We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mike Marchlewski. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mike below.

Alright, Mike thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

This is an interesting question and was probably the central question in my mind when re-imagining my company. To back track a bit. It turned out that my last company name was in use by another production company on the other side of America! This became a problem when linking to our work. So we started again from scratch. This time around I wanted to really delve into a name that resonated with what we are trying to do. Which, in essence is to tell better stories visually! I’ve noticed in the US that the standard for branded video and online commercial work is very cut and dry. I think a lot of companies want to tell their story, or the story of a product. They fail due to poor vision of how the video should communicate with the end audience. What we do differently is to start with the end goal. Then apply a vision to how the video should look and feel. While aiming to raise the visual language up a notch! Better storytelling that hopefully connects with people in an honest or interesting way.

Mike, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I left university in England and went straight into the film industry as a Runner/PA. I ended up on some big shows but I didn’t love the grind of TV and feature films. So I moved into commercials. First, landing a job with a commercial company, then finishing my career in England working for Sony Music in London. At Sony Music we had to do a lot with very little. Brands didn’t always want to spend big on new talent but we had to approach each video with the boldest ideas we could. This is where I really learnt to be creative as a producer and also as the cinematographer. I like to think we made small budget videos look higher budget than they were!

I moved to the US in 2018 and mostly freelanced as a producer or assistant director. During this time I got to produce a feature film that is currently on Hulu and has been well received. It was great getting to work with nice people but I wanted to be more creative. I started my first company about a year before the pandemic hit. That pretty much slowed the momentum down. Then I took a staff job for a local sports team where I headed up the video department. This was long hours and very stressful. After that I realised I may as well run my own production company if I’m going to deal with high levels of stress! The first iteration of this company did well but as mentioned we got the branding wrong. So the rebirth feels better. I think branding is so important. Distilling the essence of what it is you want to do, focuses you on how you can help your customers and collaborations. They know what you’re about.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I left school in England with no GCSE’s (the equivalent to SAT’s). I had very few options, but I did ok in engineering. I got myself onto a mechanics course and then segued to car bodyshop. I did a four year apprenticeship in car body repair but hated it! I kicked around for a bit before applying to a media course at community collage. After two years of that I applied for university, moved towns and completed the course in another two years, earning a BA in media practice. Despite trying different things and them not working out. I just kept following the things that interested me, while applying hard work and dedication.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The film and video industry can be a slog! Twelve plus hour days, diminishing budgets, understaffed shoots, demanding amount of work and tight deadlines. It all takes a toll. I worked a staff job that was so demanding, an horrendous atmosphere, relentless workload. It made really made me question why I work in this space. Anyone who’s spent a long time in this industry is usually pretty resilient. You take some time off, decompress, another exciting project comes along and you go again! It’s the love of travelling to far flung places, working with new people, creating beautiful images and crafting stories others will watch that keeps me going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://awaywegofilms.com
• Instagram: mikemarchlewski
• Other: https://mikemarchlewski.com

Image Credits

These images were shot by me, Mike Marchlewski.