below the biggest waterfall, Toaster, an 18-foot drop into a big pool. Derek had his HVX200 and tripod lowered down to him and set up to capture some great shots. He shot 60 frames per second, allowing us to get great slow motion clips during post.

We did not have the volume of boaters we were hoping for, but we still got some great shots and had a chance to edit a short video. We hope that you enjoy our footage and our stills. Summer is on the way!

-Austin

Green River Pictures is happy to announce its Community Project program. At Green River Pictures we take pride in being a part of our local community. That is why we are dedicating our time to several non-profits, using our skills in video production to help with projects and causes that we feel are important.  

We recently decided to team up with Stowe Land Trust, a non-profit in the Stowe area to create a video that will better allow them to explain their operations to the public and potential investors. Stowe Land Trust works to protect land in the Stowe area and preserve its beauty.

We are working on a four or five minute video that Stowe Land Trust can loop at their events, making it easier to explain how the Stowe Land Trust works, as well as showcase some of the properties that they maintain. Our first focus is on The Trapp Family Lodge.

Today was our first day shooting. We met up with Stowe Land Trust employees Becca Washburn, Heather Furman, and Erin Bruhns at their office in the Stowe Village, and then headed up to The Trapp Family Lodge. We started by interviewing Stowe Land Trust’s Executive Director, Heather Furman regarding Stowe Land Trust’s operations. We then interviewed The Trapp Family Loge’s President, Johannes von Trapp. He talked about his involvement with Stowe Land Trust, as well as why it is important to him to preserve his land and other properties in Vermont.

We had wanted more snow for the shoot, but it’s hard to complain on a cloudless and sunny 40-degree day in March. Throughout the year we will be focusing on several different Stowe Land Trust projects and showcasing the natural beauty of Vermont during each of the four seasons. We are looking forward to continuing our work with Stowe Land Trust, and helping them to spread their message of conservation.

Andrew Roy, North Country Boys Hockey Coach and life long friend of Derek Hallquist, invited Green River Pictures to the Semi Final Hockey Game to cover the event.  Derek, a hockey player himself, realized the importance of capturing such an event for a lifetime.  For some of the Seniors, this will be there last game at North Country.

Derek, of Green River Pictures, organized a team of three camera operators.  The cameras were HVX200, shooting onto p2 card media.  Using p2 cards eliminates waste and speeds up the post production process.  The final delivery of the video will be on DVD, which is a 480i 29.97 frame rate, so the decided format was 480 60i with a shutter setting of 1/100th.  This allowed for a crisper look and the ability for the camera to render the puck more clearly.  Hockey is very hard to watch in standard definition, but DVD is still the standard for most consumers and 60 progressive frames are a lot of bandwidth for the web.  This was a happy medium, which would still look very good on DVD and the web.

The team consisted of three cameras spread out to cover the game.  Austin Pritchard, of Green River Pictures, was on A camera in a press box above the rink.  He was plugged in and using a Vinten Vision 3 Tripod.  The Tripod is balanced precisely for the HVX200, allowing for smooth pans and tilts.  Derek was on B camera which was roaming to get coverage from various angles, but during game play, he was behind the net  on North COuntry's offensive end.  Mark Covino was on B camera, he would remain on the same side of the rink as Austin, but at the ice rink level.  This allowed for all of the cameras to remain on the same side of the 180 line for continuity in the edit.

The were several microphones used to capture the feeling of the game.  Andrew Roy allowed Green River Pictures to put a microphone on him to give the game some perspective.  Check out the trailer below and preorder your DVD for the end of season dinner NOW!  All DVDs will be exchenged for the payment of $25 at the dinner or mailed to those who mail there checks to Derek.  See order form for details.  ENJOY!

entertaining video clip featuring Rock Art's Brew Master describing
the individual characteristics of each of his beers. They also  have
the opportunity to learn about the history of Rock Art, listen to
stories about each beer, and embark on a guided video brewery tour led
by the man himself, Matt Nadeau.

Rock Art is a different type of business for several reasons, but the
most intriguing is their total lack of advertising. The only
advertisement that Rock Art has ever utilized was when Matt (Nadeau)
placed a large Rock Art emblem on the side of a local distributers
delivery truck several years ago, a method that was short lived. Rock
Art now relies solely on word of mouth for its advertising, a method that
has been very good to the business.

Derek and I strongly believe in the strength of the Internet for
marketing and advertising purposes. This is mainly because you have so
much more creative freedom when working with the web. Not only can
websites be well designed and functional, they can be informative and
entertaining. It can be argued that a TV add can likewise be
informative and entertaining, but with some visitors to
rockartbrewery.com watching every video on the site and browsing for
upwards of an hour and a half, it can easily be argued that web
advertising is more effective than TV, at a much lower cost.

The idea is to showcase Rock Art's unique local Vermont feel and
establish the feeling of a personal relationship between a potential
customer and Rock Art employees, all from the comfort of your home
computer. We utilize free video hosting sites, such as Vimeo.com and
Youtube.com to lure folks from all over the country and the world to
rockartbrewery.com. The idea is to boost online merchandise sales, as
well as make the brewery and must visit for anyone traveling to Vermont.
Oh, and we hope that they sell more beer as well!

Derek and I are extremely excited about our first project together. We
are very pleased with the way the project turned out, and we look
forward to continuing a great business and personal relationship with
our new friends at Rock Art Brewery.

-Austin

We were intimidated by the security line at first, but we quickly moved through and were amazed at how friendly and nice all the security workers were. The mall was pretty crowded and after trying to be close to the water, and then by a tree, we decided to move to the big field to the left of the mall. The screens, all using Windows, were showing music videos videos of Americans talking about being American while we all waited for the big event to start. There was a happy, peaceful vibe and Pat and Derek were popular because of their Obama flags.

The concert, being broadcast on HBO, started when a reverend blessed the crowd.  The Bidens and Obamas were then announced, which was a surprise to us, and Bruce Springstein started the show with "The Rising," accompanied by a massive choir behind him. The show progressed with actors like Denzel Washington and Jack Black sharing quotes of famous presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and musicians doing duets. Herbie Hancock played with Sheryl Crow and Wil.i.am. Stevie Wonder played with Shakira and Usher. Garth Brooks got the crowd moving with "American Pie" and "Shout." Joe Biden spoke and Obama spoke before the show wrapped up with Beyonce singing "America."

Derek spent much of the show taking pictures of the crowds. We started to walk about a little early because Dave needed to change before a meeting later in the evening and we were absolutely shocked to see how crowded the lawn by the Washington Monument had become since we had walked through a few hours earlier.

Apparently the security stopped letting people into the Mall around 2:30pm and the crowds gathered around the screens and on top of the barriers in the streets.  The media claims there were only 500,000 people at the concert, but that would be only the people around the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial.  Evans Sealander was located on the south side of the Washington Monument.  The prooperty around the monument can hold up to  a Million people and it was packed full.  There were also thousands of people crowding the streets.  We estimate at least one million people came to mall for the concert. 

Despite all the crowds, everyone was incredibly friendly. What an amazing experience, one that will not be easily forgotten.