The video series will focus on just a handful of the area’s amazingly talented artisans, and the first edition of the series profiles Shelli Bankier, a female surf photographer who is also helping curate the festival’s artwork.

Bleach* Surfing The Fringe Festival Photographer Profile: Shelli Bankier from Bleach Festival on Vimeo.

Thanks to host Cassandra Nevin, Shelli for sharing her story, and Locus Wimple for sharing their tunes:)

We’ll post more  of these profiles as they are published – in the meantime make sure to visit www.bleachfestival.com.au for more details about Bleach*!

This offer is valid on any video production services- from promotional videos, commercials, and TVCs right through to freelance videography, weddings, real estate and holiday property videos. The only prerequisite is clients must spend over $500, and must mention the offer to receive their bonus. Also, the Guvera gift isn’t valid with any other offer.

Pretty cool huh? If you’ve been shopping for Gold Coast video production services and would like to take advantage of the $50 music card offer, call us on 07 55595551 or send us a message via the contact form on www.soularchmedia.com

Get in quick while stocks lasts!

Mayumba follows a crew of multicultural surfers as they explore the remote south coast of Gabon in West Africa. Throughout the adventures of this international team (Sam Bleakley, Erwan Simon, Emiliano Cataldi, surf photographer John Callahan and legendary Hawaiian surfer Randy Rarick) Mayumba documents their journey along the road less travelled to find a variety of deserted breaks and undiscovered waves. Shot on location,
the film allows the audience to explore West Africa and its wildlife, waves, people and stunning scenery. Stay tuned for updates on where you can watch the entire documentary as we’ll post links later, but in the meantime view the trailer below or go to http://youtu.be/JGbroz3iXPo

Make sure to follow SurfEXPLORE on their Vimeo Channel or become a fan of their Facebook page for all the latest news.

As a video production company that specializes in online video, Soul Arch Media’s video production clients regularly enquire about Linkedin video integration. The answer? It’s pretty straight forward to post a Youtube video to your LinkedIn Company Profile page – if you’re stumped I’ll give you step by step instructions on how to do this later – but it gets a little trickier if you’d like to add video permanently to your personal LinkedIn profile. You can share a link to videos you’ve uploaded elsewhere on the web by adding the video’s URL into the status box on your LinkedIn Profile home page, but this goes in your “news feed” so isn’t visible to other users long term. Ditto for posting video to your blog, and then reposting your blog on LinkedIn via “blog feed” – it’s a short-term fix. Although the social networking world is abuzz with how powerful video can be for both business and networking, LinkedIn don’t have a single straightforward mechanism for adding a more permanent intro video to your personal profile – so luckily there’s lots of third party applications that can help!

If you have a company overview video, commercial or personal introduction you’d like to permanently add to your LinkedIn profile, here’s a number of apps that allow you to upload and share video files by placing them into a public folder on your profile. It’s not the most straightforward method, but it still comes in handy to display all your professional videos, screencasts, demos and webinars – or any video you’d like to share with your professional network. Here’s some of the better ones I’ve found:

Huddle Workspaces – Allows you to create a folder and upload a video file to share with your connections once they’ve been invited to your workspace. Huddle supports any type of file, but I haven’t tried this one personally as I’ve always wanted my videos to be public, not invite only. However Huddle could be great if you wanted to share a personal welcome video to a private group, for example.

Box.net Files – This allows you to display video if you create a public folder on LinkedIn and allow the video files in that folder to be visible to all viewers of your LinkedIn Profile. All other files and folders can be kept private, although you may share specific items with select individuals. This application will only stream or play .FLV (flash video) file types. I’ve used Box.net, and it does the job fine, but I found it a little tricky to ensure the display settings are all correct, plus it’s got a tendency to ‘warp’ videos so they seem a little stretched looking. But the upside? You can quickly and easily add virtually any type of file to your LinkedIn profile so visitors can not only view but also download them. I’ve left a video on my Box.net file on my LinkedIn profile if you’d like to see what I mean. Visit http://au.linkedin.com/in/cazsoularch and you’ll need to click through to “View Full Profile” to see it.

SlideShare App- If you have connected your LinkedIn account with a SlideShare account, any video files you upload will show up in both places. You can upload video to SlideShare either via your SlidesShare Account or directly from the LinkedIn app. Once the video is uploaded, you will be directed to a video page, from where you can share video not only on LinkedIn, but Twitter and other social networks too.

Google Presentations – Allows you to add Youtube videos to a presentation, then post that presentation to your LinkedIn profile. It’s a really nice looking application, but for video sharing it’s limited as the only compatible video platform is Youtube.  As above, it also allows you to share your presentation on Twitter and other social networks too.

Behance Creative Portfolio Display – Behance is an artistic online folio sharing site that allows you to add a wide range of files (from video to PDFs)  to showcase your work. You can also embed from Vimeo, SoundCloud, YouTube, and more. The LinkedIn Behance App is called Creative Portfolio Display and allows you sync your Behance displays with your LinkedIn profile once you’ve linked your accounts.  It’s another really slick looking App – read more about it here. It did seem to take a long time to load however, so I’ve left an example on my LinkedIn profile if you’d like to see what I mean. Visit  http://au.linkedin.com/in/cazsoularch and you’ll need to click through to “View Full Profile” to see it.

So now you’ve hopefully singled out a method you’d like to try, here’s the step by steps. Remember the apps update all the time, so let us know if any of these instructions become outdated.

How to Add Video to your LinkedIn Company Page

Not familiar with LinkedIn Company Pages? There’s more info on them here. If you don’t have a company product page yet, while you’re creating your page you’ll be given an option to add video about your product or service (Step 10) while you’re setting it up. If you do have an existing Company Page, here’s how to add a Youtube video.

1.Go to your company page and open the “Product & Services” tab.

2. Select  “Add a product or service”

3.  Go to the box marked, “Step 10: Add a YouTube video about this product or service,” and add a title that clearly describes your video’s content.

4. Go to “Step 11. Add your YouTube video URL.” Copy and paste the URL from any video on YouTube.

Pretty easy, but the problem with this is your videos are hidden away on a company service page, and tucked right down in the bottom right hand corner out of view. If you’d like to see what I mean click the below link to visit the Soul Arch Media company page to test if you can locate our video – kind of like playing Where’s Wally. http://www.linkedin.com/company/soul-arch-media-&-marketing/video-production-gold-coast-brisbane-tweed-coast-sunshine-coast-and-byron-bay-203518/product

How to Add Video to LinkedIn Via Slideshare

Adding Videos to LinkedIn via the LinkedIN SlideShare app.

1.Install LinkedIn’s SlideShare app. Sign into LinkedIn, scroll down the left-side menu titled “More” and click into “My Applications”, select “Get More Applications”  then look for the “SlideShare” app, set preferences, and click “Add application”.

2. Go to the Upload page. Once you hit upload, it will give a “converting” status – this takes a few minutes.

3. The video is ready to upload to LinkedIn but will not appear until you “Manage Your Presentations” on LinkedIn for SlideShare.

Adding Videos to LinkedIn via SlideShare4.

1. Click “Manage Your Presentations”, click on your video and to the right will appear a menu . Click “Show On Profile” LinkedIn

2.Once you click “Show on Profile” a “confirm” message will appear for you to confirm, then the video will be uploaded to  both SlideShare and also on your LinkedIn profile.

How to Add Video to LinkedIn Via Google Presentations

For this one you’ll need to have your video uploaded to Youtube first.

1. Add Google Presentations to your profile. Sign into LinkedIn, scroll down the left-side menu titled “More” and click into “My Applications”, select “Get More Applications”  and look for the “Google Presentations” app, set preferences, and click “Add application”.

2. If you don’t already have a Google Presentation created to add the video to, then click “Create a Presentation”.

3. Insert Video. Once you have your first slide, click Insert>Video. You’ll get a YouTube search window. Find the video you’d like to add and then select it. Scale the video to the right size to fit your presentation.

4. If you also want to insert a link, click on the “Text” button and add the text you want to add. Click the “Link” button and add your URL to the link.

5. Share Your Presentation by clicking on the “Share” button.

6. Select Your Presentation from the screen on the left.

7. Click “Post To Your Profile”and you’re done!

How to Add Video to LinkedIn Via Box.net

1. Sign into LinkedIn, scroll down the left-side menu titled “More” and click into “My Applications”, select “Get More Applications” then look for the “Box.net Files” app, set preferences, and click “Add application”.

2. Follow the prompts to set up a Box.net account (http://box.net) if you don’t have one, or link the LinkedIn box.net application to you existing account.

3. Use Box.net’s menu to “upload” each file you want to make available through LinkedIn.  A browse window will allow you to locate the video you want to upload from your hard drive.  The file will then automatically be listed in the Box.net window in your LinkedIn profile.

How to Add Video to LinkedIn Via Behance Creative Portfolio Display

1. Sign into LinkedIn, scroll down the left-side menu titled “More” and click into “My Applications”, select “Get More Applications” then click into the “Creative Portfolio Display” app, set preferences, and click “Add application”.

2. Follow the prompts to set up a Behance account if you don’t have one, or link the LinkedIn application to you existing account.

3. Got to “Projects”. You’ll be able to upload video or embed video from Vimeo, YouTube, Blip.tv, Veoh, Mevio, Yahoo Video, MySpace Video and more by using the “Embed” button. This site requires you add lots of additional information before you can publish. Tip- you’ll need to create a “Cover” first by adding a title and image. Make sure you set your video/folio preferences to public, and allow it to be viewed on LinkedIn when prompted.

So there you have it. Remember these sites update ALL the time, so let us know if any of these instructions become outdated! Need assistance filming or editing your video? Contact the team at Soul Arch Media Gold Coast Video Production on 07) 55595551

With the Gold Coast tourism sector experiencing a slow start to the year thanks to the high Aussie dollar and a string of tragic natural disasters affecting major tourism markets, local operators have had to get clever with their marketing.

At Soul Arch Media we’ve noticed a big upswing in the use of online video tours boost internet interest. It’s a natural fit for the tourism industry since most holiday-makers research their vacations online, so the more information they can find about a hotel or service, the more likely they are to book. According to YPartnerships survey, 98 percent of travelers use the Internet to help plan leisure travel, and almost two-thirds (62 percent) of reservations were reportedly booked online,  so standing out online is imperative.

One cost effective way to increase visibility is by adding informative highlight videos to online listings and websites, and by using video on sites like Youtube and Facebook to act as advertisements driving traffic to online booking forms.

Our packages to suit resort complexes start from just $799-$1000, with the later including a 2-3 minute custom online video with professionally scripted voice over.

We strive to ensure we create videos to suit whatever style you’d like your resort to convey – from upmarket to cosy, or relaxing to action-packed.
For example, 19th Ave On The Beach Apartments in Palm Beach were aiming to give their property a really warm, friendly appeal with lots of ‘customer testimonials’ and a personal message of welcome from the managers. You can their video above.

For contrast, Aqaualine Apartments in Southport wanted a really fast-paced, upbeat video with lots of visuals – they were looking for a short and sharp video with dynamic shots to showcase the appeal of the area, slowing the pace down a little when showing the actual property to convey a sense of sanctuary amongst the action. You can view their video here:

Of course, video not only suits accommodation providers- it’s great for a whole range of tourism operators. Take a look at the video created for Gold Coast/Brisbane luxury transfers service Flashimos below.

At Soul Arch Media we also have a limited offer running at the moment where we throw in a distribution package too – meaning we’ll handle getting your finished video online via sites like Youtube and Metacafe, or can help you integrate video into Facebook and Twitter campaigns so your finished video not only assists clients visiting your website find out more about your resort, but also helps send traffic to your site from across the web as long as you’d like it to stay online at no additional cost.  Call Soul Arch Media today on 07 55595551 for more details!

Over the past two weeks on the Gold Coast the Heartwave Beach Walk and the Dot Wears A Dress Charity Silent Auction took place, and both aimed to raise funds for the QLD flood victims. The silent auction was a more intimate indoor event, while Heartwave was a fully-blown charity walk which culminated in around 500 guests forming a giant heart shape to send a visual message of love and support to those affected by flooding.

Soul Arch Media helped both events reach a wider audience through press release campaigns that saw both on the front cover of the Gold Coast Mail two weeks in a row!

A larger staggered State-wide campaign for Heartwave also saw the event profiled on radio stations ABC Gold Coast, Sea FM, 4BC, and make page three news in the Gold Coast Sun. Pre-event notices were aired on Channel 7’s beach report and NBN and ABC’s community noticeboards, and event listings were integrated across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, with the event receiving major TV coverage on Channel 7, Channel 10, and nationwide on Channel 9 news.

Event sponsors like Billabong and Kelloggs included event info across their blogs, community sites like Connecting Southern Gold Coast, Creek to Creek Chamber of Commerce and Walking The Gold Coast all promoted the event beforehand, and surf media Surfers Village, ASB, Industry Surf and Gold Coast Surf did follow up stories. As the dust settles the media support is still continuing to roll in, but most importantly the event’s message reached it’s target audience when it was published in flood-affected areas covered by papers like the Ipswich Queensland Times and made national news – mission accomplished!

Soul Arch Media also created a video for Heartwave so that the event’s message could continue to be shared, check it out to see how the day unfolded.

Heading back to work/school/uni? Then we’ve got the perfect prize giveaway for you!

Swim into a world of blue cascades, open your eyes to the break of the day and jot down your hopes and dreams for the coming year with the Happy Days Diary 2011. The diary features 200+ pages of street and surf art alongside surf spot descriptions, shots by international photographers including Hilton Dawe, Ted Grambeau, and Steve Barolotti, feature stories on the marine environment, and plenty of space for notes and drawings, with weekly to do lists and holiday dates. The diary is a limited-edition run of 2000 copies, and was printed locally on Ecostar 100% recycled FSC certified paper with soy based inks. Happy Days Diary 2011 is available for purchase in select book stores, art galleries, surf and eco stores, and online at http://www.happydaysdiary.com.

Want to win a copy? We’ve got TEN to give away valued at $29.95 each. To be in the running simply sign up to follow us on Twitter, become a fan of our Facebook page, or sign up to receive our bi-monthly newsletter by the end of the week and you’ll be entered into the random draw. If you’re already signed up to one of the above, relax – existing fans are automatically included too! We’ll be mailing prizes to winners on Monday, so get cracking.

For Mum:   Alexami Natural Cosmetics

Special Christmas packages from Alexami Cosmetics make the perfect gift

Sheer mineral makeup, vegan lip gloss and herbal mineral mascara are just a few of the luxurious yet natural products that Alexami makes that every mum will adore.  Gold Coast based Alexami Cosmetics is found in premium salons and spas, and is now shipping its professional grade cosmetics around the world. Check out their special Christmas packs for that perfect gift, or buy a voucher so mum can select her own Alexami beauty essentials.

Local Stockists:

Teya May at Vanity Hair Salon, Mermaid Beach 07) 5575 2021

Serene Beauty and Medispa, Tugun 07) 5521 0688

Online: http://www.alexami.com

For Dad: Happy Days Surf-Art-Eco Diary

The Happy Days surf art eco diary is full of captivating surf images & artwork

Don’t have money to send Dad on an exotic surf trip?  Let the world’s best surf photographers and emerging artists take him on a journey in the Happy Days Diary 2011. It features 200+ pages of street and surf art alongside surf spot descriptions, shots by locally-based international photographers including Hilton Dawe and Ted Grambeau, feature stories on the marine environment, and plenty of space for notes and drawings, with weekly to do lists and holiday dates. The diary is a limited-edition run of 2000 copies, and was printed locally on Ecostar 100% recycled FSC certified paper with soy based inks. RRP: $29.95

Local stockists:

Sean Scott Galleries, Burleigh and Coolangatta: (07) 5599 1150

Online: http://ww.happydaysdiary.com

For the Kids:  Monster Baby Clothing

Monster Baby Evel Tee

Monster Baby is a Gold Coast-based business run by two mums that design hip & fashionable threads for little people. Try their EVEL T for your little Evel Knievel– 100% cotton t-shirts available in Sizes 00-5years: RRP $35 in assorted colours & styles. Or how about their ROCKABILLY DRESS – gorgeous 100% cotton dress with print: RRP$49.95 – Available in sizes 0-5 years. For bubs, Monster Baby’s online store also stocks the Elodie Details STROLLER PALS – cute & quirky gifts perfect for newborn babies this Christmas! Assorted colours and designs from RRP $19.95

Local Stockists:

Substance, Coolangatta (07) 5599 5773

That Shop, Burleigh Heads (07) 5520 7511

Online: http://www.monsterbaby.com.au

For the Whole Family:  Family Fishing Picnic Packages  – Drift Takeaway & Tackle

Drift Takeaway and Tackle is located on Kennedy Drive Tweed Heads, just across from the beautiful Tweed River and main boat ramp. Take the whole family out fishing for the day with a no fuss family fishing pack. You don’t even need to pack your rods! Each picnic pack contains 4 x hand reels with line, hooks, sinkers and bait, plus a packed lunch including two of their famous burgers, two toasted ham and cheese sangas for the kids, and four cans of drink– basically all you’ll need for a fantastic low cost day out on the water for just $50. Or pop by and try their fantastic local coffee while you browse their range of fishing essentials – Christmas presents galore!

Drift Takeaway and Tackle 07) 55995520

45 Kennedy Drv, Tweed Heads

Online: http://www.fishingtweedriver.com

Merry Christmas ya’ll, wishing you and your family all the seasons’ best!

We’ve created a sister site at GoldCoastVideo.com to showcase all our local business videos to visitors to the area. We’ll be adding more videos in coming weeks, but pop by www.goldcoastvideo.com and see if your video is there under a relevant category! We figured it was a great way to ensure our clients get even more exposure with the videos we’ve created for them, and we’ve included links to their videos and sites so viewers can click straight through and order too. No charge, it’s all just part of the friendly service!
We’ve also started creating area guides for the Gold Coast to showcase here as well – including one for the Creek to Creek Chamber of Commerce region of Currumbin, Palm Beach and Tugun.  There’s lots of work yet to do, but let us know what you think!

The idea to set up came about as basically we get slammed with job applications from freelancers in related fields – photographers, copywriters, graphic designers and the like. A lot of these people are really insanely talented, but are floundering while trying to set up business, are new to the area, or simply don’t know what resources are around. We thought if we created somewhere online where people can connect with businesses that ‘overlap’ or work well together, it may be helpful for all involved. While all types of businesses large or small can benefit from networking and meeting other businesses with synergy, this seems especially true for creative industries – for example web designers need photographers to take photos for their sites, copywriters to write text etc so connecting them together seemed to make sense!

Plus there’s the support that networking brings. Many photographers and designers operate as a one man band working from home, without an office support network around to bounce ideas off.  So hopefully our little LinkedIn group can become a place where ideas are shared and collaborations start!

We’ve already work with a few of the photographers who have joined us on projects where the client required still images along with video, and intend to offer photo-video packages on our site. We’ve also passed some web design work onto group members too, and will be sure to pass on leads to others if they come our way. Our little band of freelance cameramen and videographers and copywriters just got bigger!

Work in a creative industry yourself?

Join the Creative Network Gold Coast LinkedIn Group here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=3110739