We’re proud of our pro-bono work for the Semper Fi fund that aids injured Marines and Sailors – but don’t want to be accused of taking sides in a rivalry that dates back more than two centuries.

So a Manning HD crew was on hand at the U.S. Military Academy at Westpoint to document the presentation of a new Army Football truck donated by Navistar Defense.  The LoneStar vehicle was custom painted with rich graphics that salute the Black Knights and vow to defeat the midshipmen from the Naval Academy.

The footage of the ceremony and the cadet pep rally will be used to showcase Navistar’s support of our troops.  They can take sides – the Navy probably doesn’t use as many trucks.

We here at Manning have been known, on occasion, to go on at length about incorporating multimedia elements, especially video, into websites. It’s a subject near and dear to our hearts, and not just because we come from a film background; we love including video because it works. In our experience, video successfully engages users, effectively communicates messages in a genuine fashion and engenders conversation among viewers.

One of our long time clients – award winning cameraman Norman Lloyd – happens to agree with this concept so much that he created an entire non-profit organization called The Commitment & Sacrifice Foundation, which is dedicated to producing and distributing films that help active duty soldiers, veterans and the general public come to terms with the experiences of war, it’s after-effects and the healing process of talking about these experiences.  Obviously, when Norman came to us to design and develop his fledgling foundation’s website, we knew the bread and butter of his site would be its films.

Embedded video player on the C&S Foundation

Manning wanted to make sure we gave the Commitment & Sacrifice Foundation’s visitors instant access to Norman’s films, without compromising the overall look and feel of the site by haphazardly plugging in un-customized players. We also felt it was necessary to provide Norman with a feature he could easily update himself. In addition, because his films are theater quality, we thought it would be a value added feature if visitors could view the films at full screen. These three requirements lead us to choose Vimeo, a third party video hosting platform, custom tailored to the film community. For an annual fee, we upgraded to the ‘Vimeo Plus’ package, which allows users additional weekly uploads, unlimited HD videos, HD embeds, 2-pass video re-encoding that results in higher quality, priority encoding, and more. It also presents the user with easily-customizable features such as adjusting the player’s buttons, uploading new trailers, and tweaking current videos.

Now, whenever someone comes to the Commitment & Sacrifice Foundation website, they’re able to instantly view these trailers, read where they’ve been shown and awards they’ve won, and most importantly, read testimonials from people affected by the very same movie.  If there’s a  more powerful impetus to donate, we can’t think of one.

We officially launched the Commitment & Sacrifice Foundation’s new site on November 10th, just in time to support one of his films – Shakey’s Hill – as it’s broadcast nationally on the Military Channel in honor of Veteran’s Day. So check out the site and be sure to tune in Nov 12th from 9-12 ET on the Military Channel!

Question: How do you fit two 2-ton trucks into one 13 foot high studio?

Answer: Very carefully.

We recently did an HD shoot at Resolution Digital Studios for Navistar. After some hand wringing and lots of measuring, the trucks were in and ready for their close-up.