Tell us a bit about your organization and what your specialty is in the film and video space.

The K8 Creative team acts as a miniature ad agency within a local television station. Most of our clients are local businesses that want to advertise on TV and streaming, so we produce their commercials in-house. I oversee the team that produces all commercials and promos.

What is your organization’s ethos and how does it set you apart from industry competitors?

We want every business, large or small, to have access to award-winning and high-quality video advertising. We charge very little for our services in order to empower companies of any budget to hire us. Of course, we hope they advertise with K8, but they are also able to take their new commercial and share it on socials or anywhere else. We care about local businesses.

How can people join or learn more about what you do?

Gray Media, the parent company of K8, is always hiring. Check their website out to learn about the company as a whole. Check out the K8 Youtube channels to see more of our work!

Tell us about your Telly Award winning piece. What’s the story behind it?

A relatively new client, Roof X Solutions, came to use with the desire to produce a comedy skit that incorporates their roofing services with Christmas. One of our producers came up with the natural merge, where Santa falls off a roof. While we had access to more of a production budget than we typically do, we still had to make the most with what we had, so the script and shot list reflected that.

What are you most proud of about this piece? What was your biggest challenge during production and how did you solve it?

We are incredibly proud of how complex it is relative to much of our work. For a very small team (4 of us) working on it, it has a lot going on. We had practical effects, VFX, sound design, props, set dressing, compositing, rotoscoping, and animated text.

Do you have any advice to other filmmakers based on your career or your team’s approach to work?

Lean on the talents and knowledge of those around you, and learn from them. If you let them do it for you, it’s harder to grow as a filmmaker or to properly appreciate the effort that goes into every step of the process.

Can you share a behind the scenes story or fun fact about the making of your piece?

This was shot in the afternoon in the middle of Arkansas Fall. We were able to make a pretty convincing snowy night scene through a combination of compositing, color correction, and careful lighting. Also, the shot out the window of Santa falling from the roof was the commercial’s editor dressed as Santa and actually falling from a ladder (although onto a safety pad and on a green screen in our studio).

Tell us about the most memorable response you got from this work.

The client was incredibly excited, and immediately began pitching some other ideas and projects they could see us spearheading over the next year.

Complete this sentence: ‘Great video storytelling is…’

… not letting your budget get in the way of executing your vision.