Stories - 12FPS: A Creative Agency

Betty Beyond.

It’s about time we check in with our favorite getaway car, Betty. She’s been cruising around Santa Fe for a while now, assisting our Southwestern crew on productions big and small. Not to worry, though: this 1980’s babe is a road tripper at heart. She lured our San Francisco team member Adam Kennedy back to the open road on his visit to Santa Fe earlier this summer. Here’s a little photo essay from the BettyVenture, complete with a stop at Sonic and a grand finale at White Sands National Park. Next week, Betty is headed out again on a return trip to Monument…

Class Act.

Late spring is an inspiring time on any university campus. At an art school, graduation season is the moment to reveal your pièce de résistance: a definitive work that will launch your creative career. When production started on our latest online recruitment campaign for Santa Fe University of Art and Design last May, several of our subjects were preparing for takeoff. Their incredible energy inspired us to produce our own magnum opus that tells the story of music student Rachel Dupard. Rachel was finishing up her junior year when we captured her story, but she was already well on her way to an incredible entertainment career….

Studio Secrets.

“Some of these are from 1985 and 1986. This one’s from 1988,” says Ron Pokrasso, rifling through a flat file in one corner of Timberwick Studios. “This gives you an idea of the span of the show.” Ron’s 1,180-square-foot studio is tucked along a meandering dirt road between Santa Fe and Eldorado. Over the last eight years, this place has been the artist’s laboratory for aesthetic experimentation and his classroom for a community of printmakers from across the world. As his new studio rises in downtown Santa Fe, he’s preparing to open Timberwick to the public one last time. Ron gave us a sneak peek at over three decades…

From a Northern Song to The Last Emperor.

A lot can change in a thousand years. So, when the Asian Art Museum asked us to depict over a millennium of Chinese history with a video installation, we saw it as a chance to start thinking on a fresh time scale. Earlier this year we teamed up with our friends at the San Francisco museum in anticipation of their current exhibition Emperors’ Treasures. In this exhibit, exquisite artworks and personal possessions are on display, passed down throughout many dynasties of Chinese history dating back as far as 960 C.E. We begin with the Northern Song dynasty ruled by Emperor Huizong, a master calligrapher. Ultimately we…

Structural Integrity.

The SaltBox Tiny House sits in a lively fabrication yard outside the Extraordinary Structures headquarters off Siler Road, surrounded by a sea of over 400 Santa Feans and visitors. People stand in line for hours in the blazing summer sun, chattering excitedly as they wait for their turn to step inside. Rumor has it there’s a full kitchen, two king size beds and a bathtub hidden inside the silver box at the center of the crowd. As they wait for a turn to see for themselves, folks puzzle over the construction of this modern marvel. Even its panelized exoskeleton seems to hum with a mysterious…

Down the Rabbit Hole.

“Maybe if I were the original Alice in Wonderland and fell through the rabbit hole… that would be something like this,” said a visitor to Meow Wolf‘s House of Eternal Return. We spent an afternoon interviewing brave explorers inside the art collective’s massive, mysterious art complex, and never heard the same description twice. The two-story Victorian house with portals to elaborate art installations has taken the world by storm, most recently appearing in the Los Angeles Times. The reporter wrote: The name Meow Wolf alludes to the unique nature of what a visitor brochure describes as an “art complex.” Adjectives such as…

Creative Fusion.

Tung Chiang’s passion for ceramics runs deep. Even in his years working as a graphic designer and advertiser, he would spend late nights throwing pottery. He officially transitioned from 2D designer to 3D artist, and has since taken the helm of San Francisco’s Heath Ceramics as their director. His sunlit, second-floor office on 18th street is full of kilns, vast work tables, and beautiful pottery in various states of completion. As we learned in a recent video project with Tung, turning his hobby into a profession has only increased his passion for the process. “When you let the clay throw on the wheel,…

Modern Family.

Creative Startups is a startup accelerator designed to empower businesses who blur the lines between innovation, expression and technology. Select creative businesses participate in three months of online classroom instruction, followed by a deep dive, where all of the startups and mentors come together for an intensive week of business planning and mentorship. In a time when so many in the startup world—accelerator programs, and venture capital firms—are only interested in technology companies with huge financial upside, it’s great to see one providing much-needed support for the creative economy. But don’t be fooled; even though they were founded in New Mexico,…

Words Matter.

How can we help LGBTQ+ youth feel safe and empowered? It’s a topic that’s being discussed at the highest levels of our federal government. President Barack Obama issued a letter on Friday encouraging schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. A video we created with New Mexico Communities of Care this year addresses these issues directly, and the Albuquerque Journal picked up the story. “‘I Am Me’ video offers guide to support LGBTQ+ young people,” read the headline in the June 5th edition of the newspaper. Reporter Donna Olmstead wrote a powerful article about the piece, which calls on friends and family of…

For Life.

Blue Shield of California is more than a healthcare provider. We think of it as a “life care” organization. It’s a nonprofit that isn’t just about treating ailments, but supporting all-around well-being in an increasingly interconnected world. “It really starts and ends with creating a healthcare delivery system that is worthy of our family and friends,” says Kristen Miranda, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and innovation. All of this adds up to make Blue Shield a leader in 21st century medical care—and a fantastic place to work if you want to make a real difference. We know that for a fact: our recent project with the…

Escape Artists.

Inspired storytelling and travel go hand-in-hand. Seeking out new places heightens your senses and pushes your limits. It gives you new perspectives on the familiar, challenging old assumptions about your place in the world. Because our clients are scattered across the globe, travel is part of our jobs. However, even when we’re on vacation, creativity is our compass. We’ve done quite a lot of globe trotting this season, and the adventures will only multiply this summer. Check out some of our past and future adventures below, and let us know if our paths will be crossing sometime soon! Alaska In late…

Finding the Happiness Within.

The remote mountain kingdom of Bhutan and the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City; they have more in common than you would expect. Around the world, micro-economies are carving their own paths to wealth and well-being. Nations like the island of Vanuatu and Los Pueblos Mancommunicados in the hills of Oaxaca are choosing to reject the looming presence of global capitalism and the adverse effects it creates. Filmmaker Dan Porras, communications director of the Christensen Fund, sets out to tell the stories of these peoples who are creating their own unique economic systems. They often strike a careful balance between traditional knowledge…

Work Hard. Play Hard.

Google and The Clash have more in common than you might expect. They both started in a garage, and had rockstar ambitions that launched them into the stratosphere. When Google Play got in touch with 12FPS in 2011, we were surprised that the Fortune 500 company had managed to preserve the spirit of a DIY punk venue. The digital distribution platform tapped us to produce a series of one-off music videos with top artists. They wanted to capture the sort of deep cuts that diehard fans seek out, in intimate settings that would foster candid experimentation. Our initial work with Google Play was at Studio…

Face to Face.

“Who am I, and what does that mean?” LGBTQ+ youth tackle these questions from unique perspectives every day. This project calls on their friends and family to support them with passion and persistence. I AM ME: Understanding the Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Identity is the first in a series of groundbreaking training videos for allies of LGBTQ+ youth. It’s our second collaboration with New Mexico Communities of Care (NMCOC), building on a 2014 project that introduces this vital support network for at-risk youth and families in New Mexico. NMCOC saw a big gap in educational resources for LGBTQ+ allies, and asked 12FPS to create…

Hero’s Journey.

Every video starts with a script, and this one was our Odyssey. Santa Fe University of Art and Design challenged us to show off the Desert Southwest’s natural beauty for its spring recruitment campaign. We dreamed up an action-packed profile of a SFUAD student, with mountain hikes, snowboarding runs and a breathtaking aerial of Diablo Canyon. After selecting outstanding film student Austin as our star, we interviewed him to craft compelling voiceover for the script. It was finally time to turn words into actions. In this production, each line of the shot list was a crazy physical challenge. “Drone shot of car headed up Artist Road” called for sharp aerial reflexes and…

Dawn ‘Til Dusk.

Life on a Vermont hilltop farm is much more action-packed than you might expect. Folks have been farming the 600-acre parcel known as Galusha Hill Farm & Lodge in East Topsham for over 200 years now. Early settlers cleared trees and brush, built walls stone-by-stone, and raised all kinds of livestock. Nowadays, owners John Harkins and Dallas Anderson do all of the farming and upkeep, integrating innovative eco-agriculture techniques into an age-old practice. The many guests that pass through Galusha’s lodge, farmhouse and charming off-grid cabin each year experience a wide array of adventures. Galusha hosts conferences, reunions, family vacations, weddings and many other special events. In the…

Eternal Return.

To describe Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in a single word is impossible. It’s bigger than “massive,” even more detailed than “intricate” or “complex,” and more wondrous than “incredible” would suggest. It’s so hard to sum up, in fact, that we were tongue tied after the opening gala of the Santa Fe art collective’s new installation. Adam broke the stunned silence with his own playful account of the evening: I stood on the front lawn of an elegant Victorian house, under an oddly starless night sky. The two-story dwelling was aglow, and shadowy figures flitted in and out of view in the upstairs windows. The doormat read “Beyond…

Ordinary Magic.

“It’s important to do art,” says Josh Daniel. “It should be something that… you need to do.” Josh has been working in San Francisco for a little over a decade, which is quite a feat considering the significant changes the city has experienced in that time. As the cost of living rises exponentially, artists are leaving neighborhoods that they helped nurture and beautify for decades. You’d never guess this was the case by following Josh around the city. He has a happy-go-lucky way of meandering from the art supply store to his printmaking studio, finding inspiration for sketches and screen prints in everyday life. Check…

Think Global.

In the virtual world of Empires & Allies, it’s red versus blue. Zynga’s mobile strategy game calls players to team up against an evil world order and liberate the globe one nation at a time. Although the game’s moral universe is starkly monochrome, when Zynga hired us to produce a 30-second spot showing off new features of the game, we discovered that the visual experience of playing it was actually quite complex. How do you put across the app’s team building premise between all of the whirring war machines and spectacular explosions? It was time to enter The Matrix. Our team…

Betty’s Back.

It’s been nearly a year since our production vehicle Betty joined the 12FPS crew. Back then, she had an orange-and-white paint job and a bum engine. Fixing her up felt like a passion project, but once she was up and running, it didn’t take long to realize that Betty means (serious) business. We are classical storytellers for the digital age, and our sunny yellow van has an old-fashioned look that’s fused with timely technology—a 2016 archetype of romantic road-tripping. She rocks her own Instagram account and hashtag, complete with an ongoing journal where you can experience compelling stories of travels to remote locations, like the desolate wilderness…

Over The Edge.

It’s a chilly February day, and we’re an hour away from Santa Fe lugging a heavy camera up a steep trail. At the top is a craggy cliff overlooking Diablo Canyon. There’s not a trace of civilization in sight, and the pale winter sun is setting. It’s time to make a movie. Our latest project is a spring recruitment video and campaign for Santa Fe University of Art and Design. It’s our second collaboration with SFUAD: we’ve already explored their studios and classrooms for a fall recruitment campaign. For this round of storytelling, the university sent us far away from campus. They wanted to reveal the wild…

Create With Purpose

As artists, we are constantly inspired to create impact: on the world, on fellow artists, and on ourselves. This desire to make a difference through creativity, to put momentum behind ideas, has guided every 12FPS project since before we officially existed! In 2006, the Adobe Foundation launched its flagship program, Adobe Youth Voices. Its goal was to ignite creativity in young artists around the world by working with educators and providing them resources for rich digital storytelling. Through a stroke of serendipity, our founder Adam Shaening-Pokrasso struck up a fantastic partnership with AYV that has helped shape our story and values….

Forget Bigfoot. This guy caught a Pegasus.

How do you capture a phenomenon that’s invisible to the naked eye? This guy took a flying leap to find the solution. The story of our logo is tied to a late 1800’s photographer with an ever-changing name. Eadweard Muybridge was a wandering Brit who also went by Muggridge, Muygridge and Maybridge. His simplest alias was Helios, the Greek god of the sun, a name that appears on many of his photographs. Muybridge was as mercurial as his monikers, and that was the key to his success. As a young man, Muybridge worked as a bookseller in New York City and San Francisco….

Room to Roam.

Storytelling has evolved. 12FPS is a creative agency that transcends mediums to promote revolutionary ideas. We’re excited to unveil a powerful new website that pulls back the curtain on our creative process. As we started building it late last year, we dreamed up a platform for our wildest ideas. We found that sharing projects only on Instagram and Facebook was not enough…some stories need a bit more room to roam! 12FPS is all about authentic storytelling, and here we reveal behind-the-scenes photos and anecdotes from San Francisco, Santa Fe, New York City and beyond. We approach every project with an eye for compelling stories that traverse different styles and formats. We enjoy working with…

Meet Betty.

The road trip has been a hallowed American tradition since the dawn of the commercial automobile. Every classic adventure—the Disneyland pilgrimage, the Route 66 joyride—came with an essential array of photo opportunities. Postcards, Polaroids and interminable slideshows proved to friends back in suburbia that you really did ride Dumbo or stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Our story begins with Betty, a 1980’s ambulance with a dead engine and a hungry look in her headlights. Our first glimpse of her is in an overgrown Colorado Springs backyard, but we can already imagine 1,000 adventures at her helm. Road tripping is…

True Story.

What’s the best way to inspire an audience? Be fearless, and cut to the heart of the matter. Santa Fe University of Art and Design wanted to show a fresh side of Santa Fe for their fall recruitment campaign. We knew just where to start. The 12FPS team landed on SFUAD’s campus, searching for inspiring students to interview. That’s how we discovered Samantha Fe, a fine arts student who was hard at work in the ceramics studio. “I’ll show you how I throw,” Samantha said, settling at her pottery wheel and sending a slab of clay whirling. As the setting sun sent golden rays through…

The Collective Next Door.

Ever heard of Meow Wolf? Prepare for your mind to be blown. The Santa Fe art collective is championed by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, and has appeared in the New York Times and the The Guardian. In February 2015, the latter wrote an article about Meow Wolf’s biggest project in its 8-year history: When Meow Wolf members first set foot in the defunct bowling alley that will become the House of Eternal Return, the place was full of dust and debris, including the desiccated corpse of a bird – a bad omen if there ever was one. But there were good omens, too:…

Notes from a Mogul.

When you have the opportunity to speak with someone as influential as Alan Webber, you don’t expect him to be the one taking notes. Webber is the former editorial director of Harvard Business Review, and co-founder of Fast Company. Adam and Dwight met him at Creative Startups 2015, an Albuquerque startup accelerator with serious support from a national network of business leaders. As we discussed the evolution of 12FPS with him, he intently scribbled down his thoughts on a pair of notecards. Our early clients ranged from scrappy startups to top tech companies. As the 12FPS team grew and our creative network…

On Camera, Off-The-Grid.

When your business takes you on rugged adventures that are far off the grid, there are inherent challenges to spreading the word about it. Try packing a full set of camera equipment along with your tent, sleeping bag, food and water purifier. It’s enough to burst an ultralight backpack. We have a lot of experience coordinating productions in remote locations with difficult conditions, from rural Indian villages to snowy Rocky Mountain peaks. When Boreas Gear recruited us for a special expedition, we were ready to answer the call of the wild. We joined the Boreas Gear design team on their first-ever Wilderness Design…

Shot in the Dark.

MONKEYLECTRIC knew the world had never seen something like the Monkey Light Pro. It’s a bike light comprising 256 color LEDs that can display images and videos on your wheels. Not only had the company struck upon a scientific breakthrough for bike safety, but they’d designed an eye-popping visual experience that was the toast of tech fairs and science museums alike. When MONKEYLECTRIC enlisted 12FPS, the startup had already tested nine prototypes for the Monkey Light Pro over the course of five years. They were ready to launch a Kickstarter campaign that would make their product go viral. The world’s most advanced bike light needed a…

Sweat, Blood and Symmetry.

Wes Anderson’s aesthetic is intricate, precise… and apparently effortless. In his award-winning films, the camera glides smoothly through stylized sets, lighting on symmetrical compositions that please the eye. We teamed up with Mellow Velo Bicycles to film a playful tribute to the acclaimed director, and kick off Outside Magazine‘s Bike and Brews event for National Bike to Work Day. The eye-catching aesthetic would help us raise awareness about an eco-friendly cause. It didn’t take long to learn that Anderson’s look is the result of grueling work. Setting up shots called for a heightened awareness of everything in the frame, and mapping out the…

Brain Food.

Our Santa Fe team just moved in to a new office in the Siler District, and a full third of the space is devoted to a big, beautiful kitchen. Where some companies have a rickety mini fridge, grimy microwave and cloudy water cooler, we have a sprawling range and butcher block countertop. There’s a full-size fridge, food processor and arsenal of pots, pans, knives and cutting boards. It helps that we’re sharing the space with Leafy Greens, brainchild of 12FPS team member and master nutritionist Leah Devine Pokrasso. Leah guided us through a post-Thanksgiving cleanse by cooking up delectable detox lunches. Behold, wild rice in a…