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MillimeterNew Stock
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Darroch Greer
Thought Equity Motion’s Storyline Collection brings “threaded” footage—content with multiple scenes to create a one-story package—to the production industry.
Thought Equity Motion
According to its website, Thought Equity Motion is “the world's largest provider of online motion content.” The company has formed exclusive content partnerships with premier film and entertainment companies such as NBC News, National Geographic, Sony Pictures Entertainment, HBO Archives, the NCAA, and Warren Miller Entertainment.
Beyond the company's representation, however, it wants to be the premier resource for digital storytellers. “We've decided with new technology and new media and all the convergence that is happening, being just a clip company is not going to be good enough,” says Thought Equity Motion CEO Kevin Schaff. “The storyteller needs access to a lot more. So what Thought Equity has turned into is a content agency. … One of the things that Thought Equity is really focused on this year [2007] is the idea of the storyline.”
Thought Equity has released its Storyline Collection in an effort to, what the company calls, “scale” storytelling. The company wants to play to the strength of motion content for storytelling, as opposed to still content — which is used merely to illustrate. The company has hired top talent to go out and shoot stories that are “threaded.” “It's the kind of content you look and say, ‘That's not stock,’” Schaff says. “The usefulness and the practicality of it is that it's shot in a way that we call ‘threaded.’ For example, we might have an older lady and an older gentleman walking down the street where she doesn't feel all that good. Then there will be another clip that connects to that clip — same exact actors, but now they're sitting in a doctor's office. Or the lady is just sitting in the doctor's office by herself. Then, the next part to that storyline is that she's out playing tennis because she feels better. We don't care what the product is or what the message is. It's all about cause and effect. It's all about beginning, middle, and end.”
Thought Equity Motion did its first shoot for the Storyline Collection in August 2007. The company searched for a new suburb development with houses that were finished and some that were still under construction. Thought Equity cast a family with a pregnant wife, and then the company filmed them shopping for a home, moving, and settling in. The stock house also reshot the same scenarios with casts of different ethnicities for use in multiple markets. “It's really a totally different way to produce this content,” Schaff says. “Not only so people can use it better, but it really pushes the limits of commercial production, because it's like shooting 20 different commercials all at once. It requires unbelievable planning, but it's a ton of fun.”
The shoots are all done on 35mm, then they are scanned and stored at 4K. At a 4K scan, the client can get pristine stills — which are available to clients with the purchase of the footage. “Sometimes we'll do hybrid, where cameras one and two will be film, and cameras three and four will be HD,” Schaff says. “It just gives us a little more future-proof. People are selling high-def televisions and want to show enhanced resolutions, we've got the assets that we can bring up.”
