(Some background information put together just prior to this "Area 122" project)
Las Vegas video producer promotes Las Vegas on internet, YouTube, film
Contact: Jim Terr 505-425-6134 10-21-13
Las Vegas resident and native Jim Terr had a decade-long career in the music business in Los Angeles, producing albums by the late movie star Slim Pickens and others, and publishing songs recorded by Hank Williams Jr. and Crystal Gayle before returning to New Mexico in the 1980s.
Now a prolific producer of videos and websites promoting Las Vegas, his video career goes back to 1993, when he produced his first video, with foundation funding, titled “Las Vegas, New Mexico, America’s Oldest Film Location.” That video now has over 28,000 views on YouTube, among almost a million views on his over 500 videos uploaded. That video was awarded the First Place award for public service videos by the New Mexico Advertising Federation.
Since then, Terr has written and produced many videos promoting Las Vegas, as well as many radio advertising jingles heard nationally (“Sing a Song of Snapple”) and statewide (“Toss No Mas”, the longest-running jingle in the state). One of his music videos, performed by Brenda Ortega-Benavidez and titled “Las Vegas, New Mexico, The Real Las Vegas,” has been viewed almost 10,000 times in the two years since its creation.
A new and unusual video, “Holiday in Vegas! (New Mexico)”, [see photo] required Terr to visit Las Vegas, Nevada to line up former residents of “our” Las Vegas on “The Strip” to declare that they’d rather be vacationing in the “real” Las Vegas, the “historic” Las Vegas, Las Vegas, New Mexico!
Those former “Vegans” in the video included Maricruz, Linda, and Remi Rand; Sammy Martinez, David A. Gallegos, and Martin Maestas. Mr. Maestas, 83, also recorded reminiscences of a “migration” from Las Vegas, NM to Las Vegas, NV in the late 1940s, and the friendships and community that continued there. Terr will produce from that footage an educational video, as he has many others under the auspices of The Max and Anna Levinson Foundation and The Pinyon Foundation, who have funded other of his projects along with The McCune Charitable Foundation and several others.
Terr hopes that the new “Holiday In Vegas” video will evolve into a feature film, outlined at the website, www.HolidayInVegas.com, and set to star Suhail Aldabbach, who had a key role in the 2008 Oscar ™ Best Picture winner, “The Hurt Locker.” Aldabbach, an Iraqi refugee, now lives in Albuquerque with his family. The story concerns a vacationing family who fly into the “wrong” Vegas for a gambling trip. Another feature film in the works, also featuring Las Vegas, is called "Double Clue."
Among the other websites Terr has created to promote Las Vegas (NM) include www.NewMexicanFoodCapital.com , www.LasVegasNMFilm.com , and www.DowntonVegas.com .
Sponsors for Terr’s work have included Southwest Capital Bank, Charlie’s Spic and Span, Highlands University, The Plaza Hotel, Semilla Natural Foods, Plaza Drugs and many others. His national and statewide video and jingle clients have included PakMail, Rio Grande Insurance, Kowboyz Western Wear, The Sierra Club, www.HeavensMail.com, Jewel Mark and many others.
# # # #
