Favorite Lunch Spots

We've been in our new home for almost 5 months and one of the best things about being in downtown Orlando is the lunch options. Over the past couple days we've compiled our list of IDEAS favorite lunch places. In no particular order here's our list, let us know what you think.

Shakers, Edgewater Dr., College Park- Consistently one of the best overall lunch places in town. Portions are plentiful and they only use Boars Head products. Large menu and offers a ½ sandwich and soup option (with fruit) which is a bonus and the wide array of salad are yummy!

Beefy King, Bumby Avenue- 40+ years in the business as a family owned restaurant they have perfected the steamed roast beef sandwich, although they also offer turkey, ham and other types of sandwich meats. Always a favorite for their wonderful tater tots.

Daily News Cafe, Magnolia St.- Great burgers and surprisingly large menu of other items. Easy walk from our office if it's not too hot, otherwise it's a bit tough to get to because of parking.

Hot Dog Heaven, Colonial near 50- A bit of a drive from our place. Authentic Chicago Hot Dog place, great fresh fries. Not cheap for a hot dog and fries but worth it.

Royal Thai- Great prices and great tasting food.

Viet Garden- Great prices, great spring rolls!

Five Guys, Baldwin Park- Great hamburgers and underrated hot dogs. Regular and Cajun fries are very fresh. Expensive for a fast food burger but quality is as good as any sit down restaurant burger so it's worth it.

Little Vietnam- Great prices, awesome selection (menu has lots of pictures). They also have bubble tea and Durian smoothies.

Virgin Olive Market- Sandwich/soup shop, healthy options and good prices.

New York Deli, Orange Ave. & Colonial- Great sandwiches, walking distance from our office.

Shin Sushi (next to Virgin Olive Market)- A little more expensive than other sushi places, but different selection and you get to sit next to the chefs as they make sushi.

Pom Pom's, Bumby Ave.- Awesome soup/tea/sandwich spot, large selection of classic and crazy combinations and good cupcakes.

White Wolf Cafe- Seriously good sandwiches and salads, sometimes there is a small wait.

There's many more, but that's our first list. Let us know what you think about our list or if we forgot some.

Stage Prep

The Stage was the first place that stuff went when we started moving things from our old building to the new one back in March. Since that time the Stage has been quite the dumping ground. When we were packing if we didn't really have a place for something, it was assigned to the Stage. Then once we got to the new building if we didn't like where something was assigned, it went to the Stage. We knew all along that we needed to get the Stage cleaned out in order to start construction on Audio A. And as things progressed with the design of Audio A we would make baby steps in getting it clean. But every time we would get something out of the Stage, something would be put in there, or should I say dumped.

About 6 weeks ago we had recyclers come in and take a fair amount of things that we determined were no longer needed. Then today they came back to take the remaining items that we no longer needed. The arrived around 10am and by 11am they were done and the stage was as clean as it has been since the beginning of March. We still have a number of things on the stage but they are organized, stacked and covered with a tarp on the far west side of the Stage. We are now officially ready for construction to commence on the Audio A mix room inside the Stage. Design plans were locked last week, General Contractor was chosen and contracts signed last week, architect finished plans today and are now ready for turning in for permit. Scheduling reasons are keeping us from starting next week so construction is officially slated to start Tuesday September 8, 2009. For pictures of the Stage after it was cleared out visit our new home website www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome

Siemens Corporation

I was meeting with a potential client the other day and they asked the question: What is the perfect project/client for IDEAS. I proceeded to tell the story of our relationship with the Siemens Corporation. 3 years ago, Shirley Decker and I went to a luncheon for Operating Participants of Walt Disney World. It was at the Rainforest Cafe at Disney's Animal Kingdom, food was excellent. We sat at the opposite end of the table from a guy that, personality-wise, was eerily similar to Shirley's. After talking a bit over lunch, the conversation continued after lunch and we (not so much me as I was just standing there for the most part) decided to set up a meeting for a couple weeks from then to talk about what he had coming up and what we do. The person's name was Darren Sparks from Siemens.

2 weeks later, Darren came over and explained what Siemens had going on at Epcot now that they had taken over sponsorship of Spaceship Earth. Siemens had the opportunity to use the back part of Spaceship Earth for just about whatever they wanted. After the initial meeting with Darren he brought back some senior staff from Siemens to learn more about us. From there we did a proposal for a one day Story Conference with key Siemens executives, to understand what were the key message points and what outcomes were desired for the visiting guests. After the Story Conference we presented the findings back to Darren along with our recommendations of how to execute the Guest Experience plan.

3 years later, we're still working with Darren and Siemens at Base21, the Siemens VIP Center at Spaceship Earth, Epcot. We initially worked with the Siemens team to design the guest experience, which caters to Siemens’ employees from around the world, key clients, VIPs, and dignitaries visiting the attraction. Being able to create a branded Siemens space was the key to implementing a creative and immersive experience.

We developed guest experience concepts focused on the visitor experience with specific emphasis on attracting Siemens employees and their families and encouraging regular use of the facility for Siemens clients as a business closer. Specific attention was given to way finding, interior design, interactive design, media development, light and sound effects, and displays to highlight the key branded messages of their various operating companies that make up the world of Siemens.

We created a variety of media experiences that educate in an entertaining way, knowledge about the company, communicate its vision to their broad range of employees and stakeholders and become a unique location for all key client briefings and company sponsored events. These tools include hand held tablets that will allow the guests to interact with their environment, a 3D monitor featuring Siemens technology, a hidden display wall utilizing smart glass, a ten foot interactive wall, a simulated world command center, and a multitude of unique video formats. A media server and show control unit allow the staff to instantly customize the visitor’s experience based on their demographics plus allow easy updates to the media.

Base21 is a platform to showcase current and future thinking of the company and how Siemens impacts their visitors’ lives. We provided ongoing creative input and oversight of the user experience back during the construction phase and since opened, we continue to add new elements, and refresh elements within the center as the company continues to grow.

For a behind the scenes video look at the making of Base21, visit http://www.ideasmediastudio.com/studio/MakingBase21.php

The Dumpster

Since about February 1 of this year we have lived with a dumpster almost every day. Whether it was for 2+ months back at the old place or the 4+ months since we've been here, we have had a dumpster outside our front or back door almost every day. Let me tell you, having a dumpster gives you great motivation to throw stuff out. Unfortunately, the last 2 weeks we have not had the dumpster outside our back door and I feel like a piece of me has been missing. Thankfully, a dumpster has returned. The task this week has been to go through all the stuff that has been stored on our stage and put it in different piles: 1. Electronic stuff that we're keeping and needs to stay inside where it's cool, 2. Stuff we're keeping but can go outside in our storage unit behind the stage, 3. things that will be picked up by a recycling company that will then sell what they can sell and recycle the rest and 4. TRASH. #4 is my favorite.

Our acoustic designer is done for now with the design of the room, the drawings are now with our architect going over everything to ensure it all follows code, then we'll get our permit and be off to the races. Be sure to follow the progress visually with photos on our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome). But before any construction can start the stage has to be clear and between the dumpster arriving today and the recyclers next Wednesday, that will take care of most of that task.

Kids Get A Plan Next Book

A couple weeks ago I mentioned the kick off meeting for the next phase of work for the Kids Get a Plan website (www.kidsgetaplan.com) that we did for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Yesterday we had a group of our team and a couple people from the client side to figure out what the topic of the next book will be. The purpose was to create a story for a book that would fit with the rest of the series while also being applicable for 4th graders. The topic ended up being forest/wild fires.

We'll write the book over the next couple weeks, then give it to our illustrator to draw to and then add it to the website, including the same elements as the other books have on the website: interactive stories where the user can have the story read to them, read on their own with just-in-time help if they get stuck, reading cues to help improve comprehension and a glossary to help increase their vocabulary, instructional activities include games that reinforce the learning from the books, including an activity that allows them to build a disaster supply kit for their own family, downloadable coloring pages, character profiles and fully produced and sound designed depictions of the books are also available. The entire project should be done by the end of this year.

Audio A General Contractor & New Webisode

This past Friday we signed the proposal for our General Contractor on the Audio A build out. After 6 weeks of getting proposals, working budgets and lots of conference calls we settled on The Collage Companies for the work. While all the Contractors were great, we felt Collage was the best fit for us.

Fittingly, last week we posted the next webisode in our Behind the Scenes series to our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome). This was Audio Part 1. There will be at least a Part 2 and maybe even a Part 3, it depends how much there is to talk about.

Today started with the arrival of our portable storage unit. It arrived this morning so we'll start loading things in there so they are out of the way while construction happens on the stage. The rest of the day Dennis worked hard to mock up what the new Audio A will be like. The purpose was to get a sense of the size of the room and the positioning of things: the console, the producer desk, the couch, the window looking in to the stage, the projector, etc. It's been a while since we consistently posted many photos to the new home website. Consider today the start of getting back in the swing of things with that, new photos are up on the new home website from today.

New Interns

For the past couple months we had two great interns, Nate and Shawn. Both of them finished up two weeks ago so I spent last week interviewing a new batch of potential interns. We have been using interns for many years and some batches of interviews seem to better than others. This was definitely one of the best batches I have interviewed. I interviewed 8 people and I would feel comfortable if I had to choose any of the eight. Unfortunately, I only need 2 interns so the other 6 will lose out when if they would have interviewed at some other times, they would have been slam dunk candidates. We'll set schedules this week for our two new interns and I'll unfortunately have to inform the others that they did not get the internship.

Audio A Build Out To Start

When we made the decision to move a major criteria for our new home was the ability continue doing the level of post production (editing and audio) that we have done in the past. A couple months in to the process of looking for a new place we made the strategic decision to focus on the Creative Village area in Downtown Orlando. In doing so, we found a studio facility that was near perfect for or business needs. As part of the relocation, the facility owner agreed to pay for most of the build out of a state of the art audio facility for IDEAS. The design work is now complete, and the construction and build out is about to begin.

We will make a final decision on our general contractor this week. That group will work closely with our acoustical designer and our architect to lock the plans, obtain the proper permits and begin build out. Over the last couple months we have been lucky enough to have our Audio B up and running so we can continue doing most of our audio work but we are looking forward to having our larger mixing studio and Foley/insert stage up and running in a few short months.

For those who followed the build out of the main part of the building, you'll remember periodic blogs and in progress photos as things progressed. Once the build out of audio gets going we plan to do the same thing. Between status updates on Facebook, blogs here and photos and webisodes on our new home website (www.ideasorlando.com/ideasnewhome) we'll keep everyone updated.

Lifetime Movies

I was flipping channels this past weekend and came across a movie on Lifetime Movie Network that we worked on a couple years ago. Back in 2006 we were introduced to executive producer Bill O'Dowd and his company, Dolphin Entertainment. Dolphin Entertainment was about to start shooting a series of 3 thrillers in Puerto Rico for Lifetime and they needed a place for post audio. A quick proposal later, we were on the team.

Set in the Caribbean, the three made-for-television thrillers debuted with “Stranded,” starring Erica Durance from “Smallville”. The second movie, “Vanished”, starred A.J. Cook from “Criminal Minds” while “Break-In”, the third film in the trilogy, featured Kelly Carlson from “Nip/Tuck” fame. All three movies featured Carlos Ponce as police inspector Raddimus.

The post audio process included Foley, sound design, dialogue editing, pre-mixing, final mix and layback. Also included was post audio supervision and domestic delivery in high definition and standard definition to Lifetime and international delivery in high definition to Power, a leading independent worldwide producer and distributor.

"Stranded" achieved a 2.1 rating and a 33 VPVH (viewers per viewing household) exceeding the normal Lifetime Monday Night Movie viewership by more than 11 percent and did better than the series premiere that was on immediately following the movie. “Vanished” did better on a Sunday with a 2.1 rating and a 39 VPVH. “Break-In” also did well with a 2.1 rating and a 37 VPVH.

The following year we worked on Christmas in Paradise for Dolphin Entertainment. The movie featured Colin Ferguson from “Eureka” and Charlotte Ross, who stared in “NYPD Blue”.

For Christmas in Paradise we were responsible for the final high definition edit and post production audio. The video process included HD conform and final color correction while the post audio process included Foley, sound design, dialogue editing, pre-mixing, final mix, and layback. As was the case the year before we were responsible for post supervision and domestic delivery in high definition and standard definition to Lifetime and international delivery in high definition of the two hour movie.

FYI, we love our partnership with Dolphin Entertainment. They are a great bunch of people that we enjoy having around when they are here.

National Museum of Crime & Punishment

A couple weeks ago I posted something on Facebook about our work on the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, D.C. and got a couple e-mails asking what we did on the project. So here's the story, about 2 years ago we received a call from people from Idletime Network, the prime on the contract working for the owner, John Morgan (for Orlando people, yes, that John Morgan - For the People!). We met with Idletime and understood our scope to be the audio/visual portion of the project and possibly the interactive elements. We had done work for John Morgan before on another venue of his, WonderWorks, so we felt confident in our chances to get the job. After a couple months, literally, of back and fourth between us an Idletime and us and John Morgan and us and anyone else who could give us info about the project, and about 10 proposals and budgets later, we finally settled on what our scope would be and the amount we would be paid to do it.

It was one of those projects that was big but I honestly didn't know how big the project was until we really got in to it. Before it was all said and done, we executed over 60 media elements for the museum. It was the exact type of project that we believe we add the most value for. We were involved in the creative behind certain portions of the museum, then we wrote scripts for the videos we were producing. After that we shot the elements we needed for the videos. Beyond shooting we had to coordinate hours and hours of stock footage and images. From there we created the entire look and feel for the interactive elements and then created, designed and executed close to 20 touch screen interactive games.

We also created a fingerprint station that you could get your fingerprint scanned and then printed out with a fictitious accused crime on a card to take home. For one of the activities we needed to do a line up with the assailant in one of the videos to see if people could recognize the person at a later time. If you're going to do a line up you need stand ins. So, we dressed up a couple members of our staff as thugs and made them part of the line up. If you go to the Museum you can see a couple members of our staff in the line up. Who knew our staff made such good thugs.

On the video side we had numerous elements to create, some vertical some horizontal (aspect ratio), some video based, some graphic based, some SD some HD. The videos were all over the map. Then on the audio side we sweetened the videos, recorded background voices, created sound effects beds, and supplied various sound effects elements. The thing about the visual elements is that they had to be unique to the area of the museum they were in but they still had to have an overall consistent look and feel that was the National Museum of Crime & Punishment.

From start to finish, we had close to 20 people touch the project. We started at the end of September of 2007 and it opened in May 2008. David Bain was the project manager for the project. David and a couple others went up to Washington, D.C. to the location of the museum a couple times throughout the project.

The attraction takes visitors through early Medieval times, the swashbuckling Pirate era, the gun-slinging Old West, the gangster/depression era leading into modern crime, assassinations & conspiracies, serial killers and mass murders, the crime fighting technologies of today, and conclude with an entire area devoted to "America’s Most Wanted", the nation's top crime fighting television show. America's Most Wanted currently tapes their show from the Museum.

The difficulty in telling people about this project is that it doesn't translate in to writing very well. So while I'm trying to explain what we did, it would be better if you just went to the museum in person. To say we did some videos, interactives, audio elements doesn't do the volume of work justice. You walk in to the 3 story museum and see it, then you get it.

Audio Webisode

The end of last week was productive when it comes to getting a new webisode up on our new home website. It's been a while since we posted one because we've been here for a while and not much is new. However, as we move towards the beginning of the physical build out of our Audio A mixing suite and our insert/Foley stage, there's something worth editing. We are just about done with part one of the Audio webisode(s). It will be at least two websiodes and possibly three before we're all done with it. Part one should be up some time this week.

We also got the last of the bids for the project so we'll be making a decision this week as to who will be our general contractor. Once things get going there will be lots to write about so I'll keep you posted.