15four guides you through the process turning your big ideas into reality

From Hamlet to Harry Potter, Homestar Runner to Hotel Rwanda, films and video all share the same basic components that one would find in any great story: plot, characters, action, and stage upon which it all happens. Capital campaigns, documentaries, podcasts, corporate videos, and the project that you are considering right now are no different.

Not only do all stories share a similar structure, they also share a similar process to make that big idea turn from thoughts and concepts into a concise and beautiful reality. 15four has developed our process over years of completing projects and continuing relationships with our partners - basically, our film production is broken down into four major steps: listening, planning, shooting, and crafting.

15four starts the process by listening. Listening to your story, to your big idea, to your dream and your goal. Who are the people involved? Why do they do what they do? We'll ask you a whole bunch of questions and listen some more. We want to truly understand your story and the reasons you have to tell it.

The planning phase is our time to huddle together and process what we've heard from you. We'll brainstorm and create a visual style, a documentary or narrative approach; we'll take your ideas and begin to translate them into a script or shot outline. We work with you on a budget and deliver a contract that will outline our plan and the deliverables. We manage the film production details and timeline, schedule dates and times to meet with you and your people, see and understand your work, and if needed set dates for script writing to take place and actors to learn lines.

Shooting can take place in a few hours, a day, a week, or over the course of several months depending on the project. For our documentary style projects we love the challenge of being in the midst of a unique and foreign situation: we take a minute to look around and find the beauty in each shot, to ask revealing questions of the cast of characters, and find the essence of the story that's there waiting to be told. A narrative project brings the thrill of live performance and the process of directing and capturing the story in a natural and understated way.

The final step: crafting. All of the footage gets fed into our computers, and chewed on by each of us at 15four. Steve will make sense of the story line, Kurt edits the visuals, while Dan takes care of the technical stuff like sound, color, and compression. Hours of footage boil down into your finished piece; we take a lot of time and care to make each story unique, impactful, professional, and beautiful. We work with you to figure out the best way to distribute your film - digitally, through youtube or a custom 15four viewing room on your website, or conventionally on DVDs.

While creating a film can be a daunting task, one of our goals is to make the process of creation easy for you and your staff. We'll be in constant communication throughout each step to keep you up to date with our progress. We enjoy collarboration, and welcome discussion and feedback before, during, and after the project. We're passionate about our work and love doing what we do, we're excited to hear your ideas and discuss your story.

Click through our digital video portfolio to see some examples of past work and then drop us an email - we're looking forward to working with you!

15four Digital Video Portfolio

 

15four, LLC

Baltimore, Maryland

info@15four.com

© 2008 15four