Photo by Jordan Heath on Unsplash
“The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them.” – Lao-Tse, Ancient Chinese philosopher and writer
Lao-Tse is famous for many philosophical teachings during his lifetime, and this quote is one that has always resonated with me after first discovering it while reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
This picture of streams flowing into a mountain lake visualizes for me the ideas presented by Lao-Tse. Water flowing, nourishing the land, merging together into a larger, more powerful resource.
The water is information, flowing from its point of origin along the landscaping, distributing information and gathering more until it is all collected into the lake, sea, or ocean below. This body of water, this collection of information, becomes ultimately more powerful from the tributes it receives.
“Information is power. Particularly when the competition ignores the opportunity to do the same.” – Mark Cuban
This collection of information is a powerful force. The most powerful companies on the planet have become powerful through collecting information, analyzing information and acting on the information. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Wikipedia – what do they all have in common? They collect and utilize information to achieve their business objectives, selling goods, selling advertising, or providing information in one place to be found.
A body of information is like a body of water.
Help Us Help You
The Nevada Production Community and the Nevada Film Office works much the same way. The Nevada Film Office’s primary objective is to promote the State of Nevada to productions, providing them with the resources they require to create content in our state.
The NFO provides productions with resources to find crew, vendors, locations, incentives, contacts, and information to complete projects. Resources provided by the NFO are located here on our website and include our crew and locations databases, recently filmed productions page and posts on our social media pages. The effectiveness of these resources is relative to the information they contain.
Production information is collected in several ways by the NFO which include: productions registering with our office as required by Nevada Revised Statute (NRS 231.128), information submitted by crew members and vendors who list in the production directory, and locations that list in the locations directory.
The results of all this information collected are used to provide better service to productions, resulting in more opportunities for local crew members, vendors and locations.
Effectively collecting and utilizing information is a competitive advantage, and advantages will accrue to those companies and individuals who use the tools provided by the Nevada Film Office to distinguish themselves from their peers.
The Cycle of a Film Production Project
An example of an ideal film production project cycle:
A commercial wants to shoot in Nevada, they register their project with the NFO, hire local crew, contract local vendors and find locations.
Once completed, local crew who worked on the production update their production directory listing with their recent experience. Vendors and the location update the production directory listings and locations database with recently completed productions.
Once the commercial airs, the NFO shares the content via all social media channels including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and posts on our website the recently completed production. The social media content in turn tags the local crew, vendors and locations used in the production, providing links to where to find them in the directory and database.
When new productions looking to film in Nevada contact the NFO, they are easily directed to the completed content, who worked on it, where it was filmed and how to directly connect with those individuals and locations for new opportunities.
The information gathered from previous productions allows the NFO to promote everyone involved. The production benefits from the additional exposure, the crew, vendors and locations benefit from the additional exposure, and new productions benefit from seeing quality content and directly connecting with those involved to hire them.
The more information that is collected from the crew, the vendors, and the locations, the more content can be generated and used to further promote Nevada crew, vendors and locations.
Like water flowing down a mountain stream, information flows from many different sources until collected at the bottom into a central location. Once collected, all the information can be used to further market and promote everyone involved.
Standing Out in the Nevada Film Industry
It’s good to be busy, and when you are busy, you can sometimes forget the little things that need to be done when finishing one project and beginning another. However, keeping the pipeline full and replenishing the water is the key to staying busy over a longer period when those unexpected droughts can occur.
One suggestion would be to start a routine, which most people have already. When one job is completed and before the next job starts, you typically check out all your gear or equipment, make sure everything is in working order, restock your kit, get more batteries, replace your consumables, etc. As part of your routine, you should consider the following:
- Create and regularly update your business or service listing in our online production database with skills and credits from productions you recently worked on.
- Create and regularly update any film locations you have listed with productions that recently filmed there.
- Contact the Nevada Film Office with any information you have on the production, like:
- Still photos that are approved for use to promote the recent production,
- All filming locations that were used during the production,
- The name of the business or crew you worked with during the production, and
- Anything else in particular you would like us to share / promote on our social media about the production.
The Nevada Film Community benefits when we share information. Information is a powerful resource, but it is even more powerful when it’s shared.
Let’s keep the cycle flowing by sharing information — further promoting ourselves, our community members, our vendors, and our location partners.
– Eric Preiss, Director of the Nevada Film Office
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never deceased by being shared.” – Buddha