2025: An Eventful Year of Creative Storytelling (MMM#39)

Hey everyone,

Madeline here, and welcome to the 39th entry in The Movie Minute– the last entry of 2025! And what better way to close out this year than a reflection on some of the big things that have occurred so far at Poor Bear Stories?

The year started out with a transition to a bi-weekly format for this series, as it allowed more time to make this engaging series possible while still being able to work on projects for our clients. Otherwise, we continued to produce our usual deliverables such as social media reels and highlight videos for clients such as Legacies Alive, The Chertoff Group, and ClearanceJobs, among others.

Perhaps one of the biggest things that happened this year is that significant progress has also been made on our upcoming feature documentary project for Iron Butterfly Media, The Power We Hold: Stories from Women Spies, that showcases the stories of women in the intelligence community. As we progress towards a final cut, we’re hoping to see what comes next as the film is submitted to various festivals big and small! We also carried out some additional shoots for Chertoff and other clients as well, and myself and Jacob even took a road trip up to Gatlinburg, TN to cover the Mountain Man Memorial March for Legacies! Another major event that occurred this year is our efforts with the Poor Bear Stories Foundation, producing content pro bono for various non-profits with community impacts, such as Swim With a Mission, Hero Games, Off R Rocker, San Diego Nice Guys, and Crossroads Impact Church. We even began a fundraising campaign earlier this month for the Foundation that will help continue to make projects like these possible.

Then as the busy summer season approached, we went down to Tampa to once more cover the Special Operations Warrior Foundation’s Operation EPIC (Educational Planning Information Conference), which had a twist due to the change of venue from the University of Tampa to the University of South Florida. Nevertheless, it continues to be one of the biggest and most important events we cover every year.

Following EPIC, we headed up to Pennsylvania shortly after to cover Legacies Alive’s 2025 Gold Star Family Picnic, which was a blast as always- it even became my first time taking Amtrak back home! Shortly after, we headed to Tampa once more to SOWF’s College to Career Transition Conference (C2CT), where we continued to produce “video resumes” that allow SOWF recipients to showcase their story as they transition from college to the working world. As we transitioned into autumn, we also covered ClearanceJobs’ 2025 Connect events in San Diego, Colorado Springs, Northern Virginia, and San Antonio, producing full-length speech and panel recordings as well as highlight videos for each. Finally, as we wrapped up this year’s Army-Navy Game (and we actually got to go see the game as well!) we continued to wrap up some other things before cooling down for the holidays.

Other than the various events we covered this year, I have also further evolved in my filmmaking journey by acquiring some new skills and talents. This year, I have led the crafting of three highlight videos from scratch (something that Jacob usually handles) for Strong Ties and San Diego Nice Guys. In addition, I’ve also taken the opportunity to handle Poor Bear’s monthly update newsletters, and even added a gimbal to my gear to use with my GH5 when we go out and shoot footage.

To wind things down, 2025 has been a quite eventful year for us.  Having been with the team for about 2 years (3 if you count my summer internship back in 2022), so much has happened in this year alone, and it’s amazing to see how myself and everyone at Poor Bear came this far. And 2026 will likely be full of engaging shoots and creative opportunities, some from the same clients, and some new ones as well.

And that concludes the final Movie Minute of 2025. Wishing you all the best, and see y’all next year in 2026! -Madeline

We at Poor Bear Stories are passionate about your story. Creating media that makes a difference is our craft and life’s work. With over 35 years of industry experience, we bring a host of solutions to your brand and media endeavors.

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