From a two-person team to a bicoastal studio

01

The situation

VaynerMedia’s production resources were lean: one or two editors, with creatives and community managers covering whatever else came up. A background running a music production company, shooting, editing and owning my own equipment quickly moved my role from project management into building the agency’s production capability.

02

The build

The work connected creative ambition to the practical side of making it: equipment, budgets, workflows and hands-on execution. That included assistant directing and senior producing the agency’s first two television commercials, engineering custom 360-degree camera rigs and launching its livestreaming programs. Each step widened what the studio could make and how quickly it could make it.

03

The outcome

The department grew from two people to about 50 across both coasts, with more than $2M in equipment, in-house 3D animation and a full post-production department with color rooms and edit bays. A dedicated prop room and equipment team supported full-time DPs, gaffers, line producers, production managers and producers. The on-site photo studios ran two to three shoots a day, and a studio that started in a converted conference-room closet was soon averaging five large off-site video shoots a month, across the country and internationally, with cinema cameras, robotic arms and flying camera rigs. The first broadcast spot was followed by multiple Super Bowl spots, for a client roster that included Anheuser-Busch (Stella Artois, Budweiser, Bud Light, Oculto, Mixtails), Diageo (Don Julio, Johnnie Walker, Ketel One), Mondelēz (Ritz, Nilla, Chips Ahoy, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids), Unilever (Axe, Dove, Knorr) and Sonic.