Who we are
20+ years on stage and behind the camera.
With two decades of live event production - from TEDx stages to conference halls - we know what it takes to capture moments that matter. That same instinct for real-world impact drives every marketing system, video, and web project we build.
We don't just make things look good. We've seen what works beyond theory, so instead of disconnected tactics, we build systems that turn your story into attention - and attention into revenue.
The story
Built backstage, not in a boardroom.
Read the full story of how The Studio Creative started, from nearly twenty years in the wrestling ring to a video production company in Grand Blanc.
The Studio Creative started where the pressure is highest: live. Twenty-plus years of TEDx stages, conference halls, and national events teach you something agencies raised on stock footage never learn - there is no second take on a keynote. You capture the moment or you don't.
That instinct now runs through everything we make. When we shoot a brand film, we light it like a stage. When we build a website, we treat launch day like doors opening. And when the NFL Wives Association or the Detroit Auto Show trusts us with their story, we show up the way a touring crew shows up - early, prepared, and calm when it counts.
Along the way we noticed the industry's dirty secret: beautiful work that generates leads nobody follows up with. So we built the other half ourselves - CRM Connect, the growth system that answers, books, and nurtures every lead the creative earns. Story in the front, system in the back. That's the whole company.
The crew
Meet the people on your call sheet
Small on purpose. Senior on purpose. Everyone here has run a live show - nobody learns on your project.
Jeff Schniers
Twenty-plus years producing live events - from TEDx stages to statewide conferences - plus a marketing degree, an Adobe certification, and an animator's eye. Jeff has directed multi-cam broadcasts, built growth systems for national organizations, and still runs camera on shoot days because that's where the story is.
Jeff founded The Studio Creative and still sits at the program position on show days. On a live event he is the one on headset calling the cuts: which camera is next, what the floor needs to know, and when to stay on a shot instead of chasing the next one.
He came to it from the other side of the lens. Nearly twenty years in a wrestling ring taught him how a crowd is worked and how a moment is set up, which is why the studio treats a keynote, a conference and a sketch the same way: find the beat, then be pointed at it before it lands.
He also built Studio Projects, the studio's own pre-production software. Upload a script and it breaks the piece down scene by scene with a visual example for each one, describes every character, builds a shot list per performer, and generates the background images that replace the green screen.
The rest of the time he is putting the marketing system around the footage: the CRM, the follow-up and the reporting that decide whether a film earns anything after it is delivered.
Emil Puste
Cinema glass, real lighting, and the calm hands you want when the keynote speaker goes off-script. Every frame that leaves this studio goes through Emil first.
Emil is the studio's Director of Cinematography, which on a live event means he is responsible for what every camera in the room is doing and whether the pictures cut together.
He lights the interview set, matches the cameras before doors open so skin tones do not jump from one shot to the next, and takes the hardest camera himself. On a big show that means the gimbal, working the floor on headset, or a cable camera rigged across the ceiling from the top of a ladder.
In the studio he is the one deciding how a green screen gets lit so the key holds, and how a practical set is lit so it does not look like a green screen at all.
Marcus Puste
Emil's son, and the second Puste on this crew. Marcus shoots and scores, so a project can leave here with original music written for it instead of a stock track underneath.
Marcus works both ends of a production. At an event he is on a long lens catching the faces a wide camera cannot reach, or at the switching position running the program feed while the show is live.
He is also a music producer, which is the part most video crews have to hire out. A piece can leave here with a score written for its actual cuts rather than a stock bed stretched to fit, and a scene can be shot knowing what it will sound like.
He learned the camera side from the Director of Cinematography who happens to be his father, which is why the two of them can cover a room without talking much.
Larry Miller
Larry Miller of Connected Geek is the engineer behind the follow-up: CRM Connect pipelines, instant text-back, booking flows, and the monthly report that proves the creative paid for itself.
connectedgeek.netcrmconnect.net
Larry runs the part of the work that happens after the footage is delivered. A film that nobody follows up on is a cost; his job is to make it the front of a pipeline instead.
That means the CRM behind the campaign, the automations that answer a new lead in seconds rather than days, the booking flow that turns interest into a meeting, and the reporting that says plainly which piece of content produced which booking.
He works with us from Connected Geek, and is on site for events too, where the systems that capture leads in the room have to work the first time.
Ron Cooper
Ron Cooper of Life In Contrast Media leads the edit: same-week highlight reels, broadcast-clean color, and motion graphics that match your brand. He is the reason clients get their event edit while the audience is still posting about it.
Ron leads the edit, which for live event work means turning a day of multi-camera footage into a highlight package while people are still talking about the show.
He colors to a broadcast standard so a piece holds up on a television as well as a phone, and builds the motion graphics, name bars and title cards to the client's own brand rather than a template.
He works with us from Life In Contrast Media, and is at the production desk on show days as well as in the edit suite afterwards.
Mackinzie Marie Cooper
Mackinzie Marie Cooper of Life In Contrast Media is the still photographer on our event crews. Keynotes, candids, sponsor walls, and the room at full energy, captured alongside the video so your event leaves with a complete set of images, not just footage.
Mackinzie shoots the stills while the video crew shoots the motion, so an event finishes with both and neither gets in the other's way.
That covers the things a video edit cannot give a marketing team: the keynote frame that becomes next year's poster, the candids in the hallway, the sponsor walls that have to be photographed because somebody paid for them, and the room at full capacity.
She works with us from Life In Contrast Media, on the same call sheet as the video crew.
Plus a trusted bench of gaffers, second shooters, and drone pilots we bring in per production.
Rooted in the work
Connected to the people we film.
The Studio Creative is proud to employ a disabled American veteran - service runs through how we show up, on set and off. And we stay planted in the communities we cover: from Habitat for Humanity builds to charity events across Michigan, some of our favorite productions are the ones that give back.