Alter Fritz

Alter Fritz is a video marketing and social media company in Amsterdam that strives to accurately represent companies through video and storytelling.

How did you create Alter Fritz?

I started my company about four years ago after having a history in advertising and working with direct marketing agencies. There was a local blog about the neighbourhood so I took my personal video camera and made my own video about the neighbourhood I lived in for fun. There was government housing in that area and they liked the video so they asked me to make a video to show the residents. I rented my first professional camera to make the video and soon after got an increasing number of orders. As my company grew, I consulted a friend of mine who had a movie company to give me some lessons. My quality of work improved over experience and my customer list grew as well. I was lucky to have an established network from my earlier work experience and was able to call friends from bigger companies to make movies for them so I had a strong portfolio from the start.

What kinds of companies do you generally work with to make videos?

Generally I work with larger companies and more socially oriented brands such as housing corporations. These companies like to tell a story about who they are and feel a need to because they are watched by the general public. Film is not a cheap way to produce content so these companies need to have the budget. Whatever the company, there is always a reason for why they want to invest in video. A run in with bad press, for example. A video can help them explain to the public how their business really runs and what their real intentions are.

How do you achieve your goal of showing the true image?

My job is to show real people, real emotions and truth. If I have a housing corporation asking me to make a video, I ask them for some inhabitants of their houses to interview. I don’t interview the managers, I have the people that really tell the story of the organization. It’s more interesting for people to see the average guy that is making the product than to see the production manager. I always look for the social aspect to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. I want it to be honest and personal. That is my point of view about what social media is all about.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

No day is the same. Every day is different and I’m speaking to different people. I speak with people on a strategic level about what they are trying to accomplish with this movie and on the other hand I get to work with the people that I’m interviewing because I direct the movies myself. I like talking to people about the kind of movie I’m looking for and explaining the mood and feel. I like the creative process as well; thinking about the true story.

What do you find challenging about your job?

The speed of growth can be challenging. We’re growing at a rapid pace as I’m gaining a lot more customers. When I look into my next three months I’m already fully booked. When a new project comes in I need to find the right people to help me that have the same taste as what I’m looking to create. I feel like I’m balancing a bunch of delicate things at once and I can’t break anything.

How does Daylite help you to stay balanced?

I use Daylite at the front of my business to keep my sales leads organized. When you’re disciplined in sales you always stay on top of your calls. Daylite enables me to be disciplined with my sales far more than other tools. I tried Salesforce but found it too complex and it wasn’t flexible enough. I’m not about learning software, I’m about using it. Daylite is very intuitive and makes it easy to have my own specific project funnel. I can create new projects and make adjustments as I need to. I feel secure that I can always fall back on my database for my tasks and relation info. I’m very happy with it and have no complaints.

What are some of your favourite features in Daylite?

I really like that I can pin board tasks and create sublists. This way I know what I need to do on a certain day, irrelevant of what project I’m working on. This makes it easy to see the work load for today. I also really enjoy having Daylite on my iPhone and the fact that all the information on my Mac is the same on my iPhone.

Have we had the opportunity to help you with Daylite?

When I updated to Daylite 4.3 I had a problem where the app kept crashing. I contacted Marketcircle and was directed to the blog where it provided a workaround and later, a direct solution. I was told right away what was going on and how to fix it so I was really happy with that. Another blog I enjoy and read regularly is Wistia. It’s very humorous and deals with the problems that you have as a film maker. It’s something I got inspired by and reminds me of how great it is to be in this industry.**