Meet Torrey Tayenaka of Sparkhouse in Irvine

Today we’d like to introduce you to Torrey Tayenaka.

Torrey, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started a version of Sparkhouse when I was 15 years old and still in High School. My mom is a real estate agent and she came home one day with a video tour of a house and I said I thought I could do a better job. So I started doing videos for her real estate business, grew to other agents, then to different agencies all together. We went from just making videos to doing full marketing packages of photography, video, flyer design, printing, sign designs, websites and more.

When the housing market crashed in 2008 I had just got into USC School of Cinematic Arts so I moved to LA for school and started learning more about telling a story and cinematography. I then decided to take what I learned from marketing real estate and what I learned in film school to create what Sparkhouse is today – a brand video and video marketing agency. We focus on creating engaging video content that helps our clients sell more and grow.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Def lots of ups and downs.

Started out of my parents’ house after USC – had 6 people in my bedroom working every day and have slowly grown into “real” offices. We have had pretty consistent growth since 2009 when we started but there have been some struggles with business partners (3 to start and now I am on my own) so the process of removing partners and still growing the company was difficult but worth it in the end.

Also retaining clients for long periods of time as an advertising agency is always tricky

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We specialize in creating video marketing content that is displayed online and on TV. We really focus on making sure that our video accomplished our client’s goals – examples being sell more product, engage more people, get people to stay on website longer, grab people’s attention, teach people about a confusing product, etc.

We are also very proud of the way we produce and budget our projects. We always make sure that our client’s budget goes as far as possible. That often means creating multiple pieces of video content from the same shoot, taking product photography during the video shoot, or even finding affordable locations and actors to star in the videos.

We own all of our equipment including a 6k RED Epic Dragon camera, professional lighting, audio equipment etc even a 9ft production van to carry it all to shoots. We are able to pass the savings of not having rental needs like most companies when producing a commercial.

I think what sets us apart the most from other video marketing companies is that we really look at the strategy of the video. Why are we making the video, where will it live and what do we want it to do. We really take a lot of time thinking about that before moving to the actual film making itself and in the end, that makes for a more effective video for our clients.

What were you like growing up?
I was very talkative as a kid (almost too much I have been told) I was very outgoing as well, even stared in a commercial or two as a child actor / child model.

I was also very entrepreneurial very young doing many different small things to make money:

– Lemonade Stand
– Painting Mail boxes
– Painting house #s on curbs
– Selling mistletoe during Christmas time
– Local carwash for neighbors
– Teaching fishing lessons
– Cleaning trashcans
– Even sold snails door to door (no joke)

Contact Info:

• Address: 2400 Main St Suite 202
  Irvine, CA 92614
• Website: www.thesparkhouse.com
• Phone: 9492923835
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/sparkhouse_official
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesparkhouse/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tayenaka
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sparkhouse-irvine

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