San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Collective gathers the talent to create ‘impactful’ videos for clients
Letty Romero cut her teeth as an editor on sports television programs such as “Yamaha Whitetail Diaries,” a deer-hunting show, and “Cabela’s Fisherman’s Handbook” before deciding in 2015 to set off on her own as a freelance videographer.
The next year she founded Uncommon Collective, a network of editors, animators, camera operators and makeup artists who team up to make videos for clients ranging from USAA to the San Antonio River Foundation.
The collective sprang from get-togethers between Romero and friends in the industry, during which, she said, “We would just vent about our jobs.”
On a Wednesday morning this month, Romero took a cameraman to Carver Library to interview graduates of Wheatley High School, which flourished as an all-Black school on the East Side before closing at the end of the 1969-1970 school year. The video was commissioned by the school’s alumni association.
Romero said she uses her own feelings as a guide for what such a video’s story should tell, focusing on what interests her.
“I genuinely want to know about people. I feel like that’s a journalist background,” she said as she worked. “I’m interested. I want to know, where did you grow up? What was it like in the ’60s or ’70s at your high school? I’m reading some of the bios of these alumni and they’re incredible.”
Romero grew up in San Antonio, graduating from Lee High School and earning a degree in
broadcasting from Texas State University. Along with her duties at Uncommon Collective she works part time as a senior video producer at Aguillon Creative, a local advertising firm.
She recently sat with the Express-News to discuss the virtues of short videos and the importance of “killing your darlings” for the sake of the story, among other things.
The following has been edited
and condensed.
Q: What did you learn from your career editing sports TV? A:
I always tell people I was baptized by fire at that job because the deadlines are so tight. We did 30-minute shows in one week. Sometimes, more than one show per week. So I was editing really, really fast. And it had to be quality, for the network standards. You couldn’t really make any
mistakes. I feel like I really know how to edit, and how to edit fast. I know how to tell a good story, to capture the audience. That was where I learned how to be a good editor. But I always wanted to be a producer.
Q: What led you to break off on your own?
A:
We started to do a lot more digital clips. Clips for social media, Facebook. They wanted to do not just the full show, they wanted little social media clips. I felt like that was going to be a huge market, that it was more important than broadcast television shows. And I felt like I was really good at those little clips. The clips I was giving them were getting a lot of views. I wanted to focus more on digital clips and web videos, short-form videos, instead of long-form editing. I think there’s a market for that. I think companies would like to tell their stories in a shorter bite for the internet — that’s really big right now. So that’s kind of how I branched out — offering companies that option.
Q: Do you prefer short form to long form?
A:
Absolutely. I don’t like to live in the editing booth. Like, it’s fun. I mean, I did that for almost 10 years. But, you know, I think people just digest that (shortform video) better. People still watch TV, but it’s not the same.
Q: You founded Uncommon Collective in 2016. It seems like, at that time, social media as we know it was kind of coalescing. You were kind of entering into a new medium, right?
A:
I think so. I think it was really new at the time. Obviously, the internet’s been around for a long time, but using the internet, using (the company’s) website to have little videos about their own company, that’s kind of something that was new at the time. And also to do it well. I feel my strengths are being able to tell a good story. That comes from years of editing. You know, I’ve already been doing this almost 20
years. Being able to tell a good story in a short amount of time is my strength.
Q: How do you do that? A:
Um, “kill your darlings.” That’s what I live by. I’m never married to anything. A really good sound bite does not mean anything if it doesn’t quickly tell the story well enough. I just don’t get married to any footage. I’ll remember it, and I’ll let them know that it’s there if they want to use it on a different clip, but I’d rather get to the point of the story and have that be more impactful in a shorter amount of time.
Q: How long do you expect the video for the Wheatley project to be?
A:
That’s a tricky one because they want a long video and I’m pushing for a shorter one. Originally, they came to me and they wanted 25 interviews. I talked them down to 10. So we’ve kind of narrowed it down to around five to 10 interviews. I would imagine it’s going to be at least 10 minutes.
It has to do with budget. You know, do we have the budget to go through 25 hours of interviews? Like, we don’t. We don’t even have the budget to go through 10, really. But I feel like this was an important project so I wanted to be a part of it.
Q: Uncommon Collective is basically a collective of freelancers, right?
A:
That’s kind of where it started — it wasn’t even a company at the time, it was just me and my friends getting together. We called ourselves Uncommon Collective. That was back in 2015, and probably even before that. Then I took the title and made a DBA out of it. Then we started to work with certain people more often and they started to grow. You know, the camera guys that I work with all the time, they started to grow their equipment and take things more seriously. We started to get more clients.
I don’t want to skip too far ahead for you, but during the pandemic, when everything kind of stopped going, I already was
doing a lot of animations. I have that skill set as well. But that started to hit way heavier because I couldn’t get out and shoot. I did a lot of animations before the pandemic for USAA. Still doing some now.
Q: What’s the value of animations? What do they bring? A:
I think animations are a really fun way to explain something very difficult. Not difficult, but more complex than the average person has the attention span for. So with USAA we did a whole library of animated videos for their real estate department. We did a whole video about mortgage points. You know, that’s so boring to the average person, but in video form you’re, like, “OK, that point, you put that there, you end up getting your interest rate down.” It makes the information more digestible.
Q: How many freelancers are involved with Uncommon Collective?
A:
I try to regularly work with two camerapeople, at least. I have another team that I work with. So I would say about four
camerapeople total. I have a makeup artist that I like to work with a lot. I have production assistants that I work with a lot — there are about two of those. And then, if I get lucky and I get a decent budget, we can have a sound person or a second cameraperson out at the same time.
I really try to cater camera styles to certain clients. So if I have one that’s really artsy — like
I’ve worked with a brand called Hey Mijita, which is a local brand. She’s really creative, she’s really artsy, so I have a camera guy that I feel like he’s really artsy and creative.
I want to branch out. I want to meet more camerapeople. That’s one of my goals for this year. I feel like the production scene is growing.
Q: Would you consider those people members of the collective?
A: Yeah. It’s very loose. It becomes work when you’re working with the same people every single day and they’re not as creative or they don’t see things the way that you see things. I want to keep it loose in the fact that, if I’m talking to this client and they want something really cool, and they want to do something really cinematic, I don’t want to have to work with the person that I work with every single day if they’re not the right person for that.
Q: When you’re making videos for social media, how do you catch the viewer’s attention? A:
I always use myself as a marker for what is interesting. I’ve trained a bunch of editors throughout the years, and I always tell them the same thing: If it’s boring to you, it’s boring to everybody. I’ve done this for so long, and with the interview, when I’m listening, I’m like, “OK, we got it.” That comes from years of editing — like, I know what we need and I know that’s gonna look really good. That’s gonna sound really good. I already know what we’re gonna put over that.
Q: Is it ever a problem when your vision clashes with that of your client?
A:
No, not for me. Some people get very married to their ideas, but I don’t. I feel like they know what they want and I want to make that happen. If it doesn’t exactly go along, I might show them what I was thinking. But, no, I try to just go with the flow.
Q: Do you ever do anything on the side, for yourself ?
A:
No (laughs). Not really.
I have an 8-year-old and he just told me yesterday, “I want to make a movie when I get older.” I was like, “Well, you don’t have to wait till you get older. You can make a movie now.” He was like, “I can?!” We talked it through, what he would need to make a little movie. And I told him I would help him. That’s gonna be my new, I guess, side gig.