Video Creations

Service above self: Video Creations receives award for dedicated service

Among the many inspirational verses that are quoted at Rotary Club events, the most important is their motto, 'Service above Self'. The Saco Bay Rotary Club is indeed committed to helping others by performing community and international service projects.

They also recognize organizations who live this same motto, and awarded the prestigious 'Service above Self' 2008 award to none other than Video Creations, on June 23. Video Creations owners Blake Baldwin and Lee Cote were in attendance for the Club's Change of Officers dinner, and were surprised by the honor and plaque they received from Deb Cote, club president.

Video Creations has dedicated countless hours to producing, editing and presenting commercials and other video spots to help tell the story of the club and all of the projects that they work on locally and internationally. Filmed in different locations around southern Maine, various Club members were interviewed about their service work and filmed in action. The video segments air during the annual Rotary auction that takes place every spring.

Video Creations premieres movie, helps raise awareness of teen issues

On Wednesday, May 20, many people throughout southern Maine turned out to see a movie that depicted the severity of middle school bullying.

The film, 'Untold Stories', was produced by Video Creations in collaboration with student group Project Aware and presented at Biddeford City Theater. The film raises awareness about the continuous problem of bullying among young teens, and how to take preventative measures.

Blake Baldwin, Joe McKenney and Lee Cote of Video Creations were presented with an award for their work on the film. Many of the Video Creations staff, including Ethan Cox, Kristy Robinson, Shelagh O'Brien, Amy Hammond and Michelle Cote worked on producing the film as well.

'Untold Stories' is Video Creations' and Project Aware's second production together. In February of 2007, they premiered the film 'Falling', which, along with this film, starred -and was directed by- high school students. 'Falling' demonstrated the effects of prescription drug abuse among teenagers. The DVD was distributed to tens of thousands of schools throughout Maine.

'Untold Stories' was a project that began in mid-2007 and was completed in May 2008. It included extensive filming at Saco Middle School, during and after school hours. Over 500 extras from and around the Saco area were used for the film. Video Creations is proud to contribute to this effort. For more information about 'Untold Stories', visit the Project Aware website at www.projectaware.net.

By LYNNE DOLAN-RICHARD
Making It At Home Newspaper, November 2007

KENNEBUNK - If you're in a tizzy this year searching for the perfect holiday gift, just look in your attic or garage, suggests Lee Cote and Blake Baldwin, owners of Video Creations on 45 Portland Road.

"Sometimes, the best gift in the world is sitting in a box in your closet, attic or garage in the form of old pictures and films, said Blake. "We can take those pictures and films and preserve, transfer and duplicate them into a medium that's not going to be lost through the passage of time. Our focus is on storytelling, putting together a family history video, and telling that story is just one aspect of our business."

Video Creations is a full service video production company offering a complete line of multimedia transfer and duplication services, customized full service video production and professional video equipment rentals. With their extensive knowledge and top quality equipment, Lee and Blake can preserve and digitally transfer all forms of media, including old slides, records, 8MM films, VHS home movies, audio tapes and reels, photos and negatives.

"People can come in to Video Creations and hit all three aspects of our business," said Lee and Blake. "Telling, preserving and presenting. We tell the story by preserving those old movies, pictures or films that people bring in to us, and by preserving, we can transfer them from one medium to another, help people edit the media, and together, we place it in some order that tells a story that will be meaningful. The presenting is what we do in the rental department through interviews with people of what usually is a major event or milestone in a person's life, we present, or show the story on our equipment."

Lee and Blake work with high-end technology, which includes a Telecini that makes a direct image transfer from the projector to the camera looking directly into each other. "We explain the process to our customers when we are converting film to DVD," said Lee.

Before the transferring and duplicating process, Lee and Blake also professionally clean and enhance old media. "It is, in a sense, cosmetic surgery for film," said Lee. "We clean every film that comes in here with a two-step cleaning process and overnight drying to make sure that it is in the best possible condition before we even transfer it."

Behind the scenes, Video Creations has professional photographer Joseph McKenney, who is in charge of the duplication department, and Graphic Designer Michelle Cote. In just three short years, Lee and Blake have more than tripled their clientele at Video Creations, not just because they are equipped with all the latest technology, but because they find themselves becoming almost as emotionally invested in their finished product as their clients.

"People who come in here are so mesmerized by all the technology, said Blake, "but we are so much more than the camera and computer. We use the technology for the purpose of telling a story, and we never lose sight of that. We really invest in our clients' story, and we treat their project like it's our own. It's very "Norman Rockwellesque" in a sense, because your seeing a person's memories and life stories though family events, a time gone by. Every families' story is dramatically similar yet dramatically different. They are thematically the same: Christmas morning, the kids in the bathtub, first steps, but each family does it slightly different. To be able to create something out of those memories that will be so personal and meaningful just warms your heart."

In addition to tribute videos such as anniversaries and birthdays, Blake and Lee also provide editing and customized media production for academic/sports recruiting videos, sales and marketing, or live events, such as weddings, sports events or recitals, and even donate their time and equipment to several local organizations.

Local businesses, such as The Maine Diner, the York Harbor Inn, The Colony, and York Hospital Urgent Care, have also relied on Video Creations for their presentations. No matter what the occasion or event, Video Creations can create a gift that will last a lifetime.

"We have people come in here for all different projects," said Lee. "In the spring, it's recitals and graduations, summer is outdoor shoots and commercials, and we have rental season with hotels and restaurants. But right now, we are in Christmas mode and it's like Santa's Workshop in here, putting our customers' gifts together. It's really the greatest and most unique gift, and you can give it to everyone in the family who will enjoy it for different reasons. It's a guaranteed hit."

The multimedia company in Kennebunk specializes in video production and conversion to digital.
By DEBORAH SAYER
The Portland Press Herald, November 22, 2007

Preserving cherished memories for succeeding generations is the goal of a video-production and multimedia company located at Kennebunk's Shopper's Village. Founded in 2005, Video Creations offers services in filming, conversion of visual and audio media to digital format, duplication or enhancing of old photographs and other media and rental of technical and sound equipment and services for public-speaking engagements.

"Upon first glance, customers think we are computer geeks," said Blake Baldwin, company founder. "We have a lot of high- end recording equipment. But we like to think of ourselves as storytellers. We help people tell their stories, preserve their stories and present their stories. We take old films or tapes and convert them to DVD, transferring them from a deteriorating, analog-state to digital to keep their story alive for future generations and putting it in a format that is readily viewable."

Baldwin, 56, is a former banker, lawyer and pilot who worked in the corporate world of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, Calif. He relocated to Kennebunkport in 2001 after retiring at age 49. Once here, he returned to his hobby of working with visual media, an art form he previously dabbled in, and soon found a niche for those services locally.

A chance meeting with a mutual friend, electrician Jim Plamondon, connected Baldwin with business partner Lee Cote, 25. Degreed in multimedia studies, Cote was seeking to get back to his Biddeford roots following work on reality television shows such as MTV's "The Real World" and Paris Hilton's "The Simple Life."

Though separated by nearly three decades in age and diverse career paths, the two men's chemistry was immediate and their talents perfectly dovetailed, propelling their customer base and necessitating continual equipment upgrades to keep up with the demand for successive jobs.

They are primarily known for their live video work capturing action from weddings, music videos and short-film projects. Baldwin serves as the creative voice for the company, while Cote's skill captures the visual and audio elements of the projects.