Tuesday, September 10, 2013

David Ring: A Real Miracle Story

I've been reading a book on the life of David Ring, the man who, at infancy, was announced dead and remained so for 18 minutes. As he miraculously resurfaced to life, the lack of oxygen to his brain would develop a condition called Cerebral Palsy which he would have to struggle with for the rest of his life.

Cerebral palsy (CP) can be defined as a central motor dysfunction affecting muscle tone, posture and movement resulting from permanent, non progressive defect or lesion of the immature brain.
David's father passed away when he was only 11. His mother died when he was 14. David became a recluse and forsake the word of God and refused to connect with people around him.


It wasn't until he gave his life to Christ, and felt the creator's absolute acceptance of him, that David's life made a a complete 180. Within 2 weeks of being bullied by his fellow students, he was voted vice-president of the senior body, Mr. School Spirit. He also became the manager of the football, basketball and track teams.

He has since gone on to marry a wonderful woman, have children and become an internationally
renowned Pastor speaking to thousands upon thousands.

In his book, he says:

"You might walk OK. You might talk OK. But down deep in your heart you are saying, "I'm in pain."
We all hurt today, folks, but we are asking the wrong questions. We are asking, "Why, why, why?" Don't ask why, ask what! "What can I become because of the situation? How can I glorify God?"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A Story of Salvation

Last week, a young man by the name of Emil Haroutunian approached me and asked if I could help make a video that might possibly change his life. With that kind of approach, he certainly had my attention. Over a brief meeting at Coffee Bean, he explained his dreams of going to a Theology school that would help him develop a nice balance between knowledge and practicality.

He then shared with me about an opportunity that he had just learned about. Eternity Bible College was holding a contest where they asked participants to create a 4-minute video talking about who they were before Christ, how He changed their life, and why they want to attend the school.

The Youtube Video with the most "LIKES" would win an entire year of tuition absolutely FREE.

The launch date was a week earlier and the deadline was fast approaching, so we had no time to waste.

DAY 1 - We drove to Santa Monica and filmed some B-roll on the pier, then on the beach and even captured some candid moments in the Farmer's Market crowd.

DAY 2 - The following day, I filmed Emil playing in the worship band before teaching a short lesson to the Jr High Kids and High school students. Now, all that was missing was his testimonial. Luckily, with Armen's help, we accessed the church library and used it as a symbolic setting to talk about visions of academia.


DAY 3 - Back to work, I edited an hour's worth of footage and condensed it into 4 minutes.

The video was completed and uploaded at 6PM today and it already has 140 LIKES, just 4 1/2 hours later. By Wednesday, it will have accumulated 1264 views and 268 LIKES.

I pray that Emil has a blessed journey and that he gets all the likes needed to get into Eternity Bible School.

If you haven't viewed the video, please click on the LINK to be redirected to YOUTUBE and click LIKE to be a part of this success story.






Saturday, July 27, 2013

Using a Chevy Camaro as a Dolly

When I was 17 years old, I couldn't afford a doorway dolly or any other dollies for that matter. The poor man's tracking system generally consists of placing the camera on an office chair and pushing it on a smooth surface. I did things differently.

I asked my friend Marcel to drive my 1988 Chevy Camaro, while I laid down on the hood
to get a smooth tracking shot of poles in the parking lot. After filming for 10 minutes,
Marcel stopped the car.

Without breaking focus or lifting my eye from the viewfinder, I made quick circles with my
index for him to resume.

"Come on, let's move!"

I felt the transmission change gears to PARK.

Finally, I raised my head to see what was wrong when I realized there was a tall police officer
standing next to the car and staring me down with a very serious look.



"Hello Officer."

"Do you know why I stopped you?" He asked.

"Hmm... I'm... not sure." I said trying to gather my thoughts. I could have thought of a lot of reasons. Trespassing. Filming without permit...

"You're not wearing your seat-belt," he said.

A cop with a sense of humor!

I let out a relieved chuckle but I knew I was still not out of the wood. I explained to him with quite a lot of enthusiasm what an incredible shot I had in mind.

"Officer! Imagine this... the camera past past the parking meters in the deserted lot.
That would be so amazing and visually... so... POETIC! Don't you think?"

Gulp*

He looked at me with his lips forming a subtle smile. My passionate plea must have worked
because he let us off the hook without a ticket.

"I don't want you to do this again. Next time, I'm giving you and your driver a ticket."

"Yes Officer. Thank you. Thank you very much."

Before leaving, he even suggested some very creative ways to build a wooden shelf on the passenger side window to elevate the camera and keep it steady and create a great dolly shot.

Whether he was a cinephile or a weekend filmmaker, I'll never know. But one thing's for sure,
he was a good guy with a good sense of humor.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Anti-Bullying PSA starring Joey King directed by Shervin Youssefian

I've worked on a ton of commercials with my producing partner Danny Simonzad, but we had never done a PSA. As I was doing research for a feature film that I'm writing about high school kids finding new ways of combating bullies, I picked up a book called "Dear Bully." It was a collection of short stories written by well-known authors and the one that jumped at me was a story called "The Eulogy of Ivy O'Conner" by New York Times best selling author Sophie Jordan.

It wasn't so much the story that grabbed me, but the ferociously and fearless style in which it was told. I had never seen such an innovative way to write. So I thought... What if we found a way to show this visually while keeping faithful to Sophie Jordan's work? Was it possible?

The best ideas are simple and undeniable. With that vision in mind, we set off to find the right person to play the role of Ivy, a secluded teen girl who finds it hard to deal with her bullies. Working with talented casting director Sarah-May Levy, we convinced Joey King to be a part of this anti-bullying PSA. Joey had just come off of some mega budget productions such as Oz the Great and Powerful, White House Down and Dark Knight Rises, but the issue was close to her heart, so she accepted.

Spot On Media also got support from www.StompOutBullying.org a national Anti-Bullying organization that helps increase awareness and equips teens and parents to fight off bullying.

Shervin Youssefian and Geoff Reisner

We would have to shoot Joey on green screen and recreate the environment completely with CGI. This meant having to build a Green Screen Treadmill.

Spot On Media is now in the post-production phase and I'm hoping to see the final version in only a couple of weeks. In the meantime, here is an exclusive still from "The Eulogy of Ivy O'Conner."

PHASE 1 OF ANIMATION


PHASE 2 OF ANIMATION


PHASE 3 OF ANIMATION
"The Eulogy of Ivy O'Conner" starring Joey King. Written by Sophie Jordan, Directed by Shervin Youssefian
"The Eulogy of Ivy O'Conner" Starring Joey King, Directed by Shervin Yousefian

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

A Dream Come True Part 2: An article in the Local Paper!

Woman who has worked at a San Marino dry cleaners since 1992 now has her own 6-song CD.By Ryan Vaillancourt

As she toiled through a hapless marriage bound for eventual divorce, while moving with her two children to France from her native Iran and then, in 1992, to Glendale, a somewhat secret talent helped Jasmin Youssefian keep her cool.“She’s gone through a lot of hardships and made some really tough decision in our lives, as far as being a single parent,” said Shervin Youssefian, 29, Jasmin’s son, who is a Hoover High School and owner of Spot On Media, a Glendale based Commercial Production Company. “And while we moved from Iran to France and from France came here, we had to make a lot of changes, and she really had to keep all of us together. Even though there was a divorce when I was 18, she really stuck through it, but she always, I would always hear her sing.”
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It was through song — in any of the five languages she speaks — that Jasmin Youssefian was able to express her emotions, he said.“A lot of people really took that for granted,” he said, “including us.”Fast-forward 14 years since she arrived in the United States with her son and daughter, Sherly Youssefian, 25, and Jasmin’s little talent is not so secret anymore.Though she still works six days a week at the same San Marino dry cleaners that hired her in 1992, Jasmin’s now selling her own CDs by the bundle to longtime friends and customers.On his mother’s 53rd birthday in October, Shervin surprised her with a trip to a Glendale recording studio.He had made arrangements with the studio to record one song to put on an album to share her talent with friends and family. When they strolled into the studio, with its sound-proofed walls, bevy of instruments and computer equipment, Jasmin Youssefian got giddy.“Oh, I was just laughing like a crazy person, crying, too,” she said. “I couldn’t control myself....

This was one of the big miracles for me.”Working with a studio producer, she launched into the first song that came to her mind — a Farsi love song — which they recorded in two takes, she said. Impressed by her pipes, the producer invited Youssefian to come back in a few weeks to record some more songs, for free.She obliged, and a month later, her son ordered 300 copies of a six-song album called Love Songs from Faraway Lands.Her son, and pseudo-manager, also created a website to hawk the discs at www.jasminalbum.com.All heartfelt, romantic love songs that she learned as a child, Youssefian sings in Farsi, Turkish — a language she culled from her Turkish nanny in Iran — Armenian and French.“I didn’t know she sings,” said Anni Kauppi McConnell, a seven-year customer of Youssefian’s at the dry cleaners and one of many who bought the album. “I have to admit, I was amazed.... it reminded me of Portuguese fado.”With support from her friends and family, and her musical talent no longer a secret, Youssefian hopes she can sell enough discs to raise funds to record another album.

It’s a prospect that has led some of Shervin Youssefian’s friends to suggest that he could end up turning a sweet profit in the music business, his mom playing the key role.“You know I’ve had some friends say ‘you’re going to make some money,’” he said. “But I said ‘No way.’ I’m not getting any money out of this. This was my promise to her. This is all for her.”

__________________________________

For more information about Jasmin and to purchase the album, visit www.jasminalbum.com.
www.SpotonmediaTV.com
800.507.0159
818.246.SPOT
Commercial Production

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A Lifelong Dream Come True

When was the last time you made someone's dream come true?

In this day and age, it's hard to even concoct a dream, let alone realizing them. Dreams are just not in vogue anymore. Wait, I don't even think the word "vogue" is in vogue anymore. So many things we can buy now that'll make us happy... who needs dreams anyway?

The story I'm about to share with you is not about me or any of my dreams. It's about an woman by the name of Hasmik which means Jasmin in Armenian. For those of your who are not botanically inclined, Jasmin is a shrub or vine having fragrant flowers emply used in perfumery.

Jasmin arrived in the US with her two kids in August of '92. Being a single parents, she started right off the bat, working at a family-owned Dry Cleaning store. After paying all the bills including a hefty college tuition for her teenagers, there wasn't much left at the end of the day. While she may have had a tremendous amount of ambition and charm, she remained at that Dry Cleaner's working 9 to 5. Why? It was fear that kept her there for the last 15 years and up to present day. Fear that she couldn't provide for her children as she had once promised she would as a single parent. Beware, a bad job can plague your spirit and it can stump your dreams until they're buried so deep into the ground that you can't see them anymore. You feel there's no way out unless you get fired or hit the jackpot.

Jasmin's customers and co-workers could never imagine the talent that she kept hidden on her side of the counter. A talent that no Dry Cleaner's employee could have and still work there. That gift was music and Jasmin's talent was in her voice, a voice of gold. A voice that has aged like wine through years of good and bad and terrible experiences. When you hear her throaty vocals, you are suddenly transported back through time and you can actually feel the heartache in her songs. Growing up, Jasmin would sing for whoever would listen. As an adult, she would a small group of friends and familiy after dinner and a round of quiet applause were enough to please her. Around her children, she would sing when she was happy. And she would sing when she was sad.

You may ask me how I know all this. You see, Jasmin is my dear mother, and I've grown up with her beautiful voice as the soundtrack of my life.

It was two months ago, in September of 2007, when a truly original and ingenious idea hit me. It was a random thought, but so perfect, that I knew nothing would stand in its way. With just a few hundred dollars, I was going to make my mother's greatest dream come true!On the following month, on the morning of October 4th, we woke her up for her birthday and took her to breakfast. While she may have been happy enough just by the mere fact that we had all taken her to breakfast, I told her the real surprise had yet to come. In fact, this surprise was so great that it would surely surpass any other gift she had or would ever receive in her life.Her mind started working overtime. "Did you sell a script?" "Is it something relating to your job?" "Something about Sherli?"What surprised me most was that all her questions revolved around me or my sister having attained some sort of success.

My mother had neglected her own aspirations for so long and that she seemed to have replaced her dreams with our dreams. Now, she couldn't grasp the surprise had nothing to do with us, but revolved entirely around her.We sat in the car and drove to Burbank and I gave her a series of clues such as "We're going to a house and a man is waiting for us there." "Is it Steven Spielburger hiring you to direct a movie?" she asked! "No, mother. And it's not Spiegelberger, it's Spielberg."Finally, we parked and walked toward the house.After knocking on the door, a young Armenian man opened still in his pajamas, then led us through the living room toward the backyard where another man was waiting. "Ok mother, now we follow him," as I observed my mother more confused than ever. Finally, the second man lead us into a small room built in the back of the house and as we walked in, my Mother slowly realized what was happening. The keyboards, the recording equipment, the professional microphone, the headphones and all the works. We were going to professionaly record her voice and mix it with a full arrangement of instruments.Needless to say, she was shocked. She burst into mad laughter for a good five minutes without completely comprehending what I was telling her. Once she came back down from 7th Heaven, she took a deep breath and approached the microphone. She took directions from the musician like a real pro as if she had done this sort of thing all her life. Maybe she had. Maybe she had rehearsed this exact moment a million times in her head. She sang her first song and everything was still. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Even the professional musician was shocked. "I see artists come and go all the time, but no one has the emotional depth that your mother has, and no one ever sings it perfectly the first time through!" he exclaimed.He had loved my mother's voice so much that he offered a second visit to record two more songs at no additional charge.

A few days later, we returned to record three more songs. The following week, we recorded three more songs. With the heartbreaking lyrics and music, and driven by powerhouse vocals, my mother's first music album was officially in motion and I was not going to stop halfway! I pulled all the stops. I charged my credit card and professionally designed a logo and a complete CD case, the whole works!

The Album entitled Love Songs From Far Away Lands was released yesterday on Monday, December 17th, 2007. Since its release, it has already sold 40 copies! You can imagine how ecstatic my mother is. You can just imagine how shocked her customers are as they admire the music in the store before they find out the tiny woman behind the counter is the singer with the powerful voice.

Now who says Dreams don't come true? If you have a dream and you have faith in God, please take stock in this story and know the truth about Dreams… Just like Jasmines, they will bloom in full fragrance if you never ever quit tending them.
To Buy your own copy, visit:
www.JasminAlbum.com
Production Company:
www.Spotonmediatv.com

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Shervin Youssefian, writer-director of Crossroad

Writer, director, and producer Shervin Youssefian has made a name for himself in as an artist capable of telling compelling stories through enhanced visual representation. Since writing his first screenplay at the age of 10 and making his first movie at the age of 12, Shervin Youssefian has immersed himself in the art of filmmaking, through short films, commercials, and features. Shervin Yousefian attended USC and CSUN, graduating in 2002 with a degree in Film and Cinema Arts. It was at CSUN where Youssefian and partner Danny Simonzad made a 15-minute short called “Color Blind,” focusing on digital editing software as compared to manual visual manipulation. The film received numerous awards, including the Davis Film Festival Short Film Award and a Hollywood Foreign Press Fellowship Award.
Writer-Director of Crossroad
Shervin Youssefian directing a national Anti-Bullying PSA with celebrity teen Joey King.
After graduation, Youssefian worked in the advertising industry, where he honed his skills as a meticulous director and thoughtful screenwriter. Needing a change in 2007, and in response to his professional success throughout Los Angeles, Youssefian and Danny Simonzad founded Spot on Media, a multimedia production company that has created hundreds of commercials for television, radio, and web for clients including Nissan, ING, ABC, Coke, and Honda.
Filmmaker Shervin Youssefian
Shervin & Arsine Youssefian
In 2013, Youssefian and Spot On Media released Crossroad, a feature film written and directed by Youssefian. Crossroad has received numerous awards and accolades, including Best Feature, Best Screenplay, and Best Performance from the 2013 Attic Film Festival, and Best Ensemble Cast at the Monaco Charity Film Festival. Built upon the success of Spot On Media in both the advertising and film industries, Youssefian plans to produce an anti-bullying PSA to bring attention and awareness to the devastating effects bullying can have on the lives of children. The project, entitled, “The Eulogy of Ivy O’Connor” is based on a gripping short story by New York Times Bestselling Author Sophie Jordan.
For more information on Shervin YousefianSpot On Media, “Crossroad,” and more, please visit the following sites: