...as seen in AV Video Magazine

...as seen in AV Video Magazine

After Milt delivered his first finished product to the bank, Mary Rosales informed him that every frame of video on the disc would have to be painstakingly reviewed by attorneys within four different Citibank legal and compliance departments. The process, she said, could take months. "When Mary told me that I thought, 'Oh my God, how are these people going to do this on VHS?' The answer was QuickTime [chosen for its common-denominator compression scheme]. One night I was working with it and realized, 'Of course! Here's a list of each of the 59 QuickTime movies, and better yet, the legal guy can do it right on his computer." One month later, the cross-platform Windows 3.1/95 and Macintosh disc -- with "tweaked" compression to run on just about any computer -- was sent to 50 Citibank executives for a one-week test. Milt then pressed 500 discs for distribution to Citibank Tech Support. The final 15,000 were pressed at an outside duplication house and shipped on May 5 to CitiGold customers from interActive Publishing's headquarters.

The following people participated in the CitiGold Live project:
Concept and development - Victor Milt
Creative director/writer - Jerry Kaufman
Creative director/graphics - Robert Envierro
Writer - Roger Wilcox
Art director - Eric Reinfeld
Artist - Linda Shishido
Scenic art / computer graphics - Leo DeLeon
VIDEO PRODUCTION
Director - Victor Milt
Producer - Kim Milt
Assistant director - Stu Goodman
Camera/lighting - Lars Lunde
Makeup - Amanda Apa
Sound - Christopher Reifuss
Wardrobe- Jennifer Terrenzi
Gaffer - Stet Friend
Grip - Keith Conklin
Video engineer - Jeff Schwartz
Teleprompter - Frank Spadafora
Production assistants - Josh Heller, John Barr
PRODUCTION
Lead editor - Brook Jones
Online editors - Tom Makowska, Len Kirtmanus
Offline editor - AmberCarole
Editorial assistants - Josh Heller, Bruce Conklin
Lead programmer - Eric Scuccimara
Program concept/layout - Victor Milt
Legal - Howard Pearle, Warren Winshaw
Accounting -Alan Schneideman
Office manager- Christine Malanaphy
ACTORS
Asset Allocation, Games - Bill Massof
Banking - Bill Mitchell
Bill payment - Peter O'Hara
Borrowing - Allison Chase
CitiGold On-line - Michelle Verhooven
Economic Outlook - Mark Meisel
CitiSelect Funds - Leslie Morris
Equity Source, Margin Loans -Jim Fantone
Features - Michael Bryant
Global Access - Enrietta Lenis
Gold Coin - Brian Fuqua
Investing - Phillip Mansfield
Profile - Dawn Allen
Roth IRA - Kristy Whittaker
School - Lisa Clark
Sweep - John Lee
Tax Relief Act - Candace Agree

Love, American Style

According to Correne Rizza, the bank got a higher-than-expected response to the CD-ROM. "Overall, our clients loved it, and it was a big hit," she says. The disc also worked well, she adds, as an acquisition tool for the bank. "We know that our clients shared it with non-clients who eventually did become bank clients, so it really did exceed our expectations." The only criticism came from those who felt the disc was padded with too much nonessential information, she says. "They didn't like the things that had nothing to do with bank programs or CitiGold, such as the section on travel. They wanted more guts, more heavy-duty investment information, timely financial statistics and forecasts, not just white sandy beaches and pretty boats on the water."