Why we know how to do it Besides production, I run my own e-shop, so I set up social media ads myself. I am a YouTuber, I educate people in the field and shoot reviews, so I know how the YouTube algorithm behaves and how advertising works on it. And our production company shoots authorial documentaries that go through standard distribution from cinemas to television to festivals. We pass this experience on to clients for whom we produce turnkey films, if they want it. We work on a project for a long time and want the work to be as successful as possible.
It is not just about exchanging a piece of work for money. We do our job with passion, dive deep into the topics, and with some clients, friendships are formed that we gladly return to.
A veteran seen by half a million people We shot a short documentary for the city of Trutnov featuring Mr. Svoboda, a World War II veteran. Normally, it would be screened at the town hall, Mr. Svoboda would receive a thank you, and then the video would be seen by a few thousand people on Facebook and YouTube.
But in the past, I have trained people from the army many times, and I have also filmed for the army, for example, during COVID, a recruitment video for the special forces with Daniel Vávra, who wanted to try out filming. I reached out to my former student from the army’s press department. He asked if it was a real veteran because sometimes people who just pretend to be veterans attend celebrations. Mr. Svoboda was a real veteran, so he arranged it with the army, and the video was published on the army’s Facebook page on Veterans Day. It was quickly seen by about a quarter of a million people and gained thousands of reactions, comments, and shares. Because we also showed the environment of Trutnov, it significantly increased the reach of the city itself.
Par force hunt: consulting that led to a contract I originally went to the shooting of a short film about a par force hunt as a B-camera operator. The fact that our production eventually took over the entire project was partly because I offered help with distribution and explained how it works. A film can be licensed to television if it wasn’t produced as a co-production. Co-production can be more financially advantageous, but television can then intervene dramaturgically, which can be both positive and negative. You can arrange single-screen cinemas yourself, but you can only get into multiplexes through a distributor. I know this information from my own experience and from known producers of large film projects.
Velká teplická bejkárna: subtitles in five languages We shot the film Velká teplická bejkárna for a friend who was also a client. He wanted to capture his jump from rock to rock from the socialist era using modest equipment. It was a dangerous affair, and we took him to the exact same rock in the present day. The film premiered at the International Mountaineering Film Festival in Teplice nad Metují and met expectations.
When he later uploaded it to YouTube, subtitles were missing, and many foreign viewers wrote in the comments that they didn’t understand the film but really liked how it was shot. Therefore, I created subtitles in five languages along with a PDF containing the title, description, and hashtags for each language. I also recorded a video tutorial for him on how to set it up on YouTube. The viewership has been constantly growing since then and is approaching sixty thousand views after three weeks. For a previously non-existent channel and a first project, that is a lot. Moreover, it’s a film, not a flashy video for social media. The punchline doesn’t come immediately, it’s a gradual narrative, and yet nearly sixty thousand people have seen it.
We care about the result We cannot guarantee specific numbers or success. However, many problems can be prevented by making the right decisions, and a better result can at least be facilitated.
We adapted the film about the Panará tribe according to the brief for the final evening of Crystal Valley Week so that it could be projected on three LED panels at once, and we prepared subtitles in several languages.