Christmas show and commercial earn Telly Awards for Silver Oaks

Silver Oaks Communications, Moline, has earned two national Telly Awards for producing a high-definition concert program and an animated television commercial.

Founded in 1978, the Telly Awards annually showcases the best work of advertising agencies, production companies and television stations. The competition includes entries from all 50 states and five continents, and is a widely known and highly respected international competition.

Earning Telly Awards for Silver Oaks were “Sing We Now of Christmas,” a choir concert by First Presbyterian Church, Davenport, broadcast on WQPT and other public-television stations; and “Dictionary,” a 30-second animated Alcoa commercial.

Silver Oaks, in its 22nd year of business in the communications industry, is nationally recognized for creativity and technical excellence in branding, marketing and corporate communications, as well as interactive Web and media services.

“High-definition work still is a relatively new innovation,” said Greg Scott, president of Silver Oaks. “We’re pleased to be the first in the Quad Cities to produce high-definition in-house. This was the first time that our capabilities enabled us to showcase an award-winning Davenport choir on national public television in the high-definition format that PBS requires.”

Silver Oaks recorded the program live using five high-definition cameras. (High-definition uses digital technology to record more data and a wider-screen format to provide a clear, more striking picture than standard television broadcasts.)

“Technically, Silver Oaks put us on a level playing field with the very best of the musical productions that the United States has to offer,” said Steve Jobman, minister of music at First Presbyterian. “We were on the same stage with a program called ‘Kennedy Center Holiday for the Troops,’ the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and ‘A Chris Isaak Christmas,’” all of which were being offered to PBS stations along with the First Presbyterian choir’s performance.

The show was offered to PBS affiliates in the PBS Plus Catalog, and aired on more than 200 stations nation-wide. Also, the program was presented many times on the national PBS high-definition channel.