Serving the creative community while staying ahead of the curve

Clint McCommon started his adult life by seeing the world. And ever since he has made his living by photographing it.

Following his education at Texas A&M and 12 years in the Air Force, McCommon returned to Shreveport to help his dad, Dana McCommon, with Fairfield Studios.

About 30 years ago, the elder McCommon started working in video and built a sound studio, and Clint later began doing projects with Red River Radio that became the Shreveport House Concert Series. He and partner Bob Robinson saw an opportunity after Hurricane Katrina brought the movie industry to Shreveport.

“I didn’t know I had a creative bone in me,” he said. But he realized his logistics training from the military was a useful tool in running a video production company. “The first thing we do in the Air Force when we go on an inspection is we take a lot of people and equipment. And that’s the same function as video production, just different tools. That part was very natural to me.”

McCommon said he and his cohorts decided to focus the business on creative video. “We have a lot of things we can do, like record music, photography, we can provide crew.”

Fairfield Studios’ clients come to them needing help with marketing or to highlight an event or service, and helping is a priority, according to McCommon. “We want our clients to be successful, and we work harder for that.”

Affordability is also a big factor for Fairfield, and during the virus shutdown, McCommon and company offered discounts for local businesses. “Having the entire state shut down didn’t help a lot of businesses. So, we offered deep discounts. It’s really hard for a small business that loses so much of a customer base to keep alive. We want it to be affordable. If our clients aren’t making money from us, then we’re not doing our job right.”

McCommon explained that his rate card is within the budget of a lot of businesses because of how they are structured. This area, he said, has an abundance of talented freelance workers who can provide the services his clients need. By pooling talent and resources, Fairfield Studios offers high-quality services for a fraction of what large production companies with large staff on payroll have to charge. But cheaper isn’t the goal, McCommon said; quality is first.

“Our goal is to grow, to be recognized as a regional company. That also allows us to step our game up, larger productions. We don’t necessarily make more money by making bigger productions, but it builds our reputation. It builds our capability, so we can hire a lot of talented freelancers. A lot of them had to leave because the movie business left, but the ones we can, we keep here. Anytime I can hire local make-up, local actors, local grip, sound. I do feel good about that.”

A check of Fairfield’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/fairfieldstudios, or web page, https://www.fairfieldstudios. com/, reveals some of their clients like CHRISTUS, Aneca, Louisiana Economic Development and a variety of non-profits. They offer services to the Louisiana Film Prize, shoot music videos for local musicians, and produced a TV show called “Strange Brew Live.” Fairfield has also done contract work for Google and Facebook, as well as recording work for James Cameron for the film “Avatar,” and virtual trade show videos and instructional videos.

“We help the companies beyond just making videos for them. A lot of the businesses we work for are sole proprietorships or startups that don’t have a lot of resources, and they spend all their time doing the work. They don’t have a lot of time to think about marketing,” McCommon said.

The virus quarantine created a need for streaming in-house concerts for a variety of artists, and McCommon hopes that trend continues. They produced the streaming shows free to help musicians seek tip income to stay afloat since their usual venues were closed. “We never live-streamed before, but obviously that’s going to be a changing market. We acquired all the equipment to live stream the grand opening of Strike Force for [the US Air Force’s] Global Strike Command. It might be a new revenue thing for us.”