We keep a mental list of clients we'd work with again tomorrow. The criteria for getting on it has nothing to do with budget and everything to do with how people show up. This is basically a thank you post to the ones who made us permanently better at what we do.
There's a running list in our heads of clients we'd drop everything for if they called tomorrow. We don't write it down anywhere. It just lives there, and every few months someone new earns a spot.
What gets you on the list would probably surprise you. Budget doesn't do it. Big logos don't either. We've worked with Fortune 500 marketing teams that made us want to chuck a monitor into the Hudson River (we didn't, monitors are expensive), and we've worked with two-person startups that gave us the space to make the best work in our portfolio.
The difference is always human.
We had a shoot last spring where the founder walked in, looked around at all the cameras and lighting rigs, and just goes "I have no idea what any of this does but I'm so pumped." Then she sat down for her interview and absolutely crushed it. Zero notes on the edit. Watched the rough cut once, loved it, asked when we could start the next one.
That project took half the time of most projects at that budget level. Half. We almost didn't know what to do with our Tuesday.
When clients let the experts do the thing they hired them to do, the whole room shifts. Our crew starts operating on this frequency of "go make something cool" instead of "don't mess this up." The camera operator tries a setup they've been wanting to experiment with. Our editor uses cuts they wouldn't normally pitch. Everyone on set is more locked in because the energy is creative instead of defensive.
We should be clear though. Feedback is critical and we genuinely want it. A client who says nothing and hopes for the best is just as tough to work with as one who wants to approve every frame. Collaboration and control are two very different things, and the best people we've worked with understand that in their bones.
One of our favorite calls ever started with a marketing director saying "I made a Google Doc with five bullet points, tell me if I'm overthinking this."
She was not overthinking it. Who it's for. What we're trying to say. What success looks like. Timeline. Budget range. That was the entire document. We spiritually printed it out and framed it.
We skipped 45 minutes of the usual discovery loop. You know that call. The one where someone says "what if we did something edgy" and then everyone spends 40 minutes defining edgy until it means absolutely nothing. We bypassed all of that. By the end of that first call she was already texting her team about wardrobe options.
Prepared doesn't mean rigid. She had zero opinions about how we should shoot or edit. She knew her brand, knew her audience, and had the "why" completely figured out. The "how" was the part she was paying us for. That kind of infrastructure thinking changes everything about how a project moves.
We had a founder last year get genuinely emotional during a pre-production meeting. Describing why he started his company, mid-sentence, voice cracking. His marketing person looked like she wanted to crawl under the conference table. We were sitting across trying not to smile too hard because we were thinking this is gonna be an incredible brand film.
And it was!! When someone has that kind of connection to their story, our job shifts from manufacturing emotion to channeling it. We don't need moody lighting tricks or manipulative music swells. "Ask your doctor if Brand Purpose is right for you." The real feeling is already there. We just have to capture it honestly and get out of the way.
The clients who light up when they talk about their brand, who fight internally to protect a creative decision, who text us articles about their industry at 11pm because they're excited about the next project... those end up being portfolio pieces. The ones we talk about at dinner.
Every positive process improvement we've made over the last few years, how we structure pre-production, how shoot days run, our entire post workflow, traces back to a great client relationship where both sides were pushing each other to be better.
So yeah. This is a thank you post.
To the CMO who told her own CEO to "let the creatives cook" when he wanted to change the color grade on our brand film. That took guts and we remember it. To the startup founder who sent us a case of wine after wrap day with a note that just said "you guys get it." (We got it. We also got the wine. Both appreciated.) To every client who gave us real, thoughtful feedback instead of "looks great!" Tell us what's bugging you. We can take it.
You made us better at this. And we don't think most of you know that.
