As the voice of Aquitaine Productions, I figured you may be interested in learning a little more about me, Eleanor!

First things first: Why did you choose a name no one can spell?

To be completely honest, my father and I created the name thinking we were clever. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a super powerful, brave, and wealthy chick way back in the 12th century and while I’m not French, I like to think I’m her type of lady. Oh, and I love all things Middle Ages.

Just a small town girl:

Aquitaine was created out of my personal love affair with video production, which started out way back in 2003 on the dirt roads of Virginia (I grew up in Purcellville) when I was about to embark upon an exciting and scary journey: spending my senior year of high school in London, England.  At the prospect of abandoning all of my friends, I figured I’d try “this video thing” out and make a little video of the good times we had together. Yes, it was self indulgent, but it also landed me smack dab in a passion that I haven’t been able to quench since.

In London:

At the American School in London I figured I’d look into “this video thing” that I enjoyed so much, and ended up taking several video classes with Hope Tucker where I learned Final Cut Pro (my editing suite of choice today) and the art of….well, art video! While in London I produced and edited my first “real” video, Midnight Catharsis, which won first place in the 2003 Loudoun County Student Film Festival. I won the 2004 Art Video Award, as well as the Theater Lighting Award at ASL. Side note: London is amazing. My dream is to end up doing some sort of video production in that city.

At Emerson:

Fast forward a few years and I’m at Emerson College and decided it was high time to incorporate myself, as I was producing videos on larger sets with lots of student cast and crew and let’s face it: an LLC offers a certain type of protection when it comes to really heavy lights that can fall on people. Aquitaine Productions was born, and just in the nick of time to produce Clockwork Sun, our first full-length narrative feature.

I was part of the Emerson Experience in Entrepreneurship (E3) from 2006-2007, where I won first place in the business plan competition and $5,000 to get Aquitaine started. It was thrilling, and with E3 I discovered a new passion: business and marketing!

A different direction:

After graduation I scored a job at Changents.com as their Editorial Director.  While this was (more than) a slight departure from video production, it opened a lot of new doors for me in terms of social media and online networking as a whole. My time at Changents was incredibly exciting, super demanding, and overall flat out fabulous.

And today:

I’m continuing my love for social media and marketing with From the Top, an NPR radio show which showcases America’s best young classical musicians. I’m producing videos whenever possible on the side, and I’m also doing a bunch of cool freelance projects for Changents (social media and editorial), InterneXperts (Google Analytics, Google Adwords, keyword optimization, SEO), and The Paley Center for Media (clip selection of television show panel discussions for Hulu). I’ve got a lot going on and I love it that way!

Coming up:

Who knows what the future will hold.  I would really like to focus on expanding my knowledge of social media marketing and SEO as it relates to video production projects and campaigns.