Valley Company Putting a Face on Viral Marketing

Big Stage Entertainment wants to put you in the movies. And in advertising and in video games and clips from television shows. Well, not the real you and not even all of you. Just your face will do for the avatar-creation technology the Sherman Oaks company has developed and licenses to other companies for use in viral marketing. Visitors to the Big Stage website create their avatar for free and then can use it to put themselves into an ad sent to friends via e-mail or social networking sites. Personalizing the ad strengthens the connection between the user and the brand being advertised and sending it to others extends that connection. ?hen someone else sees this the implied approval will strengthen the brand bond to the other viewer,?said Phil Ressler, the chief executive of Big Stage and a Woodland Hills resident. Having outgrown its incubator space in South Pasadena, Ressler moved Big Stage to the Valley because it met two important criteria ?it was a central location for his workers and they could walk to get lunch. Ressler has spent his career primarily in taking small companies and making them into large companies. He has worked in marketing and in Silicon Valley. He has seen troubled economic times before and the current recession is not the worst economic environment he has seen. True, capital is scarce but it tends to be scarce anyway, Ressler said. ?t is always scarce when the economy is putting people in the wrong frame of mind,?he added. Money isn? so scarce that Big Stage cannot find any. In April, Big Stage received a second round of funding of $2.7 million from a trio of investment groups. The total capitalization for the company is $10.6 million. Ressler knows how things work from the investment side as well, having spent five years with a venture capital firm in Santa Monica before joining Big Stage. The company? founders had come looking for money and what they got instead was Ressler and his 30 years of business experience. Currently, Big Stage is a business-to-business operation licensing its PortableYou 3-D facial modeling system to third parties for use in video games, virtual worlds, Web sites, and mobile apps. While creating an avatar is free the company intends to make money through brand name accessories that users can purchase and put on their digital replica, be it sunglasses, hairstyles, or make-up kits. Sony BMG, Lionsgate, Stephen J. Cannell Productions and Virtual Space Entertainment have lined up as Big Stage clients. Holy Land Experience Film production company Stereo Vision Entertainment Inc. signed Michael Landon Jr. to produce and direct its 3D feature, ?hree Dimensions of Jerusalem.? The Van Nuys-based company plans to begin shooting as soon as scheduling permits as well as use stock 3D footage shot in Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the Millennium New Year’s celebrations. ?hree Dimensions of Jerusalem?tells the story of three teenaged friends ?a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew ?and the life-altering experiences they have in the Holy Land. Innovators Meeting The Cinema Innovators Network will host its fourth Innovation Night event on May 12 in Burbank. Organizer Tom Hallman described the event as being an open mike night for anyone in the film industry with an idea on improving equipment or in the early stages of developing a new product. With just a microphone, presenters are given five minutes to make their pitch to generate interest. The second half of the meeting is for networking and getting people together who might be able to help each other. ?y role is to set up the introduction,?said Hallman, president of aerial camera supplier Pictorvision in Van Nuys. ?t is up to the actual people to make the most of it.? Hallman had been to a meeting of the Cinema Innovators Network in Canada and was so taken with what he saw that he wanted to do the same in Los Angeles. The first meeting Hallman hosted drew about a dozen people. By the third meeting, attendance had grown to 90. The network is geared toward the fledgling innovators and not established big-name companies. Past meetings included presentations on new battery technologies, a 3D camera, lighting ideas and green screens. While the meeting is open to anyone, Hallman does screen the presenters so as not to turn the event into a commercial for a product available on the market unless it is something he knows the audience will use. ? don? want it to be a tradeshow,?Hallman said. The Cinema Innovators Network will meet at 7 p.m., at Gordon Biersch Restaurant, 145 S. San Fernando Road, Burbank. For more information visit www.cinema innovators.com. On the Screen Nobody would ever mistake Woodland Hills or the Warner Center Towers for Detroit but that was the case on April 30 when a production crew for the new HBO series ?ung?took over the lobby of one of the towers for a day of filming. As the cameras were pointed toward the Business Journal office, a name change was necessary. So for the day, we became the Detroit Metropolitan Business Journal. Considering all the crew people hanging around, and the lights and the cameras and the wires all over the floor the filming wasn? too disruptive to the workday. By the afternoon, we just had to make sure that no filming was taking place if anyone on the staff needed to leave the office. ?ung?is a new summer series starring Thomas Jane, Anne Heche, and Jane Adams. Jane plays a high school teacher and basketball coach in a crisis who, with the help of an ex-flame and sometime poet, according to the HBO website, ?esolves to take advantage of his greatest asset, in hopes of changing his fortunes in a big way.? Staff Reporter Mark Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected]. His downstairs neighbor Molly Jacobs put him in two scenes of her indie film, which is still being edited.