Aaron Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

John Koufos | Nebraska Reentry 2030

Aaron Zavitz January 8, 2025

Nebraska Reentry 2030 is a national initiative for inmates exiting the prison system. We had no idea this existed! This why we love our job as Nebraska videographers. We are hired by some pretty cool people doing amazing things. And we have the opportunity to tell just a fragment of the story. Nebraska Department of Correctional Services hosted a summit for its’ partners and the community to discuss Reentry 2030. They also hosted the dynamic John Koufos who hired us to the highlight this momentous event for Nebraska Reentry 2030.

John Koufos

John’s story is amazing and a true ‘phoenix rising out of the ashes’ story. He was once a high profile attorney and, at the same time, an alcoholic. At the height of his success as an attorney he hit ‘rock bottom’ when he almost killed someone in a drunk driving accident. He went to prison where he went through a dramatic personal transformation. After his release he began fighting for prison reform! Since his release he’s worked with Washington and worked to transform correctional policy with the administrations of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. A true success story and I was honored to have a little part in spreading the word of Nebraska’s part in Reentry 2030.

Nebraska Videographers

We are always humbled as Nebraska videographers when we have these opportunities to highlight the achievements of our state. Achievements that otherwise go unnoticed. These events make us see another view point of a population that is largely passed over and treated poorly because of bad decisions in their past.

It was great working with John whose generosity and sincerity is infectious.

And here’s something else about John I didn’t know that I want to look more into:

John produced and hosted Retaining Talent, a second chance hiring and retention training/documentary. Retaining Talent was filmed all across Florida and Washington, D.C., with businesses that hire people with criminal records, government officials, law enforcement, corporate and banking leaders, and at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Learn more about John

Visit Nebraska Department of Correctional Services

Learn more about Reentry 2030

06 Jan 2025

Aaron Zavitz Healthcare Permalink

R7DHRE | Omaha medical video

Aaron Zavitz January 6, 2025

When a company calls and asks if we are an Omaha medical video production team and after we say, ‘yes’ and they say that it’s going to be a radiation exercise…well…celebration starts to happen. Our good friends in the Global Center for Health Security are in involved with the Region 7 Disaster Health Response Ecosystem. In my opinion, anything that has the word ‘ecosystem’ in it has to be cool!

The work of these organizations is awe-inspiring and heroic, which is probably why this healthcare video took on a cinematic tone. This Omaha medical video was a collaboration of some of the finest disaster response organizations out there.

The Scenario

The Council Bluffs Fire Department (CBFD), in partnership with the 71st Civil Support Team (CST) and the Iowa Health and Human Services (Iowa HHS) radiation control program, hosted an intensive functional training exercise. This exercise aimed to practice CST deployment to support the CBFD in responding to a clandestine lab and radiological incident. During the scenario, teams set up decontamination and entry procedures and donned personal protective equipment (PPE) to enter and evaluate the simulated hazardous environment. The seamless integration of the CBFD and CST allowed them to leverage their respective assets, effectively managing the scene and ensuring public safety. Medical officers and Iowa HHS briefings provided essential guidance on managing potential radiation or chemical exposures, offering real-time learning experiences. This dynamic training scenario not only provided invaluable hands-on experience but also fostered essential collaboration between the CBFD, CST, and Iowa HHS radiological response personnel. Exercises such as these demonstrate the importance of readiness and teamwork in handling complex hazardous materials and radiological incidents, ensuring all teams are prepared to face any unknown threats with confidence and precision.

Our job as an Omaha medical video production team was to capture in video and photography the process by which these partners search a building to find the radiation source. A true honor.

Links

Region 7 Disaster Health Response Ecosystem

Council Bluffs Fire Department

Iowa Health and Human Services

For more videos like check out other work with Global Center for Health Security:

Global Center for Health Security | Puerto Rico | Nebraska Videographer

04 Jan 2025

Aaron Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

Opera Omaha | Omaha Photographer

Aaron Zavitz January 4, 2025

Remembering warmer times as an Omaha photographer! Actually, maybe it was TOO warm! This is one of my favorite programs out there. Opera Omaha hosts ‘Opera to Go’ every summer and it’s really quite special. Their slogan is ‘Delivering snackable opera bites to your community’. And that’s exactly what they are. No tickets. No fees. These are like little opera pop ups. You never know where they will be. This one popped up at the Florence Mills Farmer’s Market in North Omaha. There were sunhats, opera and let’s not forget the bubbles. Kids always love the bubble machine! These events are perfect for the music enthusiast who wants to dabble a little with Opera. An amuse-bouche of opera music if you will. I love it. I love using my Omaha photographer skills for the good people at Opera Omaha!

‘Since October of 2020 Opera To Go has popped up in many places across the metro area including Brown Park, the Highlander Community Lawn, Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, Countryside Village Shopping Center, Lake Zorinsky, Capital Cigar Lounge, Turner Park, at events like the Florence Mill Farmers’ Market, the Papillion Farmers’ Market, Porchfest Omaha, and with our community partners Gotta Be Me and Learning Community Center of South Omaha.’ – Opera Omaha

I’m so honored to be able to capture these little morsels of delight and important to see organizations taking risks and getting themselves out in the community. Opera can be a hard sell but by making it super approachable makes it truly something very special. thinkMotion | Omaha photographer

Opera Omaha

Opera to Go

Opera Omaha Opera to Go | Omaha Event Photography

04 Jan 2025

Aaron Zavitz Video Permalink

thinkMOTION | Omaha video services

Aaron Zavitz January 4, 2025

What’s new with Omaha video services for thinkMOTION for 2025 you ask??!!

Well, we always offer high-quality, creative, affordable video production filming and editing services, but…

Did you know that we do this too????

– Customer Testimonials? I think every single company is looking for social media content or video to put up on their website. This is just one Omaha video services we can do for your incredible business. We can film your customers talking about you and your services on location at your business or at our studio.

Your customers shape the success of your business so now it’s time to get them on camera to tell the world WHY?!!!

Guide your potential customers to what other people have experienced with your businesses vision or product and guide them to purchasing decisions whether it’s a product or an idea.

Testimonials provide an unbiased, authentic perspective from real users.

Humanize your brand. In a world of deep fakes, AI, social media memes, there really is nothing better than real people, saying real things.

– Headshots, it’s video AND photography! Headshots for yourself, your team or your whole corporation, we’ve got affordable options to keep your headshots relevant to your needs this year. Casual outdoors or formal indoors.

It’s a New Year for new portrait or headshot for your company website, LinkedIn, Facebook, and {insert desired social media platform here 🙂 ]

An outdated headshot can create a disconnect between how you present yourself online and in real life.

A headshot that accurately represents you helps build trust with customers and companies.

– Corporate Culture Videos! Serious, fun, and everything any between. Let us help foster your corporate atmosphere through video.

A company’s culture is often as important as the products or services you provide!

You want to attract the best talent to your company, let the video show them something beyond the job description. Introduce them to how cool you are!

– Social Media reels or short form videos. We can help enhance your brand online with creative content.

-Filming or Editing only. Of course we are a full-service video production company, but if you just need one or the other, let us assist that part of your needs.

We look forward to helping you put your video desires out this coming year!

Front Page

04 Jan 2025

Aaron Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

Great Plains Theater Commons | Omaha conference Videos

Aaron Zavitz January 4, 2025

We’re addicted to making these Omaha conference videos EVERY YEAR!!! This week long theatre conference, a new play festival, is a yearly highlight! We love the work the Great Plains Theatre Commons is going for the arts’ community throughout the year. They are bringing meaningful stories to the community year round…and…FREE! Hey, that sounds like us! Well, maybe not free, but we always seek to tell the meaningful stories of our clients. Playwrights use words, we use video!

You might think Omaha conference videos might be a tad boring? How can you make a week long conference seem exciting, you ask?! We’re always up for the challenge. We put our documentary style of filmmaking to work, almost observing to find creative ways to tell the story of the week. We use all these tools to visually tell the story: filming interviews, b-roll, steadicam, and even doing some timelapse and maybe some drone.

It is so thrilling to film writers, designers, directors and dramaturgs who come to together and make the GPTC and, its’ new play festival, a powerhouse of creativity that resonances through the country. Yes! From artist from the West and East coasts to everything in between, time and time again we hear how respected this conference is! GPTC uses our videos in a number of different ways. One, to spread the love of theatre making. Two, as a funding raising tool, both with donors and grants, to keep their good work going. We are always so honored to lend our creative talents to further their creative talents!

GPTC Home

Check out this article in America Theatre magazine written by Omaha’s own, Leo Biga:

New Plays, Good Food, Great Plains: A Proven Recipe

13 Jan 2024

Aaron Zavitz Healthcare Permalink

Nebraska Video Company | Global Center for Health Security

Aaron Zavitz January 13, 2024

A Nebraska video company doesn’t always have to film in Nebraska…we also get to go to Alaska! It never ceases to amazing me of all the good work that is being done Nebraska that reaches the entire country, albeit, the world. This project, piloted by UNMC, reaches as far as Uganda, Africa which I wasn’t a part of but still, truly cool. It’s been to the state of Washington to Puerto Rico to, finally, Alaska.

We’ve been working on a project for a couple of years with the UNMC team at the Global Center for Health Security working with CDC. The team is developing an exciting new product called the ISTARI which stands for The Isolation System for Treatment and Agile Response for High-Risk Infections. It’s a revolutionary portable negative pressure containment patient care system.

Essentially instead of doctors donning (an exciting word I’ve learned in all this) PPE, rather, the patient has PPE wrapped around them in a plastic tent. Doctors, nurses and loved ones can physically handle and care for the patient through plastic arms and a ‘hug suit’. They can do this without breaking airborne isolation and infecting those outside of the tent. Innovation at it’s best. Especially, it looks very cool and sci-fi and we love being apart of this!

And I know more about airborne pathogens than one civilian should know! But that’s what’s great about being a Nebraska video company.

The vast knowledge and stories that need to be told!

In September 2023, UNMC and Providence Sacred Heart & Children’s Hospital partnered with LifeMed Alaska and the Life Flight Network. They tested the ISTARI transport tent in ground and air movement of simulated patients presenting to local hospitals who required isolation care. Transport occurred over 3 exercise segments. Check out the video above to see the epic results!

Website background videos | Ghost Handwriter

Aaron Zavitz January 12, 2024

Website background videos have been pretty popular for a few years now and can really be a vital addition to your Omaha website design.

Why?

There is no better way to make your website, product or service stand out more then actually having your potential customer open your website and see visually what you have to offer. Simple. Cinematic. Website video backgrounds can really capture attention and invite your potential clients to dig deeper into your website. And like this video, they don’t have to take tons of time to film, making a background cost effective. We spent a couple of hours with Cam filming this adorable robot do it’s magic and then we sat down for a quick interview. Boom. Done.

In addition to the website background, check out the short promo we did!

In this case, we were so happy to partner with a long time collaborator to create Website background videos for a service that is new and truly remarkable. A robot that creates handwritten, personalized letters and cards. A marketing tool that can truly make a difference for customers. It takes innovative AI based solutions but yet puts that personal touch that all businesses want to create for their clients. There is really so many applications that I can think of that this robot can help with: political campaigns, donor thank you’s, marketing campaigns, wedding thank you’s…really the possibilities are endless. To see what this can do, you should visit Cam’s site and be impressed! https://ghosthandwriter.com/

Truly inventive.

We love learning about new innovative ideas and bringing companies services and products to life through film. Giving their brand a visual pop of color.

08 Jan 2024

Molly Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

Omaha event photographer | Ollie Webb

Molly Zavitz January 8, 2024

An Omaha event photographer gets to experience so many different facets of the Omaha community. We’ve been so blessed to be able to work with two amazing organizations throughout the year in different capacities; Ollie Webb social services and Opera Omaha. What a treat it was to have two clients overlap in a joint project. Opera Omaha has developed programs with many social service organizations around town and one of their biggest is Ollie Webb whose core mission is to ‘enrich the lives of children, adolescents, and adults with developmental disabilities and their families through support, programs, and advocacy. We have a special place in our hearts for the developmental disabilities and I’ve had the great honor of being an Omaha event photographer and videographer to highlight this precious community for great companies such as Ollie Webb, Destiny Cafe, Down Syndrome Alliance and Sheltering Tree. With our partnership with the amazing Opera Opera, we have seen so many unique events, from Opera in the Park to Opera on the Go and now, being able to capture this event was extra special. Ollie Webb put on their own rendition of the opera The Magic Flute by Mozart. And they let their imagination go wild…they even broke out in a Judas Priest song….classic. It’s events like these where I’m happy that professional photos exist for this event and truly this is why I believe that every organization keep a photographic archive of their events. With all the time and care that goes into an event…they deserve to be captured. On the Opera Omaha site they say, ‘Opera Omaha collaborates with many partners across the Omaha metropolitan area bringing opera into new environments that illustrate and promote the value of creativity in both the arts and non-arts sectors.’ You should check out the impressive list of partners and be on the look out for the next time Opera Omaha gets out into the community. https://operaomaha.org/community/our-partners

www.operaomaha.org

www.olliewebbinc.org

06 Jan 2024

Molly Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

Omaha nonprofits | Destiny Cafe

Molly Zavitz January 6, 2024

Omaha nonprofits should have videos to showcase the exceptional and vital work they are bringing to the Omaha community. For all our years in business, we have done videos for large nonprofits and smaller Omaha nonprofits. But truly is there really such a thing as a small non-profit when they have such important and epic causes? From their very nature, nonprofits fill that gap between much needed services for a certain population of our country that is undersupplied by the government. My goodness where we would be without the good work of Omaha nonprofit organizations?!

Destiny Cafe is a new up and coming nonprofit that is certain to make it’s stamp in the Omaha community. Their mission is engage those with intellectual disabilities and invite them into a culinary journey. Destiny will be a cafe with a neurodiverse team, offering a new kind of excellence. They offer inclusive training to unlock employable skills and in the future they hope to have a welcoming community space, igniting belonging in the larger community. They will fill the gap for those with neurodivergence and intellectual disabilities who graduate high school and may not have the opportunity to further their education and gain employment.

Full disclosure… this project is close to my family and my wife, and editor for thinkMOTION, was the inaugural culinary instructor for the pilot culinary program. The class was amazing and the determination of the students was truly infectious. In this first program they learned entry level knife skills and sanitation as well as making some amazing recipes. And what’s next for Destiny Cafe? The next advanced classes start soon and the idea of a pop up or a dedicated cafe space is in the works. We’re excited to see the future of Destiny Cafe and we look forward to working with this Omaha nonprofit as well as many others in the year to come. I came across a great quote by Millard Fuller, the co-founder of Habitat of Humanity that reminded of the work that Destiny Cafe is going… “For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people’s love and concern for each other.”

Home

22 Dec 2023

Molly Zavitz Uncategorized Permalink

Healthcare Video Production | iEXCEL

Molly Zavitz December 22, 2023

We’ve had the privilege of filming Healthcare Video Production for iEXCEL at UNMC for several years now. The work that iEXCEL is doing with VR, AR, holographic and video production is really taking interactive training and learning for healthcare professionals to the next level. As are all the projects with iEXCEL and UNMC, this one was really interesting, concentrating more on the behavior of nurses and doctors rather than procedural. The UNMC Student Interprofessional Society acquired iEXCEL’s help to create three videos that demonstrated the correct way for nurses and doctors to communicate with patients of diverse religious, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Of course, in our scenarios there are a couple of actor nurses and doctors that get it wrong and have to be set straight. For these scenarios, UNMC has a data base of ‘actors’ called standardized patients which are essentially actors and/or non actors who want to act like patients in medical scenarios (which I think could be a whole movie in itself!). Usually these scenarios are used in training and not filmed, however, with us, they were able to be stars. For this Healthcare Video Production, we used actually nurses for both the nurse and the patients and I was amazed that they were so natural and really picked up on the filming process and seriously, the nurse in this video could be the next George Clooney (i.e. ER) Our goal is to make it as natural as possible with a cinematic feel. After watching many scenarios online by other hospitals, we really wanted to amp up the production quality of it and make it seem more like a movie instead of a straight scenario. And word has gone around the UNMC campus because this could easily be our 8th or 9th scenario that we’ve filmed for different departments.

https://www.unmc.edu/iexcel/

https://www.unmc.edu/academicaffairs/educational/ipe/about.html

John Koufos | Nebraska Reentry 2030

John Koufos

Nebraska Videographers

R7DHRE | Omaha medical video

The Scenario

Links

Opera Omaha | Omaha Photographer

thinkMOTION | Omaha video services

Great Plains Theater Commons | Omaha conference Videos

Nebraska Video Company | Global Center for Health Security

Website background videos | Ghost Handwriter

Omaha event photographer | Ollie Webb

Omaha nonprofits | Destiny Cafe

Healthcare Video Production | iEXCEL

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