By Amanda Eggert EBS Associate Editor
A number of things about Ryan Weaver’s interview at Outlaw Partners tipped him off that he joined the right company, starting with an enthusiastic greeting by Grady and Hidey, two members of the office’s “black dog contingent.”
Then Weaver made the round of introductions in the office, taking in this small team’s passionate and respectful culture. “[That] just spoke to me and told me I was in the right place,” said Weaver, who joined Outlaw as Senior Video Editor in August.
When he learned that Outlaw supports Outdoor Lab, a weeklong outdoor education experience for Colorado youth, Weaver, a Colorado native whose love of the outdoors was encouraged by his own sixth grade Outdoor Lab experience, took it as a clincher.
“When I was 14, I got my first video camera by working outside in the summer all day in the heat, slamming pickaxes and shovels into the earth, creating hiking trails in Colorado,” said Weaver, who went on to get a degree in video editing and film production from the Metropolitan State University of Denver.
In between his trail-work days and a position with Boulder, Colorado-based advertising agency Sterling-Rice Group, Weaver spent eight years working at a movie theater. “Training on the job, I guess you’d call it,” Weaver said of his time he working United Artists, which was later purchased by Regal Cinemas.
As a projectionist, Weaver spent countless hours splicing together film reels, learning the art of film and storytelling from the greats. He was on the frontlines of the industry’s transition from analog to digital. When the industry switched to digital, he no longer worked as a projectionist.
Perhaps due to the transitions he’s witnessed, Weaver has made a habit of staying current on technology trends.
Three progressions he’s watching right now are the rise of virtual reality, the shift to more consumer-directed marketing and branding, and the potential for data to illuminate the process between messaging and consumer purchasing.
What hasn’t changed is the heart of a good story.
“I think that every story well told speaks to something that people already know deep inside of themselves to be true,” Weaver said. “I think people tend to gravitate to things on that spectrum, that they can truly believe.”
Weaver, who produced and directed a documentary about the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the West, thinks of himself as a shaper of narratives with an appreciation for detail.
“I like to be the guy that combines everybody else’s small details into the big picture. I think it’s important to have that curator,” he said.
