Making Mighteor

Whenever we add a new Mighteorite to our internet wunderkind crew, it feels like our universe is expanding a little bit. But this week, our crew is adding a shiny new star. As our animation needs grow and the world of animation continues to excite, it only makes sense that we would double down with top notch talent.

Check out some of the projects Hayley has worked on!

Hayley comes to us from Weber Shandwick, an internationally renowned communications shop where she worked with prestigious clients such as The U.S. Army, The U.S. Department of the Treasury, Honeywell, Cargill, Land O’Lakes, Unilever, IEEE, Opus, Sealed Air and Tork.

For the past 4 years she has worked as an animator, illustrator, shooter, editor and producer on over 600 videos for more than 150 different clients. She is deeply in love with motion design, married to Adobe After Effects.

Although she has worked in all areas of video production, she specializes in animation and motion graphics; focusing mainly on traditional 2D, vector-based, hand-drawn, kinetic typography, stop-motion and parallaxed photography.

But enough from us. How about a little insight from our newest Mighteorite:

Why Animation + Motion?

I started drawing and creating stop-motion films at a very young age. I guess it's not a surprise that I fell in love with something that combines two of my favorite things!

What makes a great internet video?

Feeling… a great video should make feel something, if it gives you goosebumps then you’re onto something.  

What’s your favorite internet video?

Tim And Eric - The Innernette Segment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkr5ztKiXMM

Why should clients be thinking about animation in 2017?

You can literally create ANYTHING with animation.  I believe most humans are visual learners, animation is an incredible tool when it comes to illustrating complex concepts or showing off a new product or service that doesn’t physically exist in the real world yet.

Favorite thing to binge watch on Netflix?

From the beach to the mountains - the city and the studio - 2016 has been an exciting year at Mighteor. We’ve been proud to see our client’s videos earn thousands upon thousands of views - garner attention from Shark Tank to Engadget and of course, earn some new fans too.

It’s easy to look back on any given year and completely lose track of all the hard work that went into your year. But that’s part of what we love about being a video production company - we can actually revisit our year through the visuals we created. And that’s pretty darned satisfying.

Our new 2017 reel highlights our favorite projects from this past year, but it also hints at the exciting new partnership we will be announcing after the New Year.

Snapchat has been a popular place for millennials, people who are bemused by face swapping technology and brands that want to be hip. As we watched the platform grow, we’ve also seen how brands have become obsessed with being young and fast and fun with the platform - but even if your brand isn’t like MTV, we can help you understand how to be hip with the face swappers.

The Discover portion of Snapchat has been leveraged by big name brands as a multi-tool to reach their customers for a variety of reasons including:

Authenticity - With Snapchat it’s easy to post genuine, behind the scenes interactions to the platform. Users know what they’re seeing is true content not being faked or glorified to make it seem creative and beautiful.

Creative Freedom - With the amount of filters and ability to post content in 1 to 10 second increments Snapchat allows users to have creative freedom to publish stories and content in an infinite amount of ways.

Length/Duration - Snapchat allows posts to be 10 seconds maximum so even if users only tune in for a short period of time chances are they can watch a significant amount of content and still feel connected.

Snapchat was the only platform that allowed for videos to disappear after 24 hours and have a uniqueness of duration of availability. For example, if Nike wanted to show a behind the scenes look at a line of new shoes coming out they could put that video on Snapchat and their customers would only have 24 hours to view that snap. This expiration timeline makes users engage with their favorite brands on a daily basis to make sure they don’t miss any important information and footage.

Snapchat had the competitive advantage for this reason until Instagram entered the arena. In August Instagram introduced the “Stories” feature in one of their updates that allows users to post short-form video to their profile that expires in 24 hours. If you’re thinking about getting started with these platforms, here’s a helpful video from our Founder and CEO on how to start using your day to day business life in video content: (0:55-7:50)

Video is the future. And Live Video is definitely a huge part of that. How do we know? Well, we’re not alone. Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today said, “Less than a month after the launch of Instagram’s Snapchat-cloning “Stories” feature, the company has revealed that the new option is already being utilized by more than 100 million people every day.” Link

Every client has different goals for their videos. Number of shares. Amount of money raised. Reduced number of customer service calls. Number of views. Driving traffic to a website. But rarely, do we have a client say: We want to be on Shark Tank.

It’s a big, big goal. And it’s a goal that one of our clients just accomplished!

Keeping the goals and purpose of the video in mind is always something we aim to perfect at Mighteor.

We’ve helped startups and brands raise over $12 million in venture capital. We’ve launched 16 products through crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. One of our major energy clients recently used a Mighteor video to introduce themselves to investors. The results? They just closed a $4.5 million seed round.

Most recently though, our client Sunscreenr pitched on ABC’s Shark Tank and the most fun part for us was obvious: We got to see our footage in action.

Yep, that was Mighteor video footage seen by millions if people on the season 8 episode 6 of Shark Tank on ABC Friday, October 28, 2016. (link to ep on Hulu) Dave Cohen, Sunscreenr CEO and Co-founder pitched his unique product to help protect people from the sun’s harmful rays to the Sharks in hopes of a deal. The Kickstarter video we produced for Sunscreenr was re-purposed and cut to help Dave’s pitch to the sharks. Dave and Sunscreenr closed a deal with Kevin O’Leary for an $800,000 investment for a 33.33% share of the business.

Tomorrow is Election Day.

Not that you didn’t know that. It seems EVERYWHERE we look, someone is talking about the election.

We could bore you with all the blah, blah about civic duty and the importance of participating in the democratic process. But instead, we want to talk about how traditional political ads kinda stink.

It’s not often that you see a political ad that’s animated, has a little personality and doesn’t really much care about whether or not you have a candidate. That’s where some of our awesome clients step in.

With our partners at Himle Rapp & Co. - we worked on two great policy-based projects and brought a modern eye to both ideas. 

An animated wallpaper with a growing leaf in a campaign video!? We know. We love it too.

Simple, sweet and animated. Can’t get any better.

The Grow Minnesota Food Plan highlights the 400,000 jobs that are impacted by the agriculture and food industry and the importance of supporting candidates who are in favor of supporting those industries. Did you know that Minnesota is the leading state in supplying food to the US and the rest of the world? Learn more about the Grow Minnesota Food Plan here.

We love some rhyming. Poetry. And good, old fashioned storytelling. That was the creative direction behind State of Great, an effort by the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses to put a focus on supporting great companies in the state. Learn more abou State of Great here.

Mighteor videographer, Chase Bortz, directed a short film last summer.

It is debuting at the Denver Film Festival in the Colorado Narrative Shorts category. It’s showing next week and you don’t want to miss it! You can see it two different times.

1. Sunday, November 6th @ 11AM UA Denver Pavilions. Mighteor CEO Elizabeth Giorgi (Executive Producer) and Chaz Grundy (Actor - The Featured Lead Musical Performer “The Boss”) will be present on a panel to talk about LINGO.

2. Tuesday, November 8th @ 6:45PM UA Denver Pavilions. Chase Bortz (Director) & Tryke Roark (Music Composer and Sound Designer) will be present on a panel to talk about the film.

You can buy tickets for the showings here. Make sure you grab your tickets and go support LINGO and the Denver film community!

We make beautiful stories come to life. Whether it’s live action or animation, being a full service video production company gives us the opportunity to make visual masterpieces. Transporting viewers into the worlds we create in animation projects is one of the reasons we love to do it! Check out some of the beautiful characters and worlds come to life in our recent animation projects.

Shuri

We created an animation video for our client Shuri who is changing the way modern professionals network, keep track of their interactions with analysts, and how they share and complete tasks as a team. 

Speak Now! Colorado

We created 4 animation spots with our friends at Evolution Communications Agency focused on helping parents learn how to talk to their kids about alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs.

Waffle.io

We animated Waffle Bot and made it come to life for our client Waffle.io for their launch party.

Heraclitus said, “There is nothing permanent except change.” Although change is sometimes difficult to cope with and overcome it is necessary to adapt and move forward. Mighteor has reached a point where changing offices to accommodate the growing staff was unavoidable.

Although it’s a heartfelt and sad goodbye to our friends at Massif Studios we are happy to unveil we have moved onto Colorado Blvd and have an office in the Chase building. The address is 2696 S Colorado Blvd Denver, CO 80222.

We’re on floor 5, Suite 580. Come say hi and check out the new space. We’d love to show you the new office!

During the summer of 1942, a 14-year-old looks after his widowed mother and two siblings while working as a bicycle messenger. This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

The fall can be a depressing time for movies. With the summer blockbusters now wrapped and the award hungry titles waiting for the winter, there is usually a shortage of compelling stories to pick from. However, it’s a full month for female directors who both write and direct their films. It’s practically a cinematic prozac.

September 2: 

White Girl (Written and Directed by Elizabeth Wood. Starring Morgan Saylor)

Summer, New York City. A college girl falls hard for a guy she just met. After a night of partying goes wrong, she goes to wild extremes to get him back.

September 9:

Ithaca (Directed by and Starring Meg Ryan)

During the summer of 1942, a 14-year-old looks after his widowed mother and two siblings while working as a bicycle messenger.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcuL9PB8RlA

September 16:

Bridget Jones’s Baby (Directed by Sharon Maguire, Written by Helen Fielding and Starring Renee Zellweger)

The continuing adventures of British publishing executive Bridget Jones as she enters her 40s. This time, she’s pregnant!

Miss Stevens (Written and directed by Julia Hart) A comedy focused on a teacher who chaperones a group of high schoolers to a state drama competition.

Wild Oats (Written by Claudia Myers and Starring Jessica Lange, Demi Moore and Shirley MacLaine) Everything changes for EVA when she receives a life insurance check accidentally made out for $5,000,000 instead of the expected $50.000. She and her best friend take the money and head out for the adventure of a lifetime.

September 23:

Girl Asleep (Directed by Rosemary Myers and Starring Bethany Whitmore) The world is closing in on Greta Driscoll. On the cusp of turning fifteen she can’t bear to leave her childhood, it contains all the things that give her comfort.

The Dressmaker (Written and Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and Starring Kate Winslet) In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.

My Blind Brother (Written and Directed by Sophie Goodhart) Robbie, a blind athlete, is loved and adored as a local sports hero, and his brother, Bill, has never received the same adoration, which leads to a rivalry that boils over when they both fall for the same girl.

September 30:

Queen of Katwe (Directed by Mira Nair and Starring Lupita Nyong’o) A young girl from Uganda trains to become a world chess champion.

American Honey (Written and Directed by Andrea Arnold)

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Generation Startup (Directed by Cheryl Miller Houser and Cynthia Wade) Generation Startup takes us to the front lines of entrepreneurship in America, capturing the struggles and triumphs of six recent college graduates who put everything on the line to build startups in Detroit. Shot over 17 months, it’s an honest, in-the-trenches look at what it takes to launch a startup. Directed by Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade and award-winning filmmaker Cheryl Miller Houser, the film celebrates risk-taking, urban revitalization, and diversity while delivering a vital call-to-action-with entrepreneurship at a record low, the country’s economic future is at stake.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

Denver Startup Week, the biggest entrepreneurial event of its kind in the country kicked off today. With over 10,000 people expected to attend over 300 free events over the course of this week the Mighteor team is going to be moving around a lot. Here’s where you can make sure you catch up with and hang out with the Mighteor team.

Tuesday 9/13 Women Who Startup Summit - 6:00 - 10:00 at the Galvanize Triangle

Wednesday 9/14 1 Million Cups - 8:00 - 9:30 at the Colorado Lending Source

Thursday 9/15 P2Bi Workshop: Cash Flow forecasting for companies at all stages

Friday 9/16: Crowdfunding & Beyond: How a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign can Unlock the Door to Future Success

Did you catch our live stream of Mighteor Monday last month? If not, don’t worry episode 2 will be here shortly! Tune in on Facebook Monday, September 5 at 10:00 am to catch the second episode of Mighteor Monday.

Mighteor Monday is our Facebook live show where you can ask our CEO, Liz Giorgi, questions about internet videos, online playables, and digital media. Last month in the first episode we covered Snapchat for brands, Frank Ocean’s live stream leading up to his album release, how to be effective on camera, and many others. You can watch the episode here:

Here’s a tough question: when was the last time your CEO interacted directly with your customers? Have you ever thought about catching that interaction on tape? This is just one way we recommend utilizing your Chief Executive Officer as your Chief Explaining Officer.

There are lots of ways in which your leader can be better utilized to improve your relationships with your customers, increase sales and just generate goodwill for your company. Turning your boss into a star may have even more benefits than you think. After all, who doesn't want to be wildly popular?

If you’re a hip brand, you’re probably already rocking instagram. We are big fans here at Mighteor. But while we have all been sharing photos for years, the integration of video elements into the platform has opened up all kinds of new possibilities for connecting with our customers and fans.

Everyone loves loops and gifs, so how can you use them to attract fans, customers and internet eyeballs to your brand?

Well, one way is through utilizing the feed-friendly nature of Instagram and combining it your old and unused footage. Making loops isn’t tough to do, see, we’ve even done it:

A video posted by Mighteor (@mighteor) on Jan 13, 2016 at 12:51pm PST

This Internet Video Masterclass gives you a direct look into how you maximize your reach on Instagram by simply utilizing the parts of your content that you may have never imagined using in any other context. It's like recycling for internet video!

If you work in content marketing, you’ve probably been behind the scenes during the development of an online video or two. And if you have been part of that process, you know that most people run around with a very specific idea in their head: IT NEEDS TO BE SHORT!

As part of our Internet Video Masterclass, each week we will be highlighting one episode from the series and this week we’re jumping into a question we hear a lot and cover in this episode: Are Shorter Videos Better?

The simple answer. No.

But to better understand it, we need to wrap our minds around why this idea exists in the first place. We call it the “Short Running Time Lie.” It’s a lie because it insinuates that you can make a video better simply by making it as short as possible. When it comes to your content strategy, I believe this idea came to life because of advertising.

For years, we have been applying the rules of marketing and advertising to the world of internet video. Instead, we should be applying the rules of storytelling. And the rules of storytelling teach us that we need to focus on keeping the audience engaged from 0:01 until the very last minute, no matter how long it lasts.

Did you tune in to the first Mighteor Monday? The first Monday of every month we’ll be hosting a live web show on our Facebook page, Mighteor Monday.

Want to learn how to better leverage internet video for your digital marketing strategy? Confused by Snapchat videos? Need to understand how to better utilize your internet playables on Facebook? Mighteor Monday will answer your questions about Snapchat, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and all other digital platforms for internet playables.

Today we covered Snapchat and why brands can leverage the platform to be using it to the best of their ability. We also talked about ad dollars moving from YouTube to Facebook. In addition to those topics we fielded questions from the audience tuning in live that covered blog topics, camera selection, and hiring a professional video production company vs. DIY. You can see this week’s episode here.

It’s no secret that we make awesome internet videos at Mighteor. But the fact is, we are JUST as committed to being awesome at distributing video. In fact, the whole point of Mighteor from the beginning has been to not just produce beautiful internet playables - we are just as committed to making sure that the video we create gets seen.

The Mighteorites have been hard at work crafting the tools and instruments to get ready for the new launch of our online video series: Internet Video Masterclass.

A video posted by Mighteor (@mighteor) on Jul 28, 2016 at 12:31pm PDT

The Internet Video Masterclass is a web show dedicated to helping brands, businesses, nonprofits, startups and everyone in between create more strategic and effective video content for the web. It’s just about time for this rocket to blast off into space and it will soon be available in a galaxy near you! The first season of this web series will have six episodes that will cover the topics ranging from stealing Netflix trade secrets all the way to myths covering the short-running time lie.

Have you heard of Denver Startup Week? If not that’s okay, you can learn all about it here. We participated in Denver Startup Week last year and hosted 2 panels that went amazingly well! They were on the topics of women in tech and crowdfunding.

This year we have applied to be on 3 panels with some of our favorite friends, partners, and clients. We need your help to make sure we’re included in the programming! Please take a minute and vote for the 3 panels. We appreciate the support! 

Here are the links and descriptions for each panel we submitted. Please follow the links and click the upvote/thumb icon to cast your vote, it will only take a minute.

Video on Facebook: Unlocking Customer Growth

http://www.denverstartupweek.org/panel-picker/2046-video-on-facebook-unlocking-customer-growth

Panel summary: Just when you thought Facebook was no longer relevant, they’re making a major play at video. The result? A huge opportunity for businesses that understand how to use earned, paid and live options to tap into new fan bases, earn new and repeat customers and develop smarter content that translates to engagement. Join Denver’s leading internet video production company, an innovative new media buyer, a Facebook Live manager and a vlogging influencer to learn how you can take advantage of Facebook’s new video platforms for growth.

This panel is with our partners Padron Marketing.

Crowdfunding & Beyond: How a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign can Unlock the Door to Future Success

http://www.denverstartupweek.org/panel-picker/2036-crowdfunding-beyond-how-a-successful-crowdfunding-campaign-can-unlock-the-door-to-future-success

Panel summary: Successful crowdfunding campaigns can open doors that businesses previously didn’t think were possible. A funded campaign shows investors, customers and partners that you have the ground swell and the financial support to take the next step.

This panel will teach you how to build and run a campaign that sets you up to get funded and achieve ongoing success post-campaign with Mighteor and Crowdfunding Strategy & Information, as well as the founders of two companies that successfully funded their campaigns. Together, we have spearheaded countless successful crowdfunding campaigns for clients who are now in every phase of growth post-campaign. Jointly we have worked on over 40 campaigns and helped clients in raising over $8 million in capital. From opening their first storefront to shipping around the world to major retail partnerships to appearances on Shark Tank, we have positioned clients for success AFTER their campaigns.

This panel is with our partners Crowdfunding Strategy & Information and Skirt Sports.

Mastering Talking Points: Telling Your Story Better, Faster, Stronger

http://www.denverstartupweek.org/panel-picker/1763-mastering-talking-points-telling-your-story-better-faster-stronger

Panel summary: As a founder, you're passionate about the product or service you've envisioned and brought to life. You can talk about it for days to anyone who will listen. Unfortunately, investors, partners and prospective customers don't have days to listen. Learn how to distill your message and create succinct, compelling talking points across all communication channels for a memorable story that engages your audience quickly. Having smart and strategic talking points will help you in every aspect of your business, from marketing, media relations, social media and investor relations.

This panel is with our partners Catalyst Marketing and friends from Revolar.