The award-winning marketing company, Artistic Initiative Agency, has become notorious for keeping one golden rule when filming its characteristic vlog-style videos: no second takes.
“If we ask you something and you don’t give us a response that we can edit, we won’t ask you to repeat it,” said the founder of Artistic Initiative during a recent interview. “We would let that one slide and keep going until we get something natural and spontaneous that would make for a good video.”
Over the past year, Artistic Initiative Agency has become one of the fastest-growing social media marketing agencies worldwide. With offices in Atlanta, GA, and Houston, TX, this agency is one of the leading pioneers in a new marketing movement called high-end social media. The founder and the Artistic Initiative team curate personalized, cinematic-quality video content for companies and CEOs to transform them into social media influencers.
Artistic Initiative’s vlog-style videos have become the company’s signature. The agency translated the filming style of YouTube vloggers into the world of corporate marketing to create videos with both entertaining and informative value.
In an interview in late 2021, the founder of Artistic Initiative Agency shared tips on creating vlog-style videos. Sitting at one of the halls at the Artistic Initiative’s Atlanta branch, the founder discussed how the key behind a successful vlog is to film it in one take.
The vlogs produced by Artistic Initiative shine for their spontaneous comedy and ability to maintain the professional demeanor characteristic of traditional corporate marketing campaigns. The result of this combination is a piece of video content that is entertaining and simultaneously displays the subjects as authorities in their respective fields.
As the founder explained, the spontaneity and humor of vlogs make this video style stand out over conventional scripted commercial ads.
“When you get raw footage for a vlog,” said the founder, “it’s ok to be natural; it’s ok to improvise; it’s ok to get bloopers; it’s ok to mess up in camera because at the end of the day a vlog is not meant to be fully serious.”
Unlike films and other forms of traditional commercials, vlogs are made in raw format. This format might facilitate the filming process as there is no need for doing multiple takes. Still, the founder and his team face the challenge of capturing entertaining moments that emerge naturally on camera.
“If you edit a video in a raw format without any sort of entertainment, no one will want to see it,” said the founder. “So, you want to add comedy; you want to have people messing up; you want the footage to be as raw and real as possible. That’s what makes vlogs unique.”
To create a fertile ground for bloopers and comical moments, the Artistic Initiative team maintains a conversational tone during filming. This approach requires the agency’s team to keep their cameras running until nailing with a scene that will make the perfect video. Thus, in their shooting sessions, the founder and his team collect as much footage as possible to ensure having enough material to create an engaging vlog.
“From my experience as an editor, I’ve found that one hour of footage equates to one minute of quality video,” said the founder. “Realistically speaking, one hour of footage is a lot of time, but one minute is also a very long time in terms of audiences’ attention spans.”
Over the past year, Artistic Initiative has perfected the use of vlog-style videos for corporate marketing. The agency’s attention to detail and commitment to delivering the highest-quality content is evident in any video vlogs produced by the founder and his team.
In the upcoming months, the Artistic Initiative team is preparing to launch their educational program, consisting of a podcast, a consulting course, and other forms of learning material. Through this program, the founder aspires to help young creatives and other entrepreneurs understand high-end social media and improve the quality of their content.
By Juan Sebastian Restrepo,
In association with Artistic Initiative Agency
