We’ve been working hard over the past few months to deliver our best ever films to clients in a range of industries all over the country.

Now with our new website you can see what we’ve been up to, and let us know what you think.

We know that little sliver of website-y goodness isn’t enough, so check out the real thing right now!!

Our very own Katrina Atherton celebrates winning ‘Breakthrough Business of the Year’ for A Star Media at the 2011 Enterprising Women Excellence Awards, which took place at Chatsworth House.

Katrina said:  ”I’m absolutely astounded to not only have been short-listed as a finalist, but to have actually won the award. We have worked really hard this year to further establish the business and this award is not just for myself, but also for my business partner John.”

Katrina was also a finalist in the ‘Enterprising Business Woman of the Year’ category.

Jean Mountain, Chair of the Chamber’s Enterprising Women group, said: “Many congratulations to all of the winners of this year’s Enterprising Women Excellence Awards.

These enterprising women make an important contribution to the local economy and their success stories will hopefully inspire many other women to pursue their business dreams and these awards are all about acknowledging and celebrating those achievements.”

We had a great time and it was fab to see so many familiar faces at the awards. We were runners up along with The Elm Tree Pub in Elmton and Aware Monitoring was named as the winner in our category ‘Most Promising New Business’.

Turning our attention the Derbyshire branch of the ‘Best Business Awards’ our friends at OVISO (you can see our film on their homepage) won the ‘Most Promising New Business’ accolade! We’re thrilled to bits for them.

All in all a good result, and we’d like to send our congratulations to all the finalists and winners.

Vodcasts are ‘Video On Demand’ Casts, basically web based films that users can watch at their leisure. Vodcasts are a great way to regularly communicate with your target market, and can be created quickly and easily to create recurring content, just like a blog.

When producing a Vodcast sometimes it’s best to call in the experts, but if you regularly want to create film content to promote your business, improve the optimisation of your website and share information with existing and potential customers, sometimes it could be good to do it yourself.

Creating simple and effective films is easy, but it’s also really easy to get it wrong. Like anything to do with your business you want to get the quality right, it’s got to do your brand a favour and not be a little marketing experiment that’s kept out of sight.

Over the last few years we’ve developed some simple tricks to make any film better, and the best thing is we’re going to share them with you!

Our Vodcast training sessions will teach you the basics in how to create a great online video. We’ll show you basic camera techniques and how to set up your very own YouTube channel and we’ll introduce YouTube’s free tools to keep track of how successful your videos are.

Training will be given over a morning session, with breakfast provided along with the opportunity to network with fellow delegates.

Places are limited and are charged at £25 per person plus VAT.

Our next session will be held on Friday 7th October at Forever Green in Mansfield. Contact us to book your place.

A clear explanation can often turn something difficult into something easy, but giving a clear explanation over the web can sometimes be hard.

To help their users understand their service A Star Media was recently asked to produce a film for new auction site www.bidgrid.co.uk explaining how to use the site, and not to blow our own trumpet too much, but it’s pretty awesome!

We also helped the site developers get their film on Facebook and YouTube and since its launch the film has received over 700 views!

What’s the moral of the story? Film is the best way to show users how your stuff works, simple!

If you want to know more, just give us a shout, we’ll be happy to help!

We ended last week on a high as we found out we’ve made the final of Nottinghamshire’s Best Business Awards 2011 in the ‘Most Promising New Business’ category.

The awards are facilitated by the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, to recognise the importance of celebrating homegrown business talent, and we’re thrilled to have made the final cut!

The award ceremony is on 23^rd September, and we’re already really excited. You can find out all about the awards on their blog, which is a stomping good yarn!

YIPPEE!!

We hope you’re all happy and well this Friday. We’ve not had chance to post another Video wow from the depths of YouTube because we’ve been so busy…

However when we find a great Viral Video on the internet we love to share it and today is no exception. A great music video with 1,423,046 views as of today – WOW.

Love angry birds on your Phone? Then you’ll love this!

Watch, share and enjoy! Check back each Friday for more Viral Video WOW’s

In 2006 Google, the worlds largest online search engine purchased Youtube for a billion dollar figure. Since then, Youtube has evolved to complement and support Google as a video sharing and search engine service.

With this in mind it comes as no surprise that Google’s own video sharing platform, Google Video, will be closing down for good in a about a months time. With the power and popularity of Youtube, and also services like Vimeo and Dailymotion (alternate video sharing platforms online) many of us online video users won’t be affected.

However, if you do use Google Video then take note: in a months time your video will be gone! By april 29th you wont be able to play the videos back, and by May 13th you will no longer be able to download your original videos either!

So, if you’re a Google Video user for business or for pleasure, now is the time to check if you still have your original sources files and download them back from Google before they are deleted forever!

Like reading our blog? Then you’ll love our video production Youtube Channel!

It’s nearly the weekend and it’s time for another Video WOW from the A Star Media Team. Every Friday we like to share some of our favourite viral videos from the world of YouTube!

This week is another double bill with two very clever product viral videos!

First, an advertisement from MySky using the heroic voice of Matt Berry (ITcrowd/Darkplace) a clever advert that says a lot in just one minute

Next, a surreal viral from the makers of Juicy Fruit chewing gum

Viral videos are an exciting and inventive way to showcase your products and services without directly selling to your audience. Instead you entertain and encourage the video to be shared whilst carrying your brand message! Check back next week for more end of the week fun from Video WOW!