Shot Blast Media celebrated their 10th year anniversary last week with a party in their new office for clients, colleagues and suppliers.
Lotty Wiltshaw, Director at the video production company, has shared her thoughts on reaching 10 years in business!
How does it feel to know that the business has reached its 10 year anniversary?
It’s brilliant! It’s quite a big milestone. When you set up a business initially, you just try to make it through the first six months, then a year, then two years, and then you get into a good rhythm, and now we’ve reached 10 years, there’s lots to celebrate!
It’s timed in well with our new starters and new premises. It’s the end of one chapter and the start of another moving forward.
What did you do to celebrate the 10 year occasion?
We had a party with our suppliers, clients and staff in our new office. It was nice to show off the new building, catch up with friends and thank people for their hard work and for being part of our journey.
Why did you start the business?
I always wanted to do something creative, and originally, I wanted to go into the television industry as a producer, however the broadcasting industry wasn’t quite what I expected. It turned out that it wasn’t the industry for me.
I always had a camera growing up, and was always documenting things, and so setting up my own video business was the right step for me, and I took the plunge going full time.
Personality wise, working on something that I had built myself suited me very well, and it was very natural to be in the creative video sector. It was great to get to work with different companies, as I am also really interested in the business side, and I was pleased that I got the opportunity to learn the behind the scenes of this.
Where does the name ‘Shot Blast Media’ originate from?
A lot of people have asked me this over the years! I just needed a name for the incorporation contract for the new business, so I met a friend in Costa and we just brainstormed some ideas!
‘Shot’ for the camera, ‘Blast’ for creativity and anticipation, and ‘Media’ for the industry.
These keywords present the process of shot blasting, which is all about firing different types of media and grinding it down to represent it as something else, which is an industrial process, and of course, we were looking to work in that niche, so the name just fitted the business well.
Who was your first ever client?
It was a company called SafeOn. We produced a confined spaces training video for them, and I took annual leave from another job to shoot for this client during the week.
What’s your biggest accomplishment since starting Shot Blast Media?
There’s been a lot of big milestones, but acquiring our own premises recently is definitely one of our biggest accomplishments. It’s great to have grown the business so much that we have been able to get our own place that we can call home.
Growing the team has also been a great milestone for the business, and I’m pleased I get to work with such fantastic people.
How are you enjoying your brand new office in Garforth?
I love it! The office is great, it’s everything I could have ever wished for. We have lots of different zones to work in, and we also have a dartboard (and more fun and games to come soon!).
It provides a good experience to clients coming in too for meetings and video training. Our clients and employees love coming in to use our office space!
What’s your favourite part of the new office?
It has got to be the cinema room. It’s a heavily themed room, completed with our new ‘that’s a wrap’ red LED light, which has a fantastic glow.
It’s great for our client calls, and you can spot your favourite movies around the room! It really is a great icebreaker!
What’s your favourite video project been since starting the video production business?
There’s been so many! It’s more the clients for me than the project. Travelling and going overseas for projects is always exciting, although it can be a lot more challenging!
Working with a range of different clients and projects is just always fantastic. We love coming up with new ideas and being stretched technically and creatively.
We have worked with so many amazing clients, I couldn’t narrow it down!
What’s to come for the business in the next 10 years?
Getting to this milestone and moving into our new office was always a big step. We are looking to grow the business and our client base, and of course, grow the team here!
We still want to work within our industrial niche, but we want to continue to add value to all our clients’ work!
We’re always looking for new opportunities with technology. We would love to expand to incorporate new trends. We added 3D animation, VR, interactive videos, and much more over the recent years, and it would be great if we could continue enlarging our technical niches.
Any other thoughts/comments?
I feel very lucky that I get to turn up to work everyday and collaborate with such great people and constantly produce unique and exciting projects!
It doesn’t feel like a job, it just feels like what I’m meant to do.
I’m grateful to everyone who has been part of the journey so far and supported the business to make it to where we are today.
Find out more about Shot Blast Media here.
