Introducing: MAKE/FILMS Southeast
Lisbet Byler
Director/Producer Allen Clements is breaking ground on MAKE/FILMS Southeast in Sarasota, Florida.
In September 2020, Allen Clements, a Director and Producer at MAKE/FILMS, moved to Sarasota, Florida. The move came out of a job opportunity in the Tampa Bay Area for Allen’s wife, who is an early childhood teacher specializing in Waldorf Education. In assessing the move, Allen discussed the possibility of departure with MAKE/’s Founder and Executive Producer, Derek Dienner, and they decided to view the move as an organic opportunity to expand MAKE/FILMS geographically and further experiment with a more mobile and interconnected world. And so MAKE/FILMS Southeast was born.
Having been with MAKE/ for nearly half a decade, Allen is one of several team members who fostered MAKE/’s early growth. When he arrived at MAKE/FILMS in 2014 the company was experiencing burgeoning success, having just finished its first national commercial spot for Duck Donuts (which happened to be filmed in Florida). Over the last four and a half years, Allen has worked to acquire and produce client content and has been key in MAKE/’s exploration and development of original content, including the recently released docuseries Dismantling Democracy, which he directed.
Allen’s move brings immense opportunity for MAKE/FILMS, including bringing MAKE/’s successful creative, strategic, and cinematic work to a whole new set of agency clients in the Southeast, as well as bolstering shooting and location opportunities for our current clients and growing original content division.
Challenges Making Way for Opportunity
Many industries will agree that since the Coronavirus pandemic began to affect the United States in early 2020, we were pushed to make remote work…well, work!
Fortunately, even before these challenges, MAKE/FILMS invested in several cloud-based solutions in order to make both our working lives and our clients’ experiences better. These solutions included an online review platform (frame.io), an interoffice communication platform (Slack), and project management software (Teamwork), among others.
After quarantine was lifted and we were able to slowly and safely resume filming, we developed a workflow that allows our clients to watch a shoot live over a streaming link and communicate with the team and actors from afar. We think this can also be used to facilitate remote live-edits and plan to test that capability soon.
As part of the preparation for the move, Allen worked closely with ONE 2 ONE, MAKE/’s IT company, to establish remote connectivity to MAKE/’s network.
Interestingly neither Allen or his wife Kerry are strangers to the Gulf Coast of the United States. Allen grew up in Lafayette, LA and moved to Lancaster in 2006, whereas Kerry was born near Orlando, Florida and moved to Southern Lancaster County when she was eight years old. “In an unexpected way, with an unexpected destination, this move has been kind of a homecoming”,” says Allen, who plans to return to his long-time home of Lancaster County regularly to work closely with his colleagues at MAKE/FILMS, direct film shoots, and visit with friends and family.