Sorry I’ve kept you all waiting in suspense for a post—it’s been a while! His Grace Productions has had a busy summer! We just wrapped up shooting some drone footage  for Community Bank and Trust and are swimming in a sea of footage.  The last few months we’ve also worked with Adobe in helping launch their new product “Spark”, finished an animation video for the Baylor Business School, produced internal safety videos for Reinforced Earth Company, did commercials for Bush’s Chicken, Bird-Kultgen Ford and Community Bank and Trust, and created a video for a local movie theater to launch its remodeled space and did their pre-movie-turn-off-your-phones-and-keep-quiet video. We’ve also done work for Motoza, an Austin-based marketing agency and Gateway Church in Dallas. Plus, we just shot a commercial for ourselves!

Though it’s been busy, it really was a great summer, and I owe a lot of that to my team.

You’ve met the team, right?

Wait, what? You didn’t even know there was a team?!

Wow, it has been awhile since I’ve posted. This is actually one of the most exciting parts about His Grace Productions!  Let me take you back to this past spring…

I was working on training videos for Bush’s Chicken. On the surface, this might seem like a simple enough project but when working with the food industry it can be hard to find an empty/quiet store to shoot in. This particular shoot required a start time of 4 a.m., a truck load of lights and equipment, and about an hour commute. I’m not sure how well you process information at 2:50 a.m. but I sucked at it, even in college. So, I called on reinforcements, and in steps Josh Barbur to the rescue. Josh and I prepped, filmed, lit, mic’ed, and kept each other awake to create an awesome video. And, well, that was it. it doesn’t take a genius to see the benefits of working with great people.

Besides creating an even better product for my client, I learned a lot. After experimenting with this concept of not doing everything myself, I knew I needed to continue to bring in new, creative people and that has turned out to be our greatest strength. It’s not just that each person brings a specific skill that gets plugged into our formula, which is still very important, but I started seeing that we were making each other better in bigger ways than just our specific roles or technical skills. Intuitively, I’ve known for a while that working alone, you can only go so far, (hello, welcome to military training 101) and that when you bring a great team together, every person’s unique talents can be leveraged to create something… more. Working with this team has reinforced that lesson. The more we work together, the more we’re able to build on each other’s ideas and create products that none of us could have created on our own. The production process became more fun and energetic, and what we were giving to clients reached a whole other level of excelence. Plus, you can’t beat the feeling of creating something as a team and then giving it to a client and watching the their eyes light up!

I’m guessing you’re probably thinking “Ok, you lived under a rock and never played a team sport or worked on a group project. Teams are cool, yada yada yada…moving on.”  BUT! How many filmmakers do you know who dream of just being another cog in the movie making machine? Sure we say, I’m good with being a director of photography (DP), or director, or lead writer, but most of our dreams are to have full control of the creative process. My experience with total control is that, eventually, project after project, your work starts to look the same. You need other people to challenge you and make you better!  As long as there’s a clear vision and direction for the team and everyone knows their role and responsibility, the sky’s the limit for creativity and originality.

And now, since you’re all reading this and probably thinking, “tell me more about who’s on the team!” I think I’ll dedicate my next few posts to introducing them. I want you to know who is behind the scenes and the insane talent you’re getting when you hire His Grace Productions to create that next earthshaking film for your company.

So far, we’ve brought in a director of photography who has tremendous skills behind the camera and helps us find new depths cinematically. We also have an extremely talented animator/artist who has revolutionized our graphic work. Working with him has allowed us to offer an entirely new type of product, and it has been so much fun getting to see how animation can really enhance a video or be a great stand-alone piece.  We also have a jack of all trades (Josh, who I already mentioned) that gives us the ability to do what we do on a daily basis, plus talented editors, Emmy award winning director, sound operators, the coolest copywriter, and an amazing production assistant who helps with a little bit of everything.

We have all of this concentrated and effective talent at our disposal to help you rest assured that your brand is in good hands. This team has allowed us to continue to grow and help our clients have the best experience possible while receiving the best video product. Want a glimpse into what that experience looks like? We created a video to show you exactly what we’re talking about:

Now you know that if you hire His Grace Productions, you’re not just getting Jake McGhee, you’re getting a powerful team, passionate about our work and passionate about your success!

Over the next few months I’ll be posting about each of them, giving insight into who they are, what they do and why they’re great to have on the team. So, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss one of them! And, if you’ve got a specific skill that you think I could use on my team, let me know. You might just see your face on my blog in the future!

If you’re ready to have this team take your marketing to the next level, let’s talk![