FAQ

Video production is an extremely broad category that covers everything from wedding videos to Super Bowl commercials. At Stonecastle Pictures, our place on the spectrum is called brand storytelling, meaning we specialize in helping brands produce short documentaries, commercials, and other narrative content that feels human and relatable.

Brand storytelling is a relatively new front in the battle for audience attention that focuses on creating emotional connections with audiences rather than just promoting products. It's a response to the fact that audiences don't connect with traditional advertising like they used to. So instead of hitting people over the head with sales-y ads, we help brands produce emotionally-driven narratives embedded with their values, mission, and personality.

This approach gives audiences what they really want, which are stories that feel authentic and meaningful. And brands, for their part, are able to cut through the noise with memorable stories that build trust and increase loyalty.

Most projects with Stonecastle Pictures take between 6 to 8 weeks from initial concept to final delivery. This timeline ensures every phase — from creative development and pre-production to filming, post-production, and finishing — receives the attention to detail that's earned Stonecastle our reputation for creative excellence.

If you'd like a step-by-step overview of our process in full detail, check out the series of articles we've put together called Production 101.

Our unique advantage, given our experience in both documentary and commercial production, is that we've learned how to blend the best of both disciplines into an efficient framework that makes your entire experience more creative, flexible, and affordable.

Commercial filmmaking is full of bloated budgets and costly inefficiencies, and it bogs down the entire creative process. Our approach has been to simplify the process with our own nimble, tech-forward workflow that allows us to create faster, produce smarter, and scale as needed.

If you'd like to learn more, we've put together an entire series of articles called Production 101 that takes you through our entire process from start to finish.

Unlike many video production companies, we dive deep into creative exploration for the projects we produce. That means we dedicate time at the very beginning of the process to really understand your organization and help you formulate creative ideas around your video storytelling that address the problems you're trying to solve.

In that sense we're definitely an agency. We develop treatments, write scripts, provide creative guidance, and research story ideas. In fact, this is our sweet spot and probably our greatest value to you as a brand or a cause. We want to be your creative partner on all things video-related. The creative ideas behind our work is ours, and that's what sets us apart.

Where we differ from a traditional agency is that we don't do websites, graphic design, copywriting, ad buying, or overall brand strategy.

We call ourselves a production studio because we tend to land somewhere between production companies and agencies. The best rule of thumb is: if it has to do with getting the very most out of your video content, then that's our lane.

We're set up a little differently than many production studios in that our founder is also a working commercial director. What this means is that our passion for storytelling and deep expertise in the art of filmmaking comes from the very top.

As a client, you're often kept arms-length from the real people actually making the important decisions and doing the real work. We've never understood this. When you work with Stonecastle Pictures, you don't get assigned to an account manager or worse, an inexperienced producer. You work directly with Barry, who guides the process and brings his team of producers, directors, and editors along to participate in the creation of your content.

Read more about Barry in our Q&A with him here.

Though we're based in Nashville, our network of vetted crews in cities across the U.S. allows us to film anywhere. When we travel, we typically bring our own producer, director, and DP (director of photography) and hire the rest of the crew locally.

Creatives are polarized when it comes to using generative AI. Our position is that right now AI is an excellent tool that still requires an expert to generate results that are good enough to use in a professional context.

We've generated AI video on projects, like this one where we brought to life long-deceased physicians from their photos. We also use it extensively in the early stages of our creative process to quickly illustrate ideas to clients.

We have relationships with experts who specialize in AI content, so we have that capability. But to us, it's really no different that using an animator or illustrator. The thing that gives a story its soul — its meaning — is the idea behind it, not the tool you use to capture it. And that still requires a human.

As many as you need. At Stonecastle Pictures, we take your satisfaction seriously, so we'll keep working until you're completely happy with the edit.

We design custom animations and motion graphics to support the live-action footage in many of our projects (like this one), but we don’t often produce videos that are entirely animated, like explainer videos.

The simple reason is that explainer videos, while illustrative, are not story-driven and therefore don’t need to be designed to move people emotionally.

However, if you have a concept for an animated video that tells a story in compelling way, then please reach out. We’d love to help you with it!