Company Values
We believe that effective, stylish and high-quality creative work is not mutually exclusive from excellent customer service.
We want our clients to know that they are being heard and that their goals are our goals.
Our clients range from corporate (McGraw Hill Education) and educational (Seton Hall University) to small business (The Greek Store) and historical (The Caldwell Parsonage). We can work with any budget and are committed to supporting non-profit and service groups.
No matter the scope or scale of the project, we believe "anything worth doing is worth doing right."
We are passionate about our work and challenge ourselves to experiment often with new techniques and technologies.
We’ve worked on everything from 16mm film to 360° Virtual Reality.
We love this stuff.
Emmanuel Vozos (Founder)
Emmanuel Vozos, or Manoli, is an award-winning filmmaker from Union, New Jersey and the founder of American Octopus. He has been making videos since he was seven years old, when he collaborated with his sister and cousins to make "Back in Time", a tribute to 80’s adventure movies (with his mom as the camera operator).
From then on, the filmmaking bug stuck.
After graduating with honors from Seton Hall University, he began his career in Film and TV production on popular NYC programs like NBC’s Law & Order, CBS’s The Good Wife and HBO’s Bored to Death.
His work on Jay-Z’s Decoded book launch was part of a worldwide social media scavenger hunt that won a Cannes Lion award for International Creativity.
Since then, he has produced everything from a weekly news series to international feature films and higher education marketing and media.
He was recently nominated for a NY Emmy Award for producing and co-directing Liberty Hall 360: Revolutionary Wedding, an innovative short film in both HD and 360° virtual reality. The student-driven project combined historical research with cutting-edge technology to create an immersive experience that transports viewers back to the dawn of the American Revolution - filmed in the rooms where the events actually occurred.
As one of the project’s creative leaders, Vozos was able to leverage his filmmaking experience to elevate what started as a research experiment into a fun, joyful adventure that represents a new wave of filmmaking. For their innovative achievement in virtual reality, his team was awarded highest honors at the 2019 international MarCom Awards and earned a NY Emmy nomination for Nostalgia Program.
He has written and directed several award-winning short films and produced the comedic television pilot Death Lives, which screened at the North Fork Television and SOMA Film Festivals. He recently produced a 3-hour video art installation for Whole Foods Market in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards.
Vozos is a 20-year veteran of Camp Fatima of New Jersey, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to providing no-cost recreational programming to children and adults with developmental disabilities.
He is active with the Pan-Karpathian Foundation, a Greek-American cultural group dedicated to preserving the traditions and values of the his family’s native island of Karpathos. For the PKF, he created The Dawson Mines - 100 Years, a documentary about the tragic 1913 coal mine disaster in New Mexico that took the lives of many immigrant workers, including several from Karpathos.
As a tribute to his grandmother, he is committed to fighting Alzheimer’s disease. He organizes and hosts the annual Shirt For Pants Comedy Show Fundraiser and is a team captain for the Walk to End ALZ with his sister, parents and friends. Their team, Yiayia’s Flyers, has raised thousands for Alzheimer’s research and awareness.
As a kid, his first job was coil-binding diner menus in the back of his uncle’s print shop. There he observed the realities of running a small business and learned to work hard, pay attention to details and focus on the task in front of him - fundamental skills he values to this day.
Sure, but what does "American Octopus" mean?
The American Octopus brand (designed by the brilliant Peter Donahue) is built on several key values:
First, the American Dream - which for some includes owning your own business and controlling your own destiny.
“Hanging your own shingle.”
The Octopus is among the smartest (and strangest) creatures on the planet. They are fast, strong, adaptable and can get more than one thing done at a time.
The logo is inspired by old school VHS tapes - the medium on which I first saw the movies that would inspire me to become a filmmaker and where my family and I would capture our earliest childhood memories. There's something classic and familiar about that VHS tape that I extend to all of my work.
Our brandmark represents the company's initials as the Alpha and Omega as an homage to my Greek heritage - and because we try to offer a complete solution for our clients, from beginning to end.