Ten Years
Ten years ago today, February 10, 2006, Creative Liquid Productions was born. At the time, my goal was to start a creative firm that got me out of the newsroom and back in the field. Mission accomplished! In the past ten years we've grown, worked on some amazing projects, been honored with more than a dozen awards and continue to expand our services and capabilities.
How Far We Have Come
We started with one Apple G5 computer running Final Cut Pro 5 with a whopping 320GB G-Tech hard drive. (We still have the original hard drive if anyone's interested) Our first camera was Sony's DSR400 DVCAM. It's hard to believe in 2006, just ten years ago, HD video was still the future and not the norm when it came to corporate video. At the time computers were fast enough to edit DV video, but HD was still a challenge.
That first year we produced thousands of DVDs. In 2015 we used fewer than 100 DVDs! Today, most of our content is delivered as high quality MP4 and Apple ProRes files. We rarely deliver physical discs or tapes. In the early days we shot on tape! DVCAM and MiniDV. We went from ordering hundreds of tapes each year to stocking hard drives for client deliverables.
Today our inventory of equipment has grown from that single DVCAM camera to six cameras shooting broadcast quality HD content and three cameras capable of shooting 4K video, actually five if you count our GoPro's. From our humble one-room office we've grown to a headquarters in Old Town Alexandria with multiple edit suites, production offices and room for gear. Just down the street from our office we have a studio. From our original 320GB hard drive we now have a SAN with 64TB of storage on a 10gigabit network. I'm sure in ten years this will seem small!
Projects Over The Years
Over the years we have produced and worked on some amazing projects. Our list of clients continues to grow and includes The Smithsonian, U.S. Army, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, The Department of Homeland Security, MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, Special Olympics and many more. Our crews have worked on three continents and in dozens of cities.
Memorable Projects
- In 2008 we covered the Presidential Inauguration for the Kenyan Television Network.
- In 2009 we began a long relationship with Lucky Dog Animal Rescue and continue to support their efforts to raise awareness of homeless animals.
- In 2011 we were tapped by engineering firm WJE and The National Park Service to record the survey and repairs to the Washington Monument following the August earthquake.
- In 2011, 2013 and 2015 we covered Special Olympics World Games in Greece, S. Korea and Los Angeles.
- In 2010 we covered events for Anheuser-Busch and NBCOlympics.com at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
- In 2010 we produced a video for the Dept. of Defense that served as a guide for staff during the transition and closure of Walter Reed National Medical Center in Washington, DC.
- In 2013 we produced an award-winning series of videos profiling gravely wounded U.S. Marines for the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.
- In 2014, we debuted the documentary The Lucky Ones about the rescue efforts of Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. The film was show in Washington, DC, Florence, SC and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- In 2015 four team members produced more than twenty videos in a week while covering the National Business Aviation Association convention in Las Vegas, NV.
The list of memorable projects goes on and on. We've worked with museums, schools, corporations, nonprofits and associations, federal and state agencies and many others.
The Future
Today our mission remains the same, our client's are our first priority. We foster an atmosphere of collaboration and guide our clients through the often confusing process of video production. This will remain the same in the future. We view clients as long term partners.
In 2016 we are expanding our web services department and have a new Chief Technology Officer who will focus on these projects. Our inventory of equipment and resources will continue to expand. In the future we will continue to provide clients with creative services with meticulous attention to detail and exceptional customer service.
We will continue to produce our web series Practicals, which you can view all of the episodes on Vimeo. Our team is also proud to be a corporate member of Women in Film in Video and we are active in the Washington, DC production community. In the future, we will continue to build lasting relationships with our industry.
We can't wait to look back in another ten years and see how far we've come and celebrate twenty years of Free Flowing Ideas.