• Pilgrimage to Portland

    Traveling from time to time is something you sign up for when making the choice to pursue a career in video production. It can be very exciting at times; getting to check out new places that you otherwise might never think of visiting. And although video production is a creative field, there are certainly those other times when the required tasks during the trip aren’t as artistically refreshing as one might hope.

    Last week I got to visit the Matter office in Portland, Oregon for the first time. Among my list of tasks were to take headshots for all of our staff, shoot some office B Roll, and give an overview presentation of Matter’s in-house creative services to the PDX staff. After a day and a half of this, I was to then hop on a plane to San Francisco to staff a Media Training event for a client. While all of this stuff is useful for the company and good professional experience for me, I needed to find a way that I could bring back more than just photos of smiling faces and a PowerPoint deck. Enter Nick and Cait.

    Nick and Cait are two of our staff members who recently jumped ship from Newburyport to Portland. They’ve been working from the Oregon office for a couple months now, so with their help I created this short doc about the migration process and how it’s affected each of them. Working on this project allowed me to get outside for a while to shoot B Roll around the city and take in some of the sights, all while telling their unique story.

    Breaking the norm of telling a client’s story to tell one of our agency’s own was a nice change of pace. From a Matter perspective, I hope this will help folks realize that moving 2500 miles away from home doesn’t have to be all that intimidating.

    Matter

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  • 4 Tips to Stay Creative when the Inspiration Just Isn’t There

    When it comes to creating visual content for a client, the intention is to always make something that sets itself apart so it gets the high levels of engagement that we all covet. Unfortunately, us right brained folk go through times when we don’t feel like we’re living up to our artistic potential. I recently attended an event hosted by Boston Content, to chat with others about this exact feeling. Here are a few takeaways that may help out when you get the imaginative writer’s block.

     

    1. Create (and continuously check) Your Holy Grail of Creativity

    For me, these places include the Vimeo Staff Picks, motionographer.com, YouTube channels of motion graphics experts, and definitely Instagram. They allow me to quickly check out what people in my field are creating, as well as what’s trendy at the moment. It helps that these spots are curated so I don’t have to spend much time finding something that may inspire me. I’m willing to bet that your cloud security clients aren’t checking in on these, so looking at a tutorial for a crafty animation technique and then tweaking it to your client’s branding can help wow them without making you feel like your brain is melting.

     

    1. Maintain Your Confidence, Even Through the Dullest of Days

    The reason your company hired you is because of your skillset, attitude, and potential. This is something to keep in mind, especially when you receive a laundry list of constructive criticism on a project that you thought was some of your better work. Some people will keep a folder in their email of all the positive feedback from clients, and go through it when it seems like a current project is running around in circles with no end in sight. It helps clear the mind, and keep you aware of why you chose this career path in the first place. For me, the “clearing of the mind” usually involves a mid day pit stop at the variety store near to our office for gummy bears or a cup of soup.

     

    1. Find Out What’s Inspiring Your Coworkers and Peers

    Sure, some of these people you wouldn’t find yourself hanging out with on the weekend, but it helps to see what is catching your colleagues’ eye. Here at matter, we have created a “cool creative” email alias that anyone in the company can sign up for. Instead of sending along marketing trends, or the latest study on consumerism amongst millennials, your might see an explainer video for a carrot, or perhaps an infographic of celebrities first pitches at MLB games. The content of what’s sent in these emails just has to be something cool and creative (hence the alias name) and doesn’t have to have anything to do with work.

     

    1. Drink Coffee

    Lots of it. Hot, iced, it doesn’t matter. Try to save those double shots of espresso for the days when you really need a boost, instead of making it part your everyday java routine. I think we can all agree that by some principle of divine intervention, coffee makes you more creative.

     

    Editors’ Note: “The Business of Content Creation” was hosted by Boston Content and broken into sessions. Check out some other takeaways in these Matter blog posts:

     

    The “Science” of Content ROI

    Follow me on Twitter at @MatterStudioC and @MatterComm on Instagram.

    Matter

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  • How to blog like a lobster dealer

    My favorite blog isn’t a newspaper site. It’s a blog by a lobster dealer who started working on the docks when he was 9 years old. Good Morning Gloucester gives a daily snapshot of life in Gloucester, Mass., the nation’s oldest fishing harbor. It’s hugely popular, with 22,000 to 30,000 page views per day.

    The main reason Good Morning Gloucester connects with readers around the world is because it’s so real. The language is how real people talk and the people on the blog come across as real, likable people with interesting stories. There are lessons there for those of us who communicate for a living. Use simple, clear language. Be likable. Tell a good story.

    My friend Joey Ciaramitaro is the lobster dealer behind Good Morning Gloucester. We interviewed him for ideas on ways to engage readers, build an audience and create, as he would say, “a blog that doesn’t suck.” Here are his tips.

    What do you think? Which tips did we miss?

    Matter

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