Why is branding important?

Branding a company or product familiarizes the consumer with a specific product or service. It allows consumers to associate the personality of the company or service with their own beliefs, feelings, opinions, and experiences. If effective, a company brand will make a consumer feel like they can relate at a personal level

What does branding do for your company?

Branding is the key concept that identifies a product or service. Symbols, signs, catchy names, special offers, etc. link a company name to a specific standard of quality in which the company has set for itself. Creating a brand experience that is unique and special triggers a consumer’s memory to associate their emotional attitude with the identity of the product or service being offered

What is effective branding?

It is important to know what elements comprise of an effective brand and the brand’s identity.

Here is a list of the top 4 branding elements.

• Brand Name – Tabasco, Kleenex, and Pepsi: these names have virtually replaced the identity of the type of product that it offers. It is no longer simply hot sauce, tissues, and soda. Brand Logo – The Raisin Bran Sun, The Energizer Bunny, and The Keebler Elf- These logos bond the imagery to the product. When we see these brands, we think to ourselves, wake up and have some Raisin Bran, keep your electronics moving with Energizer and cookies made by little elves in trees are delicious.
  Brand Tagline – You can’t get any closer, you’re going to like the way you look, I guarantee it, and Just Do It reference products as well as the product’s expectations. Norelco, The Men’s Wearhouse, and Nike have concentrated their brand into a single catchy phrase that tells the audience about the company’s goals.

Brand Colors – A company’s colors must reflect the service or product they offer. Food packaging and logos should have colors associated with edible items. Orange, brown and red are all colors found in basic foods and 90% of all food packaging includes these. If the product provides energy the product colors will demonstrate an immense amount of energy; like the neon green of Monster Energy drinks.

Creating an effective and memorable brand and brand image comes from consistency. Consistency starts with determining a specific Brand Name, Brand Logo, Brand Tagline, and Brand Color that can be used on every form of promotional media. If these 4 key elements were to be consistently changed, the public would constantly have to re-identify and re-familiarize themselves with your product..

Hello to all Todd Lucas: Singer/Songwriter supporters:
“THAT’S A WRAP!” exclaimed Evan Robichaud, Assistant Director, while on location at 6:45pm on July 24^th. It was a day earlier than scheduled and with the help of more than 30 crew members Todd Lucas: Singer/Songwriter is officially ‘in the can’. In the month since we sent out our last update, we completed all principal photography for the movie over 21 days of shooting. It was a grueling schedule and required a lot of hard work from everyone involved in order to pull it off but, we could not be happier with the way the shoot turned out and the quality of the images we captured.

Our first week of filming was set at, Co-Producer, Greg Smith’s house. Though temperatures soared and space was limited in the second-floor apartment, crew spirits were high as we quickly learned to work as a team and became very efficient. Our Art Department did a magnificent job transforming Greg’s place into a bachelor pad from 1985 where our title characters lived before making it big.

For the second week of shooting, we moved on to shoot all the scenes which take place at Eternity’s favorite dive bar, ‘The Dirty Bird’. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday required our small crew to pack in and out of the Ruby Room at 5am and 5pm so the music venue could continue its day-to-day business. Paul Smith, owner of the Ruby Room, was with us every step of the way offering help, and graciously extended our allotted time on our first day. Again, our crew was up to the challenge (although sleep-deprived) and we got all the shots we needed. The last three days of the week took place at a house on loan from home-owners, Richard and Kathryne Thorpe. This “Expensive House” served as the lavish home of our title characters following their rise to fame. So, of course, in addition to gaudy décor, the place was fully stocked with a pair of DeLoreans, tons of Rubik’s Cubes, and an original 1982 arcade game.

Week three was our most challenging and ambitious week. Starting at a new location almost every day and managing large numbers of cast/ extras pushed the limits of our production team, but by this time we had already been working together efficiently and got the job done. The week started off in Point Loma, at Old Venice Restaurant, where we shot a number of scenes during the day. Later in the week, Jon Gries (Napolean Dynamite, Lost, The Rundown) was on set for three days to play the role of Barry Goldfield Jr., the band’s record producer. Barry’s father was portrayed by the great Martin Kove (The Karate Kid, Rambo, Cagney & Lacey), and the two paired perfectly together on screen as father and son during a record signing scene at Lou’s Records in Encinitas. Lou Russell, owner of Lou’s Records, was on hand to ring up many of the cast and crew members for purchases they found while working a long day in his store. We also had more than 30 extras on set that day to help us capture the enthusiasm for the event. A number of other scenes that week were shot at the old Department of Transportation building, including our imitation American Idol scene, an elevator scene, and all of Barry’s office scenes.

Saturday the 21^st was our final day of full crew and we were fortunate enough to have the talents of Eric Roberts on set; as the manager of BJ Maxx. St. Vincent De Paul Thrift, in Escondido, was transformed into our 80′s apparel store by our ever-impressive Art Department, led by Jason Kisvarday. Even more impressive was that BJ Maxx represented the third store overhaul of the week for our Art Department and they delivered again, adding incredible depth and texture to our world.

With the production phase of the movie now complete, our post-production team has a lot of work ahead of them, but we hope to have a final cut completed by early 2013. Again, thank you all for your continuing support during this great undertaking; we couldn’t have made it this far without all of you and appreciate your continued support. Congratulations to the cast and crew for a job well done, we are sure that all of their hard work will pay off on screen.

Thanks to all of your support, Todd Lucas: Singer/Songwriter was successful in reaching it’s funding goal on Kickstarter and so, Sidecar Productions will be making our first feature-length film.


We have a lot of work to do to get the movie off the ground and are still looking for help. If you or someone you know is interested in working on a feature project or invest in a film, please contact us.

Thanks for all of the support and viva Todd Lucas.

Thank you for visiting us here at Sidecar and welcome to our new website. Sidecar has been in production since 2005 and it’s time we had a website that reflected all the goodies, videos and functionality we have created in the past 7 years of doing business. It took some hard work to put all of our creative abilities under one roof but the result is something we are proud of and we hope you like it is as well.

Enjoy our first commercial, checkout our demo reel, and search for ‘Easter Eggs’ that show how fun and entertaining a business website can be. As you peruse our site, we’d love to hear any ideas to make it better, more enticing, or viral. Sidecar is nothing without our network of small businesses, family, and friends, so drop us a line on our contact form; tell us what you like, what you hate, and what you think could use improving on our site.

Our website was built completely ‘in-house’. Any element of this project can be delivered to your business, your start-up, or the company you work with. Our goal was to create a site where our potential customers can experience interactive media online and ask “How do I get that on my site?” The answer is simple, give us a call so we can start discussing your message, your vision, and your goals.

Have a great 2012 and please keep in touch. Sidecar Productions… Video and Web in Motion.