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| 25.02.08 |
Sacramento’s Bongo Post Opens New Film Division, Bongo Films |
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| 25.02.08 Sacramento’s Bongo Post Opens New Film Division, Bongo Films |
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25.02.08
Sacramento’s Bongo Post Opens New Film Division, Bongo Films |
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Sacramento’s Bongo Post & Music Opens New Film Division,
Hires New Executive Producer Greg Dowden
Today Bongo Post & Music, a Sacramento company devoted to the technical finishing and polishing of television commercials and short films announced its intent to open a new film division, Bongo Films
The new division will be a full-service production facility, adding to Bongo’s already established post-production services. In advertising, “production facilities” create and film the content while “post-production facilities” finish the content with a range of services including video editing, music composing, and Motion Graphics and Sound Design. Bongo, which is headquartered in mid-town Sacramento, will now be able to take large-scale commercials from start to finish, a first in Sacramento and Northern California advertising.
Tapped to head up the newly created “Bongo Films” is Greg Dowden, formerly of Digital Domain of LA the company known for Pirates of the Caribbean, Titanic, Lord of the Rings etc, who has been hired as Executive Producer.
“Bongo Films is a natural extension of the collaborative model that we’ve always operated under,” said Bob Smith, who opened Bongo Post & Music in 2001. “We’ve always billed ourselves as the place where creative people could come and work in a collaborative manner with editors, composers, and sound designers, now Sacramento’s advertising community will be able to take a TV spot from start to finish, all under one roof.”
Smith, who has always felt he had a very common name, adapted the more-memorable nickname “Bongo Bob Smith” in the 1970s. An accomplished percussionist (including bongos), Smith worked with such acts as Sylvester, the Weather Girls and Charlie Peacock and the film The Hitcher in the 1970s & 80’s He was a percussionist and arranger on Whitney Houston’s groundbreaking dance album “Whitney” in 1987 along with work for Joe Satriani, The Starship, Aretha Franklin and as producer for re-mixes of The Little Mermaid, Warner Bros, Hollywood Records and writing songs for Beverly Hills 90210, David Letterman and many more. In 2001 Smith opened Bongo Post and Music, which has become Sacramento’s premier post-production facility.
It wasn’t an easy opening. Smith had hired Roger Darcy, a UK architect who had worked with the likes of Sade, Lenny Kravitz and Peter Gabriel and 80% of the London Post community to design the space at 2010 K Street in Sacramento. After investing hundreds of thousands in the construction of a world-class post-production facility, Bongo Post and Music opened just two months before September 11th, 2001.
After 9-11, Northern California’s advertising production opportunities reduced by about eighty percent, Smith estimates.
“It was rough going,” Smith said. “You hear the expression, ‘if you build it, they will come’ and here we had built it, but we had also opened at the start of a recession. But gradually things started to rebound. We always had faith in our model of creative collaboration, and it paid off.”
Smith hopes Bongo Films will attract film projects meant for the internet as well as more traditional media. “We’d love to do videos meant for Facebook or MySpace and also more interactive videos where viewers can click on a link to decide the direction of the content,” he said.
Smith sees a huge opportunity for improving the current inclination towards grainy, low-quality video on the internet. “I really feel video on the internet is in its infancy,” Smith said. “It reminds me of where punk music was in the 80s. You had a bunch of young kids with a lot to say and not a lot of production value behind it. And then Green Day comes along and totally ups the ante. We’d love to do the same thing for film on the internet.”
Smith has hired Greg Dowden as Executive Producer of Bongo Films. Dowden has worked for a decade as a producer on staff at Digital Domain, Colorado FX and many production companies working on Mattel, Spycraft the game, Chevrolet and AMEX Blue and for advertising companies like Foote Cone & Belding, Ogilvy Direct and BBDO
“What we’re doing is sort of a first in Northern California,” Dowden said. “You see companies in L.A. who have production and post-production all under one roof but not in Northern California.”
Before solidifying their film division Bongo tested the waters by producing film projects for local communication firms like Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. The test runs proved to be fruitful and Smith feels like he’s discovered an untapped market.
“We know Northern California is ready for this kind of facility,” Smith said. “Why wouldn’t you want to get everything done all at one place, with proven artists and streamlined efficiency?”
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