Cinema Storytelling for Businesses
WHY RESONATE?
Years of slogging through the Hollywood trenches drilled one thing into our heads: always read EVERY sign before parking your car.
It also gave us the tools and connections we need for telling stories that capture hearts and change minds. Whether for the silver screen or the YouTube, we have a strict checklist against wooden actors, cardboard dialogue, phony situations, creepy sexual harassment videos, or audience boredom. Like a hipster knitting koozies for his newest batch of coffee stout, we lovingly transform a company’s legalese and policies into vibrant narratives that teach while entertaining. Be it a sitcom, legal drama, documentary, animation, kabuki French musical -- we'll guide you to the perfect genre for captivating your audience...and we'll help convince your VPs that more explosions are always better. Especially in Hawaii.
RESONATE launched in 2007 when international consulting company Bearing Point asked founder Marc Havener to develop sitcom-style ethics and compliance training (read about it in Fast Company). In November 2015, longtime collaborator and screenwriter Bryan Belknap joined Resonate full-time, expanding our storytelling playbook and single handedly doubling our capacity for drinking pour overs. While working in Hollywood, they developed a close network of friends who have gone on to play integral creative roles in film and television for companies like HBO, Showtime, Disney, Netflix, CBS and Sony. We tap into this network as a project requires.
It all began with Aggrieva
Resonate Pictures met a Chief Compliance Officer with the wacky dream of making videos that his team might actually enjoy watching. We did exactly that, and Fast Company noticed..
And What Remains
This short doc charting the complex relationship between fathers and sons killed it on the festival circuit. #laurels
Marc Havener, Founder & CEO
Marc worked in Hollywood for 10 years as an Assistant Director and Production Assistant on feature films (Pirates of the Caribbean, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Fun With Dick and Jane; see the full list) where he gained insight into creating stories for the big screen while developing connections necessary to make it happen. His filming adventures have taken him to global locations like Africa, Europe and Central America, while his short films have been official selections at 60+ festivals around the world, including Raindance, NewFilmmakers LA, and DC Shorts, winning multiple awards and a regional Emmy. His training films are breaking new ground by intertwining storytelling, cinema and messaging. Marc is a hop head (who prefers his beer to taste like freshly mowed grass), a tea snob, married to the best writer in Kansas, and currently working on his most challenging venture yet: training three children to listen.
Bryan Belknap, Creative Director
Bryan is an award winning screenwriter raised in the Lone Star State before driving his Dodge Daytona to Los Angeles post-graduation. (He paid a lot for his 3.97 GPA from Baylor University that absolutely no one asks about.) His first big break came writing the infamous Fantasy Football Pillow Fight commercial for FOX Sports. Dozens of short films followed, culminating in developing film and television projects for companies like Sony, Lionsgate, FOX Television Studios and Radical Axis (where they now patiently await their turn in escaping development hell). He also placed top 5% in the Warner Brothers Television Workshop twice... garnering two less than impressive certificates. When not combing his majestic beard, Bryan is walking his wife and son through the Criterion Collection and praying the Dallas Mavericks somehow win another championship.
Sara Miller, Director of Training
Sara has 12 years experience driving successful Ethics & Compliance programs at companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Citi, BearingPoint, Duke Energy and ADM. She loves working directly with clients to define and customize training solutions while keeping the creative types in line. She joins Resonate having been an integral player in the critically acclaimed (and ground breaking) Aggrieva training series way back in the aughts. In her seemingly unlimited free time, Sara writes, travels, rescues animals, and spends time with her husband, toddler son and three dogs.
James Duke, Producer
James has almost 20 years experience in film/television/video production whose credits include writing, producing and directing over a hundred award-winning short films, documentaries, and theatrical productions. He has produced several feature films including “The Least of These” starring Isaiah Washington and Robert Loggia, and “Ragamuffin” about the life of Christian singer/songwriter Rich Mullins. Previously, he served as the president and CEO of Updog Studios, an independent production company based in Florida, that seeks to create provocative, thought-provoking entertainment and commercial cinema. He is a graduate of the Los Angeles Film Studies Center, and the Act One screenwriting program. (The photo on the right is not James)
WINNER WINNER, CHICK'N DINNER
Our films have taken top honors at these festivals that recognize corporate productions.
