Warehouse One: The Jean Store has it's roots right here in Winnipeg, and it's been around as long as we can remember!

Not enough people seem to know this, but it has grown waayy beyond our little backyard here in Winnipeg. Look around Canada and you'll see 111 stores from Coast to Coast.  The company is a bona fide, major player in Canadian retail.

Warehouse One came to us looking for a video to celebrate both its history - from selling jeans from the back of truck in 1977 to now bringing casual fashion to many communities (urban and rural) with its destination stores - and their latest brand evolution.  Warehouse One has a new, slick fresh look that the company wanted to talk about.  

The Brief:  The Warehouse One team wanted a video that would act as a quick historic/culture primer to new associate AND would serve as an explanation of the new branding to current employees.

We feel the Warehouse One Brand Evolution video we produced achieved both of those goals.  Telling WH1's history through interviews with managment and team members from several stores (in MB and BC), while showing the steps and thinking behind the store's new look, created by Dossier Creative.

Warehouse One also called on us to capture a very special photo shoot at Ian McCausland Photography. As part of their new branding and new attitude, they featured team members as models in their back-to-campaign. We think the video turned out great, and captures the key things that make Warehouse One what it is: Fun, Casual Fashion and Real People.

PegJam Logo designed by the talented Marlon Wiebe (feeblethemighty.com)As we mentioned on the BlinkWorks blog back in May, we're currently working on a feature documentary about video games, their creators and the craft, called Indie Game: The Movie.

As part of the development of the film, we plan to make several short films to support the longer feature. We made one of those films on an gaming event here in Winnipeg called, TigJam - or PegJam.

The Jam was spearheaded by Infinite Ammo’s Alec Holowka, who describes it thusly...

Basically: Bunch of game developers get together, bring their laptops and work on whatever project they feel like.

New projects will be born, long-lasting friendships will be formed, skills will be gained – epic levelling-up! – and little or no sleep will be had…

It’s just sort of awesome.

 It is all sorts of awesome.  It's rather intense in nature, filled with some serious work, good vibes and decidedly devoid of any serious sleep.  An exhausting cocktail that shouldn't necessarily add up to a great way to spend a weekend - but does.

It's really such a simple idea (put like-minded people in a room and let them create)  that pays huge dividends in terms of learning, camaraderie and inspiration.  Game jams really seem to showcase the community, skills and general attitude of indie scene at its best. 

We attended with the intent of making like a game dev a little bit (embedding ourselves - Diane Fossey style!), doing some work on our own projects, meeting some cool people and, of course, doing some filming.

We wanted to create a little piece that aimed to capture the spirit of the event.  Something that touched on the games, the people and the vibe.  Here's what we came up with...

We were asked by On Screen Manitoba, an association that represents screen-based media in Manitoba, to make a demo reel from all the work done by members in the past year. We got to work with all sorts of dramatic, documentary, and TV projects by local producers.

To compliment the great work, we thought it would be interesting to ground the reel with a live performance from Winnipeg's own, The Weakerthans, featured in Farpoint Films' new documentary 'We're The Weakerthans, We're From Winnipeg'. Farpoint and The Weakerthans graciously agreed to the plan, and their contributions really added a visual theme, energy and truly local feeling to the 2010 On Screen Manitoba reel.

We love it when clients come to us and say, "We want to communicate this feeling. Can you help us do that?". And we respond with an enthusiatic, "Yes!". Because that's what good video is all about - communicating stories and emotions.

Joe Danis, Director of Housing and Student Life at the University of Manitoba, came to us wanting to communicate the feelings of living on campus and what that means to a student's life. Joe wanted to focus on a few key feelings, 'Community', 'Belonging', and 'Comfort'.

From that, we produced a series of videos for the Unviersity of Manitoba residence recruitment and fundrasing intiatives. We created videos about student life in residence, the new residence and the old residence, Tache Hall, that's being repurposed into a learning facility for music and art students.

Here's a video we made about the experiences of international students in residence.

When you make something like ‘Soy Protein Isolate’, it can often be a challenge to explain your product and industry in a clear, succinct & interesting manner.

Burcon Nutrascience came to us with that exact challenge.  The company was looking for a set of videos that would convey, to investors & the public alike, the nature of its products, its corporate goals and also related the strong sense of teamwork and camaraderie within the company.

We ended up creating a series of ten short vignettes that spoke to the various aspects of the company, its industry and products.

A selection of those videos can be viewed below.



Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to work with Ricki's Fashion - a national Canadian women's wear brand, based in Winnipeg, MB.

Ricki's came to us to looking for a series of videos to help welcome new associates and employees to their company. The result was a modular 25 min DVD that featured segments about their brand, their values, their customer, and much more.

We really enjoyed working with them and getting to know their company. We found out lots of surprising things - like, did you know they were founded by a Brandon, MB family in the 1930s? Or, that Ricki's has over 130 stores across Canada? Or that, Ricki's raises tons of money for the Canadian Women's Foundation? Or, that many of their employees have been working there for 20-30 years?

It was a fascinating experience working with such a focused organization with so many women at the top. Very inspiring.

We'd like to show you the finished videos...but we can't. Too many trade secrets would be revealed. ;)