Yesterday we sat down with a notebook, a pen and a profit & loss comparison statement print-out from Quickbooks. With these tools, we evaluated our last year in business and in life, since they inevitably converge in the creative field. We first sat down and wrote down all the things that went well and why. The exercise served as both a pat on the back and an evaluation into what to continue to do in 2012. But the past year has been exhilarating.
After completing a successful national broadcast on PBS in the Fall, our film Keeping the Kibbutz was made available on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and Snagfilms. In 2011, the film also continued its public screening series at several venues, including the Manchester Jewish Museum in the UK, the Basel Jewish Community in Switzerland, the University at Albany, the Amsterdam Jewish Historical Museum in the Netherlands and the Center for Contemporary Art in Glasgow, Scotland. We call this “the little film that could.”
Meanwhile, we continued to produce documentary-style videos for our non-profit clients, enhancing the value of these videos with heightened storytelling and production techniques. It didn’t hurt to have a brand spanking new Panasonic AF100 to play with. Coupled with great lenses like the Zeiss 50mm, we’ve been able to enhance our cinematography tremendously. See our work here.
With the support of a DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities Grant, we completed 73 Cents, a short film about a local artist advocating for better health care. The film will soon make its film festival rounds and we’re exciting about sharing this story with others.
Fulfilling a dream of ours, we spent the late summer and early Fall in Southeast Asia visiting silk weavers in Bangkok, playing Seepak Takraw in Chiang Dao, offering alms to monks in Luang Prabang, touring the waterfalls of the Bolaven Plateau by motorbike, marveling at the temples of Angkor Wat, sailing past the misty limestone peaks of Halong Bay and trekking with the Hmong of SaPA. We also snuck in some time to produce this short pro-bono film about an inspiring Lao man who is working to educate the young people in his community. Our eight weeks of travel was followed by a client project in Israel and a side-trip to stunning Jordan.
But our travels didn’t end there. Work brought us to corners of our own country we had never explored, including this recent jaunt to Colorado.
We took a leap of faith by redesigning our website and are thrilled with the results: a showcase of our independent work, client work and FOUR years of blog posts. We also reluctantly joined the twitterverse but were excited for the opportunity to connect with filmmakers, content distributors, non-profits and change-makers.
It’s been a tremendous year but we can’t wait for what 2012 will bring. Lots of great new projects and collaborations in the new year. Stay tuned!
