Stanley Black & Decker 2012 Video Annual Report

THE MOVIE IS BETTER THAN THE BOOK

By Vern Oakley

Stanley Black & Decker’s story could write itself. The company’s remarkable performance in the marketplace demonstrates continued success, matching their commitment to achievement (such as holding the record for the longest consecutive annual & quarterly dividend payments among industrial companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange—an impressive feat).

But even when a book is a great read, it’s never quite the same as the movie.

As Tribe’s CEO and Creative Director, I approached this changing digital landscape with similar goals to those of past projects: to connect on a human level with our viewers and to demonstrate emotional momentum.

EMERGING MARKETS: ENSEMBLE CAST

Meanwhile, a big story was developing over at Stanley Black & Decker—a global transformation was well underway, affecting the design, build and distribution strategies in every growth and emerging market worldwide.

That news was Tribe’s story to share in the 2012 “Stanley Black & Decker: Year-In-Review” video annual report. Our challenge was to capture its epic nature, while demonstrating the tangible elements of SB&D’s strategy.

However, not to be over-looked was the chapter on the team of exceptional people SB&D had in place. From design to manufacturing, sales and distribution, this team was already working across divisions and building new organizations around the world.

I quickly realized we needed to connect with this large cast of employees around the globe to infuse our story with humanity, integrity, and sincerity.

This would pose an immense production challenge.

GLOBAL FILMMAKING

In order to execute such a voluminous concept, Tribe would need to conduct 18 interviews over 11 shoot days, filming in 5 cities in 4 different countries.

I was able to direct all the executive interviews at Stanley Black & Decker’s strategy conference in Key Biscayne, Florida, as well as supervise post-production.

By utilizing our extensive video library of SB&D footage from previous Tribe productions, we would save costs without sacrificing story for the Brazilian, European, Asian and North American markets. 

But the new design center in Pune, India, major operations in Shanghai and Suzhou, China, and a central hub distribution center in Dubai, UAE, would all add tremendous value to SB&D’s story of emerging markets.

So I called in reinforcements.

While SB&D’s impressive global scale is unmatched in their industry, Tribe, too, is a global player thanks to the International Quorum of Independent MotionPicture Producers (IQ); a network of our trusted partners from 69 distinguished film production companies of which I am currently President.

IQ member SebastianCardemil, based in Quito, Ecuador, and my new business partner, President of Tribe Latam (Latin America), directed the global productions and oversaw post-production graphics. Common Communications Co. Ltd. in China, Alchemy Films in Dubai, and Nomad Films in India were all enlisted for the production as well.

PRESENTING: THE 2012 SB&D ONLINE YEAR-IN-REVIEW

When all of the footage arrived in the editing room, Tribe’s final challenge was to grant SB&D’s request that the video be “seamlessly experienced on mobile and tablet platforms to reach today’s readers.”

I arrived at a new, creative organizing strategy in order to keep audiences engaged and to deliver our story in a mobile-friendly package: tell SB&D’s story in four parts.

The 2012 Stanley Black & Decker Year-In-Review was now instantly accessible and able to be shared.  

Tribe’s four films are prominently featured and ready to be launched from the home page. Each video in this series tells the story with intelligence, thoughtfulness and passion, without ever using a narrator.

I invite you to watch and experience The 2012 Stanley Black & Decker Year-In-Review for yourself—I’d be interested in hearing your reviews! 

A Modern Affair is Still Influencing International Cinema

Since the beginning of art itself, which is to say since the beginning of humanity, artists have been copying, stealing, and imitating one another. And while director Vern Oakley’s film A Modern Affair is a little more complex than primitive drawings on cave walls, it has certainly had its fair share of writers and filmmakers that may have drawn inspiration from its core thematic elements.

In A Modern Affair, Grace (Lisa Eichhorn) decides she doesn’t want to waste another minute waiting for Mr. Right to come along and goes to a sperm bank, where she carefully selects her baby’s father from hundreds of samples. But once she finds out that she is pregnant, she can’t shake the feeling that her donor Peter (played by Stanley Tucci) might just be the love of her life. Going against all convention, she seeks him out and the pair embarks on a touching romance, until Grace reveals the truth about her baby. 

While it may seem at first blush to be a film about sperm donation, the truth is that A Modern Affair is a classic love story that explores not only romance but also intimacy, trust, and what it really means to be a family. It is these same themes that keep showing themselves in films time and again, beginning with The Back-up Plan and Switch, both of which affix themselves to these complex issues with the adhesive story of in-vitro fertilization.

For an international twist on this idea, we’ve recently learned about the French-Canadian feature Starbuck in limited release in New York and Los Angeles. In this film, a serial sperm donor named David (Patrick Huard) finds out over the course of a couple of weeks that his girlfriend is pregnant and that he has fathered 533 children via sperm donation. As if that wasn’t shocking enough, some of his children are petitioning to have his name released and it’s creating a media frenzy.

In A Modern Affair Grace has to decide how she will raise her child – with or without Peter’s support – while in Starbuck David has to figure out how he can be a father both to his girlfriend’s baby and to the 533 others he has helped to create. While we don’t want to give away the story of either film, it is clear that both tackle themes about the essence of being an adult, a partner, and even a human being. A Modern Affair takes these issues and weaves a charming, and at times quite dramatic, film and Starbuck takes a much more raucously comedic approach.

With the popularity of Starbuck (there have even been talks of remaking the film in the U.S. with Vince Vaughn in the leading role) as well as other recent films, it’s clear that the public’s fascination with non-traditional pregnancies and sperm donors, and how those choices can have a ripple effect on friendships, families, and communities. We think that makes it a perfect time to revisit A Modern Affair and its contemporary take on timeless themes like love, commitment, and parenthood. A Modern Affair is currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Tribe Teams with IQ and Citizen Group to Address Issues of Social Justice

Recently, Tribe participated in a video commemorating Amnesty International’s 50^th anniversary. The film, called “One More Voice”, speaks to the power of a collective voice against injustice of all types. For the campaign, Amnesty called for production companies from across the globe to donate their efforts to this cause. So it was no surprise when the San Francisco-based agency Citizen Group, who was responsible for the production of the final film, invited the members of the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers (IQ) to co-produce “One More Voice.” 

IQ member, Lukas Skalnik facilitated the connection of IQ’s filmmaking fellows who made up more than three quarters of all the filmmakers credited. IQ members added faces, dialects, and “voices from” over 30 different languages across six continents.

IQ’s President and Tribe’s chief storyteller Vern Oakley took advantage of the vast diversity of people in New York City when filming Tribe’s segments. Actors donated their time and effort to the project to add their voices—in Hebrew, Polish, Afrikaans, Lebanese, and of course in English. 

Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Hans Zimmer also donated their talents to the project—Zimmer with a powerful score and Streep to provide her voice-over, ending the film with the simple yet powerful message: “Together, we are unstoppable.” In its finished form, the film is emotional, evocative, and all together inspiring.

Knowing that great things are possible when you work together, Citizen Group again invited Tribe Pictures and other members of IQ to participate in another globally sourced project called What I See. Our own Lori Schmon was selected as one of ten directors chosen to collaborate in this part art, part cultural anthropology project that seeks to open a deeper and broader dialogue around womens’ self perception and self expression. The What I See website is an active online forum where women from around the world are encouraged to participate.

Over the course of two days, Lori and her crew, including Alexandra Beni and Felicia Jamieson, also of Tribe Pictures, interviewed 8 extraordinary and unique women from the NY/NJ area. The interviewees included a construction worker, religious sister, dancer, street musician, fashion designer, small business owner, film writer and an artist dealing with autism.  Each woman was asked to reflect to questions, such as: ‘What do you see when you look in the mirror?’; ‘What did you see at different stages of life?’; and ‘What do you look forward to seeing in your lifetime?’ 

Lori Schmon and Aida 
of Aida’s Cozy Kitchen

The women shared personal stories about their childhood, family life, and obstacles they have overcome or are presently dealing with. The film will be featured on the website, affiliated blogs, and museum installations, and potentially at part of a short-form documentary series to be shown at film festivals.

Just as members of a tribe work together to advance a common cause, so do the supporters of Amnesty International and the What I See project. We look forward to participating in future collaborations and would like to give a special thanks to IQ which makes many of these projects possible. For One More Voice, 16 members’ footage was used in the final film, and for the What I See project, five of the ten directors chosen were introduced to the project through IQ. See below what IQ Members along with Tribe participated in One More Voice and/or What I See. 

IQ’s Affiliates

Australia	Donna Svanberg, CAPITOL Productions
Australia	James Lingwood, Lingwood Productions
China	Erika O'Connor, Common Communication
China	Mark Erder, APV Asia
Czech Republic	Lukas Skalnik, Eallin Motion Art
Ecuador	Sebastian Cardemil, ADN Digital
Iceland	Kjartan Thór Thordarson, Sagafilm
Ireland	Simon Hudson, Stoney Road Films
India	Amitabh Bhattacharya, Nomad Films
India	Doel Trivedy, Riverbank Studios
New Zealand	Ondrej Havas, Omnicron Production
Spain	Paula Lema, Dreamlife Studio
Sweden	Ralf W. Löbel, Playe Motion
Switzerland	Rudolf Isler, Playground Media
Turkey	Filiz Emre, Nis Production
USA	Stephen Pruitt, Mountain View Group
USA	Bestor Cram, Northern Light Productions
USA	Vern Oakley, Tribe Pictures

At The Ball with IQ

No, it wasn’t a masquerade, a charity or even a debutant ball… Tribe spent the day filming on location around New York City with the IQ Ball.  Afterwards Mr. Ball and our tribe from Tribe Pictures dined at SD26.  Yes, we had a ball.

All the global members of IQ, the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers (IQ), were asked to shoot a few seconds of film of the IQ Ball (it’s logo, actually) in and around one’s local habitat, passing this hapless hero into and out of frame; the footage would eventually combine to create a marketing film for the organization itself. IQ members are located in 68 countries around the world, forming a uniquely collaborative and creative  business alliance. Members are able to deliver individually and collectively the highest quality marketing and entertainment films anywhere and at any time.

To demonstrate this concept on Tribe’s turf, we commissioned our team of Tim Knox (director/camera), Kelsey Delaney (film student/intern), Natasha Giliberti (assistant producer) and Leslie Wentworth (production assistant) to explore the Big Apple. With no fear (and no shame), they made their way through Times Square, rode the subways, hailed taxis and joined the crowds of commuters at the great rotunda in Grand Central Station, among other iconic scenes.   Our fellow New Yorkers joined the cast, played along brilliantly and passed the ball whenever asked. And we asked Graeme Dempsey (camera/director) to capture our behind the scenes moments (see below).

Tribe Pictures is all about helping our clients mobilize their own tribes.  So given this opportunity, we jumped. Or rather, bounced.  And as many of you already know, Vern Oakley, Tribe’s founder and creative director, just happens to be the current President of IQ. 

Tribe leverages this IQ network of production company professionals continually, especially for global clients American Express, CIT, Colgate-Palmolive, Coty, Hess Corporation, Stanley Black & Decker, Watson Pharmaceuticals, and more. Our close professional relationships are important to us. When we know and trust the people we’re working with across the globe, our films benefit. Besides, isn’t a job more satisfying when you’re collaborating amongst friends? That being said, IQ is more than just a network, or even a family of filmmakers—IQ is our extended tribe.

Returning to our ball at the end of a hectic, spirited and lively production day, the Tribe production team introduced Mr. Ball to the rest of the members of our immediate tribe. With more than fifteen members of the Tribe family, including seasoned professionals and talented recent graduates, we traveled into the city’s Flatiron District to have dinner and complete our film shoot.

We indulged in another taste of New York City: fine dining at the prestigious Italian restaurant, SD26. We shared stories, ate delicious food, drank good wine, had some laughs. Did I mention we drank wonderful wine?

This week, Vern has travelled to the Central American country of Panama to host the Annual Conference of IQ, and to attend the worldwide film premier of this IQ Ball film––we can’t wait to see it. (As it becomes available, we will add another link.)

Meanwhile, take a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look of our production day and night in NYC, starring Mr. IQ Ball and our Tribe. 

7 Casting Tips To Improve College Videos

...or, what to do without young Matt Damons and Jodie Fosters

Not surprisingly, the cast of your admissions or campaign fundraising video is the single most important element in the communication. Why? The connection a donor or prospective student feels towards your school is an emotional one. The characters who appear in your videos – students, faculty, alumni – establish your credibility, spark the viewers’ empathy and forge that all-important human connection.  And too often, not enough care is taken at the critical time in the process, that is, when choosing your film stars.  Tribe Pictures offers these simple tips to get more out of every video production. 

1. The Appeal of Diversity 

The video you promote for your institution should not only show inspiration, but also aspiration. It is important to honestly reflect the diversity of your campus, while at the same time casting leaning in the direction you want your college to grow. Remember, your prospects are looking for a stimulating environment, not homogeneity.

In an admission video for one college with a reputation for being located in a remote part of the country, we prominently featured a student from Los Angeles and another from New York to subtly reflect the geographic diversity of the students.

2. Spark Alumni Connections

For fundraising videos, look for stories which include beloved professors from the age ranges of your alumni targets. But active alumni may be more interested in seeing what’s happening on campus today rather than solely hearing stories of past glories.

For NYU Law, the alumni had little nostalgia for their own era, but were very proud of how the law school had grown in reputation. We concentrated on the school’s current achievements and vision for the future.

3. Look For Powerful Stories And People 

While top scholars and “superstar” alumni might seem like the best choice to represent your institution, they may not connect with everyone or be the most engaging when on screen. For campaign videos, an alumnus who is dynamic with a rich story to tell may be a better option than one who has a high level job.

A profile of an unsung alumnus teaching physics in a troubled Bronx high school turned out to be the most powerful of a number of stories in one of our college campaign films.

4. Collaborate

The casting process is most effective when it is a collaborative effort between the administration and the filmmakers. When pre-interviewing students in the initial casting phase, we often discover from the students who are the most dynamic and engaging professors. While the administration has the final say, filmmakers and students can bring insights to the casting process that administrators might not have originally considered.

5. Don’t Ignore the Off-Screen Talent 

Voice over narration can be used very effectively, but again casting is key. Choosing a narrator isn’t solely about voice quality, but rather the connection the voice elicits.

In a video for Kenyon College, Tribe asked actress Allison Janney to narrate. Allison is a Kenyon alumnus of ’82 and well known by the Kenyon family for her success in film and television. Allison personalized the video for the Kenyon audience, and reminded the viewers that alumni care enough for their alma mater to give their time.

6. Foster a Relationship between the Filmmakers and Cast

When the team has decided on a final cast list, let the filmmakers pre-interview these candidates. In these pre-interviews the filmmaker can break the ice, establish a relationship with the cast member, and understand what makes your school unique so they can develop a more subtle and informed presentation of the institution. When the real shoot day comes, the cast members will be more relaxed on camera.

7. Give Cast Members Responsibility

The cast can often provide more intimate footage than the filmmakers. Encourage cast members to use hand-held cameras (such as smart phones) while at home, with friends on campus, on a trip – wherever – to capture moments the filmmakers could never get.

When we needed shots of life in winter for the University of Vermont, little snow was on the ground that year during our scheduled shoots. There was snow on the top of the Green Mountains and we commissioned one outdoors-loving student to climb one of the peaks with a flip cam to get us the shot with the sun rising over glistening snow.

With 25 years of producing successful films, Tribe continues to learn a few new things every year. Filming at major institutions across the nation, including Franklin and Marshall College, Washington University in St. Louis, Washington and Lee University, and Agnes Scott College, we always enjoy capturing that contagious freshness and optimism. Although these students are not hard to come by, capturing those special moments on camera is a true feat of casting.

Big Client, Small World

Hammers, hinges, and hacksaws may not be the most poetic objects in the world. Neither are the facts and figures of a multi-national company’s annual report the most exciting. So what do you get when you combine the two? Tribe Pictures finds a symphony.

Stanley Black & Decker, a global industrial company with over 40 brands and thousands of products, presented Tribe with a challenge: produce a video to introduce their 2011 Annual Report and Year in Review investor relations website. Kate Vanek, VP of Investor Relations, knew she wanted something different and demanded one thing: “We want ‘wow.’”

Inspired by Stanley Black & Decker’s ubiquity, CEO & Creative Director Vern Oakley envisioned a film to showcase the company’s role around the world. This film, entitled “Symphony,” asks us to stop and listen—just for a moment—to the sound of Stanley Black & Decker products that surround us in our daily lives. From automated subway doors in China to the socket wrenches that build airplanes to infant monitoring systems, Stanley Black & Decker is present on six continents, surrounding us in a “symphony of life.” He found a language to give a new perspective on these products and services, a more human and personal way of seeing construction equipment, industrial products like power tools, doors, and storage devices, and even security monitoring services. Steve Block worked with him to develop the strategy for the film’s message and implementation.

Felicia Jameson and Chris Holt, the team that planned and produced all location photography, knew how to make the globe a small world from Tribe’s base in Chatham, New Jersey. They called upon our international tribe including award-winning director and cinematographer Michael Spindler from Switzerland and several members of IQ, the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers, for filming in China, Latin America and Europe.

To capture both the tiny details and global scale, you need state-of-the-art technology, like the Phantom Gold HD camera that can capture over 2,000 frames per second, which was used to create the stunning slow motion footage of tools in action.  Tribe’s most veteran editor—or should we say conductor?—Ray Quaranto made it all come together into its final symphonic film form, an artful blend of picture, sound, music, and narrative. 

Of course, this inventive film concept demanded a soundtrack to highlight the musicality of tools and equipment while capturing a sense of human accomplishment and purpose. Future Perfect, the music composers and sound designers located in Santa Monica, California, contributed their interpretation in their original score.

“Symphony” was a strategic and creative opportunity to stretch Tribe’s global legs for a global client, but still we questioned: how do you define “wow”?

“Goosebumps,” according to Kate Vanek, commenting on her response to the film. Tribe delivered the “wow” she asked for to Stanley Black & Decker’s many current and future investors.
For more information about this branding project, read the accompanying press release and learn about the international awards it received.