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?
KKO Productions is a Los Angeles-based video production and content strategy agency founded in 2012. We run a small client-facing team of editors, directors, producers, and DPs, backed by a bench of 160-plus freelancers, which lets us scale from a two-person UGC shoot to a 60-plus crew commercial. Our specialty is what we call business consulting with cameras: we build content systems for funded startups, healthcare brands, and enterprise companies where every piece is tied to a measurable outcome. To date our work has driven more than $20M in platform revenue for clients and helped them raise $12M plus.
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?
Growing up, we were taught that helping people looked like a very specific set of careers, and making videos was never on that list. So I had to go build this company on my own, and the first person it had to help was me. Once it did, I realized the skill I loved could be the tool that helped everyone around me. Over the years KKO has helped struggling business owners build the company they dreamed about, given talented people who couldn’t find a home elsewhere a place to work and thrive, and generated revenue our clients didn’t think was possible. Crew members have put kids through college on work we booked. That’s my real why. I make content, but the content is changing lives, and I get to be the person who takes one fun skill and turns it into real impact for real people.
Tell us about your Telly Award winning piece. What’s the story behind it?
Our winning piece was a spec short film and branded content series for Hinge. Hinge never asked us to make it. We made it because we were stuck in a loop I think a lot of agencies know: grateful for the client work, but rarely getting to flex the muscles we knew we had. At the end of the day we’re filmmakers with real business knowledge, and I wanted something that showed both at once.
So I looked for a subject every audience already understands. Dating is universal, and Hinge is one of the most recognizable apps in the space, which also spoke directly to our client base of SaaS, tech, and media companies. I wrote the script and deliberately built it as three pieces: a short film, a sixty-second cut, and a vertical version. Each one was written and shot as its own thing. The vertical wasn’t a horizontal video cropped for phones, and the sixty wasn’t the short film with the middle taken out. The point was to show that strategy starts at the script, not in the edit, and that we think about where a piece will live before we ever roll camera. That intentionality is what we’re most proud of.
Can you share a behind the scenes story or fun fact about the making of your piece?
The idea came from set, not from a brainstorm. We were shooting another project, and between setups the crew conversation kept landing in the same place it always does in Los Angeles: how hard it is to meet someone here, how nobody has the time, how big the city feels when you’re single.
I had been looking for a brand to build a spec film around, and the answer was sitting right in front of me. What is everyone already talking about? Dating. So the script came out of real conversations we were having on set with the same people who ended up making the film.
What was your biggest challenge during production and how did you solve it?
The biggest challenge was the one in my stomach. This was a passion project, which means my money, my favors, and my name on every call. Anyone who has produced one knows the feeling: something is going to cost more than you quoted, a location owner is going to change their mind the night before, an actor is going to drop out. I walked onto set every day braced for it.
It never came. The crew treated every location like it was a paid gig. The friends who opened their homes to us were generous with their time and their space. The actors showed up as invested as if this were a real Hinge ad, because to them it was. What solved the problem, honestly, was the preparation and the people. I had built the plan carefully, I had cast crew and talent who cared about the work, and that was enough. The lesson I took from it was to trust myself as a producer. I put this together, it ran clean, and I’m good at what I do. That confidence has shown up on every set since.
What are you most proud of about this piece? What is the most memorable response you got from this work?
The reaction I heard over and over was some version of “okay, I’m downloading Hinge one more time.” People would finish the film and say maybe this would be the last time they needed the app, which is exactly Hinge’s own positioning as the app designed to be deleted. We didn’t plan around that line, but the film landed on it naturally, and that told me the story was doing its job. The other response was the one I was quietly hoping for.
You won a Telly Award for this piece. Why is recognition important for you, your team or your work?
Recognition matters because of how this company started. When I graduated college I couldn’t get hired as a PA. I tried everything to get on a set, to meet people, to deliver coffee to a director or a producer or anyone who would let me stand in the room. There were no opportunities for me. So I built my own. Fifteen years later, we’re making work that people around the world get to see and appreciate, and a Telly Award is a reminder of that distance traveled. It’s also a reminder I try to carry onto every set: don’t discount people. Everyone has value, and the person delivering coffee today might be the one building the company tomorrow. I know what I bring to the table now, and I’m excited about it.
