Thanks for Touring Creo

Thanks to everyone who came out to Tour//Creo on Friday night.

We had a great turnout and a lot of fun celebrating the new space.

If you missed it, contact us to set up a time for your own tour.

Film, Music and Brian Kelly Photography

We've been collaborating with photographer Brian Kelly on a couple of very cool projects lately.

Visit Brian's blog to see photos from yesterday's short film shoot, then scroll down to see his shots from the Glen Phillips and Jonathan Kingham show at The Photography Room on December 4. We recorded audio for Glen and Jonathan--they are both amazing artists.

Media: Business Review on Creo Studio Launch

The Business Review wrote this story (also below) on our studio launch. Remember to check out our launch party on Friday, December 12 from 6-10 p.m. at 40 S. Division.

Creo Productions expands studio

by Sarah Navis | Business Review Western Michigan

Tuesday December 02, 2008, 11:39 AM

Creo Productions in Grand Rapids may be small in size, but the three-man film studio has big visions.

And it's growing, despite Michigan's economy.

Aaron Carriere and Andrew Tingley, both Ferris State University graduates, founded Creo in August 2006. Carriere said they wanted to start the company because they have an "entrepreneurial spirit" and both enjoy video production. He also stressed that there is "a lot of power in storytelling."

Creo launched at the infancy of a new news media, Carriere said -- and there is a lot of potential in new media. With video, social networking and mobile communication a growing part of American culture, Creo Production believes it is ahead of the curve in the role of video and new media.

Creo uses its talents to provide clients with strong video footage and projects that tell people what is going on worldwide and in Grand Rapids.

"I really love telling stories through moving cameras, beautiful cinematography and translating what I see in my mind to the screen," Tingley said.

The Grand Rapids location has helped Creo's growth and success.

"The people here are great," Carriere said. "People are willing to connect and meet with you, and we're collaborating with others who have similar visions. There's also great energy having a studio downtown in Heartside, and we're excited to see downtown continue to grow and evolve and be a part of that."

When considering a starting location, Carriere said, "We wrestled between Grand Rapids and Nashville. We decided to stay in Grand Rapids, because we had existing connections and a base to build our business."

With Michigan's film incentives creating buzz across the state, Tingley said it doesn't have a direct impact on Creo Productions, because it doesn't include commercial work, but they love the publicity for Michigan and possible independent opportunities for their company down the road.

"While economic times are difficult, we're in an industry that's growing and evolving," Carriere said, crediting much of Creo's growth to the convictions of its founders. "Without passion, it would be hard to make it."

In 2008, Creo's sales "are well over double what they were in 2007," and projections are positive for 2009 and beyond, Carriere said. That growth has allowed expansion options. Creo is opening an audio division, Carriere said, and its space is perfect for additional growth.

"We're still determining our ideal size, but we like being lean and flexible to adapt to change, and there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration with skilled people we're connecting with," Tingley said.

Being a small business allows Creo to invest in its clients and offer a high level of service. At larger companies, a client may never meet the group working on their project.

"With our company, you'll know everyone involved, and that's a big advantage and makes it more fun to work with us," Tingley said.

Being a small company gives Creo "the ability to adapt quickly to change," Carriere said.

In the next five years, "we'd like to have a balance of creative, cutting-edge projects in the business world, as well as the ability to explore our own independent ideas, whether that's film or documentaries or a combination of both. There's a lot of potential in new media in the coming years, and everything is changing so quickly," Carriere said.

Local First Coupon Book

You're Invited: Tour Creo

Everyone's invited to tour//creo on Friday, December 12 from 6-10 p.m. at our studio in downtown Grand Rapids.

It's our official launch party for our newly renovated audio studio and video digs.

It's also in conjunction with the "Urban Lights" tour of other spaces on the Avenue of the Arts, so there's a lot to see that night.

We'd love to see you. Bring friends.

Urban Lights: Avenue of the Arts

New Video: Farm to Plate

We shot and edited this video for The Bistro Bella Vita and The Green Well, alongside The Image Shoppe, telling the story of the "Food to Plate" relationship between Ingraberg Farms and these Grand Rapids establishments.

Media: Feature Story on Creo Productions

Rapid Growth wrote an in-depth feature, "The Multimedia Men," covering our downtown expansion, the project in Zimbabwe, and our hopes for the future.

GR's own talented Brian Kelly took the photos. Below are only selected excerpts; make sure to check out the full story.

"Creo Productions was born during a six-week backpacking trip through Europe, as co-founder Aaron Carriere traveled while taking a break between jobs."

"Today, the full-service video, audio and creative production company takes clients' projects from start to finish, including concepts, animation and graphics."

"Behind the company name and logo that adorns the large storefront windows, Carriere and Tingley sit at two desks facing the front door. Tall ceilings give way to bright white walls and wood floors. Just through the kitchen papered with Ansel Adams photographs is a set of steep stairs leading down to what will become the audio production studio."

"But, after viewing a sample of the company's produced work, it's hard to believe the material was created by such a small team, and not a big-budget studio."

New Video: LifeStraw and the Global Water Crisis

LifeStraw is an innovative, life-saving water purification tool, noted as one of the century's most important inventions by CNN, TIME, Forbes, and a host of other media outlets.

We've partnered with international company Vestergaard Frandsen, the creators of LifeStraw, to produce a video about the global water situation and how LifeStraw is saving lives.

We're also honored by Peter's comments about working with us:

"I have worked with many large advertising and production agencies over the years, but none were as easy to work with or as competent as Aaron Carriere and his colleagues at Creo Productions. They quickly developed an appreciation for our technical products, and grew that concept into a smart and beautifully shot promotional video that we can use in countless ways."

-Peter Cleary, Vestergaard Frandsen New York

1. Please watch the video on our portfolio.

2. Please spread the word about LifeStraw.

New Video: Zondervan Launches Symtio

We're helping publisher Zondervan launch Symtio, a technology independent program that allows retailers to sell downloadable digital products in their store. Zondervan CEO Moe Girkins called Symtio an "industry movement."

We shot and edited the video that was shown at Symtio's national launch on July 14 at ICRS in Orlando. Watch the video below:

Techy Blog: Behind Creo Boggle

Many have commented on our Boggle video (see above), which tells the developing story of Creo Productions. First, we had to locate the elusive Boggle Deluxe edition, which has five columns and rows of letters instead of four. (Props to eBay for making it happen).

The music in the piece is an all original track, “Back Home,” written and played by Aaron, and recorded by our audio engineer Matthew using our ProTools system.

After scripting, production involved securing the camera directly overhead on an animation camera-stand. After numerous tests, discussions about logistics and lighting, we began shooting. In order to get the effect, we had to place the letters in their final resting position first.

Everything had to be done in reverse.

We developed a rhythmic counting system with a metronome to keep proper pacing. When Andrew set the Boggle game down on the table, we would count beats, then Aaron would hit the table underneath the set with a rubber mallet, shaking the Boggle pieces. At that exact moment, Andrew would pull the Boggle set up, shake it, and pull it out of screen.

After posting the video to our website with the original blue boggle and flesh colored hand, we decided it had to match our color scheme.

Andrew took the completed video in Final Cut Pro, and desaturated all the colors except green. He then tweaked the brightness and color to mimic our Creo Productions green color (Hex 339933). Running the video through After Effects with an HLS (Hue, Lightness, Saturation) filter made this process easy.

Finally, it was compressed with flash and added to CreoProductions.com.

On Sale: Yester-DVD's for $10

The Yesterdog Documentary is on sale for $10. Visit Yesterdog or www.YesterdogDocumentary.com to pick up your copy.

In the meantime...

GR Press: South Division Stirs With New Investment, Sense of Community...

The Grand Rapids Press wrote about the revitalization of South Division and the Avenue of the Arts in downtown Grand Rapids. They also talked to Andrew about Creo Productions and our thoughts on the space.

Click to read the story.

Local First: Grand Rapids Street Party

On Saturday we shot and edited a video about a street party in downtown Grand Rapids for Local First, an organization that connects local businesses and supports sustainability, collaboration and education. View the party highlights below:

Business Review Story Features Creo: Small Businesses, Big Screens

Lynn Stevens of Business Review wrote a story on how the film and video industry is impacting West Michigan, including those taking advantage of the new film incentives. She also talked about Creo Productions, and how we're approaching the industry differently.

The section about Creo Productions is below; the full story is available here:

Creo Productions in Grand Rapids is at another point on the spectrum. The company's founders, Aaron Carriere and Andrew Tingley, aren't interested in making movies for theaters. The two-year-old company is a member of the alliance, but its distribution plans involve other formats. They make documentaries, podcasts, online videos and related Web materials.

"What we sense is that the whole communications model is changing, how people are getting information is changing, how people are telling stories is changing," co-founder Carriere said. "People are starting to do a lot of experimentation with video -- I think that's going to continue. Stories have a place to be heard now online."

Creo is finalizing a contract with Lifestraw, a microbiological water purification system made by Danish company Vestergaard Frandsen, headquartered in Switzerland.

"What is the global water situation? We're going to make a video about that," Carriere said. "A lot of people know, but a lot of people don't know. Here these inventors in Europe are working with a small company in Grand Rapids because we can tell stories. The way communications is, there's no limit to the size of stories you can get a hold of or the impact you can make. You don't have to be an enormous company to make a big impact."

Rapid Growth Story: LifeStraw and Creo Productions

Rapid Growth did a short story on our upcoming project with LifeStraw, a personal water purification tool. You can click to read the story below or click here:

June 19, 2008

Swiss inventor taps Grand Rapids filmmaker to market innovative water purifier

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Forbes Magazine calls LifeStraw one of the 10 Things That Will Change The Way We Live and Grand Rapids-based Creo Productions has partnered with its Swiss manufacturer, Vestergaard Frandsen, to create a video that markets the product globally.

LifeStraw is a drinking straw with an instant microbiological filter that removes disease-causing waterborne bacteria. It fits in a pocket or satchel and costs just $4. Users, many of whom live where there is no clean water supply, use the straw to drink directly from rivers, streams or pots of well water.

The 2008 UNICEF Handbook On Water Quality reports that some 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water, and over three million, mostly children, die from water-borne diseases annually.

Last January, Creo co-founder Aaron Carriere, 26, was in Ecuador and ate fish he and friends had speared in a contaminated stream. They all got sick and suffered severe dehydration in the jungle.

“I’ve never had to deal with being so sick because of the water,” Carriere says. “I came back and said what can I do about this, there’s people that live like this daily.”

Carriere contacted Vestergaard Frandsen and about a month later came up with the idea to create a video the company can offer on sermonspice.com, where members buy videos to play for their organizations and churches. The video is currently in production.

“We’re going to reach an audience for LifeStraw that they haven’t reached,” says Carriers. “Sermonspice.com has 90,000 members. You take a local video, load it to the web site and immediately it goes international.

“We’re a two-man company,” Carriere adds, “and for us to have an impact on the world is great.”

Source: Aaron Carriere, Creo Productions

Rapid Growth Article

There's a story about Creo Productions and our move to our downtown studio in today's Rapid Growth newsletter. Here's an excerpt:

New video/audio studio houses "21st century storytellers" on Avenue for the Arts

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Based on the philosophy that the Internet is changing everything—communication, shopping, advertising, and entire industries—one Grand Rapids video studio has relocated to 40 S. Division and set a course for leveraging the Digital Age.

Read the full story online here.

New Studio in Downtown GR

We've moved into a 1,800 sq. ft. space in the Avenue of the Arts, located in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids. The main level houses our business office and a video studio, while the lower level will be developed into an audio studio and video editing suites. If you're in GR, feel free to stop in for coffee to check out the new pad.

Creo Productions
40 S. Division Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

New Audio Division

We've also launched a new audio division, working with our audio engineer Matthew Korn. Now we're fully equipped for professional audio recording of musicians, bands, podcasts, voiceovers and commercials.

Our first major audio gig took place in Zimbabwe, Africa in April, with Aaron alongside capturing video footage. Look for the Zim project to debut in August 2008.

New Website, Video and Audio

To commemorate (and explain) the new studio and audio expansion, we launched a new website at CreoProductions.com.

The site features fresh video and audio portfolios of our latest projects, including Chicago rocker-chick Brooke Barrettsmith, a mysteriously-composed Boggle video, and Spish, an all-original short film we wrote, shot and edited in 24 hours for a recent film festival.

Coming Soon: LifeStraw Video

We're working on a video about the global water situation for European company Vestergaard Frandsen. They are the creators of LifeStraw®, two amazing water purification products that will help alleviate the water crisis around the world.

Forbes magazine called LifeStraw® Personal "One of the Ten Things that will Change the Way We Live," while also nabbing the 2008 Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas in New York.

Cheers to changing the world with the triple bottom line.

WOM: Word-of-Mouth

We're a relationally-driven company in a people-driven industry. Want to help?

The best way is spreading the word about Creo to your colleagues, friends and family. You don't have to staple green play symbols on kiosks or launch an urban graffiti campaign, but passing along our URL would be a big help.

Brooke Barrettsmith EPK

In March, we traveled to suburban Chicago to shoot an EPK for musician Brooke Barrettsmith. We shot Brooke's interview and did all the post-production work. Here's the final video.

Spish (Creo Productions' Short Film)

Below is Spish, Creo Productions' entry for Compass Academy's 24 Hour Film Festival. We had 24 hours to write, shoot, edit and produce the short film, using the following common elements:

Theme: Passing on the tradition
Prop: Remote control
Line: "We all go a little mad sometimes."
Location: Baseball diamond

We placed in the top 10, and Spish was shown on at Studio 28 in Grand Rapids. Enjoy!

The 24 Hour Film Festival

We entered the Compass Academy 24 Hour Film Festival last weekend in Grand Rapids, where filmmakers have 24 hours to write, shoot, edit and produce an all-original five minute (or less) short film, all using the same theme, prop, line and location.

Tonight, the top 10 entries will be played on the big screen at Studio 28, with awards going to the top three films. The cost is $8. Studio 28 is located at 1350 28th St SW in Grand Rapids.

We'll be posting our short film online, entitled "Spish," next week.

The Science of "Neuromarketing"

It's no joke.

Scientists have teemed with advertisers to measure brain waves to see how good an ad is.

It's called "nueromarketing."

Everyone's in the Media Business

It's been an exciting week. From recording audio for a local brilliant furniture entrepreneur, to partnering with a singer marketing her own teaching CD, to emailing Dan Pink, the author of the world-changing book A Whole New Mind, to talking with a local creative firm about the changing industry, to this blog post from American Express, entitled "You're in the Media Business Now."

What does it mean that everyone is in the media business? John Battelle writes:

Today, I’ll assert, no matter what business you think you’re in – be it making widgets or providing a service, you’re now in the media business, plain and simple. Those that recognize this shift will succeed, those that ignore it will atrophy and eventually become irrelevant.

What everyone is talking about is the web, not just the web, but the evolution of the web and how it's changing communication. The furniture entrepreneur was talking about the enormous shifts in activity even since 2005. Battelle even goes far enough to say this:

The web provides a mediated experience between your business and your customer. If your offering on the web is satisfying your customer’s needs (even those your customers don’t know they had), it’s time to consider a major investment in the web media business. The Web already is - or will soon become - your most important customer satisfaction and service (and perhaps even sales) channel. You may be in the “making widgets business” now, but no matter what you do next, you’re going to be in the media business. All aboard!

Well said. All aboard.

Michigan: The Hollywood of the Midwest?

Local Grand Rapids station WOOD TV8 did a small story on the film industry in West Michigan, and people lobbying for the state to give large tax incentives to bring Hollywood productions here. You can read and watch it here.

The Grand Rapids Press also covered the story, and conducted a small poll, where 83 percent of 153 readers are in favor of Michigan granting tax breaks to filmmakers.

Rethinking Your Online Video

The online video research keeps on pouring in.

The NY Times has a new article entitled, "A D.I.Y. Approach to Making a Web Commercial," highlighting small businesses and video production companies that are partnering together to help small businesses communicate through online videos.

With online video, nearly every company has the chance to be heard--no longer is video confined to huge marketing campaigns and expensive ad budgets--it's about communicating through storytelling that's targeted to your audience.

DigiMarketing Video Insights

Watch the DigiMarketing video.

West Michigan ADDY Awards

On Thursday night, I attended the West Michigan ADDY Awards at Steelcase in Grand Rapids.

The show was impressive. There is a vibrant, talented creative community in Grand Rapids.

You can see the winners at the newly redesigned Ad Club website.

USA Today on Video E-Commerce

USA Today covered Barnes & Noble's launch into online video, but the most interesting part of the article is the impact of online video on e-commerce and retailers.

It's the latest salvo in what Internet Retailer editor Kurt Peters calls an "online video revolution" in retail. Websites use video to give shoppers new ways to interact with products and, of course, to boost sales.

How could online video boost your site (and sales)?

TV Down, Web Up

TV commercials seem to be losing steam, according to a study released by the Association of National Advertisers. Where are people (and advertisers) going?

To the web.

87 percent of advertisers will spend more on the Internet this year, while half "have started to experiment with new types of ads to work with digital video recorders and video-on-demand programming."

Everything is changing. We've got HD. It's time to adapt.

The Facebook Philanthropos

WOMMA linked to an interesting Slate magazine article about organizations and charities soliciting donations online. The model of social networks raising funds seems to be trumped by raising awareness, saying, "The greater promise of viral philanthropy may lie not in electronic check writing, but in increased involvement; 21^st-century technology for philanthropos in its most ancient sense."

Jean Case, the wife of AOL founder Steve Case, said, "Philanthropy shouldn't be defined as a bunch of rich people writing checks," she told the New York Times. "Small amounts of money given by large numbers of individuals can be combined to do great things."

So, in another way, organizations online are looking for effective ways to tell their stories and spread their messages. Of course, we have a few ideas of our own.

Ten Billion Videos

141 Americans watched 10 billion online videos in December 2007. That's a new record.

The Internet Jungle

Through a series of unfortunate and unrelated events, our email server and website were down while Aaron was in the Amazon jungle shooting a documentary on the Waodani Indians of Ecuador.

If you tried to get in touch with Creo during Jan. 20-30, please accept our apologies. We're back.

Big Think

A new website Big Think (www.bigthink.com) was originally pitched "as a YouTube for intellectuals," according to this New York Times article. Big Think is a portal for the world's brains and big ideas, featuring a ton of video interviews and a communal aspect of social networking.

Featuring interviews with politicians, musicians, artists and thinkers, it's another example of online video impacting large segments of society.