Many of you who read our blog would be able to answer the question, “Who is Storied Productions?” You might say things like, “They make videos.” or “They are wedding videographers.” Or if we are lucky you might say, “They are Story Tellers.” The philosopher Barry Lopez said, “Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.” It’s a beautiful thought that stories can have such power to hold us together or break us apart.

What if I were to ask you the question, “What is The Walt Disney Company?” What sort of answers would you offer? “They make cartoons.” “They are an entertainment company” “They make children all over the world happy and were a major part of my childhood.”  “They support things I don’t believe in and I will not ever watch their crap again!” There are many things that you may say about an entertainment conglomerate like the Walt Disney Company. But who are they beyond the products? What do they value? Do you know? Can you find out?

No matter what you believe about The Walt Disney Company, the fact is that they have had a tell-tale sign of being a revolutionary company. “…visionary companies have done more than just generate long-term financial returns; They have woven themselves into the very fabric of society.” (James C. Collins & Jerry I. Porras “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”) I don’t know that you could actually find the core values of the Walt Disney Company without reading some very boring studies made by business coleges and even more dense books. So I won’t hold you accountable to know them. But I think that it is important for Storied Productions to let you in on ours.

So when I ask you “Who is Storied Productions?” our hope is NOT that you say “what we are” rather you answer with “who” we are. So let’s get to know one another. Let’s look beyond the epidermis of our company and I’ll let you in on the secrets of the inner workings!

We have learned the importance of asking ourselves why we do what we do. “A man who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.” Victor E Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”. We have discovered that the answer to “Why?” will directly effect the quality of the process of making a product as well as the product itself. The “Why?” question inevitably will always lead you to your own beliefs and values. If you have answered the question without considering these things, you may consider the fact that you haven’t actually answered your question at all. Too many times we answer the “Why?” question with what we know we “should” value rather than what we truly value. For instance, if you ask a CEO what he wants for his company this coming quarter he may say “I want to grow 3% this quarter in sales.” Then you retort, “Why?” He says with a moment’s pause, “I want to be able to give bonuses to my employees.” We can take that answer and think to our selves that this CEO has made a selfless answer and he must be a good boss. What if we were to probe a little deeper. “Why do you want to give them a bonus?” “They deserve it and it would make them happy to receive what they deserve. Which in turn gives the company happy employees for further success. My job is to make the company run successfully and making my employees happy is what I need to do.” Ah! So now we’re getting somewhere. “Ultimately you desire to make your employees happy this quarter?” The CEO may think about this for a moment, “Yes, of course.” Did you know that many employees prefer time off as a reward over a bonus? That study was conducted by Harvard Business School so you decide whether it holds merit. Did you know that they have values other than money and in the end the best way to make an employee happy is to find out what they value most? You see the CEO thought that he should be placing his value in the growth of his company so that he could keep good employees. What he didn’t realize was that good employees will happily stay with a sense of fulfilment if they are valued more than the bottom line. In turn they will work in such ways that the growth seems to be a by-product of their fulfilling lives. This philosophy is held by most of the successful companies that has survived 60 years or more.

At Storied Pro we aren’t disregarding this ideology. We are learning how it works for us and also how difficult it can actually be. It is a terribly romantic idea to live by that philosophy and like most desired results, it takes hard work and a team effort. We were interviewing a graphic artist recently and he asked us how much creative freedom he would have over most projects. Our answer was, “We have never done anything as individuals and succeeded. All successful projects were because of a team effort and an attitude that allowed for other ideas to be better than our own.” Aristotle put it best when he said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” We work as a group of creative minds to obtain certain goals. Alone we would fail, together we will succeed beyond expectation.

In our brainstorming meetings we must hold to a philosophy that looks at ourselves based on our potential, not our accomplishments. Some of us are better at certain aspects of the industry than others. However, we never just assume that one persons opinion matters more or less than any other person’s based on past successes or failures. We believe in the potential of the individual to help the success of the team. Our last quote today that backs up this philosophy is by a german philosopher named Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was born in the 1700’s. He said, “If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.”

That is small glimpse into the philosophies practiced by Storied Productions. We are more than videographers and more than creative souls. We are Story Tellers, and we want to tell your story.