HI, I'M NICK SOLAN...

I'm a former journalist based in NYC (the "Ex-Press" in Ex-press Media), now focused on creating beautiful, meaningful work from my studio. I work as a video editor, producer, and graphic designer across a wide range of projects—from documentary films and commercial videos to packaging and promotional materials for musicians. With a background in storytelling and a passion for visual craft, I aim to bring clarity, creativity, and purpose to everything I make.  

HOW DID I GET HERE?

Obviously because you have good taste? Perhaps you need help on a project.

I grew up listening to my grandfather’s stories and looking at the photos he took during World War II. That’s where my love of history began. My first taste of filmmaking came in high school, in rural eastern Pennsylvania, when a production crew filmed a History Channel special on the 82nd Airborne Division in my neighbor’s vineyard. They let me hang out all day, and I was hooked. Watching how they brought a historical moment to life—then seeing it on TV months later—was unforgettable.

I went on to study Broadcast Journalism at Penn State University. TV news made sense to me because it’s history—only it's happening now.

Most of my skills, I’ve learned on the job. I got my start as an intern at CNN in New York City, then moved into the graphics department at Fox News. From there, I scribbled my way through writing scripts on the overnight shift, became an associate producer, and then a line producer on several top-rated national news shows viewed by millions of people everyday.

Over time, though, I realized how much I missed the creative side—where storytelling wasn’t limited to 20-second soundbites. That led me to documentaries.

In TV news, you tell a story through a teleprompter script and cover it with the most compelling visuals you can find. But it’s rarely emotional. With documentaries, I found a new kind of storytelling—one that uses graphics, sound, writing, editing, and pacing to draw out emotion, depth, and nuance. A story could take five minutes or an hour, depending on what it needed. And I could bring everything I’d learned—research, timing, visuals, narrative structure—into play.

Now, I focus on telling stories that stay with you. Whether it’s a short or a feature-length biography, to crafting corporate promotion videos, to making album covers to help draw in listeners and tell the story of the songs, I aim to craft narratives that move people.

TL;DR