How We Filmed Akuity's Launch Video in About Two Hours

FogLine Visuals, a video production company in San Francisco, filmed and edited Akuity's Agentic Control Plane launch video with CEO Hong Wang in about two hours, setup included, in a rented space chosen to match the company's look. Almost all of the work happened before the founder walked in.

Who Akuity is

Akuity builds the enterprise platform for Argo CD and Kargo. It was founded by Argo co-creators Hong Wang, Jesse Suen and Alexander Matyushentsev, who were founding engineers at Applatix when it open-sourced Argo in 2017. After Intuit acquired Applatix, Hong managed the Argo team there, and later the three left to start Akuity. I knew of Hong long before his team reached out. It's not often you see someone help build an open-source project that goes on to graduate from the CNCF, and then build a company around it.

The brief: restrained, but clear

Akuity was launching the Agentic Control Plane. The people watching are platform engineers and infrastructure leaders, an audience that doesn't enjoy hype. So the video had to feel calm and corporate, and still explain what's new in under a minute. We went through references with the team, from their own space and from outside it, and agreed on the tone before anyone talked about cameras.

A rented room instead of the office

Offices are convenient, but they come with noise, glass walls and whatever is on the whiteboard that day. Together with the team we decided not to film at Akuity's office and rented a space that matched the company's look instead.

Prep with the GTM team

Before the shoot we worked closely with Akuity's go-to-market team on what Hong would say and how the launch would roll out. They took a lot off his plate, and it showed: when he arrived, everything was already decided.

About two hours, start to finish

We got there first and set up the light, camera and sound. Hong walked in, sat down and delivered it almost right away. From our arrival to wrap, it took about two hours. Then came the animations. We built them around how Akuity's product looks and what fits their industry, working with product visuals from Akuity's team, and the video was ready for launch day.

Using the studio time we had left

Because the shoot went quickly, we still had booked studio time. So we used it: corporate headshots for Hong, and a couple of short internal announcements recorded with the team, handed over as a bonus.

What made it work

• The tone was agreed on from references before the shoot
• The location was chosen for the brand, not for convenience
• Prep was done with the GTM team, so the founder only had to show up
• Setup was finished before the founder arrived
• Leftover time turned into extra content instead of an early goodbye

See the Akuity video next to other examples on our founder launch videos page, or read our guide to founder-led launch videos for X and LinkedIn. For your next project, see launch video production for San Francisco startups. Planning a launch? Tell us about it.

FogLine Visuals is based in San Francisco, with a studio at 855 Folsom St in SoMa, and films launch videos at our studio, at your office or in a rented space.

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