1.) Work with people you know. BG and I made the somewhat risky call of bringing close colleague and friend Ben J. Stein up from Los Angeles to work on the 2010 Flip Holiday campaign. It was a decision we would never have made if we weren’t already aware that Steinski is one of the hardest working producers out there and just an all-around mensch. It was risky in the fact we didn’t know if Stein would work out as a part of our team, and if it didn’t, it could have affected our friendship. But ultimately, the fact that we KNEW Ben was a killer on the production tip guided our decision making and it was the right call.

2.) Taxes will eat you alive. Get with a CPA before the end of the year and have a plan.

3.) Surround yourself with smart people in different fields. We spent most of the year working out of the same office as the teams for 2 awesome iPhone apps, and the window we got into the workings of tech companies was invaluable.

4.) Meet with prospective creative contractors all year round. Just because you don’t have an opening now, doesn’t mean you won’t need talent in a pinch, and when you’re in a pinch, that’s the last time you’re going to want to have to sort through resumes and have an open call for interviews. It might seem pointless when you’re doing it, especially when you have other things going on, but make no mistake, you’ll be glad you did.

5.) Put visits to the gym on your calendar. So that way, you treat it like an appointment. And when you’re most busy, that’s when you most need it. Also, if you’re like me and would rather work out in the AM, it lets your colleagues know where you are when you show up late.

6.) Know how to work remotely, and know when to clock the fuck out. I was blessed with the opportunity to take a couple great trips this year and got to visit some awesome cities with some of my best friends in the world. While all these trips were ostensibly work related, I was able to turn off the phone and enjoy myself just enough that the stress that generally surrounds me floats away.

7.) When you’re buying your team a meal, make it something light. We had multiple 14-16 hour days and to keep my team going, I’d often call in delivery. The mistake I made was to usually get something delicious and heavy, which would slow everyone down. Zante’s Indian Pizza is amazing but it will cut productivity in half at 9pm on a Tuesday.

8.) Read a goddamn book every now and again. Spending all day reading emails, blog posts and tweets is terrible for your attention span. Turn off your iPhone for a minute and stretch out with a good book. (that one is via Kasia)

9.) Pick up the phone. A call is always better than an email and if you get in the habit of calling people when you need to ask them/tell them something, you will have more time to do your actual work.

10.) Take copious amounts of notes during every meeting. And review them at the end of the day. It’s obviously a good idea to scribble down everything that may be important that someone said/you thought during the course of a day. But when you sit down and force yourself to review them before going home, then you’re actually doing something useful. I don’t trust my memory as far as I can throw it at this point, so I ALWAYS make sure now to look back at what needs followup, to make sure I actually do.

I don’t know how useful these tips will be for anyone – most are pretty common sensical – but it was a good exercise for me to write them all down. Happy Holidays.

Name: Lockerpartners (Mary Grace Legg & Emily Swank)

Job: Video Production Duo

Favorite food: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches

Weapon of choice: the focus ring

Craziest moment of the past year: We recently took the video biz out of our respective homes and found a shared space to rent in North Denver. As ill-timed as it seems, the move took place during one of the busiest workloads of our careers so far, which is what prompted the need for a mastermind headquarters in the first place… Would that be one of those double edged sword situations? So, we were juggling this double edged sword of shoot schedules, editing, and sending out bids while trying to move all our equipment to our new office. Pretty crazy if you’re not used to handling sharp objects.

What are you currently working on? Our next gig is documenting a local fashion runway show/competition with a sideshow theme taking place in the atrium of the Denver Public Library’s central branch with guest judge Mondo Guerra of Project Runway fame.  We’re creating a short highlights piece of the event and also including it in a year long mini-doc of the creative/fun/free events that the library puts on through Fresh City Life.

Links: Website / Blog / Vimeo

Last year a group of Radiohead fans teamed up to film their concert in Prague using a bunch of Flip cameras. The ideas was to capture the band from many different angles and compile the footage to create a full-length video of the show. Fortunately, the band OK’d the video and even provided mastered audio from the concert so the filmmakers could post the entire performance as a free download. Check out Prague DVD here.

Treasure Island (Girl Talk Show) from Urgent Content on Vimeo.

You know, we’ve been really busy.  Like real real busy that we (or I) have not had much opportunity to go out and see shows, wil’ out, etc… I did make it out to the Treasure Island Music fest in SF this past Saturday.  There were some killer sets.  The STreets is still incredible since when I saw him/them rock Brixton right when Original Pirate Material dropped.  And LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad were received like it was ’03 in the UK…  was crazyness.

This muddled video though is what cracks me up, making Girl Talk the ultimate “Crowd Sourcerer.”  Who needs a live stage show with back up dancers when you can litteraly source the crowd (bad pun intended) for your stage show? I mean, rap groups have been inviting groupies on stage since Weezy was in Pampers… so it aint nothing new. For the record, I don’t like the Girl Talk thing… it’s like pop music for hipsters.