French Press Films

12/18/2018

In this blog post, our director of strategy+accounts, Ellen Hobbs, tells a story about the importance of creating clear success metrics for your employees and vendors.

One of the first questions we ask at French Press when a customer wants to make video is, “What are the success metrics for your project?”

11/26/2018

Considering taking all your video production in house? Don't do it before doing a serious cost analysis with a creative video studio. Ellen Hobbs, our director of strategy + accounts, writes about the stuff that might make you decide you would be better off sticking with an outside company for video - including price.

These days a lot of organizations are feeling the pressure to create video, and sometimes a lot of it. Video is table stakes, and…

11/05/2018

Ellen Hobbs, our director of strategy + accounts, reviews the latest book by the founders of Basecamp, the company that makes the tool that helps French Press keep all our projects well managed.

https://medium.com/french-press/from-my-bookshelf-it-doesnt-have-to-be-crazy-at-work-3d3cba47813b

My latest biz book read was It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work, written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founders of…

10/23/2018

How can you go bold without going bad? Ellen Hobbs, our Director of Strategy and Accounts, says there is a way to uncover those risks that aren't really that risky, even if you don't have Nike-sized video budgets.

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It’s coming up on two months since Nike released their controversial Colin Kaepernick ad, and the results are in — the “backlash” has been…

10/22/2018

It’s all about the shot, right? But who’s in charge of what goes IN the shot?

This episode features production designer Amanda Beane. Amanda was production designer on Paper Birds, and has worked on both creative productions and commercial works in the Bay Area. We talk about process, where inspiration comes from, telling stories through objects and sets, and even perspectives on new formats like 360 and VR!

Find the podcast here: https://www.frenchpressfilms.com/podcast

Enjoy!

10/15/2018

In this piece from our archives, Executive Creative Director Andrew Juncker shares a bit about the joy of the storytelling process when creating a effective branded narrative piece for a client.

This is an old post from way back in the (never saw the light of) day! I thought it would be worth dusting it off and sharing it this week.

10/09/2018

How do you decide what to do with your video budget? Our director of strategy + accounts, Ellen Hobbs, has some tips to help you when you're trying to choose between a marketing piece or a product explainer.

A guy walks into a video production company office and says, “I wanna make a video about my product!” The production company people say…

10/08/2018

We just published Part Two of our series on what it takes to make a video, by CEO + Founder Chris Walters. Learn about what actually happens on a production day (Spoiler alert: no matter what happens, there's lunch!).

In my last post, I discussed what the pre-production process looks like when producing a video for our clients. If you haven’t read that…

09/26/2018

Today we are featuring a "best of" piece from our blog: Executive Creative Director and co-founder Andrew Juncker writes about the process of working with a client to come up with a unique twist on the standard recruiting video.

The Secret Recruiting Video That Never Was

09/24/2018

Got it in your head to do a big, beautiful brand anthem video for your organization but not sure how to get buy-in from your colleagues? Ellen Hobbs, our director of strategy + accounts, has a few tips.

Typical scenario: A marketing person comes to French Press Films with a big idea to do a brand anthem video.

09/20/2018

How long does it take to make a video? Our CEO Chris Walters is going to break it down for you in a three-part series on our blog. Read the first installment now!

“How long will this take?” is a question we hear all the time and the answer is usually, “It depends.” We understand that every client’s…

09/11/2018

Our Director of Strategy and Accounts, Ellen Hobbs, talks about two types of clients and what they really want from their engagements with a creative studio.

When I talk to potential clients about what they want when they partner with a creative studio like ours, I’m surprised at how many of…