Mission First Housing

JTWO Produces Mission First Housing Video

Mission First Housing Group’s mission is to develop and manage affordable, safe and sustainable homes for people in need, with a focus on the vulnerable. They ensure their residents have access to resources to help them live independently. They deliver housing that provides long-term benefits to residents and neighborhoods, alike.

This is the third year in a row that we’ve had the good fortune of working with Mission First Housing Group. This year’s video focuses on Walter Baker and other military veterans staying at the Whitehall Apartments in Spring City Pennsylvania.  The Whitehall Apartment building is a recently renovated building that provides housing for at-risk veterans.  During filming we sat down and discussed Walter’s past and focused on the ways in which the Whitehall has helped him and others to find stability in their lives.  This year’s video is featured below and you can check out our previous videos on our work page.

This project was made possible through our Projects That Matter Initiative.  The Projects That Matter Initiative is a Philadelphia based video production program with the mission of  providing professional digital media services to Non-Profits at a discounted rate. To learn more about how your organization can join the initiative and qualify for creative content production discounts click below.


JTWO says "see ya soon" to Intern Alex Siwik

Not a goodbye, but a “see you soon.”

by Alex Siwik

During any typical week of a typical semester, my life would tend to feel a lot like the movie Groundhog Day. I was a trapped Bill Murray doing the same stuff everyday of every week. However, this semester was a lot different.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I spent my days with the folks at JTwo. Whether I was at the office or on a shoot, each day was different. I was no longer Bill Murray. One day I would be camera assisting or shooting product photos for Victus, and the next editing a new project. It was always interesting and kept me on my toes… not to mention, the people at JTwo are hilarious and very fun to work with.

They say you learn the most by doing things, which is certainly true. I learned a ton on set, but believe it or not, I also learned a whole lot just by eavesdropping on some of the conversations flying around the studio. I often found myself tuning in to Travis’s post-production-related talks and commands, usually not understanding some of the lingo, but by the end of my internship, I definitely gained a better understanding of workflow and the importance of being an organization freak. Although my career goals consist of me being a shooter, I feel that these things will help me in general in the long run.

JTwo wasn’t all about work all the time. We did some fun things together, such as go to the ADCP Louix Awards, where I had an embarrassing moment in which I went up to accept an award before our name was even called (Imagine if we didn’t win that award… Moral of the story: Open bars are cool, but don’t get too tipsy at award shows). The coolest thing about the Louix Awards though is that we shot the badass opening film that screened at the beginning of the ceremony, which was perhaps my favorite project I got to work on.

Ian & Alex

I also enjoyed our trip to DC for the Responsibility.org shoot with Summer Sanders and all the attorney generals. It was a long couple of days, but I got to stay in a pretty nice hotel and be surrounded by super official-looking people in suits. I shot and edited the behind-the-scenes video for the shoot. You can check it out on JTwo’s website or Vimeo page (No, this is not a shameless plug). 

At the end of my internship, Justin tested my abilities and sent me on a trip to Rehoboth, Delaware to shoot a video with Bringing Hope Home. I was totally nervous and afraid that I would screw something up, but everything ended up going very smoothly. It was awesome that the guys at JTwo felt they could trust me to go as a one-man-band and shoot something for them. 

To sum things up, my internship at JTwo was a great experience. When you hear the word “intern,” you may think of a student who is forced to do crap work and then is let go and forgotten about at the end, but at JTwo, I got to work on awesome, real stuff and was more than just an intern. I was part of the team and part of the family. My fellow interns, Ian and Kyung, were also great dudes and I plan staying in touch with them. I will already be coming back to JTwo’s office next week when the Movi Pro comes in, and then again to work with on the next Victus shoot. So yes, I may be shutting the door to my internship, but it is more like opening the door to an extended stay with the JTwo crew.

This project was created as part of the JTWO [INC]ubator Project. A semester long internship program built from the ground up to give young filmmakers, content creators, and all around hungry for a challenge individuals a place to stretch their creative minds while preparing them for the road ahead.

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flyers_haircut

JTWO Produces Philadelphia Flyers Post Season Hype Video

Flyers

Following our recent win at the Louix Awards this February, The Philadelphia Flyers reached out to our team to produce their postseason playoff hype video.  They tasked us with creating an emotional, hard-hitting spot that would tell the story of the Flyers tumultuous season through specific moments throughout the year which ultimately culminated in a trip to the postseason. We made it our mission to scope out the craziest and most dedicated Flyers fans in the Greater Philadelphia area. Considering some daring new ink and a bold haircut, it’s safe to say the city did not disappoint. While not every fan made it into the final cut of the video, their commitment was not lost on us. Check out the :90 spot below.


ian schobel

JTWO Says Farewell to Intern Ian Schobel

Spring

by Ian Schobel

I wasn’t your first.

You told me to be sure this is what I want.

I found you online, all your awards on display, the screen grabs, and the bio.

“We are storytellers.”

I figured your inbox must be worse than the line to a Fortnite cosplay booth but still… I reached out cause I thought I had a shot. You agreed to meet me, you who were so no-nonsense, experienced, but not cynical. I wasn’t that thirsty but I was looking, and it felt like we had just enough in common, like it was the right time for both of us, you know?

Ian Schobel Behind the Scenes

You took my hand in yours and we agreed to see each other three days a week. You’d smile at me when I walked in. Me, always the boy too up-in-the-clouds to notice the signs, knew you had a thing for me right away, and after a couple weeks you hit me with that you’re-mine-this-right-here’s-the-real-deal nickname: sweat-boy.

Ian BTS 6

I woulda come every day but you know those other classes had me locked down, forced me to commit early, made me hang out late, always sending me emails when I left, reminding me how important they were; cause I’d always talk about you.

Ian Schobel BTS 2
Ian Schobel BTS 4

Straight up, I cared about them. But not like you. They’d pout but they knew our thing really meant something, like when we drove down to Washington D.C. for Responsibility.org’s Ask, Listen, Learn shoot: a 12 hour day filming with 23 Attorney Generals, and gold-medal Olympian Summer Sanders. It was in the Ritz Carlton conference room, wrapping up the equipment check the night before, that I could see how proud you were that I wrote that script.

Ian Schobel BTS 3

It was only supposed to last three months, but you trusted me to touch your software and let me write inside your server. I just want you to know I never took that for granted.

I don’t like to think about that first Wednesday in April, when, realizing the end of the semester meant the end of the internship, I read over the contract I signed three months ago. There, on the first page, it stated that two days from then, Friday, would, contractually, be my sending off. I got so caught up in the days together I didn’t have time to think about life without you.

But that’s it, we’re over, I’m not your intern anymore, and I suck at goodbyes. So maybe, let’s try again, when we’re ready.

This project was created as part of the JTWO [INC]ubator Project. A semester long internship program built from the ground up to give young filmmakers, content creators, and all around hungry for a challenge individuals a place to stretch their creative minds while preparing them for the road ahead.

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Victus-Grit-Series

JTWO Redefines Victus Grit Series Brand

VictusGritSeriesLogo

Victus is one of the leading wooden bat manufacturers in the world and used by Major League Players across America. So when they tasked us with expanding their product offerings and redefining their brand, we jumped at the chance.  Series, named after the Victus Grit Matte Bats was the first product category to launch.  The Grit Series took inspiration from the military and was designed with a utilitarian approach to offseason training. Every article of apparel or piece of gear would be inspired by this as we moved into the design phase.  Along with design, we produced several spots for a pre-launch Social Media campaign.  Check out the full length spot below.


JTWO Welcomes Associate Producer Brittany Bonanno

Introducing Brittany Bonanno

We are proud to announce the newest addition to our team and graduate of the [INC]ubator Project, Brittany Bonanno. With extensive experience in client services and social media content creation, Brittany has been brought on as our Associate Producer and head of Public Outreach. With a passion for people and film she is thrilled to be working with JTWO’s partners and collaborators to bring their visions to life.

Brittany has always been fascinated by the power of film. She loves the distance it takes our world and sees a sort of magic in the way it connects people. Studying the art at Rowan University, Brittany took up a knack for photojournalism, and upon graduation traveled to Western Ghana where she taught underprivileged youth and began her journey with the camera. Her biggest dream is to help restore humanity and she believes that film and photography play a monumental role in that.

In Brittany's Words

I appreciate film and photography because I believe they bring out a truth that society often tries to hide from. I think it’s important to expose the real world and show people that they’re not alone in adversity. The camera allows us to find balance and connection with each other, and I think that’s something our world could use right now. 


JTWO's Incubator Project Brings you "Never Let Me Quit"

Directed by Kyungchan Min

After the introduction of universal basic income, the world transitions into a more ideal post-capitalist society. In midst of the changing world, a young dancer attempts to process the death of their mother.

Project Breakdown

The idea for this project came from a conversation I was having with my friends: what if the widespread adoption of universal basic income led to an ideal post-capitalist society? In a nutshell, universal basic income provides a steady stipend to individuals in order to remedy widespread unemployment brought on by automation. The key concept here is the idea that unemployment is not necessarily bad. Rather, it will soon become the default status of the average individual. With the elimination of the capitalist system, we imagined a society where the abundance of free time would promote more artistic endeavors and empathetic interpersonal relationships free from the “time is money” ethos of today.

During my pitch to Justin and Maria, I was told that the project seemed “very ambitious”. With so much backstory, I recognized that it would be hard to condense it into a sub 3-minute narrative that is both compelling and meaningful. Especially in just two weeks. In the end, I decided to keep it simple: one shot, two characters, no cuts.

Visually, I was inspired by James Paxton’s work on Moonlight—particularly the shot below in the second act where Chiron meets Kevin on the beach. The softness of the light, in conjunction with the dark background, paints a beautiful scene with a lot of natural contrast. I decided to film from behind the actors because I wanted to give my characters a sense of privacy during an intimate conversation that the we, the audience looking through the lens, do not disturb.

Thanks to my friends, I was able to gather up a crew rather quickly. I worked with my friend Gabriel Meyer-Lee to write the dialogue and pick out the costumes during the first week. Since I’m not a director by any means, I received directorial advice from my director friend Julian Turner. On the day of the shoot, we arrived at the location with plenty of time and waited for the actors to rehearse their lines.

Although I found the lead actor early on, locking in the supporting role was quite difficult. Because it was closing in on midterm season, most of the potential actors were too busy to be a part of the project. I also expected rain—the final dance sequence was meant to be carried out in the rain as a baptism metaphor. Despite the forecast showing 80% chance of rain, it stopped raining three hours before the shoot. To salvage the shoot, I had the crew water down the background to mimic a post-rain environment. I think the biggest pitfall was the failure of the prop lighter. In order to inject the vignette with as much futuristic detail as possible, I borrowed a plasma lighter from my friend. It was a futuristic looking device with a purple plasma arc that acts as the combustion method. However, it failed quite miserably during the shoot, so we had to switch to a normal lighter.

All in all, this project showed me that a random conversation piece can end up as a short film in just two weeks. It was probably one of the most stressful two weeks I’ve come across in a while—with a huge chapter of my senior thesis due the same week as this project—but it was also one of the most rewarding ones. I think I often find myself saying “oh, I would totally turn this idea into a film, but only if I have time”. This project taught me that I can actually just go out and wrap up a short film I’m pretty happy with in just two weeks. The folks here at Jtwo have been extremely helpful in providing guidance, and I look forward to learning even more in the next two months.

Meet the Director

Kyungchan is an undergrad at Swarthmore College studying anthropology and film. As a cinematographer and colorist, he brings in his background in photojournalism and anthropology to provide a unique perspective to his work. After his graduation this May, he hopes to stay in Philadelphia and contribute to its growing filmmaking community.

This project was created as part of the JTWO [INC]ubator Project. A semester long internship program built from the ground up to give young filmmakers, content creators, and all around hungry for a challenge individuals a place to stretch their creative minds while preparing them for the road ahead.

Learn More

JTWO Wins Gold at ADDY Awards

2018 Philadelphia ADDY Awards

We capped off award show season the only way we know how: in winning style. A night of celebrating the best in Philly advertising saw us take home three ADDY awards –  A gold in Sales Presentation, Catalog – and silver in both Cinematography and Publication Design/Magazine Design

WINNER

GOLD ADDY  |   Sales Presentation Catalog

 

SILVER ADDY  |  Publication Design & Magazine Design

Victus Baseball


Victus is one of the leading wooden bat manufacturers in the world and used by Pro players in the US and Japan. They tasked us with expanding their product offerings and redefining their brand, entirely.  After establishing a new brand direction, our team got to work designing t-shirts, hoodies, hats, knob stickers and batting gloves. We designed everything down to the tags and packaging. [Some of which we can’t even show you….yet].

View Project

WINNER

SILVER ADDY | Cinematography

Drive Like You Give A F*#%!


Drive Like You Give a #&%! is a cross-platform campaign two years in the making! Our team partnered with Responsibility.org and Shaquille O’Neal to create a series of videos to encourage you to Drive Like You Give a #&%! and think about those you share the road with every time you get behind the wheel.

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Louix_Awards_JTWO

JTWO Wins Six Louix Awards + Opens Show

2018 LOUIX AWARDS

Our team was back at the  Louix Awards this year and we picked up some new hardware for some of our recent work – winning six Louix Awards in total!  We also opened the show in a BIG way with our new short film, This is Lou.

WINNER

Copywriting [Campaign Catchphrase] + Social Media Promotional Campaign

Drive Like You Give A F*#%!


Drive Like You Give a #&%! is a cross-platform campaign two years in the making! Our team partnered with Responsibility.org and Shaquille O’Neal to create a series of videos to encourage you to Drive Like You Give a #&%! and think about those you share the road with every time you get behind the wheel.

View Project

WINNER

Branding   |   Product Design   |   Brochure Design   |   Fashion Design

Victus Baseball


Victus is one of the leading wooden bat manufacturers in the world and used by Pro players in the US and Japan. They tasked us with expanding their product offerings and redefining their brand, entirely.  After establishing a new brand direction, our team got to work designing t-shirts, hoodies, hats, knob stickers and batting gloves. We designed everything down to the tags and packaging. [Some of which we can’t even show you….yet].

View Project

Opening the Show


Our team was tasked with the concept and creation of the show open for the 2018 LOUIX Awards, an advertising awards show hailed as “the Academy Awards on Acid.” The show is an annual celebration of  outstanding work of Philadelphia’s most creative visual artists, producers, directors, and abstract thinkers.

Let's Blow Some F*@#!n Minds!

We had seen other show opens before and they usually just included a montage of the entrant’s work along with some fancy graphics and some techno music in the background. However, being the overachievers that we are, we wanted to create something mind-bendingly different with a hint of crazy and hailing from somewhere left of left-field.
 
The venue for the show was the Sugar House Casino, so we knew we wanted to implement high stakes gambling into the project and still make it feel as Philly as possible. Because this was a show for creatives in Philly, we also wanted to write a script that had as many characters as possible so that we could include cameos from Ad + Marketing Execs from around the city. We took some inspirational cues from Guy Richie and went to work.

 A short film about a piece of shit from Philadelphia named Lou who finds himself  in a precarious situation with some of the most ruthless cutthroat killers in the City of Brotherly Love.

Cast

Frank Halbiger

Ginger Kochmer

Jason Dilks

Matthew Paul

Tony Francescani

Tracy Agostarola

Bobby Reed

Danny Cardona

Jill Deardorf

Vince Marie

Zachary Haines

Rick DiDonato

Jeff King

David Wright

Rick Angeli

Nikki Mueller

Sugar House Casino

Vesper Sporting Club

DNA Salon

The Laundry Cafe

Ortlieb’s

Kissin Fresh Meats

El Vez/Ranstead Room

The Franklin Room

#SquadDeep


Of course, our team had to make a cameo!


Crew

Writer + Director: Justin Jarrett

Producer: Travis Capacete

DP: Maria Vattimo

Location Sound: Jelani Thomas

AC: Natassia Kuronen

AC: Alex Siwik

PA: Ian Schobel

Grip Team: Federal Grip

2nd AC/AD: Brynn Antaran

Set Design: Gillian Speers

Grip: Charlie Parker

PA: Kyungchan Min

Color Correction: Jason Druss

Sound Mix: Baker Studios


Ian Schobel: What Do You Care About?

What Do You Care About?

Ian Schobel


Today, February 12th, marks the beginning of my fourth week at JTwo.

For every intern, week one is “bootcamp,” a multi-step guide designed to familiarize the interns with JTwo’s gear and organizational practices. After a week of tinkering and troubleshooting, I proved I’m not an irresponsible dunce, and was given the go-ahead to start my intern project.

A good brainstorming spot is really all I need to get some ideas flowing. Call me a grandpa, but I prefer pen and paper in these early stages. I’ll write write write write write– let a thought run uninhibited till it runs out of breathing room. It’s easy to get discouraged when bursts of inspiration fail to strike. Eventually, through sheer number of words, something resembling a story will coalesce. Two hours later, I had a pretty good idea and three storyboard pages in hand. I sat down with Justin and pitched it. 

I returned to Edit 9 desk with various holes poked through my concept; in short, it lacked an ending, and I was thinking too ambitiously given the logistics: two weeks to write, cast, direct, shoot, and edit. So I scaled back, developed a completely different idea which was almost fully fleshed out. Mid-pitch, it hit me– this was going to be a shit ton of work. When I finished, Justin gave me a kind of half-smile, half-smirk. He asked me, “what do you care about?” I chewed on that as I walked up the spiral staircase, and checked my phone: almost 5 pm, so I packed my things and headed for the The El. Rarely have I used the first idea as the basis for a final product, but I was frustrated the day hadn’t gone as planned. I hopped on at 2nd street station. Getting out of the office, the feeling the tracks jut against the train, it gave me room to look at my project from a distance, and I decided I’d been approaching this the wrong way, focusing on the concept itself; instead, I should assemble the resources I’d have access to (mainly the actors and the setting) and build the idea from those pieces.

When I write short stories, I tend to gravitate towards realism. So why not work with what I know, and draw from experience in this case, too? First: the talent. Of course, it had to be AK and Liam, two of my closest friends. They’ve been best friends since high school, and and they’re goofballs of the highest magnitude. I was pretty confident that if I experimented with a particular hypothetical scenario involving the two of them, they’d be down to play the roles, they’d respect me as director, and since their characters were largely based on their true selves/relationship, only minor character adjustments were required to fit them to my narrative. Next, the set: two years ago, when we were still in the dorms, AK and Liam roomed with a kid named Nick. We’ve all remained friends, and he now lives with two other guys in this kick-ass apartment (with adjustable mood lighting). The pieces now in place, I set to work on the script and shot list. We shot both scenes in one day, morning first, then night scene later. In the story, the scenes are reversed. AK and Liam took it in stride, though, delivered a great performance and overall, I’m extremely pleased with the final cut of my first piece of fiction filmmaking (s/o to Alex for the super helpful C100 walkthrough).

It felt really good to sink my teeth full force into a project like that. But remember, as an intern, the intern project is not your only responsibility. The intern project is just a job with a two-week deadline. Your daily contribution to JTwo’s workflow is first priority. You have to multitask, wear all the hats, be ready to drop what you’re doing to help where needed. Working on a number of sets these past weeks, it’s humbling to see that no one here is above any one task; as a smaller production company, everyone fills in the gaps as they arise, and there’s a significant amount of overlap across positions.

I try not to get ahead of myself, but thus far, my time at JTwo has completely exceeded every one of my expectations. Who knew I’d be spraying then talent with sweat on most sets I’ve worked on? And this is just the beginning. Who knows where my spray bottle will take me next.

spray boy