I’ve always had a knack for finding just the right people to assist me in my pursuits — but “assist” is such an understatement when you consider the sheer impact of their involvement. What is the word for people who elevate your existence beyond anything you imagined when you set out on a journey?
Originally my vision was a pretty barebones documentary, and I figured that my iPhone would suffice for filming. But reality soon set in — I needed a professional videographer. In every way I could not have done better than Shane Killian of skmedia.org. Introduced by a mutual friend, we met last October and it has been an edifying experience ever since.
The animated flag at the end of each act became the catalyst for all things that followed. I bought the flag off istockphoto.com but it wasn’t long enough to cover some of the song portions. As a novice I tried my hand at merging two clips together, but I wasn’t thrilled with the clearly-visible seam — so I asked Shane to see what he could do with it.
What impressed me right off was that he gave me options — he could make it almost perfect with some extra time involved, or for a more reasonable cost he could make it much less noticeable. Not that it was a huge deal to me, but I was curious to see what he could come up with on the economical option.
I was blown away by the result — and the next thing you know I started coming up with more ideas. Along the way my editing skills greatly improved, but Shane’s in another galaxy of abilities — so all the advanced stuff was sent his way. And time after time, I continued to be astounded — making it more and more difficult to come up with new ways to compliment him.
And just when I thought we had wrapped up all the animations, I called Shane with a concept for conveying maybe the most convoluted story in modern history. My vision was a bit over-the-top, but it served its purpose to provide Shane with a visual — which he appropriately abandoned for something vastly superior. In no time flat he stripped away all the excess in some of the finest abstract thinking I’ve ever seen. On the fly he imagined how the whole thing would work, and he was right on the money once again. And when we ran into an issue on the flow of one aspect of the story, he circumvented that with ease. With razor-sharp logic, he reversed the order of certain elements — not only solving the problem, but also adding crystal-clear clarity in the process.
Our Trillion Dollar Tube animation is a monument to less is more. Shane took a complex story and boiled it all down to its absolute essentials — without even a pixel of excess. On top of all that, the turnaround time was less than a week.
The incredible quality and lickety-split efficiency of his work just kept opening my mind to new possibilities — and in so doing my budget went right out the window many times over. But that is a testament to Shane’s skills and how he delivered such value for every dollar.
He has the utmost integrity in serving the best interests of the customer. Because of that credo — coupled with his exceptional ingenuity and extraordinary instincts — my vision came to life well beyond anything I could have imagined on my own, and it was a heck of a lot of fun to boot.
MOUNT EVEREST OF THE OBVIOUS 