Good Life Productions Creating a Buzz in Fairfield

A modest studio is doing big things for businesses in Fairfield and surrounding areas.

That’s Good Life Productions, piloted by Fairfield resident Doug Wright, who operates out of a second-floor space at 36 Sanford St. in Fairfield downtown. His studio produces everything from corporate videos to webcasts and broadcast television, including commercials and lifestyle shows.

His latest innovation is BizzBuzzTV.com, which is putting the spotlight on businesses with on-camera interviews with owners and tours of their facilities for two to four-minute clips featured online.

Fifty-two-year-old Wright, married with a son headed to college in the fall, brings a colorful professional background to the table, which provided a foundation for the business.

“My first job out of college, in 1981, was MTV, in production,” he said. “I was also there for the start-up of VH1, Comedy Central, Nick at Nite and A&E/History Channel. My longest stint was with Martha Stewart, for nine years from 1996 to 2005.”

When Stewart relocated her operations form Westport to Manhattan, Wright decided to head out on his own. The show “Cultivating Life”, based in Weston, was a ripe opportunity as a first project for the freelance editor.

Though he was working from home initially, he had established Good Life as an entity. “I had worked in the corporate world all my career, and thought I could have my own company and it would be better for everybody,” he said. “In all those years, I met so many talented people that I felt I could pull them all together in one place. I felt I had a good network. ‘Good Life” represented a forward-looking renewal.”

Wright secured his current space in 2008, bringing the “Cultivating Life” client with him. “I was doing quite a bit of commercial work. Most recently, I’ve been working with Sara Moulton, a chef with a cooking show on PBS, doing all the post-production and editing.”

In April 2010, Wright started noticing that video-on-demand was very hot on the web. He also observed the unique structuring of YouTube and the compelling urge it drives to want to view other videos that are listed adjacent to a lead video of interest.

“When people go to watch something on the Internet, they are actively seeking out, rather than filling time,” he said. “People are more likely to focus on the content. I started doing research and saw a study that took home page with video and compared it to homepage without video and, more often than not, people watched the video before looking at any other site content. I wondered how we could give that power to small business and decided to take my high-level production skills and offer them at a reasonable cost. Thus BizzBuzzTV was born.”

Wright’s first Bizz Buzz client was Captain’s Cove Seaport. “They’re colorful, on the water, with live entertainment,” Wright commented, “so we created a fun, campy video profiling their services, which aligned well with the image they had conjured for themselves.”

To gain more prospective client interest, Wright joined the Fairfield chapter of Business Network International and soon landed Avellino’s restaurant, then Brick Walk plaza.

"Our BizzBuzzTV video has been a great avenue to use to expose our business to new clients," said Peter DelFranco, co-owner of Avellino's. "Customers truly experience what it's like to come here without leaving home."

In addition to business profiles, Wright also does local event captures, like the Christmas Tree Lighting on the town green, Memorial Day parade and Pequot Turkey Trot. “We put those clips on the ‘Buzz’ section of our site,” he said. “People visit the site to view the event videos then start clicking on business profiles, at the rate of four to five clips per site visit.”

Under the Bizz Buzz banner, Wright has amassed 30 clients across five categories: food, shopping, entertainment, services, and health & fitness.

Wright has also placed a 55-inch TV monitor at the nearby Fairfield Arts Center, with which he has a working relationship. Bizz Buzz shows its own content in return for providing production support services to the Center, as well as to the Fairfield Theater Company.

The plus with the business profile videos said Wright is the fact that clients are given the embedding code so they can integrate the videos on their own websites. Clients pay for their video over time, as a monthly subscription. Contracts are usually 12 months long.

“We don’t just hand them a video and leave either,” said Wright. “We become a partner in helping them promote and build their business. Essentially, we’re a small business helping other small businesses.”

Avellino's DelFranco attested to the value of the video integration on the restaurant's homepage. "The first thing people look at on our website is our BizzBuzzTV video, and we've gotten only positive reviews from it."

A part of the value Wright provides is to shoot two additional Buzz segments for a business, to showcase any special events or “buzzworthy” news. These are about a minute-and-a-half in length.

Bizz Buzz clients can also subscribe to The Hive, a newsletter delivered by email that notes when new video clips or event notices are added. Bizz Buzz offers a Smart Phone application as well, to meet the content viewing preference of 20% of Bizz Buzz subscribers.

You might as well add the title Star Maker to Doug Wright’s extensive resume, given Bizz Buzz TV’s motto “Be a star in your town.” Does that mean Fairfield is the new Hollywood East? Get your autograph book out…

Business owners interested in learning how Bizz Buzz TV can help enhance their business can visit www.BizzBuzzTV.com or call 203-292-6547.