Our very first interaction (after ping ponging a few emails about dates) is sitting in a call or in person over coffee to learn about each other. We discuss your company, what problems you are looking to solve, what goals you are hoping to achieve, and what you are looking to create. Be it a big idea you have been planning or just an inkling of one at this point, we go over everything.
Through all of this, we keep one question central: Where is the human element?
In other words, whose story are we going to tell? How will this person's or group's story influence the cinematography? The sound? And who are we telling this story for? We believe the impact that a video makes is determined by the strength of its human element. If the human element is weak, then the video will not meet expectations. So, we hone in on that.
"We loved working with Sandpiper.... They were so easy to work with, taking care of all details quickly and efficiently. We recommend them highly."
Thought you were done reading Huckleberry Finn? Guess again. After our first meeting, we take our notes and caffeinated brains and think long and hard about the project. What is our human element? Is it strong enough to form the backbone of the project? Do we have enough from you to put together a proposal?
Often at this point, we come back to the client with homework in the form of audience research and analysis. Who is your audience? How do they speak? What human experiences do they share in connection to the product, service, or brand being highlighted in the project?
Once we have enough information to put together a proposal, we form multiple pricing tiers for the project. Are we going big or are we keeping this production scrappy? Are we pursuing brand prestige or brand approachability? This pricing goes into our combined proposal and statement of work, which we pitch and discuss with you. We want to make sure we are developing a video product that is scoped to your budgetary needs. After we are all in agreement, legal takes it from there.
Is that pun pardonable? I hope so, because we dive into Excel next to begin scheduling, shotlisting, and on and on. Every detail is meticulously crafted to ensure a seamless production process.
It bears repeating: we prioritize the human element in the stories we tell, both in front of and behind the camera. In the planning phase, we maintain communication and transparency with everyone involved. We believe that the most compelling stories emerge when everyone is informed, engaged, and aligned with the end goal regardless of hierarchy. We are diametrically opposed to the common industry practice of keeping departments isolated until the day of the shoot. We think of this approach as keeping the human element behind the camera top of mind.
The planning phase is generally a series of weekly meetings to discuss scripts, questions, scheduling, shot lists, crew, locations, rentals, and insurance. All of this information is built up over the course of a few weeks as part of our workflow, culminating in one big production brief to align all people on the project. Got a question during the process? Communicate with us directly with the work communication app of your choice as if we are a member of your team.
"The team at Sandpiper really went above and beyond expectations. .... super power is organization and attention to detail, which has an outsized impact on the overall production. Definitely looking forward to working with their team again."
This human-first thinking extends to the shoot day, where we all gather behind a carafe of hot coffee at the craft services table (also known as "Crafty") at sunrise to go over the schedule and shot list.
You get a front row seat to the capture, be it interviews, acting, or general footage gathering. We hand you a monitor to review the shots and you get direct communication with everyone on set. If you are remote, we pipe you in via a call and give you direct remote access to the camera feeds. The goal here is to give you peace of mind that the production will be completed on time, on budget, and with excellent results.
If the shoot day is the tip of the iceberg, the post production phase is the rest of the monolith below water. And magic really does seem to happen here. We have three great editors who can transform a hard drive of raw interviews and footage into a heart-tugging, uplifting narrative about the human's or group's behind your product, service, or brand. We succeed when the viewer connects with and remembers the story being told. This connection would not be possible without the expertise of our editors, who build the narrative from the footage, refine the audio for clarity, grade the color to complement the narrative, create the music and sound effects to elevate emotional impact, and design the graphical elements in cohesion with your brand and the overall mood of the project.
We first approach the edit by audio. We structure the narrative based on the sound, close our eyes, and listen. Does it have emotional resonance with just the sound? We do not move on to music until we've achieved this resonance, and after sound we do image and finally graphics. With this approach, we layer strength over strength, brick by brick, to build the most impactful narrative that we can from everything we captured in production. It really feels like magic when clips that by themselves carry no emotional weight join with other clips and suddenly pull at something inside you. That pull, that gravity -- this is the human element calling from within the narrative. This element can only be extracted layer by layer by hand, which is why we mean it when we say we do hand made, human first video production.
"I am absolutely THRILLED with the experience and final result of working with .... the team at Sandpiper Video. They exceeded my expectations, provided professional guidance and excellent customer service, and delivered an awesome video! SO, SO happy with everything and will definitely refer to them and call on them again."
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