A never stop improving mentality We passed a new milestone. It's been five years of being an official business on the books. While we've been at this for just under a decade, it was only five years ago we saw an opportunity to make this thing the real deal and a business instead of only a passion. A lot of good and bad has happened over the years. I'd say the most significant thing that's been here is consistency, drive, and direction. Any business owner or creative will tell

The Campaign Lives: Building projects with Volume The reality is that music videos are dead, artists don't need them, and producing music videos is dangerous. The internet is saturated with tons of content and every day new technology releases, making just about everyone capable of producing "quality" content. Why hire a professional videographer? Truthfully you shouldn't. High-quality video isn't enough to sustain musicians, and that's why music videos are becoming less and

Properly diagnosing for smarter prescriptions entry no. 33 Pitching a great project is an art in itself, and the creative process is tricky. There are several ways to approach this, but we believe a system helps create a consistent experience for clients and better manage time. Our strategy for proposals is with our client's vision in mind, within creative boundaries, and establishing rules that make the project a success. We're going to breakdown how we arrive at the pitchin

A blog about our production partner, Ohio HD entry no. 32 Over the years, I've learned how dangerous assumptions can be. Being direct, precise, and well-intentioned goes a long way. This starts by understanding that clients hire you to be their expert, even if they don't always treat you that way. It's easy to assume they know you're high quality, but I work to educate and help breakdown each project, setting proper expectations. For years, I have been questioned in one area

Sustainability: a key to mutual growth entry no. 30 Go big or go home. Sounds cool, hypes you up, but honestly hasn't been a focus or helpful mentality for our clients or us. We feel it's more beneficial to meet our clients where they are (knowing their desires, limitations, and expectations), understand their problems, and prescribe practical proposals to projects. Sounds boring, right? Maybe a little, but the main viewpoint we keep is "simple executed dynamically." Taking t

using limiters to maximize creativity entry no. 22 I've always found limiters to be beneficial in creating projects. The name itself gets a bad wrap because it sounds like you're holding back, but I've found them to create more consistency and opens up as much creativity as I want within them. The "Old Friends" project took a very minimalistic approach to what many would consider a simple performance video and gave it a fresh look with a designer approach. ​ Upon hearing the

a how-to in the lighting department entry no. 20 Music videos come in many shapes and forms. Honestly, it’s one of the most creative and unlimited formats of film. You typically have a few minutes to communicate some sort of idea, feeling and establish character. This allows them to be less linear, highlight the best visual aspects and often times be more effective with limited budgets. NYA was directed our way by a past client and friend. She did her research before even con

LDD case study: preparation meets execution entry no. 19 Every project we do feels like the next evolution in work. I think as creatives, we all feel this way. I guess with the Gossip project; it feels this way because we worked in new territory and succeeded. It's just a great feeling seeing our team work hard, to be appreciated, work with great talent, and to see it all composed together into a film we're incredibly proud of. ​ In this project, the overall goal was to showc

Feverwar case study: Permanent Fix music video entry no. 17 Long-time friends, Feverwar, trust us when it comes to our strategy, abilities, and approach to projects. With that, it makes the whole process smooth, more effective and collaborative. That's the real benefit of working with a band for four years and knowing their needs. So with creating the "Flu" we naturally made that happen with ease. With their EP, Piss Poor, it deals with addiction, working through those strugg

Fear Culture Case Study: It's all in the details entry no. 16 Phobia, became a project that birthed a new phase for JECP. The project was challenging on multiple levels and at a time we felt we needed to try something new as music video creators. We believe our biggest strength is making low budget projects seem huge. This is due to an idea we exercise often. Keep the core idea simple and execute it dynamically and with great detail. We make up for lack of budget by knowing o

Sink the Ship "Out of Here" Case Study: Power of a Good Shot-list entry no. 15 Our approach to production, focused on how we can navigate in an efficient manner while still making something visually enjoyable. This is through energy, cinematography, lighting, shot variety, art direction and set design. These elements all add up to what we call creativity. Even when we set out to create a band performance video, we ask ourselves, how can we keep attention. With the Out of Here

Dreamwalker "Essence" Music Video entry no. 14 At first glance this project is everything we try to imagine a project to be. Showcases musicianship, introduces the band for familiarity, and matches the genre’s needs with a splash of creative elements. When going into this project, we met the idea of the film with a different production approach and fresh to the market tools. The general idea was that Dreamwalker really wanted to make the band a reality for some years, and the

The Creative Process for STS Everything Music Video entry no. 13 In pre-production, we decided to plan this project to be less about a scene by scene narrative, and tell the story instead, through metaphor, art, and light. Ross (Director), had a short story pre-written, that oddly fed great into what was needed for the B-roll of this video, so we decided to adapt it into a more simple direction for the video. We played with lighting to represent emotions, built a futuristic s

using the color red to lead our art direction entry no. 12 This project was a mix of Post Modern's feelings about the track and our thoughts on color. We felt it needed to be subtly violent and red, and Matty, PM’s vocalist, lead the way with props based off this direction. The video didn’t need to drive a story home but be more artistic and visually fun to watch. Mixing full band, creative light effects, simple camera movement and the bloody visuals made this one of our favo

midwest weather project entry no. 11 Expression of art meets depression. Many artists can relate with the experience of feeling a sense of high after creating something, only to find themselves on a low when things aren’t actively happening. We painted a picture of Midwest Weather as a character through Jordan and Tizzer’s physical representations. Jordan’s character is dealing with the stressors of being an artist and not finding satisfaction, while Tizzer is the vision most

Lave Project Highlight entry no. 10 Have a look into our underwater adventure for LAVE's track, Seafoam. The film was completed with the Canon 5dmkiv and Canon t3i. ​ CREW Josh Emerick | Cinematographer, Editor and Art Ross Theisen | Director + Art Gage Green | AC Drew Hiles | PA Powered by Ohio HD Use the Promo Code: TCP for 50% off #storytelling #trust #buildingbetterartists #marketing #musicvideo #branding #ohiohd #kinoflo #canon1dxii

Finding art direction to symbolize deep meaning entry no. 09 When A Liar's Eyes initially discussed this project, they wanted to be sure we could create something a wide audience could enjoy, but also keep a specific message to the track. Separate deals with death and it’s mental stressors. At conception of this project we knew it was important to showcase this idea while also introducing the members. As ALE's very first music video, we needed it to look of quality and be a g

Borrowing inspiration from other genres entry no. 08 The approach of this project was to create a music video that had hardcore elements with a touch of hip-hop. Our overall goal, was to showcase energy and have fans wanting to come back and view over and over. We mixed performance in studio with slow motion and singular shots with heavy red saturation to break the film up. This all mixed together created a dynamic viewing experience. The first thing we considered after getti

Managing time and power entry no. 07 "Subjective Morality" is a heavy hitter track. From the start we knew the edit needed to carry an immense amount of energy. Designing the look, we created an edgy, dark and energetic performance to lay the ground work and mixed in subliminal messaging. While all of this happened, we had two big production challenges to overcome. We had a short timeline with only having the night to film and NO ACTIVE POWER to the location. ​ Lighting was t

Pale ash project entry no. 06 Over the years we’ve had a lot of projects and some are plan-heavy, others, more so concept and some are just about strategy in execution. "Pale Ash" challenged us in all departments. From acquiring locations, scouting for the right times of day, coordinating schedules, finding talent, getting the story right and making sure we had the crew and equipment to execute, we were challenged. This project was a true collaboration between our team and LA