Choices & Changes

Choices & Changes - Recovery from Mitch Lewis on Vimeo.

Take a look at the television commercial we produced for Choices & Changes earlier this month. Choices & Changes is an outpatient substance abuse treatment center based in Tri-Cities. We recently gave their company a complete re-branding, including logo, stationary, business cards, website (www.tcchoicesandchanges.com) and this commercial. The client has been very pleased with the work and we're proud to help a company like this succeed.

Holiday Party Recap

The Focal Point Holiday Party 2010 was a blast! Those of you who weren't able to make it missed out on wine, cake, snacks, presents, holiday music, and a whole lot of fun. We enjoyed over 150 guests, some of which walked away with prizes like a gift card to Six Degrees Restaurant, a Wellness Massage courtesy of Therapy Solutions, a copy of the Recipe Manager software, a BBQ sauce collection that would make even Sweet Baby Ray jealous, and more. All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed the evening and thank everyone that made it out. Happy Holidays!

Tri-City Visitor & Convention Bureau print ad

Check out this print ad we created for the TCVCB recently. It's getting a lot of use...the ad will be appearing in the WA State Travel Planner, the WA State Visitor's Guide, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, and SkyWest Magazine. Not a bad investment, eh?

'Tis the Season

The Focal Point staff loves the holidays, and showed our enthusiasm in the last couple of weeks when putting together our Holiday Party video. Here are a couple of shots while we filmed, as well as us just getting ready for the season in general.

Holiday Party!

Focal Point Holiday Video from Mitch Lewis on Vimeo.

Come drop by our holiday party on Thursday, December 9th from 4:00 - 7:00pm. There will be music, wine, cake, and presents!

That's right, we said presents!

Portland Marathon, No Problem

Theresa recently completed the Portland Marathon with her Daughter Katie. They're shown here in the photo (in pink) shortly after the finish. An avid runner, Theresa is no stranger to marathons, she has ran in more than a dozen marathons throughout the Pacific Northwest, and one in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Residential Photo Shoot

The staff at Focal Point has been quite busy during the whole month of October, particularly on a couple of websites for local construction companies. In this snapshot, Mitch is hard at work on one of the many photo shoots we completed, getting shots on location at River View Pointe, a neo-traditional community in South Richland.

Pacific Crest banner

After recently providing Pacific Crest with a logo refresh, we developed this handy banner stand for them to use at tradeshows, seminars, meetings and other events to help market themselves - as well as publicize their new-look logo.

Introducing Terry Carter

Without further ado, we'd like to introduce Terry Carter, the newest addition to the Focal Point team. Terry's education spans the country, literally, having earned her BFA from Central Washington University after a year-long stint at Hunter College in New York.

Terry is fascinated with technology and it’s role in the creative process, dabbling with computer illustration and honing her graphic design skills. She has experience with illustration, print design, advertising, advanced photo retouching, motion graphics for television productions as well as Flash and web design.

Our clients are going to benefit from her attention to detail, charismatic energy, and her unique creative perspective. Terry is a great addition to the Focal Point family, and we're excited to have her on board.

Cooking up an iPad App, no seriously

Mitch has been hard at work the last few weeks shooting hours and hours of footage and editing it all together to make recipe videos that will be featured on "TheInformedChef" iPad & iPhone application. He's worked with a few regionally and nationally recognized chefs, and will be featured in the next issue of the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

Legacy Ford Commercial #1: Community

Legacy Ford - Community from Mitch Lewis on Vimeo.

Here's the commercial we created for Legacy Ford of Pasco. We're extremely proud of how this turned out.

FPM Creates Ad for Fortune Magazine

Focal Point Marketing recently designed an ad featured in the September 6, 2010 issue of Fortune Magazine. The ad was made possible by TRIDEC and the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau, as well as the cities of Kennewick, Pasco, Richland and West Richland. The ad promoted the Tri-Cities as a booming place for energy, technology, recreation and leisure. It was placed in the middle of an advertorial about Washington state's innovative economic development, and talks in length about how the Tri-Cities specifically contributes in big ways.

Pick up an issue of your own!

St. Anthony Hospital - print ad #1

Here's a look at the upcoming print ad campaign for St. Anthony Hospital. The campaign was developed to coincide with our television ads, airing now through the end of the year.

Intern farewell: Goodbye Meagan!

Alas, it is the last day we'll enjoy Meagan Bradshaw's company (for now, at least). Meagan has been a very hard-working intern for us – writing scripts, mission statements, copywriting, running errands, and most important of all, baking outstanding cupcakes and sharing them with all of us at the office! The summer is almost over and she's heading back to WSU to continue her studies. Don't worry though, we hope to see Meagan back in our office over all major holidays :)

Meagan treated us to this magnificent cupcake collage as a farewell. Cheers Meagan!

Nascar of the Columbia

Taking advantage of every opportunity, Mitch and friends were out on the river armed with cameras, ready for the action of boat races. Needless to say, there was a lot of fun to be had, and some incredible shots of the hydros.

Watch Out 90210

Focal Point Marketing is working with St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, Oregon on a television commercial campaign. Lucky for Mitch, the two summer interns, Daniel Clark and Meagan Bradshaw, were willing and able to come along and help with set-up, stand-in for shots, and assist him in whatever was needed.

The shoot included filming doctors, nurses, and multiple instruments the hospital was featuring. The interns’ job was to assist in any way possible, Meagan was hooked up to the machine to get the blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels showing on the screen. Daniel and Mitch got the shots they needed trying out interesting lighting techniques as Meagan sat in the corner with numerous wires attached to her.

Already in scrubs, the team decided to have some fun – handing medical instruments to 'doctor' Mitch. Everyone was looking fierce in medical garb, too!

Go to the "Our Work" page of our website and see the final commercial that resulted from this shoot.

Senator Patty Murray Visits The Reach

We were asked by The REACH to cover the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Hanford Reach National Monument. Senator Patty Murray was coming to speak and we took the opportunity to interview her to save for use in future projects. In the photo you see Mitch running the camera and Daniel Clark (our summer intern) running the boom mic.

Start Your Engines!

Focal Point Marketing recently created a basic website for the 3 Rivers Corvette Club. It makes me want to hop in a Stingray Corvette and hit the highway going 90mph. McCurley Integrity Dealerships sponsors the 3RCC, which meets every second Monday at Cousin's Restaurant in Pasco. Visit www.3riverscorvetteclub.net!

Knutzen's BBQ Labels

Knutzen's Meats, one of our favorite clients to work with, will soon release a new line of barbecue sauces and marinades with these flashy labels on them. Using pictures of the Knutzen family, there will be six different sauces to try on your steak, chicken, pork, veggies, or anything that you put on your grill! Careful, they're finger-lickin' good!

Steadicam Testing - McCurley Integrity

Steadicam Testing from Mitch Lewis on Vimeo.

We shot this test with our Steadicam Flyer at McCurley's new Honda dealership. We only spent a few minutes shooting and as a result some of the shots are a little wobbly. We hope to get a chance to spend more time and film the dealership for real. Not bad for twenty minutes of sitting in the back of a truck?

Pop-Up signage works, really!

This was another marketing-tool-done-well
for the Three Rivers Convention Center. We took the concept from the ad we designed for them and applied it to this pop-up banner that they will use to promote their facilities for trade shows, conventions, weddings, birthday parties, and pretty much endless possibilities. The banner really is a great marketing tool that they can take with them wherever they go. Success.

Gesa Billboard - Looking Large

The ad we created for Gesa Credit Union is up and looks great. Anybody crossing the Blue Bridge from Kennewick to Pasco on Highway 395 won't miss it!

Focal Point Demo Reel

Focal Point Marketing & Multimedia from Mitch Lewis on Vimeo.

Here is the new Focal Point Marketing & Multimedia demo reel that Mitch and I put together (Mitch, of course, doing most of the work - I was just there for moral support :)

It features a few of the video projects that we've done in our debut months of operation (February - April). We're going to be updating this reel as we complete new projects, so stay tuned for future work, enjoy.

NOTE: The quality of the video was substantially reduced when uploaded to our blog. We're working on a fit ;)

Boys and their toys!

It was another fun morning at FPM. Our new still camera and lenses arrived. As you can see, it was like Christmas day – opening all the new toys and playing with them right away.

Our new camera will allow us to ascend to even greater creative heights with its high-performance, high resolution features, headlining: 21 mega-pixels, 1080p video, 3.0" VGA LCD (and blah blah blah). We will be able to shoot video with shallow depth of field now, and this adds a second video capturing camera to our arsenal. Check out a couple of the images we shot at Six Degrees Restaurant this week!

Love at first sight!

Never thought we would be so excited to see the FedEx truck, but at long last Mitch's computer has arrived. Although Mitch always salivates as the FedEx truck arrives today was especially exciting. The computer we have been waiting to arrive was delivered today. Mitch is in heaven!

Breaking out the greenscreen

Mitch the producer, director and videographer extraordinaire, working with spokesperson Lisa on a web vignette that is being produced in FPM's own studio on greenscreen. It is so nice to have a professional environment to record in. It gives us the best quality possible. We are having fun!

Open House/Ribbon Cutting

Focal Point Marketing's Open House/Ribbon Cutting was a great success. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this a great event. We were blown away by the turnout of our community, we estimate that over 200 people attended. Maybe they heard we had free food and wine! A special thanks to the Tri-City Chamber for the ribbon cutting and the kind well wishes. FPM is a chamber member and looks forward to working with our community for many years to come.

Three Rivers Convention Center ad

We recently completed an ad for the Three Rivers Convention Center, shown here. It was a much different approach than they had ever done before, so we were happy to take them in a new direction. More to follow, stay tuned.

OPEN HOUSE @ Focal Point Marketing

OPEN HOUSE - Focal Point Marketing
WHEN? Thursday, March 11, from 4:00-7:00pm
WHERE? Our headquarters, located at
8551 Gage Boulevard, Suite K
Kennewick, WA 99336
(next to Tony Roma's)
***BY INVITATION ONLY

After lots of planning, organizing, and hard work, we wanted to celebrate the completion of our office and studio with all of you. So make sure to keep tomorrow afternoon open and drop by our office and see our new digs, enjoy refreshments and hors d'oeuvres, and meet and mingle with our team.

Tantalizing Typography

Here is our new addition to the conference room, a typographical collage of words related to creativity and the marketing industry. Looking at this everyday will be a good reminder that we have great jobs and we're really lucky to do this for a living!

Green Screen - Lights, Camera, Action!

Here's a shot of our studio with the green screen set up, complete with lighting. Our high-definition green screen studio allows our production crew to place the actor or spokesperson in various environments, such as 3-D virtual studios or areas that otherwise would not be available. Very exciting stuff, come check it out!

Heavy metal

Here's the new addition to our lobby, the 2-foot wall space between our curved copper wall and the adjacent side wall. I layered sheet metal to create a cool complimentary space to our brushed aluminum Focal Point logo. What do you think?

Ace Drywall logo

Here is the logo we created for Ace Drywall, a local business we hired to do the drywall in our office/studio.

Ready or not, here we come.

Focal Point Marketing is officially open. Well, technically, we've been open since February 1st, but now that signs are up on the building, it feels official. And we have our website up and running – www.focalpointmarketing.com – so check it out and we hope you enjoy! Stay tuned about our upcoming Open House.