What started as a single project grew into an ongoing creative partnership spanning product launches, customer stories, executive content, and brand campaigns. Over the course of a year, STMNT became an extension of Plaid’s internal team, helping turn ambitious ideas into consistently strong work. This case study documents what we created together and how the partnership continued to expand.
One in two banked Americans has used Plaid, most without ever knowing it. Behind every app that connects to a bank account, every loan approved in minutes, every payment that moves without friction, Plaid is the infrastructure making it possible. Seven thousand companies depend on that network. Five hundred million consumer accounts flow through it, per Plaid's published figures. The scale is extraordinary. The responsibility that comes with it is even more so.
In February 2025, Plaid unveiled a new brand identity built around a defining idea: the fabric of financial progress. The rebrand was designed to reflect the full scope of what Plaid has become. Not just the groundbreaking account-linking solution they were founded on, but the one-of-a-kind financial data network they have built since, and the next generation of financial products and experiences they are creating on top of it. At the core of that brand is a commitment Plaid states plainly: the world of finance is dense and convoluted, and their job is to make it simple. Video is one area where that is notoriously hard to get right.
After the rebrand, when Plaid decided to build out their video presence, the production partner they chose would be the first to put that new identity on screen. That decision carried weight. What Plaid needed was not a full agency, but video production services built for an in-house creative team. That is when they brought STMNT in.
Plaid came to STMNT with strong creative campaigns already formed: project briefs, KPIs, motion graphic reference videos, storyboards, and specific asset lists for each project. STMNT's role was to take their creative direction and execute it at a production level that matched the brand, making strategic recommendations throughout to sharpen each deliverable.
In pre-production, STMNT provided the specialized input that requires production expertise: where to shoot, what the set should look like, whether a single-camera or multi-camera setup best served the vision, how to structure a shoot day to get the most out of every hour. Before the camera rolled, the team flagged creative opportunities where a different approach would strengthen the final product, and kept everything within the project's budget and timeline.
On set, Plaid's marketing and product teams were present and engaged as collaborators. STMNT's director and producer ran production and direction, making real-time calls on framing, pacing, and performance, and capturing additional footage wherever the schedule allowed. In post-production, the same director, producer, and STMNT's editor worked closely with each Plaid team through every project. On projects with motion graphics, Plaid's design team supplied base assets and STMNT built from those, adding animation layers that pushed the work beyond the original brief. Wherever STMNT saw an opportunity to up-level the creative, whether it was in music selection, voiceover, sound design, or animation approach, we brought in a strategic recommendation to support the Plaid team.
For projects still in early planning, Plaid brought STMNT in to review the brief, scope production scenarios, and provide cost analysis across different approaches: filming on location with talent, building a studio at their headquarters, or pivoting to a stock footage and motion graphics-based production. That analysis gave Plaid's team the information to present production costs to leadership with confidence.
In every project, Plaid owned the brief and STMNT owned the execution. Six campaigns, four different internal teams, each with their own brief, their own stakeholders, and their own standard. STMNT embedded with Plaid's in-house marketing and design teams across all six campaigns, operating as a consistent execution partner from brief to final delivery.
After six campaigns across four internal teams, Plaid retained STMNT to design and build their in-house production infrastructure so they could eventually produce content independently. Being asked to design and build that infrastructure is a different kind of engagement. Not another project, but a long-term investment in a creative partnership.
The scope to date: 50+ video deliverables across six campaigns spanning employee culture content, LinkedIn social campaigns, and product launch videos. Three key videos from the engagement are embedded below.
The brief was straightforward: put Plaid employees on camera and let them talk. The harder question was how to make it feel real rather than produced. Plaid wrote the questions; STMNT designed the shoot day around that tension, keeping the format casual and the energy on set loose enough that each person could just talk. One day. One location. Five employees, six videos. Each story cut to a 60-second horizontal and a 20-second cutdown in both horizontal and vertical formats. STMNT managed the full production, including shoot, edit, color, and sound design, and helped build a custom set at Plaid HQ during pre-production. Eighteen assets from a single day on set.
Brett Manning, Plaid's Head of Lending, had a clear message about where the credit market was heading. The challenge was making a scripted performance feel unscripted. STMNT shot at the question level and assembled the performance across takes in post, selecting the delivery that held rather than the one that was technically cleanest. That kind of editorial judgment does not show up in a deliverable spec. It is what good post-production actually looks like. A second subject was filmed in a walk-and-talk format, keeping the energy conversational and the pacing loose. Both subjects delivered in horizontal and vertical formats for Plaid's LinkedIn publishing window.
Several new products launching at once meant several different stories that still needed to feel like one campaign. Plaid came to STMNT for help launching LendScore and Trust Index 2 (Ti2). The creative anchor was a shared visual system: a custom set built from a green curtain, slat wall, and natural warm lighting that held all five speakers together across both shoot days regardless of who was in the chair. Executives, product managers, engineers: all interviewed in a Q&A format with two camera angles to allow for dynamic editing and motion graphics in post production.
Plaid's design team supplied detailed storyboards and intricate graphics including the guilloche pattern that runs through their brand. STMNT built the editorial and animation structure around those assets, running a rolling revision process as new design elements landed, adjusting the cut each time, absorbing the additional editing days without making it a contract conversation.
The two anchor videos each covered a different product. LendScore centered on employee interviews explaining a first-of-its-kind credit risk score built with signals traditional scores cannot see. The editorial challenge was making two minutes of technical product content hold attention from start to finish. Music selection, quick cuts, and integrated text animations were structural decisions built into the edit from the start, not polish applied at the end.
The Ti2 anchor video covered Trust Index 2, Plaid's most advanced fraud model, which surfaces behavioral signals across user graphs and transaction data to stop fraud faster. A technically dense subject that needed to feel urgent to a commercial audience without losing the product specificity Plaid's team needed.
Two two-minute anchor videos. Fourteen total deliverables. All reading from the same visual playbook.
After the Fall Release wrapped, there was footage that had not made it into either anchor video: strong interviews about Plaid Protect that did not fit the final edit. STMNT brought in a voiceover actor to narrate between speakers, built a motion graphics and editorial approach that matched the Fall Release visual style, and delivered a complete product explainer without a single additional shoot day. The footage that did not make the first cut became a standalone video that helped sell the product. One long-form horizontal and two 26-second cutdowns, in vertical and horizontal formats.
No location. No talent. No shoot day. The brief called for a screen-life brand film that placed the viewer inside a mortgage application, following the journey from document friction to approval, and then inside the lender's experience of getting it cleared. The Plaid team mapped out storyboards and narrative. STMNT built the whole piece from stock footage, kinetic typography, and motion graphics, with light sound design woven throughout: keyboard clicks, file uploads, notification sounds that made the on-screen world feel tactile.
The narrative moved in two acts, so the music did too: two separate tracks, each scored to the emotional tone of its half. STMNT handled voiceover casting and direction, and STMNT's director and producer ran a virtual live edit session alongside our editor and the Plaid team. One long-form horizontal and two 30-second cutdowns in vertical and 4:5 formats. This is what brand video production in san francisco looks like when the format serves the brief rather than the other way around.
From concept to fully edited video in 8 days. An intimate single-speaker film with Will Robinson, Plaid's CTO, filmed at STMNT's studio in San Francisco. The subject matter was already complex enough; the format was not going to add to that weight. Full post-production in-house: editing, color, sound design, and custom motion graphics. Delivered as a single horizontal film.
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Everything looks amazing. Thank you so much for working with us on multiple iterations and helping us bring the vision to life.
Thanks again for the great work on the initial video with Will. It turned out great and he was very appreciative and positive about the whole process with your team.
It really does take a whole crew to make short and spiffy product videos come to life... STMNT (the best creative agency partners ever!)
Every project starts with the same question: what does this video need to accomplish, and who is watching it? Not just the format or the deliverable count. What does the person on the other side need to feel or do after watching it? That question shapes every production decision that follows.
For tech and fintech companies, the executives being filmed are rarely professional on-camera presenters. Strong footage depends on how the set is run, on creating an environment where a CTO or product lead can talk the way they actually talk, not the way they sound when they know a camera is on them. That is a creative problem, not a logistics one, and it is something STMNT builds into how every shoot is run.
On the post side, the team stays embedded through the whole process. On the Fall Release, that meant staying in active communication with Plaid's motion design team week over week, adjusting cuts as new animation assets landed, and treating Plaid's internal production schedule as part of STMNT's own. That is what working at this scale actually requires.
The model is straightforward: one producer, one crew, one invoice. STMNT slots into existing workflows without account management overhead, without subcontracted crew the client has never met, and without requiring a new onboarding process every time a different internal team comes into the picture. Senior-level execution from a consistent core team, built in San Francisco since 2018.
HOW EVERY PROJECT RUNS
Discovery
Goals, constraints, and success metrics, mapped on a short kickoff call.
Strategy
Creative direction and a scoped production plan, back in 48 hours.
Pre-production
Treatment, scripting, storyboards, casting, and locations. All locked before we roll.
Production
Shoot days run by the core STMNT team, in studio or on location.
Post & delivery
Edit, motion graphics, color, and sound in every format you need.
STMNT Studios is a video production company san francisco, offering tech and fintech video production for in-house marketing and creative teams across the Bay Area. We work alongside your team through pre-production planning and set design, filming, editing, color, and motion graphics, without agency overhead.
If you are a marketing or creative team at a fintech or tech company looking for a production partner in San Francisco, send us your brief and we will scope your production within 48 hours.
STMNT STUDIOS | SAN FRANCISCO
We work with in-house creative teams at tech and fintech companies that need a production partner, not another agency. Send us your brief and we will scope your production within 48 hours.
hello@stmntstudios.com | stmntstudios.com
