July 8, 2014

When the Close School decided to make a video starring some of its entrepreneurs, it only made sense to work with a creative team born of Drexel's entrepreneurship community. We found those partners in Five Five Collective, a production company started by Max Goldberg and Dan Leung, 2014 graduates of Westphal College's Film & Video program. We sat down with Max and Dan to talk about how the video was created, their story and what's next for them.

Describe your creative process. How’d you arrive at the concept for the video?

Max Goldberg: We watched a ton of commercials for colleges, including ads for other schools at Drexel. We watched for things they had in common, so we could avoid those things and make something that would stand out. Being entrepreneurs ourselves, the Close School trusted us and gave us a lot of creative freedom. It also helped that we were essentially the same demographic as the video's audience, so we knew what would work and what wouldn't, based on our own reactions.

What was your favorite thing about working on this project?

Dan Leung: I honestly think my favorite thing about this project was meeting all the student entrepreneurs. Meeting people our age who are so driven and passionate about their craft and ideas is really inspiring. 

Tell us the story of Five Five. How did this all start?

DL: Five Five Collective began as our joint senior project as film and video students. While many of our peers worked on short films throughout the year, Max and I decided to start a video production company. At first, we wanted to make several short internet videos for ourselves. During the course of the year however, we met many great people who needed videos and our network grew from there.

You guys — with a thriving production company of your own — are entrepreneurs yourselves. What advice would you give to our students looking for similar success?

MG: We were fortunate enough to turn this project into our full time jobs because we made a huge effort to help others along with ourselves. There's nothing wrong with making things for yourself, but we try to find a balance between developing our own creative abilities, and helping others.

What’s your favorite memory of Drexel?

DL: I don't have a single favorite memory but my favorite part of Drexel is the people I've met here and the opportunities to forge a personal path.

MG: What he said. Also food trucks.

Who inspires you? Any favorite films or directors?

MG: Considering how few movies Dan and I watch, we knew pretty early on in our college careers that we weren't going to be making them for a living. We do however, spend a lot of time watching online videos and figuring out how they're made, and we're constantly impressed by the growing quality of typical online videos. From promos, to music videos, everything looks so good these days that it can be hard to stand out. People who manage to do that inspire us a lot.

What’s next for Five Five? Where do you see the company in a year? Five years? Ten?

MG: We'll be staying in Philadelphia for the next year and continuing to grow our network. We're not sure where we'll be further down the road but Philly is definitely an option. We would like to develop ourselves into a company that makes creative commercials and videos but we have to stay flexible because there's no way to predict what the next big medium will be. We just finished making a few videos to go on Instagram. Maybe next year we'll make videos to be played on smart watches. Who knows?

Watch the video: