Celebrating DigiNovations' 20th Anniversary
From modest beginnings in a second-floor loft to a full-fledged production studio operated by an award-winning team,
join us in celebrating DigiNovations' accomplishments over the past 20 years.
Innovative Video Solutions Since 2001
Since 2001, our devoted team has provided powerful and cinematic experiences to millions of viewers across the globe. We’re more than just a Boston production studio, we are a team of passionate individuals who are invested in our clients’ stories and grateful that we can help bring their vision to life. As we surpass our 20th year in business, we'd like to thank our clients, community, and employees for a lifetime of memories, 45+ Telly Awards celebrations, and countless experiences. Take a look back on our own story and 20 years of New England's stories in video:
20 Years of DigiNovations
2001
DigiNovations is founded by Michael Kolowich, former Emmy-winning TV news reporter and producer, to bring affordable video production services to companies and families in Boston’s Metro West region. As our first home, in a second-floor studio at 34 Main Street in downtown Concord, our first big production was a video version of the iconic Christmas Revels holiday program at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre — an annual show we’re still producing 20 years later!
2002
In our first full year of operation, we start a long tradition of work in education, begin long-standing relationships with all four of Concord’s most prominent private schools: Middlesex School, Concord Academy, Fenn School, and the Nashoba Brooks School, and create an admissions film for Hamilton College. We also engage our first commercial clients in healthcare technology (the OR Group and Optos), and in corporate learning (Comet Learning). We organized work into two divisions: North Bridge Productions for commercial work and MemoryWorks Studios for consumer applications.
2003
The first of many major projects for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology brings us into the world of 3D animation. We helped MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology envision future applications of nanotechnology in protecting troops in the field. We also take on a mission of telling the stories of New England’s great institutions, producing fundraising films for Boston’s Trinity Church and Perkins School for the Blind, and moved to an expanded studio location on Elm Street in Concord.
2004
We begin a long collaboration with Boston’s Museum of Science, creating curriculum videos that targeted elementary and high school engineering teachers for the museum’s National Center for Technological Literacy. We also produce our first on-demand video archive for a major national conference, the World Health Congress in Washington DC, foreshadowing our later work in livestreaming major conference events.
2005
We produce the signature film for the Museum of Science’s highly successful capital campaign — an innovative, modular film format that uses DVD technology. This allowed fundraising professionals to tailor the film to the specific interests of donors. In addition, we become early beta testers for Brightcove’s breakthrough streaming video service, contributing field experience and insight to the development of that platform.
2006
We see an explosion of commercial work across industries, from healthcare (Genzyme, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts Medical Society) to technology (Thermo Fisher, Waters Corporation, InfraReDx, IDC) to legal (Ropes & Gray, Latham & Watkins, Legal Insight Media) to publishing (Martha Stewart Living Media), and a lesser emphasis of our Memoryworks Studios (consumer) initiatives. With WGBH veteran Bill Charrette aboard as Director of Photography, we begin producing a public television series called “Boomers! Redefining Life After 50”. This year also marks our transition to high-definition video formats for all of our projects.
2007
DigiNovations plays a lead role in documenting the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, traveling with the candidate across the country to key early-voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Florida. Along the way, we create the first-ever online video channel for a presidential campaign, dubbed “Mitt TV”. We also produce the first video profile of a fledgling startup for Charles River Ventures, interviewing Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, who’d just started a new social media company called “Twitter”.
2008
DigiNovations produces a film that launches a $1.5 billion capital campaign for Boston College. “Light the World”, which goes on to win numerous national awards for cinematography, editing, and musical scoring. The film profiles eight BC alumni who had followed the call of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius to “set the world afire.” Despite the recession that immediately follows its launch, the campaign exceeds its goal by $106 million. Also this year, our animated explainer video is shipped on every new TomTom Go GPS unit!
2009
The headwinds of the Great Recession causes many video projects to be deferred, but DigiNovations continues to add more great institutions to its portfolio of clients. Perhaps the most interesting project of the year is with the Appalachian Mountain Club, giving a final push for its “Maine Wilderness Project”, which enhanced the northernmost 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Shooting across three seasons, our crews are transported by snowmobile and sled into the wilderness, and are greeted by moose at dawn in the most memorable project. Back home in Massachusetts, we are privileged to produce the video announcement of Charlie Baker’s successful campaign for governor.
2010
One of the most ambitious projects of DigiNovations history is a film to capture the essence of Harvard Business School’s signature approach to learning, the Case Method. Over the course of 24 intense hours, our team creates an award-winning, experiential film that takes prospective students inside the intense preparation and dynamic classroom process that lies at the heart of the HBS formula. “Inside the Case Method” is later viewed more than half-a-million times. Also in 2010, we spin out the technology we developed for video streaming and online presentations to a brand-new, venture-backed company called KnowledgeVision Systems, in exchange for stock in the new company.
2011
A major relationship with general aviation pioneer Piper Aircraft is one of our most prominent activities in 2011. We begin a collaboration with former CBS News correspondent Morton Dean to become the voice of Piper, launching a new jet aircraft project and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Piper Cherokee in a series of films that debut at the famous Oshkosh Airshow and continue to be viewed by tens of thousands online. Also in 2011, our presence in higher education expands dramatically, as we produce new films for Brandeis University, Sacred Heart University, Harvard Divinity School, Mercy College, St. Joseph’s College, Olin College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts, and Holy Family University. We are also commissioned to create the film that launches Harvard’s new School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Lastly, Whit Wales joins the company as Executive Producer.
2012
We welcome the arrival of a significant new client, TD Bank, which would become one of the largest clients in the firm’s history. In addition, we dramatically expand our work in explaining and documenting healthcare companies and organizations, including work for Philips Healthcare, MGH Imaging, Health Dialog, American Well, and Curaspan Health Group, as well as our ongoing work with Brigham & Women’s Hospital. We also adopt a new design for our logo, and move to our current studio location in Acton, Massachusetts.
2013
We begin to establish our presence in on-location live-streaming of events, as we begin working with MIT’s Media Lab to live-stream their speaker series using a live-switched, multi-camera setup in the atrium of the Media Lab’s center in Cambridge. This would be a precursor to the advanced live-streaming options we offer today.
2014
One of the fascinating aspects of our work is how we get involved early on in the evolution of technologies that evolve to have a major impact on the world. In 2007, we met Twitter in its formative years, and in 2014, we begin documenting the work of Clear Ballot, a company that’s applying advanced technology to improve the critical process of designing, printing, scanning and counting of paper ballots for elections. Who knew that a process so seemingly pedestrian would become the center of political conversation six years later?
2015
DigiNovations takes to the air, as it becomes one of the very first production companies in New England to be fully certified by the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct drone videography. In the early days of this technology, only licensed pilots are permitted to fly commercial drones, and as a commercial pilot and flight instructor, DigiNovations founder Michael Kolowich is able to blaze the trail toward providing the unique perspective that aerial videography offers.
2016
We experience a dramatic increase in our production relationship with MIT, as we complete a major project: documenting the work of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and its landmark “Project Cumulus” collaboration with Quanta Computer. MIT had called on DigiNovations five years earlier to mark the fifth-year milestone in the project, and now asks us at the tenth anniversary to create a project overview and a series of short films. These films show the results of key projects and the revolutionary impact of cloud computing on nearly every aspect of daily life.
2017
Execution of complex live-streaming projects really hit its stride at DigiNovations, embodied in projects as wide-ranging as an elaborately-staged virtual conference setup, in conjunction with TheCube to the quiet elegance of Groton School’s traditional Lessons and Carols service at Christmas time. We invest in field switchers and production equipment to support the growing need for these services.
2018
We add our 50th Telly Award to our shelf – an award “honoring excellence in video and television across all screens.” We accept such awards with great pride, as the entries are judged by leading video producers and cinematographers across the world – all award-winners themselves. But the biggest award we can get is the praise and thanks from our clients, as the films we create for them achieve the objectives we seek out for them.
2019
With the promotion of e-learning veteran James Donald to Executive Producer, we greatly expand our footprint in video learning programs for both corporate and consumer markets – often combining video with animation to inform, explain, teach, or illuminate complex topics. We worked on projects for Lexia Learning (best known for its Rosetta Stone language products), Oxford University, MasterCard, EdX, and, of course, MIT. We are also supporting (and investing) in an ambitious project called the College Guidance Network, which uses video content to demystify the college admissions process for both prospective students and their families.
2020
After starting our year with a shoot in Davos, Switzerland, everything changes. This year rocks the video production world, as it does so many other aspects of life. As client needs evolve rapidly, DigiNovations rises to the occasion by innovating new remote production methods and using its live-streaming capabilities to assist existing and new clients with their video projects. Two of the most challenging and successful projects were creating virtual versions of two iconic Boston Christmas programs, WGBH’s A Christmas Celtic Sojourn and Christmas Revels. Our team deploys advanced video compositing and green-screen studio production techniques to bring performers from all over the world onto a virtual stage, and even to put Yo-Yo Ma into a virtual version of Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with hundreds of singers in a poignant rendition of Dona Nobis Pacem.
2021
A second collaboration with WGBH’s Brian O’Donovan results in numerous awards for our company. With remote production and live streaming now a core part of our service offerings, DigiNovations collaborates with its sister company, OpenExchange (formerly KnowledgeVision), to install two state-of-the-art video production switchers along with upgraded remote-operated camera equipment in our studio. On a typical day, dozens of live streams from all over the world go through our switchers, and across our network we have handled more than a hundred simultaneous live streams! Meanwhile, we take yet another major step forward in impeccable image quality in our suite of gear for traditional production, as we add a RED camera to the arsenal.
