Hello, my name is George Pariseau and I'm the founder of Brainstream.
True stories inspire people to do great things and the world needs more of that: people doing great things.
We all face challenges throughout our lives, and how we respond to those challenges is what shapes us, makes us, or breaks us. During some difficult periods of my life, I looked to the stories of people known and unknown who had faced adversity and persevered in spite of their setbacks for inspiration. Now I have the privilege of finding and telling true stories of people doing great things in my community.
When I envisioned Brainstream, I believed that the key to breaking through the clutter of online marketing (and marketing/promotions in general) was to humanize communications as much as possible. Video is the perfect medium for doing that.
My career has led me through many environments: in the communications world, that’s been broadcast, in-house corporate production, independent film, and of course as a one-man-band videographer. All of these worlds follow the same fundamentals and processes, but are also radically different worlds.
The success of your video content creation efforts rely on execution of the distinct stages of video production; that is pre-production, production, and post production. Poor execution in any of those stages can affect your deadline, the quality of your message, and budget.
After 15+ years of working in creative services, including support for startups, small business, non-profit, and enterprise level corporations, I’ve honed a process that will help you succeed in creating your video content AND deliver it successfully in your advertising and communication activities.
Here are some things I’ve learned along the way:
Know and Embrace Your Core Values
It’s easy to look at corporate values as nothing but marketing propaganda. Most organization and people have them, few are aware of them, others embrace values and lean on them to drive every facet of the work they do.
Values are a powerful thing when you embrace them, keep them front and center, and use them as a filter for decision making and behavior.
These are the core values that inspired Brainstream
Relentlessness
Dream Big
Smart Work
Be Kind
Serve
Don't Skimp on Planning
Bottom line first: disciplined planning helps you manage uncertainty when it arises. It also saves you time and money because you aren’t figuring things out as you go along (there will always be plenty of curveballs to keep you on your toes, so make decisions about what you can and the rest can be managed if and when it presents itself). People creating video for the first time are often surprised at what it takes to pull together even a “simple” production.
Conversely, too much planning and you and your team can get stuck in decision paralysis, so follow a time constrained planning process when you can.
Finally, give yourself as much lead time as you possibly can with a project. “Getting it done yesterday” is expensive and can result in poor project quality. With that said, it’s been my experience that “Get it done yesterday” is often required when working with certain organizations and people so good planning in those moments will save you from many headaches.
Be Agile
I’m not referring to Agile methodology here, but certainly some of those principles can be leveraged in media production environments. What I’m referring to is developing the ability to flex and adapt on the fly. Throughout the media production process, opportunities present themselves and disasters seemingly appear imminent.
Agility allows for a solid team (client + production crew) to make the most and more out of their projects. I can’t count how many times I’ve been on a shoot and the producing (client) crew has decided to re-write the script for the umpteenth time. The result: a better end script. Why? Because the producing team was able to adapt, in real time, and make adjustments so that a script which sounded great on paper became something that sounded better when read.
Speaking about video production specifically, when shooting b-roll or in unscripted environments, camera operators and cinematographers have to develop a sixth sense in order to get those amazing once-in-a-lifetime captures.
Finally, stuff happens. Someone doesn’t show up for a production, needed feedback is delayed, a last second request comes into the picture, legal had an oversight and needs something changed. A bottleneck in the pipeline becomes a problem for other projects, so be agile.
Embrace Diverse Experiences and Diverse Environments
I’ve filmed surgeries, I’ve filmed performance racing, I’ve edited scripts for small business consultants, and edited videos for global foundations. What do all these experiences have in common (besides the nature of the work)? Mostly nothing, although what I have learned in one project, I’ve carried to another.
As an intern in a broadcast environment, I’ve learned to be scrappy, precise, and disciplined with my time.
As a videographer for small and local businesses, I’ve had to learn to communicate with a diverse group of people of varying technical skills and build the trust necessary to develop impactful content.
Filming surgeries, I’ve had to be incredibly accurate with focus, following the surgeon’s instruction and action (there are no do overs when covering a surgical procedure).
This adds up to developed instincts and habits that have helped me adapt on a challenging shoot and plan for scenarios. All of this has saved me and my clients countless hours when navigating a project and if I hadn’t embraced diverse experiences and environments, I don’t think I would be half as effective as I am now.
Get the Most Out of Your Video Content
This comes from planning + agility. Most sophisticated organizations have been focusing their video content creation efforts to create multiple videos and variations of the same video in order to test and optimize the results of their messaging. While small businesses don’t necessarily have the budget or processes for doing this, there are ways a project of any size budget can be used to create variety. When you’re creating for organic + paid promotion, this is a practice that you should consider.
Have Fun
Work doesn’t have to be a four letter word, and while people from the outside may assume that working in the creative space is fun (and most of the time it is), it still requires a great deal of focus, technical aptitude, problem-solving muscle, and it comes with it’s fair share of headaches.
With that said, your work should have some element of fun to it otherwise you’ll never be engaged and you’ll never produce results that have an impact. That’s my unabashed opinion. What’s fun for you is not what’s fun for me. I love working with teams, I love working with tight deadlines, I love the juggling act that comes with working on simultaneous projects, I love solving technical issues at the 11th hour, and I love it when a well-coordinated team that is good at what they do puts their effort into a project and crushes it! That’s fun.
Interested in Hiring Me?
You can reach me via this form. I will respond within 24 hours.