Digital Media & Branding

Storied Productions is a company very much tied to the city of Denton. We love the city, love the people of the city, and care for the city’s well being. One of the things that has been greatly successful and beneficial for our city is Communities in Schools of North Texas which is a program that places volunteer mentors with at-risk students to help them graduate school.

If you haven’t already heard about the massive education budget cuts here in Texas you probably don’t watch the news, listen to the radio, or talk to anyone with kids. The number of valuable teachers losing their jobs is nauseating. On top of that, Communities in Schools is losing ALL of it’s state funding. ALL. For the students who need the most help, this is one of the few places they could turn to for aid.

The proof is in the pudding as evidenced by the Communities in Schools website which states “after five years of detailed evaluation underwritten by The Atlantic Philanthropies, [evaluations] concluded that Communities In Schools’ model resulted in the strongest reduction in dropout rates of any existing fully scaled dropout prevention program.”

Denton has not taken this reduced funding lightly and the Denton S.O.S. group formed specifically to Save Our Schools and privately fund the Communities in Schools project for North Texas.

The fund-raising efforts will continue through-out the summer but the first came with a concert by two-time Grammy award-winning, Denton-native Brave Combo (@bravecombo) and Brass-Jazz-Funk group Inner City All-Stars (@innercity) at Dan’s Silver Leaf (@danssilverleaf) where we enjoyed delicious Chicken n’ Waffles. Yum!

To see more photos from that night see our Flickr set here.

To see more photos from that night see our Flickr set here.

This week we had the cool opportunity to shoot some portraits for Shauntavia. The weather was a little chilly for a Texas spring day but the wind gave us some cool inspiration.
We kept the editing to a minimum, giving the photos some cool light-bleeding effects along with a flat, old 1970s photo feel. Let us know what you think and keep us in mind the next time you need some portraits or head shots!

The first thing that must said about The Chronicles of Narnia is that they are in fact made for children. This is an epic series for young imaginative minds and I believe the author, C.S. Lewis did this with purpose. In my opinion Lewis had set out to present deep and timeless truths by using allegory that may or may not be timeless itself.
That being said, I will now do my best to review this movie as a movie….not a retelling of the book, but a retelling of the timeless truths that C.S. Lewis intended to convey. I will also briefly say, that I believe the voyages in the book were much richer and more meaningful than the movie portrayed. I think that the writers who transcript the novel to a screen play made some silly changes that didn’t need to be made. So if this were a review of how well the story was told, it would not get the same ratio of stars.

But this is a movie review, and alas, it is time to review the movie!!

The director was Michael Apted who’s other movies include Coal Minor’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, The World is Not Enough, and a few other films that give him credibility. Apted and his team did a great job setting up the shots that included a slew of complicated CGi characters. The actors reacted well to those characters and you very quickly forgot that they were CGi.
Reepicheep is one of Narnia’s most noble characters who fervently seeks after adventure and honor. He has the heart of a lion and the stature of a mouse. As a matter of fact, he is a mouse! To truly fall in love with Reepicheep I would suggest reading the book or finding a radio drama of the chronicled stories. I was impressed that this fully CGi character wasn’t EVER distractingly CGi. Even in the Lord of the Rings, the amazingly constructed Gollum was many times obviously a CGi character. I have great respect for the 3D artists that made these characters come to life.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT IN 3D???? No! Spend that extra money on a soda or candy! I’m not an anti-3D person. I think there is a time and a place. This movie did not benefit from 3D.

The acting was done well and you will either love to hate our new character Eustace Scrubb or you will just hate him! This was a GREAT cast! This little guy has a face that drips with bitterness and pride yet has the acting chops to make you feel like he’s “work in progress”. And you better get used to that face, because his character is the lead role in the next Chronicle.

This story is more about Lucy and Edmund making that transformation from children to young adults. Lucy gets most of the plot line in the movie and it is quite skewed from the true story from C.S. Lewis. However, these modern storytellers kept the same over all idea of our characters who are charged with making the right decisions under great temptations.

In short I believe that this movie was VERY well done and as a stand alone movie it is a great night at the cinema that your kids will enjoy as well as you adults! Just look past the subtle changes in the story line and quick moments of bad acting and you’ve got your self a 4 star movie!! Hope you go out and enjoy it. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about the movie below. Agree with me! Disagree with me!! As long as we’re still talking!

September 25th was a busy busy day for Memories Films! Xavier and Tiffany’s wedding started at 10 am and we arrived at the groom’s house by 7am and it was a rainy Saturday morning. Even though it was rainy and early the groom and his guys greeted us and we quickly got to work. One of our videographers stood out in the rain while protecting the camera just to get that great shot of the car in the garage. That sort of shot would have been too intimidating for some videographers…but he is fearless and it shows in his work! We’re lucky to have him… Thanks Jorge!!

We were also lucky enough to have the ceremony at a familiar chapel called The Marty Leonard Chapel in Ft. Worth. We were concerned because the clouds and rain were really taking away our light, and that chapel is made of mostly windows. It turned out to be some really nice footage despite the lack of direct sunlight.