We commandeered a decommissioned army barracks and turned it into a psych ward for Twelve After. Check out makeup and set photos on our fan page on Facebook.

Music video drops mid-June.

Like The Stars was great to work with — I love the energy they brought to the shoot. We shot on Monday at Cherry-Crest Farm in Lancaster, a long-time client of ours who was very gracious to let us use their farm for the day. Vespa of Lancaster hooked us up with a shiny red Vespa for the day for Heather and TJ to ride — more on that soon.

Music video drops mid-June.

Meteor Tower Films is the application of what I learned from the unitheo experiment:

• We like producing for social media, and we do it well. Video content we created is among the most-watched original online entertainment coming out of Lancaster, gathering over 350,000 views in the last year and a half.
• We dominate in the 13-28 demographic. Working with musicians and artists gave us experience creating media that appeals to their fans in that demographic. We’re now working with advertisers and artists to help them both effectively and economically reach their audiences.
• Even businesses like our style. At the beginning, I semi-intentionally adopted a gritty, organic, hands-on approach to shooting and compositing style, instead of pursuing a soft, slick, corporate look. Young, internet-savvy audiences distrust over-produced corporateness. Instead of disdaining our youthful and slightly under-produced look, businesses have asked us specifically to do what we do to help them reach the young, internet-savvy demographic.
• We don’t do TV commercials. In our market, television ads are best for a demographic two decades older than who we reach. It’s a rapidly shrinking market here. And I will switch careers if I ever have to do a car dealership commercial to keep doors open.
• We won’t do animation. Our research shows that flashy motion graphics and animation generally distract and repel internet audiences. People, uniqueness, and actual content attract viewers and compel them to tell their friends.
• We’re not going away. I’ve watched several regional production companies flouder or actively lose money over the last couple of years. Our business income has consistently doubled over the last three years, including corporate work produced through unitheo’s parent company, TangentIdea Productions LLC. We now have some of the newest video gear in the area, several exciting partners, and some kickass whiskey-coffee.

Our office/studio for Meteor Tower is at 1148 Elizabeth Avenue, Lancaster. And by “our,” I mean Ryan Mast (producer/director/etc), Owen Byrne (director of photography), Hudson Van Ormer (costumer & gadgeteer), and occasionally Doug Hallman (systems designer & editor) and Justin Kuzma (intern/scapegoat/editor/minion).

Thank you to everyone who has helped me and my crew along the way – many friends for support, Jeremy at CI Records for creating On The Couch and the Texas In July music video with us, Lancaster Newspapers for generously giving us news coverage on our projects, Walter and Jonas at Progressive Galleries for letting Hudson and me show off our Twitter art experiments, PopStar Magazine for promoting our work with Racing Kites, Keith at AMQ Software for letting Justin & I work out of your office until we got our own place, the whole damn Creative House Of Lancaster, and many others.

Keep in touch! Follow @meteortower on Twitter for more news, or email me (ryan@meteortower.com) if you’d like to know more about what we do and what we’re doing.

Thanks,
Ryan

Thanks to everyone who came out to the shoot at Texas In July’s concert at the Chameleon on Valentines day, and to the Lancaster Parking Authority for giving us access to shoot on their roof. The club was hot, the parking garage was frigid, but it was a fun shoot and everything went great. Leave Texas some love on YouTube!

Watch the HD version on Vimeo.

From DanielKlotz.com…

“Ryan Mast’s two music video entries under his unitheo production company stood out as well for the strength of the underlying vision and the precision of the execution.”

Lancaster News also ran an article on the festival and posted “One Girl For Me.”

Thank to to the judges, the sponsors, and the press for such kind reviews and support. I’m looking forward to coming back to Rumschpringe again next year!

To fit Hiram’s Sinatra-esque jazz sound, we worked to evoke a classic movie feel. We shot amongst the pre-Depression-era architecture of Lancaster City, and I created a muted duotone grade in Apple Color, to convey the warmth of the characters in coolness of their surroundings. Hiram co-directed, creating the story and guiding the location choices.