OK. So I have this little guilty blog light that fires off in my brain when I haven’t posted on here for anything longer than two days. Judging by the last few weeks activity, the lights been burning a hole through my head. It has sort of bugged me a little bit, BUT, not without good reason– we’re moving a good deal of the work through the pipeline over here. “After the Factory” is, for all intents and purposes, done. The content is all there and edited, its just off at the beauty parlor (Ringside Creative) getting all done up and prettied for the big dance. We will be announcing the premiere soon. Funny thing is that the documentary is just one part of the load though. We’re releasing today the beginning of a very large body of work that we have been developing for the Detroit Creative Corridor Center. To say I am pumped is largely an understatement. I am f#(%$#ng ecstatic to get this stuff out.
Many moons ago, the Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3) approached us about producing some content for them to help tell the story of their work in the city. This was a big deal. It officially marked the first moment we thought about developing materials for other organizations or businesses– essentially having “clients.” And that sounded really fun. What better a way to help strengthen the message about Detroit than to strengthen its individual parts? That has kind of been the goal all along, and this was a great way to help support that. All of this was a huge revelation. So, we started working with the DC3, asking basic questions to help fuel ideas for how we would tell their story. What is the DC3 doing? How are they doing it? What value are they creating?
The answer, over time, was that the DC3 is doing many things worth noting: playing an influential role in attracting creative sector companies to headquarter in the city (they were instrumental in Skidmore Studio’s move downtown), putting on events like the Detroit Design Festival or playing an active role in developing local talent to help them go from idea generator to enterprise. Light bulbs exploded, and it seemed the best way to tell the story of the DC3′s work was to just highlight the entities they are helping grow. Their success was ultimately the DC3′s success.
And with that realization, we had it. Four months later (which lands us here today) and we are ready to reveal the first iteration of the body of work. It’s being called The Speakers Bureau— a collection of 90 second films featuring the entities the DC3 is working with in order to accelerate creative sector growth in Detroit. What’s even more exciting is that the Speakers Bureau, aside from being a virtual storytelling portal on the web, will also take on real-life forms in a variety of exciting ways to create unique events/happenings/presentations that spread a well substantiated message about the city’s growth.
We have some fun plans and events to reveal in the future. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! For now, enjoy the debut of these films and the work the DC3 is doing. Today we will reveal three of the films, with another film being revealed every Monday to follow. The first three features Bethany Shorb of Cyberoptix Tie Lab, Rola Nashef, director of the film “Detroit Unleaded” and Tim Smith, CEO of Skidmore Studio. Enjoy.
See the landing page for the Speakers Bureau on the DC3 website here
Click each individual name to see videos for Bethany, Rola and Tim
