We’ve always fancied ourselves filmmakers. Artists. Creatives.
But manufacturers?
We love where we live, so we’re always on the lookout for ways we can help those who make Colorado better. The Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance or CAMA is an organization that helps boost our local economy by training and connecting people with Colorado manufacturing jobs. We were so impressed by what they're doing that we have put much of our energy toward making sure their mission succeeds. While learning more about CAMA, we were delightfully surprised that the same processes that have to happen in manufacturing also happen in the filmmaking process.
Here at Hoptocopter™ Films, we take raw material (footage) and transform it into finished goods (films). Our highly skilled team starts with our clients’ products, issues, problems, and stories and plans them out, breaks them down, and reorganizes each thought and narrative into a final product that forges connections between people.
Problems become solutions.
Confusion becomes clarity.
Sure, we’re not out there wielding a hammer or a MIG machine; our tools are more visual: lighting, software, and nuance. But we use our tools for the same reasons manufacturers do: to solve problems. Those problems aren't all the same, so our product isn’t one-size-fits-all—we tailor our handcrafted films with highly intentional messages to our clients’ unique needs—whatever they may be.
How can artists be manufacturers? While some may view filmmakers’ creative processes as lofty and too head-in-the-cloudsy, we are the opposite. Rather, we approach the making of a film strategically and systematically with boots on the ground; each part in the process, from pre-production to post-production, encompasses a series of steps that must happen or the end product can’t stand on its own two feet.
Coming to this realization has given us added respect for and a better understanding of the customers we serve as well as much a broader and fundamental understanding of what we do. We've restructured our processes to reflect many of the same processes you'd find in manufacturing. And the results have been amazing. We've gotten more efficient, more streamlined, and more systematized with the overall result being a better, more fluid experience for the customer. This forward motion is all due to the fact that we're embracing who we really are: micro manufacturers.