Aumen Film Co

Aumen Film Co Aumen Film Co is a film and video production company led by director Chris Aumen.

They work with clients to take branded content, commercial, and documentary projects from ideas to final products ready for theater, broadcast, and online release. An award-winning film and video production company, Aumen Film Co partners with agencies and clients to create content that engages their target audience.

12/05/2025

Two shoot nights down, 48 hours to lock picture.

Part 5 of the Christmas spec saga features how previs, a few happy accidents, and a hustling color + sound team got us to a finished Ford-ready spot by December 7th.

12/04/2025

We'd come this far, we're not going to let it rain.

Part 4 of this Christmas spec saga: directing a few hundred strangers, in 90 seconds, to act sad, confused, and ecstatic on cue.
City workers turned the tree off and back on just so we could get another take. One of the coolest “kindness of strangers” moments I’ve had on a shoot.

12/03/2025

No one gets excited reading a script in a Google Doc.

So for part 3 of this Christmas spec series, I used generated boards and previz to turn our mayor, little girl, and Santa-truck hero into a moving storyboard that got cast and crew instantly bought in.

12/02/2025

The city told me “it’s too late to approve anything” and the project basically died in the hallway… for about 30 minutes.

This is how a sponsorship in another town ended up saving the entire spec.

Part 2 of 7 | The most magical Christmas Spec Ad

12/01/2025

I hadn’t done a spec project in years… so I decided to self-fund a Ford F-150 Christmas ad on a 10-day timeline.

Here’s why I did it, and how I set the constraints so it felt like a real brand piece, not a vanity project.

12/01/2025

Just before Christmas 2023, I decided to self-fund a Ford F-150 PowerBoost spec spot and gave myself about 10 days to pull it off.

I hadn’t done a spec project in a while, and I wanted an excuse to stretch without a brief, a committee, or a media plan, but still make something that could stand next to “real” work.

So I set a few guardrails for myself:
• It had to be a proper story, not just a montage.
• It had to be built around a real product feature.
• And it had to be fun for the cast and crew, even on a small budget.
• Bonus points for action & comedy

From there, it turned into one of the craziest 10-day runs I’ve had in a while:
• Driving to Gettysburg city hall days before their tree lighting to try and get permission
• Getting told “it’s too late” and watching the plan disappear on the drive home
• Sponsoring another city's tree lighting so they couldn't say no to filming
• Directing a few hundred people from stage to act sad, confused, then ecstatic on cue
• Powering our lights and snow machine from the truck that’s actually in the spot
• Cutting the edit and VFX in about 48 hours
• And eventually landing a Zoom call with a Ford executive in Detroit after my own cold outreach had completely stalled

There’s even a late-night TV twist at the end that raised some eyebrows… but I’ll let you decide what to make of that when we get there.

Over the next several days I’m going to share a short breakdown series on how we made this:
• Part 1 – Why do spec work at all?
• Part 2 – How Gettysburg said no and York saved Christmas
• Part 3 – Casting, archetypes, and using AI for storyboards
• Part 4 – Adding a reindeer to the "animals I've directed" list
• Part 5 – Editing & VFX on a Christmas spot in 48 hours
• Part 6 – From 0 replies to a Ford exec call in 8 hours
• Part 7 – The Tonight Show twist… and why I’d still do it again

If you’re into storytelling, production, or brand/creative work, I think you’ll get something out of it.

Not every story is a six-figure budget.But they all deserve intention and strategy.In one day, we captured everything Ca...
11/05/2025

Not every story is a six-figure budget.

But they all deserve intention and strategy.

In one day, we captured everything Camelback needed across platforms for their new fall offerings.

Motion, stills, creative rigs, clever locations.

One shoot, a mountain of motion and stills, all added to a growing, up-to-date, library of evergreen content.

Produce smarter, not just bigger. ✓

11/03/2025

Walmart's doing something smart this holiday season.

They're doubling down.

This summer, they launched "You Thought You Knew Us" featuring Walton Goggins—a rebrand campaign built around "Who Knew" to change perception about their inventory (500+ million items, not just the basics).

Now for the holidays?

WhoKnewVille.

50 executions of one Dr. Seuss-inspired world, all extending that same "Who Knew" platform.

This is what commitment looks like: year-long platform consistency instead of scattered campaigns.

Previous years, Walmart mixed IP nostalgia plays (Mean Girls, Office Space) with traditional holiday spots.

Different campaigns, different messages throughout the season.

This year?

They picked a platform that works and went all in.

50 unique executions in one cohesive world, all reinforcing the same brand message they've been building since summer.

The production commitment shows.

Licensing Dr. Seuss. Building WhoKnewVille with consistent characters, sets, and visual language across 50 spots. Developing a season-long story arc. That's not easy, but it's what you do when you've found something that works and you're ready to scale it.

Compare that to Target's 10 Kris K spots (bringing back last year's character). Or compare it to Walmart's own previous approach of mixing IP campaigns with traditional holiday advertising.

The lesson:

When you find a platform that works, double down on it.

Don't scatter. Don't hedge. Commit year-round and execute at scale.

Walmart found "Who Knew" works. So they built 50 variations of it for the holidays.

How many brands keep searching for the next big idea instead of scaling what's already working?

10/31/2025

AI is a tool, but are you a craftsman?

BTS breakdown on how I used AI to add a little spice to a recent edit.

What do you think, what's the right mix of human vs ai in an edit?

10/31/2025

Hatch ran a faux horror trailer in movie theaters.

It starred Kiernan Shipka. It was actually pretty good.

Then the tiktok crazies decided the sleep machine company was summoning demons.

The campaign featured a 90-second spot about doomscrolling turning into literal nightmares—cinematic, well-produced, starring actual horror talent. It ran in AMC and Cinemark theaters before movies.

But when Hatch also launched a Twilight-themed alarm sound (vampires = obviously satanic), certain corners of the internet lost it. Videos of people throwing away $170 devices went viral. was born.

Here's what makes this fascinating: Hatch didn't apologize. They leaned in.

Their response was a tongue-in-cheek post offering "limited edition repossessed Hatch Restore" devices. Comment "repossess me" to win.

The result: They turned a niche controversy into earned media, reinforced their brand personality, and probably moved more units than the original ad.

The lesson isn't about controversy for controversy's sake.

It's about knowing your audience well enough to recognize when a "crisis" is actually just noise, and having the confidence to respond with humor instead of damage control.

Most brands would've issued a bland apology and moved on. Hatch made merch.

When was the last time your brand had this much fun?

10/27/2025

Target's new Kris K campaign proves something we've known for years:
Character beats copy.
Personality beats pitch.

Here's why it works:

🧠 The Neuroscience: Your brain's reticular activating system filters out repetitive marketing.

But a character with distinct personality traits?

Can't ignore it.

Every new context feels fresh.

The Psychology:

When you connect with a character, you're connecting emotionally.

That emotional pathway gets stronger with each encounter.

By spot #10, Kris isn't an ad character anymore. He's someone you know.

The Business Result: 70M views last year.

Virality. Unpaid social sharing. Not luck. Psychology.

🎯 The lesson for brands:

You don't need bigger budgets.

You need better characters.

More personality. More humanity. More reasons for people to choose you emotionally instead of rationally.

What's your favorite brand character? (And be honest: is it because of the character or the product?)

10/24/2025

Gucci’s latest short film, The Tiger, proves the power of creative risk.
Directed by Spike Jonze, starring Demi Moore and Edward Norton, it’s bizarre, cinematic, and absolutely Gucci.

Instead of a runway, they held a Hollywood-style premiere. Then turned every red-carpet look, behind-the-scenes clip, and review into weeks of content.

One weird, wonderful idea became a global cultural moment.

Meanwhile, luxury hotels keep playing it safe: pretty, polished, predictable.

What if your brand released something that made people talk for days?

Safe might feel comfortable, but today, forgettable is fatal.

What’s the boldest creative risk your brand could take next?

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