For longtime filmmaker and Newtowner Jeff Gewert, that line sums up the reason why he named his new home-based creative and production outfit Anomaly Media.
For longtime filmmaker and Newtowner Jeff Gewert, that line sums up the reason why he named his new home-based creative and production outfit Anomaly Media.
âToday itâs more affordable than ever to put down your money and buy a pretty good camera, and the computer and software you need to call yourself a film studio,â Mr Gewert said from his dimly lit control room, part of a production company he runs out of his home in town.
Take film editing, for instance.
âIt used to cost more than $1 million to outfit an editing studio,â he said. âNow you can have one for $50,000 or $60,000. But that means a lot of people who call themselves filmmakers â even film school grads â are not learning the actual craft of filmmaking.
âThatâs why I decided to call my company Anomaly Media â I not only specialize in creative work for niche markets, but I think itâs because the work represents a lot more experience in quality filmmaking than much of the video and film you see out there today.â
He decided to relocate and lose the overhead of his large studio space in downtown Stamford a few months ago because modern technology now provides the ability for Mr Gewert to preview and showcase his work without having to schlep those clients in from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or other points around the globe.
âA lot of my clients stopped coming to the office because they all have the ability to review work, meet, and transact contracts through the Internet,â he said.
While he was always interested in making home movies as a teen, Mr Gewert may have acquired some of his talent from his dad, who was an amateur still photographer.
âHe would snap a few pictures, but I was the one who was documenting all the family events,â he said, proud of the fact that he still owns his original Super 8 movie camera. Then he took a single film course in high school.
âIt was the first time I ever had to make up a story and put it down on film,â he recalled, âbut after I graduated I pursued a business degree and was thinking about premed because I didnât know you could study film in college. I was sort of floating with no real direction.â
Life Changing
Conversation
But one day he struck up a random conversation with an aspiring filmmaker, in a bar no less. That individual said he was studying the subject, and that chance meeting changed Mr Gewertâs life forever.
âOnce I was indoctrinated into film, it changed my whole outlook on life and my whole outlook on education,â he said. âAs a result, after more than 30 years, I love going to work. And while most people I talk to are planning their retirement, Iâm thinking about all the ways I can keep working.â
He was accepted into the film school at Adelphi University, and upon his graduation Mr Gewert immediately began working in corporate marketing and communications for companies like IBM and JC Penney. Honing his skills, the filmmaker discovered he had a particular talent for not only servicing the niche markets for these diverse corporate clients, but a way of taking established concepts and making them fresh, as well.
âAnd letâs face it, once you get niched, itâs hard to turn away steady business,â Mr Gewert said. He continued working with Penneyâs until the mid-1990s and is still a sought-after contractor for IBM. His company also serves companies including Pitney-Bowes, New Jersey-based Cytek Industries, the US Merchant Marine Academy, and an up-and-coming Stamford tech firm, Goodway Technologies.
The materials of his craft may have changed from celluloid film to video tape, to the medium of digital technology, but Mr Gewert says he still approaches every project from a creative place that served him when he was working with analog media.
This helps him continue to work efficiently, with the luxury of being able to exercise many ideas to push the envelope of creativity for his clients.
âWhen working in film, you canât afford to make mistakes because itâs expensive. And while today, a lot of people calling themselves filmmakers, they just point and shoot,â he said. âThatâs good for somebody like me because clients are still looking very critically at the work â maybe not as intensely as they did 20 years ago, but I think a lot of decisionmakers today still make the distinction between good images and video effects, and a good overall project.â
Many âArenât Deliveringâ
He said for this reason, a lot of film and creative companies doing business because the cost of hardware has come down âarenât delivering the product.â
âA distinct feature of my company is creativity...taking an established objective and making it fresh,â he said. âItâs not a common style. What we do really is an anomaly, and thatâs rare in corporate communications.â
Mr Gewert said so many so-called filmmakers rely on special video effects that his instinctive way of approaching a client project â no matter the size or scope â is unlike anything else he sees in the marketplace.
âYou canât learn creative. Itâs an instinct,â he said. âSo I tell people, if you canât come up with an architect why build the house?â
He doesnât go to the movies much â the last picture he saw in a theater was Avatar in 3D â but he does indulge that side of his creative persona on occasion. Mr Gewert is most proud of two documentaries he has created and produced, Staying Afloat, about a severely disabled individual who re-establishes himself in the corporate world, and a heart-wrenching film about a 12-year-old Massachusetts boy who committed suicide after being viciously cyberbullied.
Always willing to impart some of his knowledge, Mr Gewert also leads short filmmaking workshops for inner-city and disadvantaged young protégés at agencies like the Childrenâs Home of Poughkeepsie, the Stamford YMCA, and the Charles Smith Foundation in Bridgeport.
For more information about Mr Gewertâs work, go to Anomalymedia.tv (not .com) or view a sample of Mr Gewertâs work on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeCZSlVQAQQ.