About every 14 months, Richard Boghosian has to purchase a new computer setup for Bogh AV Productions, his video production company. It’s not that his Apple computers wear out that quickly, but because software and hardware change so rapidly.
“In order to take advantage of the newest software, you have to have the newest hardware,” Boghosian said recently. Updating the video-editing computer system costs about $10,000 each time it needs to be done, but “it’s not as bad as it used to be.
“In the past, you’d buy a system that was pretty much locked in at $50,000 to $60,000 and let … it run until it breaks down, which, unfortunately, is quite often,” he said.
The majority of Bogh AV’s work is concentrated on creating Web video content for universities or health care providers. Now, they’re working on videos for the Web sites of Johnson & Wales University and Roger Williams University. For Johnson & Wales, Boghosian led a production team through each of the university’s four campuses, collecting video and interviews. Now, he’s cutting it to make a promotional video.
Bogh AV has also recently done some work for Women & Infants Hospital, filming their employees and the in vitro fertilization lab for the Web site.
“The Web site has really put the video business back in gear,” Boghosian said. He’s been working in the field for more than 30 years and when he got started “it was all video distributed on VHS tapes, then the DVD. And now Web sites – let’s say they have a big appetite for video. People might not be able to distribute their message in other media, but it seems that when you want to communicate that you’re still out there, still around, putting rich media on your Web site seems to be what companies are doing.”
Recently, Bogh AV has also created content for The Providence Journal, Citizens Bank, Swarovski Crystal and Unetixs Vascular Inc.
For Citizens, which every year holds a ceremony honoring its employees, Boghosian videotaped the event, cut it and delivered a seven-minute highlight video. That video was then sent around to all the offices. “The event happens in Providence, but, of course, they’re also located in the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic,” he said. “So they are far-reaching and can only bring in so many employees.”
Boghosian left Rhode Island after high school for Rochester Institute of Technology. When he came back to the Ocean State, he had decided that he wanted to become a photographer. But he couldn’t find a full-time gig. So he started out working as a freelancer for ad agencies that were working with Pearson Yachts and AT Cross. That business eventually grew into a video-production company.
“In telling a story, whether it’s with stills or video really doesn’t matter,” Boghosian said. “The story still needs to be told, so, eventually, it turned into a video-production company.”
The company usually has between three and five projects in different stages – shooting, editing, sound production – and could be on-site filming three days a week and in the studio editing two days a week. The number of full-time employees has varied over the years and Boghosian often hires freelancers – for graphic production or location photography – when the company pulls a big job. And Bogh AV’s office is also adjacent to Star Trak Studios Inc., an audio-production company Boghosian works with.
“We call them a partner company, because we’re physically connected but not financially associated,” Boghosian said. “The businesses are unconnected, but we work in tandem on all of our projects.”
Now, Bogh AV shoots with all high-definition cameras and much of the work doesn’t end up in a physical form – like a DVD. Instead, the completed videos are flash files and transferred to clients through FTP Web portals.
“Thirty years ago, we would still shoot and it would probably start as a slideshow,” Boghosian said. “In ’75, when we started this, the VHS recorder had not quite come into corporate play, so we were doing slideshows with audio tracks, still photography matched with audio.”
One of Bogh AV’s shows, Boghosian recalled, was a multimedia presentation for the 360th anniversary of Rhode Island.
“So we had a tent out on the Statehouse lawn with 12 slide projectors. That’s how things were done back then,” he said. •
COMPANY PROFILE
Bogh AV Productions
OWNER: Richard Boghosian
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Production of corporate videos
LOCATION: 36 Vermont Ave., Warwick
EMPLOYEES: 2
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1975
ANNUAL SALES: More than $500,000
