My name is Stuart Fleisher, and I’m the Creative Director at The DVI Group.

The DVI Group is a strategic video communications agency, which means we focus 100% of our effort on designing and producing exceptional video content for organizations. As anyone who’s ever watched a “making of” knows, video can be one of the most complicated types of content to produce and really demands specialization. That’s true on both the strategy side and the execution side. Over the last 20 years, we’ve been able to provide that specialized knowledge and empower organizations to get the most out of their video projects.

For this project, we worked with The Wilder Agency who came up with the original idea. TWA and DVI have worked together several times, and the projects they bring us are always powerful and a true delight to work on.

It’s always an honor to be recognized for the work that you do. In this case, it’s especially great because the project had such a positive and empowering social message. The project itself was about shining a light on some amazingly talented women of color and empowering women everywhere to embrace their natural selves. Maybe even more exciting than the award itself was seeing the kind of emotional impact the spots had for our audience through their social media reaction.

1. Working in a field where I’m producing something new and original all the time. Working on short-form video projects never gets boring because there’s always something new to learn. One day we’ll be learning about microbiology, and the next day we’ll need to study complex procedures for aviation. And that’s on top of pushing ourselves creatively within our own discipline by trying new strategies and techniques for video content. It definitely keeps you on your toes.

2. Working with interesting people. We’ve worked hard at DVI to build a really diverse team of artists who can bring unique perspectives to a project. It’s always exciting to get into a creative session and see the way different (brilliant) minds approach a problem. Working with dynamic people makes coming to work a pleasure.

3. Video specifically is attractive to me because it’s simultaneously a creative challenge and a technical challenge. When it’s done right, a video should create an emotional experience for the audience, but in order to get there, you need to make a lot of small decisions that can lean heavily on your left brain. For me, that’s the perfect blend of art and science.

Don’t wait for someone to give you permission. To be a professional creative, you need to be moving forward and exercising those muscles all the time – even when you’re not feeling inspired, or when you don’t think you’re ready. Ultimately, it’s tempting to think that there’s a “right” way to do something – but my experience tells me that learning the “right” way is less valuable than learning how to create your own solution when the situation demands. That’s a skill you’ll never learn if you are looking for a map.

The key to our success at The DVI Group comes down to a couple of key points:

1. Good content is custom made. There is no one size fits all approach to communication.

2. Understand a problem before you try to solve it. Usually, that means a lot of listening, and a lot of work to break down the problem from every angle.

3. Put the audience at the center of your idea. Ultimately, we have to remember that the content we create isn’t for us, and it isn’t even for the organizations that hired us. Good communication is about the audience.

4. Great planning leads to great execution. 80-90% of the time on every project we do is spent in pre-production. Taking time at the beginning of the process is the only way to be sure your project goes smoothly and turns out the way you expect it to.