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| July 1, 2005 | The
Newspaper of the NYSSCPA |
Vol.
8, No.12 |
CPA Firm Opens Its Doors to Film Crew
By Alicia Korney, Public Relations Associate
On May 19, the New York City offices of Anchin Block & Anchin LLP played host to a local film crew in search of visuals for updated career videos outlining the workdays of accountants and auditors.
“Anything we can do to encourage people to consider accounting and auditing as a career choice we’re happy to do,” said Peter L. Berlant, a partner at ABA who helped coordinate the day of filming. “I can’t think of a firm right now that’s not hiring. There’s lots of opportunities out there.”
Alan Weiss Productions, a New York City video production company, shoots hundreds of the brief 60- to 90-second career introductory videos each year, also providing stills that will be used in designing pamphlets and other career literature as well as on the Internet. All of the videos are produced in real places of work with real workers, and narrated by professional announcers.
The New Jersey Department of Labor hires the company and then sells the content to other states and career centers, often resulting in national distribution.
“This is the sort of thing that needs to be updated every few years or so,” Berlant said. “You don’t want to be showing grainy black-and-white images of people in skinny ties working on computers that take up an entire room.”
ABA’s offices, located at 1375 Broadway, proved to be the perfect fit for the filming. The firm completed a merger with accounting and financial advisory firm Yohalem Gillman & Company LLP in January that has produced a staff now totaling over 300. Even before the merger, Berlant said, ABA was already in growth mode, signing a deal to expand its New York City space and take over additional floors in its building. With construction or remodeling on six floors of offices in a variety of stages, ABA was able to offer up two very different office looks at one location for the shoot.
Berlant, who studied television production as well as accounting as an undergraduate at Syracuse University, pointed out that, visually speaking, it’s challenging to show the difference between a day in the life of an accountant and a day in the life of an auditor. Depending on how the office shots come out, Berlant said his firm had also offered to go out with the film crew and capture CPA auditors working in the field with some of the firm’s more visual clients, such as construction contractors or a bakery operation.
Douglas Wester, a senior producer and director for the production company, led the three-man filming crew around ABA’s offices, making sure they had the necessary shots that would accompany a voiceover describing the work of an accountant or an auditor. During the morning filming, he captured accountants working in their cubicles and discussing spreadsheets, directing his coworkers to pan in or out and watching the footage being recorded on a handheld monitor.
Besides reselling the content around the country, New Jersey’s computer-based Career Information Delivery System offers computerized career information locally to school guidance offices, libraries, career planning centers and other community-based organizations. The system has a searchable career file including descriptions of more than 900 specific occupations (about 400 with the corresponding career video), as well as additional information on the labor market, employers, university programs and childcare options.
