Social media heat up TV production on LI

Susan Gatti, a devoted lover of James Bond movies, named her Babylon-based television-production company, Que Productions, after the fussy, silver-haired technologist who supplied Agent 007 with gadgets that could maim or kill with a simple flick of a switch, helping him through death-defying hurdles.

And like Q, Gatti must usher her clients -- Long Island companies, nonprofits and government agencies -- through an often frightening world, in this case, television and what it reveals about its subjects.

"Everyone thinks [TV production work] is glamorous," Gatti said over lunch in a Babylon diner earlier this week. "Sometimes it is. We sometimes meet celebrities." But typical production days are 10 hours, most of it standing up. Heavy equipment must be schlepped around, and clients want her to somehow make the widgets they manufacture seem fascinating.

Gatti provided a peek into a small, mostly below-the-radar but growing Long Island industry, which is becoming more important in the Internet era as companies seek to position themselves on the exploding social media scene.

"So much of what we now do is social media," said Gatti, an artist who started Que Productions in 1998 with a partner, Nick Karis. They produce everything from TV commercials to videos for Facebook and YouTube.

But the burgeoning industry -- it employed 797 people on the Island in 2010, the most recent figures available from the state Labor Department, up from 533 in 2001 -- is challenged these days as never before. The cost of cameras and other equipment has plummeted, allowing more people -- meaning more competition -- into the business. Also, many ad agencies profess to do video production.

The approximately 25 TV-production companies on the Island are small, with annual revenues of between $500,000 and $2 million, according to industry executives. They hire film crews on a freelance basis, keeping costs low.

Clients don't always have the level of understanding of the business that the industry would like, said Steven Taub, owner of Melville-based Steven Taub Productions.

"A lot of companies think it's all about just showing up with a camera," Taub said. "But not everyone can do this well."

Gaige Simon, vice president of Netblast Media in Plainview, said the business has gotten tougher. "You struggle, because everybody is looking to make a deal," he said.

But do the work they must, Gatti said. She is driven by the creativity. "You have to be an idea person," she said. "It's all about art, and art is unique, something not done before."