Hidden Gems: Meet Christian Lomeli of Promeli Videoworks

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christian Lomeli.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
A volcano project, a bus full of camcorders, and Apple laptops loaded with iMovie: that was the spark that made me passionate about video production in third grade. I’m still grateful to the teacher who brought the All the Arts for All the Kids Foundation into his classroom.

All the Arts is a nonprofit that gives elementary school children in Fullerton the chance to explore their interests through the arts. They converted an old school bus into a colorful multimedia lab that travels from school to school, teaching students to use cameras and editing software to tell stories. Without that bus, my video production company, Promeli Videoworks, probably would never have existed.

After making that short film about volcanoes, I created countless videos throughout my school years. By high school, I knew what I loved most: making videos that inform and teach while staying as cinematic and entertaining as possible. That approach led to the most consequential video of my life, which I made my senior year for the MoneyWise Teen Video Contest, a regional economic education competition hosted by the California Council of Economic Education. I explained scarcity and opportunity cost the way I would have wanted to learn them, and the video won first place over hundreds of submissions from schools across Southern California.

The video also caught the attention of the father of one of the actors in the video, who happened to be the executive director of a regional organization in Riverside. He then reached out to see if I could produce a series of videos for their annual event that hosts over eight-hundred elected officials from around Riverside County. This project proved to be the stepping stone that would land me in the public sector and launch my career as a video storyteller and communicator for public agencies.

While earning a Marketing degree with a minor in Production Management at Cal State Long Beach, I kept producing videos for that organization. To make my work official, I combined my last name, Lomeli, with “Professional Video” and “Promotionals” to create Promeli Videoworks. My mission was simple: produce cinematic video at an affordable price to broaden the reach of important local messaging. Since then, we’ve worked with public agencies in municipal government, education, transportation, and water, creating video that promotes public initiatives, informs residents and stakeholders, and elevates local identity.

Alongside our client work, I mentor students in the Troy Tech Program at Troy High School in Fullerton, my alma mater. For nearly ten years, Troy juniors have spent their summers interning at Promeli Videoworks to explore their passions in media. It’s the part of our work I’m most proud of. Because I went through the same program, I try to offer the internship experience I wished for, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to watch students grow. The program has helped our team grow too: every one of our current employees is a former Promeli intern.

Looking ahead, I’m excited to keep serving clients in both the public and private sectors, and to devote more of my time to The Spot, our local spotlight series launched last year. The Spot illuminates local successes and innovations so that good ideas can inspire progress at the state, national, and global levels.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like any journey, mine had its challenges. The greatest was convincing myself that I could make videos for a living. The media landscape is competitive and constantly changing, and I was fortunate that my work connected with people who were as passionate about it as I was.

Without that support, I might have quit Promeli Videoworks in 2019. For three years after graduating from college, my full-time work brought in only part-time income.

Then came 2020. As terrible as COVID was, the world shutting down created an unexpected demand for video, because communicating with the public suddenly mattered more than ever. People who trusted and valued our work recommended us to other agencies that needed to reach their communities during such a troubling time, and our network grew.

I’ll always be grateful to the people who believed in our work when I wasn’t sure I could, and who made it possible for Promeli Videoworks to become my full-time career.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Promeli Videoworks?
Promeli Videoworks is a creative boutique specializing in video production, best known for elevating the messaging of public agencies. That might mean an annual State of the City presentation for a municipality, a recruitment video that attracts top candidates to an essential utility provider, an energetic event recap for a school district’s student expo, or a commercial promoting sustainability for a transit agency.

Across all of it, we take the overlooked and underappreciated happenings in local communities and turn them into captivating stories. Those stories make residents proud of the work being done in their communities and showcase that progress to other communities, investors, and stakeholders.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that I’m a first-generation Mexican-American who is fluent in Spanish, having grown up in a household surrounded by family members that mostly spoke the language. That background gives Promeli Videoworks a real advantage in Southern California, home to a large Spanish-speaking population. When clients need to reach Spanish-speaking constituents and stakeholders, my connection to that audience shapes the messaging so it’s not only linguistically accurate but also respectful of culture and customs.

Pricing:

• 1 video project can be around $3,500.
• 2 videos for the price of 1. Most video projects come with a vertical and horizontal version deliverable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.promelivideoworks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/promeli.videoworks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/promelivideoworks/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/promeli-videoworks/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/the.spot.series/

Image Credits
Promeli Videoworks