Tell us about your organization. How big is your team? Where are you based? What is your organization’s specialty in the film and video space?
Craftshow is a video production agency of 6 based along the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama. The Craftshow team is made up of account executives and recovering filmmakers with a vision to create content that builds demand for clients that is made to matter. Making great looking content is rewarding, but making great content that resonates with audiences while driving a result for clients is fulfilling.
Why do you do what you do? Was there a transformative moment that solidified your career choice, your org’s success, or your commitment to storytelling?
Two-thirds of our team came from filmmaking (feature films and documentaries) and while we enjoyed our time producing for the silver screen, we genuinely just wanted to help more people. We recognize that individually we cannot change the world, but if we can work with clients who truly care about their community we can see an impact that grows exponentially. Community to city to county to state to the world; we can help celebrate the brands and businesses who are, even in the smallest of terms, making the world a better place. Craftshow is driven by its values of Service, Integrity, and Creativity. We cap the number of clients we work with to help maintain quality and focus while helping keep our own lives in balance.
Tell us about your Telly Award winning piece. What’s the story behind it?
The “Ready For Life” campaign was a collaborative development between our USM partners and our team. We wanted to tell unique stories of student perspectives, but in a way that captures the identity of the University of Southern Mississippi and the impact it has on students even after they graduate. The creative team decided early on the process that each video needed to have its own story, told in its own way, and made to matter by the flow of the project. We also wanted something that subtly alerted viewers to the long-lasting impact of an education at USM. We knew we wanted black and white visually, but wanted to add gold accents in real world moments. We worked with our production designer to collect a van full of gold items that we could place in scenes. The van looked like a rolling shop that only sold gold colored items.
Can you share a behind the scenes story or fun fact about the making of your piece?
There is a GEM of a location in Hattiesburg, MS called The Lucky Rabbit. While it is technically a large secondhand market, it’s also a dream prop house. Movies shot throughout the South visit regularly to pull some one-of-a-kind items. It’s a set decorator’s dream.
While we were picking up some additional gold bits we came across a projector and it sparked the idea and opening of the “The Golden Legacy”, but even more serendipitous was the fact that the projector included a gold colored film reel can with a movie called “A Boy and His Eagle” which had nothing to do with USM (their mascot is a Golden Eagle). We knew at that moment we were on the right track.
What was your biggest challenge during production and how did you solve it?
As with all good creative ideas you go into it with a plan. We did a rigorous amount of testing assuming that we could use selective color techniques to help truncate the process. We were wrong. Turns out only a few shots would work with the selective color process and hand based rotoscoping was necessary. Did it consume the post budget (and more)? Absolutely, but the finished result was worth the effort. No overages. Just results.
What are you most proud of about this piece? What is the most memorable response you got from this work?
Is it ok to say the completion of it? Ha. Truth be told we worked on this campaign for two years and wrapped it up in a 3rd video that retired the black and gold effect bringing the “Ready for Life” campaign to full color. We look back on the project with great admiration. It was the cumulative efforts of our USM partners as well as a creative team who just kept making each video better. That’s all the expected stuff.
What was unexpected was while filming the last video in this series 2 years later we ran into one of the subjects from series one. On set we had shared some words of confidence and encouragement and she informed us that it all paid off. She was about to graduate with a NEW major and felt (sorry for the pun) “ready for the life” ahead of her.
You won a Telly Award for this piece. Why is recognition important for you, your team or your work?
While it’s easy to say we don’t do the work for awards, we do work tirelessly to make a project matter. And we saw that success for the client, but winning a Telly Award also speaks sparks of inspiration into existence for the crew who gave the project everything. Recognition helps stoke those sparks into flames on those days where best laid plans…just laid in bed.
Tell us what you’re up to! If there’s a new project, launch, or milestone you’d like us to celebrate with you, let us know, and we might share it with our community.
Craftshow is finishing up post-production on our first feature-length documentary called Underground Pizza (hopefully soon!) Otherwise we just keep building demand, made to matter.
