The Mercantile Reel
OpenSpace 2021
Our latest project for OpenSpace, showcasing their AI-Powered Clearsight Progress Tracking. Extensive VFX development and graphic treatments were used to visualize the inner workings of a piece of technology that is transforming the construction industry.
Directed by Rory Mitchell, Director of Photography Christopher J Hall, Music by Dave “Mustang” Lang
“Marygrove College: A Living Legacy” for the Internet Archive
Director, producer and co-writer on a branded documentary for the Internet Archive highlighting their partnership with Marygrove College in Detroit. After 115 years, Marygrove College was forced to close, but preserved their legacy by donating their entire library to the Internet Archive in San Francisco, California. The Internet Archive packed up the books, digitzed them, and put them online for the world to enjoy.
We conducted pre-interviews with various stakeholders in order to determine the story, casting Detroit poet and Marygrove Alumna Valerie Deering as the emotional linchpin to the story and creating the visual metaphor of Valerie in the empty stacks of the library. A crew in Detroit and a crew in San Francisco gathered the video assets needed to create this moving and very well received documentary.
A co-production of The Mercantile and Lone Pine Creative.
Read more about the partnership between Marygrove College and the Internet Archive at the Internet Archive.
“Controlled Digital Lending” Explainer Video for Internet Archive w/ Lone Pine Creative
An animated video for the Internet Archive explaining “Controlled Digital Lending” a way for libraries to safely and securely lend their collections digitally, an important foundation for ensuring that Libraries of the 21st century can continue to their mission of democratizing access to knowledge.
Produced and co-written with the talented animator Josh Kalven at Lone Pine Creative.
OpenSpace 2020
Our debut project was for OpenSpace, a company using VR, machine vision and their advanced algorithms to revolutionize the construction industry. We worked with the OpenSpace team to understand how their clients used their product in the field, consulted with beta testers, and worked with their c-suite in order to script and execute premium video content for the ultra-competitive construction tech industry.
A still photo shoot, motion graphics, a background video roll and a 30-second broadcast cutdown rounded out their launch strategy in June of 2018, securing their Series-A in August of 2019.
In 2020 we created a new slate of content across Youtube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook that showed the advances that the OpenSpace team had made in their product. and creating over 25 separate pieces of content in a single day shoot.
Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge VR for Greenpoint Pictures + Disney Yellow Shoes Agency
In May of 2019, we were selected by top VR Director of Photography, Sebastian Hameline, to accompany him to the hotly anticipated opening of the new Star Wars attraction at Disneyland, the Galaxy’s Edge, on behalf of Director Niles Roth at Greenpoint Pictures, and Disney Yellow Shoes Agency.
We contributed to the creative on the day and produced the 360° portion of a complicated shoot with four separate shooting units both traditional and digital, along with various stakeholders from the production company, the creative agency, and the Disneyland employees that ensure that Disney’s high standards are met across the board. Subsequently, we handled post-production for Disney’s Yellow Shoes Agency to stitch and assemble the 360° films that were shot that week.
The HP Garage: Jeremy Bailenson by Jongsma-O’Neill for Hewlett-Packard
The Mercantile edited and supervised post-production for the directing team Jongsma-O’Neill and their production company, Sustainable.
We drew upon our work in Virtual Reality to help craft the story of Jeremy Bailenson at the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford where he’s experimenting with the ways in which Virtual Reality affects our perceptions of the world.
Filmed in the historic Hewlett-Packard Garage, where Silicon Valley was born, this is a beautifully shot Branded Documentary that manages to maintain its documentary integrity while showcasing the good work that HP has been up to for the better part of a century.
Westbrook Media X T-Mobile
We worked with Will Smith’s company Westbrook Media to execute on creative for T-Mobile’s campaign “The World is Getting Smaller” creating an endless looping Twitter ad using Tiny Planet transformations.
We conducted camera-tests with the Westbrook Media crew, then designed the VFX process to generate the effects and supervised a one day shoot that created this eye-catching Twitter ad.
