A fresh perspective on video production
The format for this particular blog is a little different and because of that I feel it lends itself to an introduction.
Real Video Production Co. will sporadically open up the studio for “happy hour.” It’s usually a late Friday afternoon and is a time where anyone can stop by and mingle.
I noticed a young guy come in by himself and looked as if he was waiting for someone. I walked over and introduced myself. His name was Louie and he had a passion for photography. He told me he was interested in learning more about video production and his buddy suggested he meet him at our event. His buddy never showed up, but Louie and I swapped social media and contact info.
Later that night I jumped on his Instagram and was pretty impressed. We stayed in touch and even grabbed coffee a couple of times. Right before the last time we sat down at Café Fresco, Real Video was blessed with a new job that required producing a couple broadcast commercials for a past client.
When Louie and I were discussing the project, he had a lot of questions and was really interested in the process. He asked if he could join us on production day and shoot some behind-the-scenes photos & video. I thought back on how my passion grew for this line of work and really it was just getting my hands dirty and jumping into it, so we added him to the call sheet as a production assistant.
It was a busy, fast-paced day, but Louie came along for the ride and rolled with the punches. He ended up being very helpful, as well as created some great BTS content for us.
After the shoot, we all hung out around our table in the studio and we asked Louie what his thoughts were about being on set— I felt like his fresh perspective was interesting and I asked him if we could do an interview for the blog and showcase the video and photos he took that day.
That’s the backstory behind this post. Enjoy.
Interview with Louie Pastore:
What are 3 things I need to know about you to understand who you are better?
- I am an 18 year old Eagle Scout, currently in my senior year of high school and am homeschooled.
2. I’ve been doing photography for the last 5 to 6 years, shooting everything from product photography in my home studio (my garage) to Photojournalism in the mountains of New Mexico.
3. Along with photography and filmmaking, I also spend time playing jazz drums, learning new skills and running my own small landscaping business.
"I wanted to be a part of a team that created professional level cinematic results"
What was your reason for wanting to join Real Video on a production?
I needed a place where I could work alongside industry professionals and like-minded creatives, in the hope of further developing my skill set, but at the same time contribute to a team.
After coming across their website and browsing through their work, the level of cinematic quality and attention to detail were my main reasons for wanting to be a part of Real Video’s creative process. I wanted to be a part of a team that created professional level cinematic results, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that this was it.
"Watching the high level of efficiency was incredible"
What were 3 things you learned about video production while observing a broadcast commercial being shot?
- Lighting & Setups
I had a basic understanding of how a production would operate, although one of the first things that caught me off guard was the amount of time spent setting up the scene and each individual shot.
The lighting and setup for this commercial was especially intricate, and was a huge contrast to the kind of run-and-gun photography/filmmaking that I’m used to. I’ll definitely never look at a commercial the same way again, knowing how long each shot most likely took to set up and how many takes were needed to get it right.
2. Organization
Next, was the amount of organization that goes into a production. As an Eagle Scout and someone who has managed small landscaping projects, it’s safe to say that I had a pretty good idea of how organization and proper planning works.
However, seeing it put into action in this setting gets wildly more complex. Coordinating talent, scene setups, lens changes, and making every asset play into the finished product was a solid learning point for me to hopefully be running my own creative projects in the future.
3. Operation
Finally, I was able to learn how a professional production crew operates. When everyone knows their role and what they need to do to contribute to the finished project, watching the high-level of efficiency was incredible. Nailing shot after shot, perfectly on schedule and seeing how little time is wasted shows how just with anything, a solid, like-minded team with the proper tools can achieve just about anything.
"I was amazed at how similar the rendered product was to the original vision"
After watching a production in process, is there a specific area that peaked your interest that you would like to learn more about?
There are 2 areas that really peaked my interest.
First, is the post production. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an interest in post production. After becoming obsessed with VFX breakdown videos on YouTube at a young age, I began to dive deeper into editing, sound design, and color grading.
Throughout the entire shoot, I couldn’t help but imagine how the piece would be edited together, and will be excited to learn more about the decision making process when editing at the professional level.
Second, was the creative side of the planning process. Looking over the script/shot list and hearing descriptions of how the piece was planned to turn out, I was amazed at how similar the rendered product was to the original vision.
This is something that I hope to pick up on, and gain more insight towards the creative planning side of things.
Where can people learn more about you and your work?
- Website
- Instagram (where I post my work most frequently)
- Philmont article (written by me along with all of the photos)
All photos below were taken & edited by Louie Pastore.
A dental party
I was scrolling through my social media feed and this Chris guy came up as a “suggested friend” once again. I had heard his name around town because he had opened his digital marketing office around the corner from Real Video. I figured it was a sign so I requested his virtual friendship.
Once we connected, he mentioned that he had a client who had a video concept that was above and beyond his capabilities and was researching production companies in the area that could handle it. He found the Real Video Production Co. website and was actually going to reach out to me later that week.
Isn’t that weird how things like that happen?
So I invited him over to the studio to discuss the project and how he thought we could help. Basically, he was developing an online platform that would network private practice dentists and assist them with their marketing needs. One major goal for the organization was to recruit a certain number of dentists onto the online platform so that they could pool together and release a Super Bowl commercial that would be followed up by a series of mailings for each participant’s specific zip code. But first things first— he needed a recruitment video that coincided with the launch of the website…which was happening in 3 weeks!
His client had an idea that involved a huge cast and some big location needs. We crunched a few numbers and quickly realized that to pull off that idea was going to be way above the proposed budget and next to impossible to pull off within a three week timeframe. So essentially, we had to go back to the drawing board.
As the creative director, I walked out of that meeting and into a quiet room with only my thoughts, a sketchbook and a pencil. I started the painful journey of creative development (I’ll write a separate blog on this in the near future). I ended up walking out of that room with 5 pretty solid concepts. Then I took those concepts to the team to see what it will technically and financially take to pull off these ideas and can they be pulled off in 3 weeks. To my surprise all five ideas passed the gauntlet.
I called Chris back into the studio the next day and pitched the 5 ideas back-to-back. A couple of concepts rose to the top but ultimately it was the client’s final decision. After some short deliberation, the concept was chosen, and we were off to the races.
One thing to note at this point of the story is that the concept that was chosen involved some pretty advanced green screen work. This was something that we had only dabbled in and didn’t have much experience with. So the next day we did a basic version of the concept in our studio and did a test shoot. We reworked the idea as a social media piece for us introducing our new post production manager, Dan. Needless to say, poor Dan hit the ground running when he agreed to join the Real crew. LOL. (view the post here)
The next seven days we were frantically on the phone building the cast, crew, securing equipment rentals, locking in a location and picking up props.
Production day went off without a hitch. Our cast and crew were amazing! The entire production took just under 10 hours. It moved like clockwork.
The next day Dan was head down in the edit bay putting the pieces together. He knocked out a client-facing rough cut in three days. To our surprise, the client had zero revisions. They loved it! Dan dove in, took a day, and did the final color correction and audio pass.
The video was delivered to a happy client on time and on budget. What more could you ask for?
Check out the final video here.
Building the wall
I’ve walked past this building a million times over the years and I have always admired it. It was originally a machine shop built in the 1940’s. There is nothing fancy about it. It’s just a big open box with big windows on either side. It sits just off Crown Point’s historic downtown square. It has been transformed into a few different businesses over the years like a pool hall and hair salon, but back in June of 2020 this beautiful rental space miraculously became available. The timing was perfect because we had just started Real. A few phone calls later and it was ours! The day we got the keys we met over there, pulled out some old chairs from the basement, cracked a few beers and started to dream about how we could build out the space to best fit our needs of a video production studio.
The space is essentially a 2,000 square foot box. One thing we knew we wanted to do was break the space up in half. The front of the space would be for production and the back of the space would be for office space and post production.
Another issue we knew we were going to deal with was storage space for our equipment. So one thing we did was take inventory of our gear. We noticed that a lot of production equipment is long and skinny. We’ve got tripods, light stands, speed rail, paper rolls, flags, bounce cards… the list goes on.
Well, the solution to our problem was inspired by an art show I had attended in Chicago. It was in a big, beautiful gallery that was broken up by false walls. It wasn’t until another guest dropped her glass of wine on the floor that I discovered these false walls had another purpose other than displaying the art. Someone walked over to one of the false walls, opened up the side of it, and pulled out a broom to sweep up the glass. I glanced inside the wall and noticed that inside it was storing a bunch of canvases and other cleaning supplies. It was genius!
So we decided to take that same concept to not only break up our space, but to store some of our awkwardly shaped equipment.
After taking measurements of our space and of the gear we needed to store, Josh decided to build a 3D rendering in Sketchup. He accounted for each piece of gear and created a custom space for it within the wall. He even took into account what type of wood would be needed for each space depending on what would be holding. For instance, a cubby for a metal tripod could be built with OSB while a cubby that holds a nylon flag needed to be made with smooth plywood so it wouldn’t snag the fabric.
We also really enjoyed the industrial look and durability of the plywood so we decided to do the outside of the wall in plywood tiles instead of drywall. To class it up we made 56 2’ X 2’ tiles, routed the edges, and stained each one with a white stain. We hung the tiles on the wall switching the direction of the wood grain with every other one.
We knew we wanted this wall to be versatile and hold many different items other than production and lighting grip. We found while in the design phase that we could fit two hidden drawers in the center of the wall under the 60” 4k Conference Display. They are hidden because the face of them matches the 2’ plywood panels that make up the pattern of the entire wall. Both drawers are soft close. We also integrated 120v outlets and usb charging ports into both drawers. These drawers would be perfect for charging appletv remotes, camera batteries and powering a raspberry pi with emulation station to unwind by playing a quick game of Super Mario Brothers!
Above the drawers, but behind the 2’ panels, we built in some space for a sound bar, below the drawers hidden inside the wall we added the sub.
This wall is now the centerpiece of our studio and is a great example of form and function.
The Mosaic Flower Pot
My oldest daughter begged me to enroll her in an art club.
A few weeks in she was telling me about the class and she mentioned these two girls who were best friends (both named Grace) and how they were being a little rude. Dumb stuff, like not sharing crayons and being exclusive.
So I simply coached her on how to handle the situation and nothing more was brought up about it.
A few weeks went by and I picked Natalie up from art club. I noticed she had some sort of project in a plastic bag as she climbed into the back seat.
“I see you brought home one on your art projects, I’m excited to see it”. I said.
Gazing out the window, I see her shrug in the rearview mirror.
“I thought it was cool but the Graces said it was stupid and that I did it wrong”. She said.
I felt my blood pressure rise.
“Can I see it”? I asked.
She pulled out a messy little flower pot collaged in layers upon layers of tiny squares of cut paper. It was every color imaginable. Once I saw it I understood what the project was and understood why the Graces mentioned that she didn’t follow the rules on how it was supposed to be done.
“How did you make this?” I asked.
“I dumped a bunch of squares of paper on the table, covered my flower pot in glue and then rolled it through the pile of squares.” she said.
I replied “Let me guess, the Graces took their squares and meticulously glued each one on the pot with a little space inbetween am I right”?
Natalie nodded.
“Well, no one will ever notice the Graces flower pots because they are boring and unoriginal. You were given the same materials and the same time frame but you thought out of the box and created something different, wild and beautiful. I hope you never lose that way of thinking”.
She smiled.
I parked the car in the driveway, took that little flower pot and transplanted a little cactus into it and placed it on the windowsill in the kitchen.
Now, it’s a daily reminder to not act like the Graces.
As a father, I live for teachable moments like this. This one in particular resonated with me when it comes to video production.
Access to great equipment is so easy now. There is always a new, better, cheaper camera coming out. Editing software is getting quicker and less complicated to use. Piles of footage can be scrubbed through faster than ever. Pre-assembled soundtracks and visual effects can be added at a click of a button.
So if all these amazing resources and equipment is available to everyone, what’s going to set you apart?
Creativity.
Real Video Production Company prides itself on being able to tell amazing stories for our clients. Because authentic and compelling stories build trust and trust builds loyalty.
A customer is a customer but a LOYAL customer becomes a brand ambassador.
What’s with the bird logo?
Leaving the comfort of our steady 9-5 jobs to fulfill a life-long dream of owning our own video production company is scary as hell. And just to make it more exciting, we did it during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
This may be the best and/or stupidest thing we’ve ever done.
It’s stressful. It’s going to take a lot of hard work. But our team believes that the cost of regret is far greater than the cost of failure. So we’re going for it and this little bird is our mascot.
Why? Because it’s a symbol of provision.
Matthew 6:25-34: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
So, with that, I invite you on this journey with us.
Let’s create beautiful things, share inspiring stories, make mistakes, make friends, be vulnerable, unique, authentic and genuine.
