Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christian Ankrum. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Christian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

My brother Aaron and I have been attached at the hip since I was born. Growing up we played sports together, worked at camp together, went to the same college, and played music together. We played in a band (Grayshot) from Jr. High up until just before the pandemic. He had been producing our music and others, and also in that time we started making our own music videos. As he took on more corporate clients for audio snippets, commercials and audio books, those same customers needed video needs. We kicked off working together with a keynote video for a large health care company back in 2019.

One of the comments we get a lot is that people are surprised we work so well together. Our response often is, when you spend a lot of time with someone, in a van, on the road, to play shows in the midwest for 1-10 people, you have to work through a lot of things. There will always be times when we bump heads creatively, but we’ve learned the value in each other and that we both have different strengths and weaknesses. The more we have learned to rely on each others strengths, the better we’ve become. The more we’re honest about our weaknesses, the more we can catch our blind spots.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

(I somewhat answered that in the first part)

At Aerial View Studio, we’ve taken on a lot of varying projects. We love to bring in our artistry of building songs to everything we do to keep it from getting stale. Our main goal is to keep the viewer engaged, and building a song has a lot of similarities to building a commercial, story, or product spot.

The most important thing for us though, is that the client feels valued and heard. There are lots of cameras, lights, and ideas out there, and incredibly talented camera operators, and editors. If we’re not enjoying the time with our clients, and even more important, they’re not enjoying theirs, then it’s just a transaction that’s void of life, and then what’s the point? We’re highly relational, and though yes we’re doing a job, we can all enjoy the work.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of what we do is to take someone’s vision or idea, and make it even better than they had hoped. Make it beautiful visually, sound crystal clear, and make the message easy to digest and concise.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Well, NFTs definitely have their place. Aaron knows more about that than me. Odd question to ask but I like that you’re outside the box.

So far we haven’t produced anything, or bought any for that matter, but Its fun to dream of what could be out there in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aerialviewstudio.com

Image Credits
Nick Fay Rob Morgan