00:00 Who We Are
United Otters isn't an agency with a slide deck — it's a crew of working filmmakers and photographers who've spent years on real productions, including the school media days other companies get wrong.
Director & Cinematographer, Nuhelm Films
Phil has spent years behind the camera as the director and cinematographer of Nuhelm Films, with an extensive body of production work for schools and community organizations. He brings cinema-level craft to every setup — the reason a Roster media day looks like a film set, not a picture day.
[PLACEHOLDER: 2–3 specific school/organization credits to name — do not invent any]
Founder, United Otters
Alan has produced and shot media days for other programs and companies — enough of them to know exactly what works, what doesn't, and what quietly fails. The Roster is built from that experience: every process decision exists because he's seen the alternative go wrong.
[PLACEHOLDER: photo + any credits Alan wants named]
00:01 Why Us
Most media days shoot 200 athletes with one pose and one background. The Roster gives every athlete three distinct portrait styles and per-team creative direction, so the 200th gallery looks as fresh as the first.
Disorganized media days run hours late and burn coaches' goodwill. We build a station-based run of show around your roster, athletes rotate through in minutes, and we handle sign-ups and scheduling — coaches coach, we produce.
Poorly managed shoots end in missed athletes, late galleries, and unusable files. We track the roster shot-by-shot on the day, and deliver on published timelines — 10, 14, and 21 days — through a private media hub.
00:02 What Goes Wrong At Media Days
Because most providers optimize for speed: one background, one pose, one lighting setup for the entire roster. The result is hundreds of interchangeable photos. United Otters shoots three distinct portrait styles per athlete — classic, action, and creative — with creative direction tailored to each team, so content stays fresh across the whole roster.
Usually because there's no real run of show — athletes wait in one long line for one station, and any delay compounds. The Roster runs multiple stations in parallel with a schedule built from your actual roster, so each athlete is done in minutes and teams cycle through on time.
Athletes get missed, galleries arrive months late or never, and files show up unorganized and unusable. United Otters tracks the roster shot-by-shot during production and delivers on published timelines — individual galleries in 10 days, hype clips in 14, team content in 21 — through a private media hub organized by team.
United Otters is a collective of working filmmakers and photographers, not a picture-day franchise. The Roster is a full production — cinema cameras, professional lighting, sound-designed hype videos — designed by people who have run and shot media days before and built the process around everything that usually goes wrong.