The Best Video Production Companies in Michigan

Ford spent six years restoring Michigan Central, the Detroit train station that had stood empty since 1988, and reopened it in June 2024 with a concert streamed on Peacock. Putting on a show is nothing new for Michigan's car industry. Campbell-Ewald, a Michigan agency, handled Chevrolet's advertising for 91 years and was behind "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" and "Like a Rock".

Most of the video work for Michigan businesses still revolves around things people make. Ford is in Dearborn, Whirlpool in Benton Harbor, Stryker in Portage and WK Kellogg in Battle Creek, and plenty of local crews know their way around an assembly line. If you're budgeting a shoot, note that Michigan has had no film incentive since it scrapped the programme in 2015. A bill to bring one back, which would cover commercials, has been in committee since May 2026.

The list below runs from Detroit and its suburbs out to Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Lansing and Traverse City, with us at the top.

1. Trendy Grandad (YouTube for products that take explaining)

We know how it looks, a production company ranking itself first. So we'll keep the boasting to two projects.

For Heat Geek, a UK heating business, we've handled the strategy and production for a monthly run of YouTube videos and Shorts about heat pumps, which aren't the easiest thing to make watchable, and that work has passed 650,000 views. We also make performance creative, including six Meta ads for National Geographic's sponsored campaign with Switzerland Tourism, which passed a million views.

A 30-second spot buys you half a minute of someone's attention. A good YouTube video can hold them for 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to show why your product is built better than the one next to it.

For Michigan shoots we hire local crew and run the project from our New York office, which shares a time zone with Detroit.

2. Hudson Artists

Hudson works from a sixth-floor base on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, with a second site in Ferndale and its own director and editor roster. Its services cover writing, live action, editing, audio and finishing under one roof. Its recent work includes Henry Ford Health's "Where We Live" campaign, narrated by Jeff Daniels and launched during the Lions' Thanksgiving game, and NFL Draft-week spots for Rocket Mortgage. Brands and agencies that want a TV commercial made from script to final grade without leaving Michigan will find the whole team in-house.

3. Pluto

Pluto, in Troy, cites 30 years of video, CGI and interactive work, and a lot of it has been for car brands. It makes photoreal CGI, product animation, VR and content for LED walls at trade shows and events, and its industries include automotive, defence, manufacturing and technology. Case studies include a VR launch for the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 and an Abrams tank experience for General Dynamics Land Systems, and its client logos include GM, Jeep, Cadillac and Goodyear. If your product is easier to render than to film, look here.

4. Motivity Pictures

Motivity Pictures has been filming in Grand Rapids since 2007 and has a studio designed for repeatable production. It covers healthcare, finance, manufacturing and West Michigan's furniture trade, with client logos including Haworth and Amway. Founder David Eggerichs has also filmed elite cyclists in Rwanda and shot Shaquille O'Neal for a Zales ad. A natural fit for West Michigan brands that want the same studio set-up month after month.

5. Highway Media

Major League Baseball has worked with Highway Media since 2005. The company was established in 1987 and is based in Canton, in Detroit's western suburbs, where owner Mark Salloum still produces and directs. Its site also lists Kia and the Detroit Tigers, and it says it has won Telly and Communicator awards, among others, for its corporate, training and sports films. Handy if sport is part of your brand.

6. CK Media

CK Media, in Grand Rapids, works mainly for manufacturing, technology, education and hospitality clients, and its logos include Siemens and Dematic. It films and edits in-house, covering case studies, interviews, internal communication and animation, and says most projects take three to six weeks. If your customers are engineers and procurement teams, its customer stories will look familiar.

7. Three Lyons Creative

Three Lyons Creative was co-founded in Detroit in 2014, and its storytelling is mostly for nonprofits and cultural groups. It makes mini-documentaries, fundraising films, event films and livestreams, for clients such as the College for Creative Studies and the Arab American National Museum, and runs its own live music series, oneSHOT. Mission-led organisations are its home ground.

8. Kohlitz Animation & Video Production

Kohlitz, in Ann Arbor, is run by Shannon Kohlitz, a graduate of the University of Michigan's Stamps School of Art & Design. Its style is one you won't find elsewhere on this list: "kinetic sets" built from handcrafted and recycled objects, brought to life with stop motion or robotics. It also shoots live action, and sells explainers and training videos on fixed-price packages, for clients including the University of Michigan, Toyota, Google and Kroger. Pick it if you want animation that looks like nobody else's.

9. Render Studios

Render Studios, on North Washington Avenue in Lansing, is owned by producer Karen Stefl and handles strategy, filming, animation and editing in its own suites. Its portfolio leans towards associations, nonprofits and universities, with work for Gift of Life Michigan, the Michigan Dental Association and Michigan State's Spartan Marching Band, plus software company TechSmith. Membership bodies in the state capital have an easy option on their doorstep.

10. Brauer Productions

Brauer Productions has provided video production services from Traverse City since 1977. Rich Brauer's filmmaking runs to more than ten feature films, and his latest, Gandy Dancer, is in post-production after shooting in Ottawa and Benzie counties. The company also handles corporate and commercial shoots and location scouting, and hires out lighting and grip from its own five-ton truck. Brauer even invented a car mount, the Brauer Hostess Tray, for driving shots. If your shoot is heading up north, the crew and the kit are already there.

How to choose a video production company in Michigan

Plenty of companies can make a car or an office chair look good. The questions below help marketers work out whether they can make people understand it, and whether the video will be good value for the budget.

Ask to see them explain something. Beautiful cinematography and high production quality are easy to find. Ask for a video where the company explained a product or a process, and see if you understood it by the end without rewinding.

Find out who writes the script. Technical brands often hand the scripting to an engineer, then wonder why nobody watches past the first minute. The better companies interview your experts and write for the viewer, then send the script back so your team can check the facts.

Ask how many versions you'll get. For paid ads and other video marketing, one cut won't tell you much. Ask for different openings and lengths, so you can find out which one gets the best results, in leads and sales, for the least money. Our guide to choosing a performance creative agency goes into more detail.

Check how much of your team's time it needs. Your engineers and plant managers are busy. Ask how long the shoot will take them, and whether a short interview would do the job, so nobody gets pulled off the line for a day.

How to make a technical product watchable

People will happily sit through a long video about how something is made, if it answers the questions your audience would actually ask. Most Michigan brands sell something complicated, so this is worth getting right.

Show the product doing its job before you explain how it works, because seeing the result is what keeps people watching. Then let the people who built it tell the story, documentary-style. An engineer who loves their work is usually easier to trust than a presenter reading lines, as long as someone on set helps them relax.

Close-ups and slow motion are worth saving for the detail that matters most, and animation can cover the parts cameras can't reach, like the inside of a motor. Each feature can then become its own Short.

Get the sound right, too. An engineer explaining something on a busy shop floor needs a proper microphone, or nobody will catch the point.

If someone's asked you for an "explainer video", read our take on why explainer videos are dead first.

What to sort out before you brief anyone

A production company can only plan around what it knows, so a little homework on your side saves time and money later.

Start with the audience and the message. A video for plant managers looks very different from one for homeowners, so decide who it's for and the one thing they should remember.

Then think about where it will live. Video content for your website needs a different length and opening from a clip cut for Instagram or other social media, and a good partner will plan the shoot so the same footage covers both. If the video is part of a wider marketing strategy, the company needs to know what else is running alongside it.

Share a rough budget early, too. It lets the company suggest an approach that fits, and tell you plainly if your ideas need more money than you've got.

If any locations are your own facilities, agree access with the site managers and find some employees willing to appear on camera, or ask the production company about casting, before anything is booked. If you need somewhere you can't film for real, The Collective Studios in Southfield opened in 2025 with more than 40 standing sets, including a plane interior, a courtroom, a church and a hospital.

And if sales and legal both want to give feedback on the edit, decide who sees it first, so the delivery date doesn't slip.

Our guide to what video production companies wish clients knew has more on getting the brief right.

Making something in Michigan?

Send us the brief, even if it's only a few lines, and we'll tell you how we'd film it and roughly what it would cost.