When I started CLEAVER back in 2012, I had a very specific image in my head: a butcher's cleaver slamming down through a strip of film. The Initial Roadblocks Back then, I realized that executing this idea could mean investing in resources that just didn't make sense for a new company. The barriers included: A somewhat expensive 3D animation. Hiring a small team. Extensive render times. A budget that was simply out of reach for a startup. So, the idea stayed in my head. We eventually got...

You don't need better lighting. You don't need a more expensive phone or camera. One of the fastest ways to make your videos look better is something most people don't think about. It's where you place yourself in the frame. The difference between a video that feels professional and one that feels slightly off without the viewer knowing why is the framing. Check out my original post here. Start with the Rule of Thirds The rule of thirds is the foundational principle in photography and...

Most business owners talk about scaling. Fewer actually build the internal infrastructure to make it sustainable. Here's what that actually looks like in practice. Over the past year, our focus at CLEAVER has been on training, specifically figuring out how to match the right editors to the right projects at the right time. It wasn't glamorous work. It was process documentation, checklists, quality control reviews, and a lot of iteration. But it worked. Check my original post here. Last year,...