A Brief Walk Down Memory Lane – 2022 It’s Been Real

Zenosyne (noun): The sense that time appears to be moving faster and faster, especially as one grows older. We feel that.

But, in reality, it’s been a really great year for the team at Near Future; we tried some new things, we made some new friends, and we made some really great work. So, as any good walk down memory lane starts (at least one from a creative production company…) here is a recap video featuring some (but not all or we’d be here all day) projects we worked on with, or without you. Thank you for making 2022 a memorable one!


Now, let’s get down to the real story here: statistics.

The Team Grows By Leaps and Bounds
We grew so much we wrote a whole blog post about it here.

FirstsCheck out our blog post diving into each of these fun firsts for us here.

Top 8 Crafty Snacks
Did you think we could list them all here? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Check out a blog about the snacks here.

Data

From January 1, 2022 through the publishing of this blog post, we have processed 32 TB of video data. That’s a lot. That’s ~ 32,000,000 MB. Woah. In practical terms thats:

• 23 MILLION floppy disks
• 6,784 DVDs
• 128 average-person Macbooks
• The entire Library of Congress, three times. THREE.

Should we keep going? It’s a lot. That much data comes from the 96 projects we worked on together. (Let’s try to beat this next year – challenge?)

Top 5 Videos on the Near Future Site

You came to our site, you watched, and the results are in…

1. eero: Hidden Connections – check me out
2. eero: Wifi for All – we get it, you guys like eero – check this one out
3. Helium: Glad You Asked – big wifi people we see you – check out the first one / check out 2.o
4. Modern Treasury: Move Money Easier – check me out
5. Aspiration: Start Somewhere – check this out

 

Coffee Intake

To get through all of those projects, the team drank 22,880 cups of coffee (yes, we did the math) over the course of the year. Well, ok, maybe we accounted for some coffee that helped us make early morning pre-work tee times… should we tally up our rounds of golf? Maybe not – just know we played a lot of golf, and drank a lot of coffee. Balance.

 

And finally, one of our favorite stats – people we know and love, doing other cool things.

1. Syra, who you might recognize from our Helium projects here and here, was also in The Dropout – check her out.
2. Steve, who you would recognize from our eero work, was in Hacks – check him out.
3. Casey Ford Alexander, from Scribd, was in Dopestick – check it out.
4. Steph Barkley, from this Kitty Poo Club project, was in Quantum Cowboys – check her out.

 

Overall, a good year. A great year. And at the close, we can’t wait to see what comes together in 2023. Thanks for being a part of our family. Have a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!! We’ll see you in January!! (Except for those of you that owe us feedback, we’ll be emailing you today…)

Firsts of 2022

We tried some new things this year and frankly, we’d do them all again!

1. Shooting with a Buffalo: thanks for the memories, Clyde!

2. Shooting in New Mexico: yes, eero can get you wifi all the way out here.

3. Shooting in an LED Wall Studio: shoutout to Hivemapper.

4. Meeting Holly in real life: and her golf game was indeed “fire”.

5. Speaking of fire… Shooting with a fire truck: we honestly cant believe we hadn’t done this before now!

6. Shooting in an Axe Throwing Studio: danger Will Robinson.

via GIPHY

 

7. Shooting with Butterflies: as magical as it sounds.

via GIPHY

 

The Team Grows By Leaps and Bounds

It’s all about growth. In business, in our personal lives, in our relationships, and the list goes on…This year was a year for growth at Near Future and not just in the number of projects we worked on!

Some of our more notable and exciting growths as a team this year were…

We brought another Square alumni into the Near Future family when we hired Erin to keep our creative production trains on the tracks. She’s about to be out for a little bit to have a baby (new hire #4) but we couldn’t be happier to have her on the team.

 

We also hired a Nashville-based creative PM, Holly, to come in and teach us how to golf well help manage some of our bigger client relationships. 

 

Our producer Chris had a sweet baby, Lucy, who’s brought some very real stoicism to an otherwise ridiculous group.

 

And, baby Rome Stevens is new hire number four for the year! He joined the team on Friday, December 2nd (like any good employee does). That’s like 30% growth YOY for all of the math fans out there.

 

Top 8 Crafty Snacks of 2022

Honestly, this was the hardest list to narrow down… you get eight. You’re welcome.

1. Mini Banana Pancakes – yes, exactly as good as they sound.

2. Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Chips

3. Trail Mix – for the healthy option on the go.

4. Bananas – for the purists

5. Peanut Butter Cups – obviously.

6. Trader Joe’s Chili & Lime Rolled Corn Chips – a healthier Taki (or so we convince ourselves).

7. Pretzels – filled with peanut butter, salted, covered in chocolate, dipped in wasabi, rolled in cheese – any shape, any size.

8. Candy – a little sugar pick-me-up never hurt anyone.

Safety First!

We miss seeing our friends and family on set and location…those hugs and high fives. We’ll get back there. For now, the way we make content has changed. But our ethos remains the same, provide high quality production, creative thinking—without ego, and good old fashioned value in a safe and responsible way. And here’s how…

 

We won a bronze Telly for Cake!

Tooting our own horn here for a sec. But we just learned that we won a bronze Telly for our Cake Browser commercial (directed by the incomparable Adam Patch). This was one of our favorite projects from 2019. We brought back the extremely talented and hilarious, Esther Povitsky (this time she had a side kick).

Watch the full-length here: Cake Browser

Faire launches virtual trade shows

Trade shows and events are a big way for makers and local stores to connect with costumers but COVID-19 has changed everything. Our friends at Faire are launching virtual trade shows to help businesses connect with customers in a new world. We had the great opportunity to chat with some of those merchants to help promote this awesome initiative.

 

Read about it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2020/05/26/faire-launching-virtual-trade-shows-to-help-keep-local-stores-alive/#2bbe106841a2