By Staff, September 20, 2005
If you have experienced the difficulty of contracting for video services with the federal government, or if you’re just looking for some new business, the 8th annual Government Video & Technology Expo invites you to “Meet the Government Video Producers.”
The Nov. 30 session, part of the Government Video Conference Program, will be produced by ITVA-DC, the Washington, DC, chapter of the International Television Association (recently renamed the Media Communications Association - International). GVExpo will be held Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Access to the show floor is free for registered attendees, but there is a charge for the Government Video Conference Program, which includes access to “Meet the Government Video Producers.”
The Washington, DC, metropolitan area ranks third in the nation (after New York City and Hollywood, CA) in film and video production. ITVA-DC’s membership is at the core of that production business, and the organization exists to strengthen and promote the area’s media production community, providing frequent networking and educational events, publications, electronic resources, and other benefits.
Video producers from the federal government — including representatives from the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the Internal Revenue Service — will be encouraged to talk about their current projects, describe opportunities to contract with their agencies, and network directly with the audience. Some of these decision makers contract with individual independent producers, writers, editors, and talent on an as-needed basis. Others contract for complete production packages from conception to completion.
A significant portion of video procurement for the DOD is outsourced by the Production Acquisition Division of the U.S. Army’s Multimedia Visual Information Directorate. The organization’s mission is to procure and administer contracts for complete AV productions and AV support for the Army, Marine Corps, DOD, and other federal customers.
At any time this office will actively manage more than 20 productions with budgets ranging from $40,000 to $400,000. Most customers seek complete production support from script development through duplication and distribution. PAD accomplishes the mission through the use of firm, fixed-price, and negotiated contracts with small businesses.
Bobbie L. Williams is the chief of the Army Multimedia and Visual information Directorate’s PAD in Alexandria, VA, and also serves as the chief contracting officer. He will talk about how recent projects, as well as how to get work with PAD
. The NIH, the nation’s premier medical research organization, is made up of 27 institutes and centers covering a broad range of scientific and public health activities. Though part of the overall organization, each institute and center operates very independently, with its own budget primarily focused on specific disease research.
Television production at NIH follows a similar pattern. No individual organization or entity controls television production at NIH, and most of the communications offices for the individual institutes carry out their own limited video and webcast production for specific purposes.
Leadership in the Office of Communications and Public Liaison in the NIH Office of the Director is exploring new ways that television can be used to communicate effective public health messages. In the current budgetary climate, it seems unlikely that NIH will be hiring a large number of full-time staff, but rather will likely organize a cadre of freelance professionals to develop the needed programming.
For now, current video production at NIH falls into three broad categories: live production of lectures and meetings for webcasting and pre-produced webcasts; documentary and patient-education video productions, typically delivered as videotapes and DVDs; and news-related productions, some of which are distributed by satellite to accompany media tours of NIH leadership. Larry Thompson, communications director for the National Human Genome Research
Institute, will provide an overview of these diverse approaches to television production, as well as the key points at which freelancers can offer their services.
Established in 1985, the IRS Corporate Television Studios (part of the IRS Office of Communications & Liaison Division) provides instructional and informational products for all IRS employees. Based in New Carrollton, MD, the studio produces live shows, videotapes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and streamed products. One unique feature of the studio is its operation of a satellite television network that reaches 144 IRS offices nationwide.
The studio contracts production crews for most of the projects. Positions may include directors, TDs, camera and prompter operators, audio technicians, graphic artists, and more. The primary panelist from IRS-TV is Dianne White, chief of IRS corporate television, who has managed the studio since 2003.
Tanya Spann Roche will moderate the panel and provide some tips on Central Contract Registration procedures that everyone seeking to do business with the federal government should know. She served as a video producer for the Department of Justice for three years and as deputy assistant director of the DOJ Multimedia Section for two years. She left federal service in 2004 to devote herself full-time to her own production company, Think Speak Act.
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