Meet Brandon Siemens, Co-Director of See Together Media [Interview]

Brandon Siemens is Co-Director of See Together Media.  See Together Media is a video production company located in Vancouver, Canada, providing video production and social media marketing services to nonprofits, businesses, and social entrepreneurs to achieve their goals and connect with people.  Similarly, we at Psych2Go constantly aim to create interesting content that is engaging and relevant to our followers.  We have previously worked with See Together Media to help us craft and find our own story to see to our business goals and continue to grow.  Therefore, we thought it would be interesting to get inside the head of Brandon Siemens, to learn more about his company, the power of storytelling as it relates to psychology and business development, as well as his future aspirations.   

1) Could you please start off by telling us a bit about yourself?  How would you describe yourself in three words?  What do you like to do for fun?

I was born and raised in Langley BC. Me in 3 words: problem solver, compassionate, filmmaker

2) What is your educational or work experience in?

I’ve been writing and doing other fun creative things since, forever. I began making films sometime as I was getting into working in the local film unions. Eventually, I left the unions and started a video production business with my fiance.

3) What is See Together Media?

STM is my favorite project to date. Its goal is to create and encourage impact through the power of storytelling. We like to collaborate with businesses or organizations with sincere goals to help people. We do this by helping tell their stories with video production and spread those stories with promotional/marketing services.

4) What is your role at See Together Media?  

I’m head of production and product development. These roles are fun for me because I get to do a lot of creating and problem-solving.

5) What does an average day look like for you in your work?

My average day is spent mainly in front of the computer answering emails 😛 But you can often find me packing up our car with our film gear to go shoot a video. Or you’ll find me at my desk, head down, while it’s covered in sketches and drawing as I design an idea or sales funnel or video concept.

6) What is the most interesting project you have worked on?

There’s a project we’re in the middle of right now we’re calling #GoTogether. It’s a collaboration with the Pacific Autism Family Network (PAFN). We are making promotional material to promote a program they call GoGroup–a program that helps adults with autism get work experience–but what’s super cool about this is that we are training and hiring adults within the PAFN community to help us make the videos. My goal is the work experience I guide them through will result in them shooting %99 of the video themselves. But every project has at least one new thing about it, one new challenge or unforeseeable element. I’m always on my toes.

7) Does psychology interplay in your work?  If yes, how so?

Psychology does come into our work all the time. For one, studying storytelling (or art) is basically a layman’s way of studying psychology. They’re both just trying to understand people. On a personal note, I’m working with people who are going through some difficult phases in their lives and through this, I believe STM’s culture has been affected to be extra compassionate and facilitative towards people struggling through some psychological issues.

8) How did you connect with Psych2Go?

I connected with P2G though an entrepreneurial community called Spring. It was a random FB post Tai from P2G made that I answered. I’m glad I did because my interaction with Tai has been a great experience.

9) How do you go about creating a story for an organization, like you did for Psych2Go?

Helping organizations and businesses tell their stories is something that could take an hour or a year. It depends on how deep they want to go. You see, there isn’t one story to any business. A business always has many stories being told at once and they are constantly continuing–never ending. Even if a business ends, the ending of its story is the beginning of another businesses story. STM starts by looking at your goals. What do you need that storytelling could help. Storytelling is wonderful for connecting people to what you do but on an emotional level, that’s why it’s used a lot for marketing. With P2G we looked at everything, we looked at the Characters, Setting, Themes and started to think about them in terms of a narrative Structure. We came up with a major narrative and I also pointed out a couple other splintering narrative or side plots that existed in P2G.

10) What inspires or motivates you to keep moving forward?

I simply love building things. Whether it’s a story or a solution to a problem. It’s what makes me, me and if I stopped creating I would be an empty shell.

11) What are your future plans and aspirations for yourself and/or See Together Media?

I want STM to make a larger impact in Canada and the world. It’s a journey but we have a lot of plans for the future to make this happen. It’s just going to take a lot of patience and creativity to get there.

12) Do you have any advice you can offer to our readers?

My advice to your readers is to find an environment that empathizes with you, values you and that you feel you have a voice. Look for companies and collaborators that do this and invest your time in them. Unfortunately, a progressive work environment might be hard to find but they do exist so don’t give up. Companies with strong values will listen when you say, “I’m reading out to you because I feel like our values align.” If you could help a media/marketing company with a base in narrative video production, consider giving me a call.

Well, there you have it!  We hope you enjoyed reading this interview.  Thank you, Brandon, for taking the time to answer our questions!  It was great to learn a bit more about See Together Media and some of the thought processes that go by when working with a client to assist in achieving and realizing their goals.  Additionally, your advice seems to be very wise and helpful to any new or established professional.  Work encompasses such a large part of one’s life, it is important to find a place that encourages and fosters healthy growth and creativity.  I truly believe that people should enjoy the work they do, rather than just check in and check out.

Learn more about See Together Media and connect with Brandon by checking out his website here.

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