Green Business Policy

Digital media is an intrinsic part of our everyday lives. For that reason, Blue Sky is dedicated to making world-class media creation accessible, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly.

Energy Savings

The Blue Sky LightGrid technology uses fluorescent lighting, which is 90% more energy efficient than its traditional tungsten counterpart. This efficiency is made even more impactful when combined with the time that Blue Sky LightGrid saves by having a lighting system that captures still photographs and live video in a single, fully integrated space.

Environmental Impact

Customers have reported an up to 75% reduction in the amount of time it takes them to do a shoot using Blue Sky LightGrid over traditional methods. A shorter shoot time means less energy and resources are being consumed overall. This includes a smaller carbon footprint from less employee travel as well as less garbage/ waste as a result of being able to accomplish the same tasks with a smaller staff.

Education

Blue Sky LightGrid as an Interactive Educational Resource

Jonathan Simpson Bint, President of Brand Narrative

The LightGrid is an interactive, state-of-the-art creative space where anyone can produce world class content for the internet, social networks, marketing materials, or simply for fun, in just minutes. Using a patented, algorithm controlled technology, users employ a simple touch screen interface to choose and control the light within the grid. So powerful is this tool that the LightGrid can professionally light anything from a cookie to a complex video in less than 30 seconds - saving the hours of set up traditionally needed to accurately light almost any studio set up. Further, because the LightGrid is a fully self contained environment, it acts as a neutral space where students, families and friends can come together and create their own content, art, events, media and memories without feeling self conscious in any way.

We already have a fully functioning LightGrid in San Francisco and it is currently booked by photographers, designers, studio managers, entrepreneurs, rappers, musicians, aspiring actors, families, teenagers and kids - all eager to take advantage of the world class still and live action output that it provides.

As the world becomes ever more obsessed with the way we each present ourselves and our businesses on social media. The place where people meet to create their own media and tell their own stories. The place where social media ceases to be something we know only through the computer monitor, and actually becomes a point to create in the physical presence in our lives.

Uses of the LightGrid in an Academic Environment

Galen Davis, Stanford University

The development of the LightGrid has the potential to expand multimedia use for administrative, promotional, and educational purposes at an academic institution. Not only does its capacity to "democratize lighting" for photography and filmmaking have enormous cost-saving potential, but it also would serve to make work shot in the space look elegant and professional on a level not previously possible without significant temporal and financial investments.

Potential Uses

Student Use for Class Projects. The LightGrid has many obvious uses for students in engineering-related fields, such as professionally photographing design projects or capturing experiments on camera. That said, some of the most creative uses of multimedia today occur in the humanities. Students increasingly use multimedia to express themselves and instructors increasingly recognize the validity and complexity of self-expression in media other than text. Furthermore, this 'millennial' generation of students possesses considerable technological acumen and rhetorical awareness that often render multimedia projects more appealing to them than writing a final paper. If the LightGrid were available, it seems clear that we would see an increase in the number of amazing class projects.

Theatrical/Performance Use. On-campus theater groups - both those within the Drama Department as well those run by students - use multimedia in some of their theatrical performances as well as for promotional materials. Drama students hoping to start an acting career might also want to purchase time on the LightGrid to get headshots. Similarly, student-run film groups would almost certainly be interested in the LightGrid. It might even spawn student-run organizations, such as a new film-based sketch comedy group.

Enhancement of departmental websites. Many departmental websites are far behind the times. The on-campus availability of a professional studio may inspire department administrators and local IT within those departments to update and enhance their websites to a more "web 2.0" level.

Enrich teaching portfolios. Tenured and non-tenured instructors alike may benefit from filming themselves speaking on a particular topic and having that edited into a tight piece that demonstrates their teaching skill, depth of knowledge, and general facility with public speaking. It would be worth consulting with a faculty member who regularly interviews postdoctoral candidates for faculty positions whether they think a short video along these lines would enhance a candidate's teaching portfolio.

An advising tool for courses, particularly required courses. The Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) is the humanities requirement at Stanford spanning all three quarters of students' first year on campus, requiring enrollment in a fall interdisciplinary course in addition to a winter/spring disciplinary sequence. (About 100 students may also elect to take a residentially-based program, Structured Liberal Education, which also satisfies the IHUM requirement.) IHUM does as much as it can to help students make informed selections when they rank their preferences so that they are confident with their choices and satisfied with their assignment. To that end, IHUM in recent years has filmed, edited, and posted interviews with IHUM lecturing faculty that have volunteered to do so, but the quality of these videos with respect to lighting and sound is sub-par. A more professional look and feel combined with strong editing would make for a more entertaining and informative video that more students would watch, which could also more easily be linked together with identical visual themes that could be as simple as a white background. (Currently interviews are filmed without professional lighting in the faculty members' offices.) With a clearer sense of the faculty's personality, material knowledge, and lecture style, portrayed through a video with seemingly high production value, students may more readily take ownership of their choices and consequently feel more in control of their Stanford education. It would also demonstrate Stanford's commitment to helping students make informed choices about their General Education Requirements (GERs).

iTunes University. This initiative partners Apple with selected universities to offer iTunes and its music store as a delivery mechanism for course-related multimedia material both publicly (to anyone with iTunes) and privately (to specific classes, utilizing the school's authentication system). The LightGrid offers possible ways to augment the success of this initiative by providing a professional studio in which to film any additional footage that might enhance the lectures and talks that go out.

Practicum teaching. One of the more obvious uses of the space is potentially for educating students regarding cinematic techniques. With the ability to isolate lighting as a variable, film courses could focus more tightly on other elements, such as narrative or sound design. It's inarguably an excellent tool for a directing class.

Public relations. With a professional studio, universities could more easily put together multimedia materials that showcase topics, classes, or individuals of their choosing. Similarly, if third parties wish to conduct interviews on campus, the LightGrid studio should be a chief location to conduct them.

Evangelizing about the importance of the humanities in liberal arts education. Along the same lines as "public relations," it seems that there is some important work to be done to address the increasing trend of pre-professionalism among students in American universities, in addition to a growing misunderstanding of the importance of the humanities. There is a website dedicated to this, humanexperience.stanford.edu, which focuses on what humanities faculty are doing on campus, and showcases interviews that they film. The LightGrid could be a valuable tool for them.

Q & A with McNair Evans, Educator / Photographer

Q: Give a summary of your thoughts on the LightGrid and its implications to education

A: Automation and mechanization have profoundly influenced the visual arts since the inception of photography. With new technological advancements there have been frustrations and counter-reactions within the artistic community. In either processes, acceptance or refutation, creativity is put to action and ultimately expands the medium's vernacular. Just as automatic cameras, self-contained film, and digital photography have expanded the ranks of photographers in both skill and number, so too will the automation of studio lighting.

A photograph is created by the convergence of technical precision and personal vision. Informed creativity will forever be taught in academic as well as professional situations, for without one of these two a successful photograph cannot be made. The visual implications of how light is used, i.e. formal and narrative utility, is far more important than it's actual application.

The automation of studio lighting will allow many people to apply visual effects previously unattainable due to a lack of training. At the very least, this increased usability will result in a tremendous expansion of visual output. At the very most, this will facilitate the creation of successful visual art, technically precise and creatively original.

The Company

The Company

Founded by William Delzell in 1996, Blue Sky Rental Studios (www.blueskysf.com) specializes in providing Bay Area film makers and photographers with the finest daylight studios and services available. Blue Sky has been working with the country's top businesses including numerous Fortune 500 companies for the past 14 years. Based in San Francisco, Blue Sky is Northern California's premier destination for commercial photography.

Phase Two of Blue Sky's growth plan came in 2006 with the introduction of Blue Sky People, an online database for real people. The Blue Sky People TalentBase is a specialized online tool designed specifically for Blue Sky clients and photographers to aid them in finding real people for their photography and video projects.

Continuing to expand our efforts of providing world class service and expand our reach both nationally and internationally, we recently entered Phase Three; The LightGrid.

The Mission

The Blue Sky LightGrid is a patent pending hardware and software system that lets virtually anyone create world-class media in a matter of minutes. This robotically controlled, computerized studio environment produces high quality, professional photographs and videos at the touch of a button and for a fraction of the cost of conventional media production. Our clients, who include Apple and Logitech, have already experienced measurable cost savings up to 75% using our 'beta' version of the LightGrid. The system can be operated by a professional or a novice - with no prior technical knowledge of lighting or photography - both attaining similar results. The Blue Sky LightGrid has the potential to transform media production for business, education and the consumer on a global scale. It promises to disrupt and transform an industry and create a universe of opportunities for our business partners.

In today's digital world, anyone can distribute pictures, video, and interactive content to a global audience with virtually no distribution barriers. The hardware currently used to capture photos and videos is inexpensive and readily available, yet there is still a dramatic difference in the quality of media produced by consumers and that produced by world-class image-makers.

The Blue Sky LightGrid bridges this gap, democratizing the process by enabling businesses and consumers alike to create professional media faster and more efficiently than ever. This technology has been researched, developed, tested, and built into a fully functional, revolutionary system. The LightGrid has been used to videotape performing artists and corporate executives, capture product photos and family photos, and it's even been used to launch national advertising campaigns. It produces gorgeous, repeatable high-definition video and still photos, making the Blue Sky LightGrid a one-stop destination for media creation.

Our mission is to design and manufacture the LightGrid, sell or lease the LightGrid to prospective business partners, and license our upgradeable proprietary software. In addition, we plan to expand our rental footprint. Not only in our current facility in San Francisco, but in future cities as well.

The Market

• Consumer and B2B Product Companies, particularly with e-commerce and catalog points of distribution. In 2008, the 500 top e-commerce companies (Amazon was #1 with $20B) reached sales of $115 Billion. That translates into a lot of photos, videos, and production costs. Targeting everyone who sells finished merchandise via e-commerce or catalog will be a priority.
• Marketing, Advertising and Talent Agencies, who have an enormous responsibility of providing quality content to their customers, can have more control and efficiency with this 'do-it-yourself' tool.
• Portrait Studios - a national industry from chains to franchises to small independents, in desperate need of access to the new frontier in quality photography and videography. This $5 Billion stable industry could see a strong spike in growth again if they choose to participate.
• Colleges and Universities. Students and Faculty would finally have a cost efficient way of producing media content such as videographies, streaming web seminars, and instructional content, all of which can easily upload to YouTube, Facebook, etc.
• Artists, independent photographers, producers, and small consumer products and marketing companies are our priority for rental business. Their numbers are staggering and their budgets are small; a perfect fit for the Blue Sky LightGrid. The focus will remain in San Francisco, and expand to Los Angeles, and New York, a radius that will provide strong traction for our brand.

Value Proposition

• Productivity Improvement - improve the bottom line without sacrificing brand image; the LightGrid promises efficiency that has never been seen before.
• Value - the R.O.I. is extraordinary; please review our testimonials in the Downloads section.
• Accessibility - for this level of quality, what was once a highly expensive and cost prohibitive production can now be available to everyone.
• Upgradeable Software - the entry strategy will consist of an intuitive touch screen interface capable of thousands of lighting scenarios; capable of HD and 3D as well.
• Customer Service - unparalleled service and 24/7 technical support.
• Guarantee - if something's not right, we'll make it so.

Competitive Advantage

• The Price - relative to quality is unheard of. No one has anything like it.
• The Product - the technology is new, unique, and protected by patent pending status
• The Simplicity - the interface promises to perform perfectly for everyone, novice or expert
• The High Entry Barrier - It would take a competitor significant time and resources to achieve what Blue Sky has accomplished to date. Over the past two years, we have invested heavily in developing this proprietary software and technology and plan on staying well ahead of the development curve with upgradeable formats via licensing renewals.
• The Team - we are focused on assembling an outstanding team of managers - starting with the Founder of Blue Sky and a proven industry leader. The team will possess the experience, relationships, focus, and passion required to deliver the best to our customers.

The People

WILLIAM DELZELL is the founder of Blue Sky Rental Studios, a premier professional photography studio in San Francisco, and Blue Sky People, an interactive, web-based photographic talent directory. Bill has over twenty-five years of award-winning commercial photography experience working with clients such as Apple, Sun, Sony, HP, and IBM, as well as the world's most talented photographers and filmmakers, from Richard Avedon to Annie Leibovitz. Prior to founding Blue Sky Rental Studios in 1996, Bill's photography could be seen on book covers, magazines, and industry publications worldwide, including the prestigious Communication Arts Photography Annual. Bill's unprecedented access to industry leaders has culminated most recently in the development of the Blue Sky LightGrid that promises to transform the photographer's landscape.

Bill is actively involved in the industry and the local artist community. His professional affiliations include The Advertising Photographers of America, APA, ASMP, Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Kodak Professional, and Fuji. Bill has been on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Digital Imaging Group and an advisor to the San Francisco Chapter of the APA Assistants Group. He has taught in the graduate department of the Academy of Art College. Relentlessly inventive, Bill has led the photographic community by creating the Annual Emerging Photographers Show, which has given a start to young photographers and a venue to present their work to leading members of the local advertising and design community.

Bill grew up in the Bay Area and graduated from The Art Center College of Design in Photography with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1983. Today he resides in Burlingame with his two children.

SCOTT MINNEMAN is an engineering designer whose work probes the intersection of collaborative practices, emerging technology and new forms of storytelling. Scott was named a Presidential Scholar, and holds degrees from MIT and Stanford, as well as 12 or so US patents. Scott's master's thesis at MIT was a telecommunication aid for the deaf population that allowed communicative partners to type their messages on a Touch-Tone keypad without their needing to do anything special to distinguish which particular letter on a given touch-tone key they intended. The invention was awarded first prize in the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America's annual student design competition. This system is essentially the predictive text ad keyboard disambiguation algorithm that has become known as T9, used on many cellular handsets today. Scott worked at Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), beginning as a student intern and then working in a variety of research capacities over his 15-year tenure there, always focusing on designing and prototyping novel systems that demonstrate the potential for using new technologies in real-use settings. As part of the PARC Artists in Residence (PAIR) program, Scott collaborated on art installations at Siggraph, Ansel Adams Center for Photography, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Scott's work has won Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards in ID Magazine's Interactive Media Design Review. Scott left PARC in 2001 to co-found Onomy Labs, Inc., where he is a creative principal as well as serving as Chief Technical and Chief Executive Onomist. Onomy Labs, Inc. melds art, engineering, science, and design methodologies in the conception and production of highly novel interactive devices. Working for corporations, museums, and academic institutions alike, Onomy takes cutting-edge technologies and fresh new ideas and transforms them into hands-on experiences for people. Their numerous interactives can be found in venues all over the world - Singapore, Mexico City, Disneyland and Disney World, the Baltimore City Planning Department, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Liberty Science Center, South Lake Union Discovery Center - with others in the works.

DR ANDREW ZOZ BROOKS is an an engineer, artist, roboticist, hacker, teacher and international television personality. His research focuses on engineering strategies for improving human-robot communication, based on work undertaken at the MIT Media Laboratory's Robotic Life Group. Besides human-robot interaction he maintains wide research interests in rapid prototyping and computer-controlled fabrication techniques. He co-hosted the internationally broadcast Discovery Channel television show Prototype This!, in which a small team of engineers was tasked with creating technically challenging, never-before- seen prototypes in a time span of two weeks. He also co-produced and appeared in the Discovery Chan- nel show Time Warp, devoted to high speed imaging of natural and scientific phenomena. He is devoted to the promotion of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and designs university- level classes to improve students' skills in design, fabrication and embedded systems implementation. He is also a popular public speaker, and gives invited talks in both academic and commercial research settings.

RICK LYONS has advised Blue Sky's management team over the past nine years, including the last two on the LightGrid. Mr. Lyons brings his 25 years of retail experience to Blue Sky's emerging consumer brand after having spent thirteen years with the Gap, culminating with 4 years as Executive VP of Gap Inc. and President of the company's Gap, Gap Kids, and Outlet divisions. He developed and executed divisional strategies including productivity improvement, expanding overall points of distribution, and building a premium brand, achieving $3.2B in sales in 1996.

He advised and worked with smaller creative start-ups such as Wine.com, Enson, and Fortezza Home. Mr. Lyons is on the Board of Good Tidings Foundation, a non-profit children's charity that actively supports education and athletics in the Greater Bay Area.

JONATHAN SIMPSON-BINT is the founder and CEO of Brand Narrative Inc, a social and media content agency based in Santa Cruz, CA.

Between 1993 and 2009 Jonathan was a senior manager at Future US, America's 12th biggest publishing company and one of the largest special interest media publishers in the world. He became President of Future US in February 2001 and led the company through almost a decade of sustained growth and profitability via launches, acquisitions and expansion in to digital media. Though a creative at heart, Jonathan is a highly accomplished and proven business leader with vast experience of the print, online and digital worlds as well as deep experience of understanding and satisfying the needs of consumers and customers.

Jonathan lives in the Santa Cruz mountains with his wife and three children.

IGOR ABRAMOV is a Counsel at Heenan Blaikie LLP and a Lecturer in Law at Stanford University Law School on Governance and Ethics.

Mr. Abramov focuses his practice on international trade and investment, corporate governance and governance matters. Prior to joining Heenan Blaikie, Mr. Abramov worked for 11 years in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce as senior advisor for International Trade and as director of the Good Governance Program. In this capacity, Mr. Abramov advised American businesses and the U.S. government on trade, investment, market access, intellectual property rights and commercial dispute resolution issues in Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia and Latin America.

In addition to practicing law, Mr. Abramov devotes his time to supporting good governance activities in Russia, Central America, Central Asia and Caucasus. He also is active in the Business Fights Poverty Community and serves on the boards of George Washington University's Institute for Corporate Responsibility and the Center for Corporate Governance and Business Ethics in Kazakhstan.

KENNETH (HAP) KLOPP was the founder of The North Face, where he served as President and CEO for 20 years. During that time The North Face was honored with many awards for being the best managed company in the outdoor industry, including being lauded by Business Week Magazine for providing one of the highest quality products of any company in the United States. Mr. Klopp led The North Face to its position as the largest and most successful company in its industry and one of the largest privately held companies in the San Francisco East Bay. After selling The North Face in 1990 Mr. Klopp founded HK Consulting, a company focused on creative business strategy, marketing and promotion and has augmented this work with investing and speaking engagements. Mr. Klopp is a periodic lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, the University of Utah School of Business, and Arizona State University School of Business.

Mr. Klopp is one of America's most imaginative and adventurous leaders. Adventurer and executive, he has spoken around the world on adventuring, leadership, entrepreneurship and the human side of management. Among other achievements, he established the mountaineering and backpacking industry through the development of his own company, The North Face, and along the way was highlighted on national television and in such publications as BusinessWeek, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, Success, and San Francisco Focus Magazine.

Mr. Klopp received both his AB in Political Science and his MBA in Marketing and Finance from Stanford University. He currently serves as Principal and Director of Ardica Technologies in San Francisco, CA.

JON LONG is a seven-year veteran of Blue Sky. Jon leads in the implementation of new systems and technologies, building the necessary infrastructure to maintain Blue Sky's growth. Since joining Blue Sky, Jon has helped to enrich the Blue Sky brand through inspired design on both the web and in print. Jon recently designed and launched Blue Sky's point-of-sale system which helps in handling the thousands of people and images in the Blue Sky People Talent Base. By incorporating state-of-the-art computer systems into Blue Sky's day-to-day operations, Jon has spearheaded the creation of streamlined processes that enable the company to expand rapidly and ultimately grow the bottom line.

Jon joined Blue Sky after nine years in retail, four of which were spent in management positions at Apple. His expertise in both technology and customer service helped him to achieve the company's number one retail sales metrics worldwide for three quarters in a row.

PETER ABRAMOV is a result oriented professional with a demonstrated record of consistently meeting and exceeding company goals and objectives. Peter has an extensive background in development and delivery of high-impact projects utilizing verbal acuity and technical proficiencies.

Mr. Abramov's professional experience includes sales management, motivational leadership and training, quantitative analysis reporting, and business development. He is currently employed by New England Financial in Foster City, CA.

Legal Advisor

ROBERT R. TUFTS was born in New York, NY on March 13, 1934 and was admitted to the New York and California bar in 1959 and 1960, respectively. Mr. Tufts received his B.A. from New York University in 1955 and his LL.B from Harvard University in 1958, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

He was the Consulting Editor and Author of two chapters of Drafting Agreements for the Sale of Businesses, Second Edition, 1988 and author and co-author of various Supplements and updates from February 1990 to date as well as author of Supplements to the First Edition from December 1975 through January 1986.

Mr. Tufts has served as Secretary, Governor and Executive Committee member of the San Francisco Symphony. He was a former Chairman of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission as well as the Port of San Francisco Waterfront Plan Advisory Board.

He is a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco and the New York State and American (Member, Sections on: Corporation, Banking and Business Law; Taxation) Bar Associations. He currently specializes in Corporate Law; Business Law; Business Start-Ups; Mergers, Acquisitions and divestitures; Taxation; and Securities.