Articles

Client: Canvas Watch Co.
Producer/director: Jamie Honce and Sarah Graziosi
DP: Jamie Honce
Lighting/grip: Jamie Honce
Video editor: Sarah Graziosi
PA’s Sarah Graziosi and Lindsay El-Yussif

We believe a successful Kickstarter video needs one essential element, and that’s authenticity. And for the Canvas Watch Company, this meant the owner sharing his story. Ultimately it was Shaun’s passion for creating watches that drove the story and sold the Kickstarter community.

Because of his background in supply chain management, Shaun took the process of high-quality watch design, production, and distribution down from months to weeks. And on top of that, Canvas watches aren’t designed by him, they’re designed by you! Each watch face is designed by a different artist, and the designs that go into production are chosen by customers.

Needless to say, we were eager to begin producing this one! We began scripting and storyboarding the perfect copy to pitch these watches to the Kickstarter community, but after multiple pre-production meetings, we came to the realization that it wasn’t a well-crafted sales pitch that was going to get this idea to take off. It was passion.

We started out by filming our supporting footage. TechShop in Allen Park was where Shaun first started to learn the craft of watchmaking, so we knew we wanted to film there to show the preciseness and care that goes into the creation of a watch. We also met up with one of the designers of Canvas’s first watches, Sean Franks, at dc3 in Detroit. We used the unique creative workspace as a backdrop to capture Shaun and Sean collaborating on designs, as well as some shots of Sean sketching his own design. Next came the quest for the perfect location for Shaun’s interview section. We knew this had to capture the style of the Canvas brand perfectly, and we scouted several not-quite-right locations before we settled on the casual and industrial vibe of the Rochester Mills in downtown Rochester.

Although we ended up going with a “less-produced” feel to this piece, there was a lot more pre-production involved than meets the eye. The time we spent developing outlines, scripts, storyboards, scouting locations, scrapping locations, and countless other tasks, was invaluable. The things we ultimately ended up nixing gave us a clearer idea of what was essential to creating a film that represented Shaun and Canvas Watch Co.

We think it turned out pretty darn well, and we might have purchased a watch or two in the process (and you should too!!)

You can check out the Kickstarter campaign here.