Incentives yield positive results for young Grand Rapids film co.
by Jake LaDuke | Business Review Western Michigan
Thursday October 09, 2008, 8:00 AM
Even in the post-film-incentive Michigan, Dot&Cross is a different kind of business.
While other film-production companies are narrowing their range and fine tuning their specialization to become the best Flash animators or offer the best post-production editing, Dot&Cross is widening its scope. The Grand Rapids company wants to nurture projects from the infancy stage and sculpt them all the way through a final product. It considers its forte so-called integrated media.
"What we lovingly call 'integrated media' are things that combine all of the different kinds of mediums," said Santino Stoner, a development partner at Dot&Cross. "From film to print to Web ..., for cohesive integration, for projects that have a positive cultural impact."
Resist the temptation to call this business model idealistic. Several clients are worldwide moneymakers looking to take advantage of this part-film, part-problem-solving vision.
Using its integrated media approach, Dot&Cross has highlighted sustainability by producing video content for Grand Rapids-based office furniture manufacturer
Steelcase Inc. Another project was the development of several self-help books into multimedia campaigns, including one for New York Times best-selling author and frequent Oprah correspondent Marcus Buckingham's "The Truth About You".
Dot&Cross was started by four partners, two of whom are Michigan natives, who were no strangers to the challenges and frustrations of the film industry.
"We've been working together on different projects for the better part of a decade," said Stoner, who was born in Grand Rapids.
The group collectively decided they would form their own company and take on the projects they deemed as worthy causes to promote.
"We've all worked with a wide range of companies in the past, and these are the projects that get us up in the morning," Development Partner David Wenzel said.
"There's plenty of work out there with a lot of money behind it that isn't really moving the needle, that isn't really doing anything.
"There's a far fewer number of people who are willing to say, 'We're going to dedicate our business to really changing things.'"
By taking on more of a role in crafting each of its projects, they subsequently invest more resources with each project.
"It includes the creation of the entity, scripting, creative direction and crafting relationships with publishers, studios," Wenzel said. "All that stuff happens before we even pick up the camera."
As a result of the increase in demands for each project, Dot&Cross will occasionally contract out different aspects of production to manage the project as a whole.
"What is so important is that the context and the content, the medium and message come together and there's a synergy that happens there," Stoner said. "We try to inject something that will be fresh, because it's that freshness and that style that allows for that memorable experience."
Dot&Cross opened for business in April -- one month after the state's film-incentive legislation took effect. While the incentives are crucial in the startup of companies like Dot&Cross, there were many other factors behind the decision to stay in Michigan, said Michigan native Brett VanTil, managing partner.
The state's diverse landscapes, talent pool and reasonable cost of living all played a part in the decision to set up in Grand Rapids, VanTil said.
"The incentives make you think about some options that just weren't really there" before, he said. "It throws another positive onto the equation to make business models that weren't maybe possible before."