As we approach the end of the holiday season, we want to take the time to reflect upon the work and relationships we built this past year. We’ve had a lot of different projects up at our dock, and looking back, we realized there were some things each of us wanted to share.
Lori Dowd: It’s all in the people
As a video production and content development studio our business is constantly changing. Content that once required teams of twenty or thirty can now be produced by two– a storyteller and a distribution expert. As a result the right people make a huge difference.
As the year ends, I’m reflecting on the simple fact that StoryTrack has its strongest in-house talent ever. We’re creating compelling, award-winning productions. Our content has never been more diverse, and the output is remarkable. One recent Friday our team toasted the delivery of twelve programs on a single day.
But I am most excited by and grateful for the collaborative spirit and camaraderie at the core of our team. We keep each other going. Rarely is anyone left to work late alone. We scrape our co-workers’ windshields in winter storms. These things matter, because the care we show to one another is reflected in the care we put into our work for clients.
Brittany Anderson: It’s all in the details
As I’ve reflected on this last year, I am struck by the amount of time and effort we invest in each film we create. Whether it is a 30-second short or a 30-minute long form documentary our team works tirelessly to make sure our video content is produced and delivered with the highest quality.
In order to do this, I’ve learned that it boils down to the details (especially the ones that go unnoticed). Many of these final touches come alive through dynamic story editing, engaging sound design, and intriguing motion graphics that create a powerful visual language for the viewer.
But they are also seen in the last 10%, the final quality check before sending a film out the door, the planning, scheduling, multiple revisions and the “thank you” for a job well done. All of it adds up and keeps us producing stories that we are proud of.
I think we would all agree details are not always the most glamorous, but as I’m learning, they sure do make a difference, and it’s worth spending the extra few minutes to make sure something that is good becomes great. Cheers to a detail-oriented year!
Alyssa Schier: It’s all in the organization and adaptability
As a video editor, it is important to have great video content to form into a beautiful visual story. Our clients come to us to produce videos that result in terabytes worth of footage.
When our business is video, it is important to have our assets organized in an efficient way. We introduced a system into our post-production process called the asset library— a digital content library organized by client and video category. The categories include interview, B-roll, or stock footage to name a few. For any one client, we organize each video clip into their personal asset library.
For our commercial real estate clients, this media asset management system helps us keep the footage in order— especially when we have compiled years’ worth of construction, drone, or interview footage, and animation renders for each property. The asset library gives us a foundation to produce videos with already existing assets.
Over the years, StoryTrack has partnered with Rockefeller Group, one of the nation’s leading commercial real estate companies. Recently, they asked us to create a video press release announcing their plans to construct a new medical center in New Jersey. The groundbreaking was in one week, and they needed the video in three days. There was no time in that three days to schedule a shoot, so we decided to pull existing footage from their asset library. We used old interview bites, drone footage of the site, and animated renders to create a video just in time for the groundbreaking. And we did this with footage we already had! We made the deadline and the client loved what we produced.
When you have beautiful footage, you don’t just want to use it once and then never use it again. We want to reuse and repurpose footage in other ways and post it on different platforms so it reaches as many people as possible. The asset library gives us the opportunity to do that.
Angela Park: It’s all in the diligence
While there are many things I have learned this year, diligence is a trait I have seen to be essential for our work. Diligence applies to many areas of our lives, but especially to creating content. At the end of the day, we all want to make great, as opposed to merely good content.
As the new digital content producer, I’ve been producing inbound marketing content and devising strategies to promote our work online. And this isn’t a quick and easy process. Jumping onto a Google AdWords campaign won’t bring you immediate success. Making it big in the digital world involves a long and arduous process. Although our marketing efforts may not be rewarded immediately, success cannot be achieved without creating, managing, and analyzing diligently.
But diligence also applies to learning. Things change rapidly in today’s media landscape. And it’s exciting! Just a decade ago, we didn’t even have instant, broadband Internet access across all of our devices. Haptic technology was just beginning to be incorporated in our phones. Today we are able to play all types of video content— VR, AR, and other interactive media, to name a few— on a variety of devices and platforms. These technological advancements in the last ten years have completely changed the way we live. And to be competitive in this industry we need to be at the top of our game, diligently learning and adapting to these changes as they come.
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