John Lavin
Picture Taker | Video Maker
I've been shooting photos and short promo videos since long before TikTok, so when I opened up the app during the pandemic, it just made a lot of sense to me. I started shooting videos biking around New Orleans talking about the great history and architecture of the city and quickly found my audience. A few years later I bought a boutique inn in Blue Ridge, GA and began creating content around my new life as an innkeeper. I also share my travels on the platform, opening a window to off-the-beaten path experiences and lodging for my subscribers.
I wear a lot of hats as owner of a Victorian inn in the Southern Appalachian mountains, but enjoy none of them as much as marketing director and content creator. Because I truly love telling the stories of my experiences, travels, and hotels & inns in short-form video, I'm partnering with a small group of businesses to showcase a product that I genuinely use and enjoy. Exploring the world and recommending boutique lodging experiences to my eager, engaged and trusting audience is a big part of this brand.
With two decades of experience, hundreds of clients, and thousands of pieces of content, this is a one-stop shop for brand promotion. I began by shooting and editing sizzles for producers to sell their reality show concepts to networks, traveling all over the world and meeting fascinating people. I was the in-house editor for Endemol USA and have made well over 100 sizzle reels on just about every topic under the sun. This led me to create my own show, Restored, which is now in its seventh season for DIY Network. I directed and edited a feature documentary, Hollywood to Dollywood that has played over 50 film festivals, picked up 25 awards and secured distribution. I love Dolly Parton.
I’ve been the brand marketing video producer for Solomon Group, a New Orleans based production company and Arteza, an international art supply company, based in Miami.
Have a look around the website to get an idea of the kind of work I’m capable of creating for your brand, band, non-profit, event, or environment.
What is the most important skill a director can possess?
The ability to tell an engaging story. Everything can be a story, whether it’s a corporate EPK, a music video or a narrative feature film. If the audience can hook into an arc with a beginning, middle and end, they will have an experience. And the director will have done his job. And I say an engaging story, because you don’t want to bore your audience, ever. That’s the worst sin.
Is there a common thread to your projects?
Other than hopefully always telling a compelling story, when I look back on my work, if there’s a common thread, I’d say it’s music. I begin nearly every project by pulling together cues that form the tone I want to create. Many of the subjects of the work I do deal in some way with music. And there’s not much I love more than cutting a montage to a killer song.
What's unique about your approach to projects?
I really believe in finding the truth in every moment, so there's as little artifice to the work as possible. My background is in non-scripted/reality/documentaries, and helping "real people" remain honest when a camera is on them has been fantastic training. Audiences crave authenticity, and true, organic moments, whether in a scripted piece or otherwise are where the gold is. Everything in pre-production, on set, and in the edit is geared to discovering and illuminating those instances. On every kind of project.
If you could work with anyone, who would it be?
John Waters. And Aretha Franklin. And Freddie Mercury…
What five things could you not live without?
Trees, mountains and rivers. Yeh, that’s pretty much it. The rest is negotiable.
Favorite symphony: Bizet - Symphony in C, Leonard Bernstein conducting the NY Philharmonic Orchestra
Favorite concerto: Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D major, Itzhak Perlman
Favorite opera: TBD… maybe Candide, but that’s more of an operetta
Favorite book: The Corrections (Franzen), The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst), tough one…
Favorite movies: Citizen Kane, Interstellar, Goonies, many more…
Favorite playwright: Tennessee Williams
Favorite composer/lyricist: Stephen Sondheim
Favorite musical: Sunday in the Park with George
Favorite artist (visual): David Hockney
Favorite artist (musical): Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Buffett, Brandi Carlile, Avett Brothers, Sturgill Simpson, so many more…