New Balance : The Excellent Makers

In 2011, we set out on a mission to find, film, and introduce a handful of truly unique people that are making excellent happen every day in various areas of creative culture. These are the Excellent Makers.

To capture this first batch of work in a global initiative for the New Balance lifestyle business, we sent a skeleton crew to small town Maine, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, across the pond to London, and out to the ocean side farm village of Flimby to tell the stories of some incredible people making excellent happen in their own ways.

Stebs Shinnerer // The Excellent Maker behind the camera

To help bring the Excellent Maker series to life, we teamed up with Paper Fortress (aka Stebs Shinnerer), a local, up-and-coming film maker out of Union Square, an artistic community in the nearby town of Somerville, MA. Young, hungry, and armed with razor-sharp vision, Stebs not only brought these stories to life in his own iconic style, he was the embodiment of the very same ethos of the subjects we were out to capture.

Stebs’ work can be viewed here: http://paperfortressfilms.com/

The New Balance Factories: Skowhegan, Maine & Flimby, England

Two integral pieces of the Excellent Maker puzzle were New Balance factory employees in Skowhegan, Maine and Flimby, UK. These are more than just the stitchers, cutters, and sole gluers that assemble many of the shoes worn around the world. They’re craftsmen and women, crafting a their company’s reputation one part, one task, and one pair of shoes at a time.