Freelance vs Full-Time in Video Production: Which Path Builds a Better Career?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
Andrew, finally we're getting to sit down and
talk, so thank you, appreciateyou for coming.

Andrew Keller (00:09):
I know this is last minute thank you for making
the drive.

The good thing is, you were going to come here
anyway because you wanted torent some cables, so I was like
this is the perfect opportunityto sit down and talk and just I
don't know talk video.
I think we can do that anyway,right, oh, yeah, so how have
things been?
Pretty good man?
Yeah, so, just so people whodon't know you, what do you do?
So obviously you have a job, soyou do this full time.

Yeah, I'm a full time at a ministry here in
Orlando.
I do kind of everything.
You know, when I started I washired on just to do social media
, and the longer I've been here,the more stuff gets on my plate
.
So I shoot, I produce, I edit alittle bit of everything.

And the good thing is which you have a
collaborator, Quinton, who we'vehad on the podcast, so you guys
get to travel internationally alot too, Like you're mentioning
to me before we started.
You're gonna go fly now tobrazil, so that is one advantage
of working with the ministryyou're getting to travel to cool
destinations, uh, while doingyour work, obviously yeah, yeah,

(01:13):
it's really cool.

I've been to africa twice with them to shoot
b-roll.
Now I'm going to brazil andgermany this year to engineer
some live streams and, yeah,it's been a really crazy
opportunity.

That's so good, and then obviously you do a lot
of live production.
What do you prefer?
Do you prefer just B-rollshooting Cause that's what
you've helped me withfreelancing on my projects but
then for the ministry you'redoing a lot of live stuff.

Do you have a preference or I think I
definitely prefer liveproduction.
Yeah, I'm, I'm an IT major andI decided that I didn't really
want to do IT.
So I picked up a camera and thelive streaming has been a
really good in-between for me,where I get to do the
engineering and do the moretechnical stuff, but still in
the world of media production.
So how did you get into video?

(01:59):
I started at a church, my homechurch.
Growing up I volunteered on thevideo team.
Really really simple.
It was an old Sony composite outinto an OBS machine and I ran
camera for a while.
And then, when they were duefor an upgrade, I helped pick
out cameras and stuff.
And somewhere along the line Ibought a Panasonic G7 and I

(02:22):
started doing photos, did acouple really bad weddings and,
um, I I still love photography.
Um, that's why I got the littlecamera tattoo, my love of
photography.
But um, somewhere along theline I kind of realized video
was more in my passion.
It was a little more technical.
So that's where I've gonethat's incredible to hear.

So I know we've had these discussions anytime.
You're freelance for me, but,like you've, obviously you have
a full-time job somewhere.
You're getting to do coolthings, you're getting to travel
.
But then, you know, thisfreelance idea sounds really
awesome too, where you can beyour own boss, potentially make
a lot more money, brings a lotmore freedom.

(03:03):
But there's obviously risksbecause you know, if you've wife
and kid, uh well, no, you don'thave not kids but wife.
But you have a family and yourbills to pay and uh, you know
it's an inherent risk, yeah, uh,so you know you're somebody
who's like dabbling that.
Uh, talk to me a little bitmore like I want to.
You know, like what goesthrough your brain.

(03:24):
What has your debate been,internally at least?

Sure, yeah, I mean, it's always been a logical
, you know, pros and cons listfor me.
So you know, cfan is the bestjob I've had so far and I like
the nine to five structure.
I like the opportunities I'vegot.
You know, if I'm freelance, Iknow I have to work harder to
get clients to build my own gear, to really rely on myself,
where I've got to do some reallycool stuff at the ministry I

(03:51):
work with.
That I wouldn't have gotten todo if I was freelance, like
traveling, like playing with alot of cool toys.
You know we've built a 10camera studio and it's awesome.
I got to, I got to do a lot ofcool stuff.
So it's, it's balancing.
You know whether I'm, you know,consistent money, but maybe a
little bit less versus freelance.

So I definitely think I want to go freelance, um
, but it's, yeah, like you said,working out you know how I can
make that happen and you know,not losing income at some point
it's chicken and the egg I gotto, or you know, yeah, exactly,
and that's like, like I said,somebody who's done that.
Like I said, it was one of the,um, uh, hardest decisions.
Yeah, you know to leave uh, butI my my job wasn't in video, so

(04:34):
it's somewhat easier becauseyou know you're at least doing
something which you like.
So, uh, and I was, like you know, struggling mentally because
I'm like I hate this job, I, I'mnot happy.
But then it's paying all thebills, and then you know you
have benefits and insurance andall that.
So it's a, it's an inherentrisk that you're taking because
you're like, oh, I'm going togive everything up just so I can
potentially make more money.

(04:57):
Right, and luckily, obviouslyworked out.
But I know a lot of peoplehasn't worked out for you.
So you have to be smart aboutit.
But at some point you have totake a leap of faith, because if
I didn't I wouldn't be heretoday, right.
So, but I get it, but I getthat you're being logical about
it.
You're also kind of trying to,you know, make sure you don't

(05:18):
make a wrong move.

Because you know you got a life going on and you
don't want to have a reductionin income.
A little bit of it's like I'venever had any formal training.
I didn't go to full sail orsomething, I've just the YouTube
university.
Everything I've learned waseither making mistakes and
watching videos.
So for me, working at theministry I work with in video
production has been a reallygood opportunity to try stuff
and, you know, learn with a teamsetting.

(05:47):
So you know, before I tried todo freelance photography and,
like I said, I did some badweddings and I did some good
work and stuff in there.
But it was a struggle andespecially the business side is
something that I am so not intoCreative side, technical side I
got it down.
But you know, the ministry hasbeen a really great opportunity
for me to, yeah, learn a lotwhat would?

what would make you say that these, those are
bad weddings?
What'd you do to screw it upthat bad?

well, yeah, I just there was a lot of things I
didn't realize.
You know, doing weddings, yougotta be on the ball.
You gotta you know predictwhat's gonna happen next.
You know that's their one shotto get the kiss, and if you miss
it, that's it.
So there's just a lot of stuffI had to learn.

Yeah, it is tough.
I've never done a wedding so Idon't want to speak on it, but
from talking to enough peoplethat do them for a living, I do
think it's easy as far astechnicality goes, but it's very
hard because, like you said,you have to be able to predict,
you have to be able to be at theright moment, because it's only
going to happen once.
Most of the time you can't justreplicate a moment and if you

(06:51):
miss it then you're missing thewhole reason.
You're there to capture theirmemories and emotions and
whatever for their future, sothey can come back and watch it.
So like.

I said it's easy and hard at the same time.
So I get it, especially ifyou're new.
You know you don't know whereto be and and where to position
yourself.
To get that moment, andespecially early on, it was I'm
learning what I'm doing and I'mnot a people person by nature,
I'm.
I'm an introvert a hundredpercent.
So learning the technical sidewhile also learning to, you know
, put myself out there and kindof be in charge of a situation
like it was, it was a lot tolearn all at once yeah, I could
get that, but the good thing is,you're following it's a very
similar path.

I've talked to a lot of people, um, who have
gotten to video this way, thatthey just wanted to help their
local church, um, and you know,through that they learned and
fallen, fell in love with doingvideo, because, you know, that
is part of what churches need,especially after the pandemic.
I remember, uh, you know, I wasin alabama, which is there's a
church like literally every fivesteps, so, but, like, a lot of

(07:51):
them were struggling because,you know, some were doing video,
obviously, but a lot of themwere not.
And then immediately it's like,oh no, you got to go virtual
everything, and if you don't,you know, uh, you're gonna lose
your congregation to some otherchurch or whatever, and they
don't want to do that, right, soso it was like I, I saw the
panic, uh, firsthand.

(08:12):
Uh, people had to, like, really, really catch up to technology,
so, but, but people like youare very necessary because you
are the bridge, right, you're,you're the gap that's between
the viewers and the message,right, but that's one way to
learn video production, yeah, so, and, like I said, it's a path

(08:34):
I've seen a lot of people follow, but the negative side of it is
, you know, you don't make thatmuch money, yeah, so you're
doing something fun, you'replaying, and I've seen the sea
fans at a beautiful place.
Like you said, the lot, I lovethose control rooms and
everything that you guys havebuilt.
It's pretty cool, yeah, butthen on the other side, like I

(08:55):
said, it's not going to pay youas well as what you can make
just being even a cam op, right,um, so, so, so, uh.
So what's your path?
Like, what are you thinking now?
Uh, are you cause, like I said,you have a cool studio you work
in, you get to travel the world.
Where, how, how and when do yousee this freelance thing
happening?

That's a.
That's an excellent question.
Yeah, I mean, like I saidbefore, it's a bit of a chicken
and the egg situation.
You know, I gotta, I gotta jumpship to be available, but can't
jump ship until you know, Ihave some income there.
So, man, I'm just trying to sayyes to everything at the moment.
You know, uh, you mentionedquentin.
I've done a lot with him.
Um, we're doing more work inthe next couple weeks and, yeah,
I'm just really takingeverything I can to hopefully

(09:37):
build some connections and makesome extra income on the side
and then, you know, hopefully,as that continues to grow, at
some point I'll be able to, youknow, at least replace enough
income that I can jump.
And exactly no, you've helpedme uh.

Every time you've come out and helped me, uh, in
any of the gigs that I have,it's been great.
I love the footage that you'recapturing.
You you definitely have an eyeuh, especially the types of
shoot you've helped me.
I don't think we've done a uhuh like a shoot where we got to
light and everything, yet Ithink all they have been event
shoots, which is here's thecrazy part.
I say it's uh, event shoots areeasier again, because you know

(10:13):
we don't have to like light andit's not that complicated, but
you have to be at the right spot, you have to get the moment.
And if you don't get the moment,you know, then then you miss it
because it's live, or it's anevent like uh, very rarely can
you just ask them to redo, likeat the last one where I, I still
remember what was it that wemissed?

(10:34):
Uh, um, the halftime the?
No, no, we got the halftime.
No, we missed the.
The pledge of allegiance, oh,yeah, yeah yeah, because we were
we were.
We were filming something and we, we, we got and we got it and
we moved to a different location.
We were like, oh, we'resupposed to be capturing that,
can anyone run to it?
And it's like no, kia Center ishuge, we are not going to make

(10:54):
it in time.
The good thing is it's a smallpiece the whole video so it
wasn't like the end of the world, but it could be if it was a
wedding or something like that.
Yeah, so, but no, but you'vedone great and I always love to
have you and I know, quinton,you're doing a lot of stuff with
him, and he's also very muchinto the type of stuff you like
which is live His studio.

(11:15):
Have you been there?

Yeah, what'd you think?
I was just there yesterday.

Yeah, it's coming along great.
Yeah, going to partner a lot onit.
I know he wanted to you to beon the website and everything,
so how do you, how do you, doyou think that is?

the now, the moment.

Uh, yeah, I mean may propel you eventually to to
go?

I really hope so.
Yeah, um, I've been debatingfor a while trying to figure out
.
Like you know, you're at areally high scale.
You're running a full-onproduction company and a lot of
people at the last meet are kindof in that same vein of trying
to go out and be their own bossand I don't know if that's for
me.
I really like partnering withother people.
I like not being the guy thatthe client looks at.

(11:54):
So if I can partner withsomeone like Quinn or you or
there's a guy named Matt YanceyI don't know if you've met him,
no, not yet If I can partnerwith more people like that and
get enough business, I thinkthat's really what I want to go.
I love the technical side.
I love the stuff I do.

So if I can kind of push away from the clients a
little bit, that's kind of moreon my speed.
So you're more like the doerright.
You want to be holding thecamera sound live whatever you
don't want to be doing business.

But that's the crazy thing, that's what I've
been saying.
We got to do it someday, yeah.

I remember us having this conversation.
I was like, look, the crazypart is and there's nothing
wrong, so you can make a reallygood career as a DP.

And to be real.

It's actually very cost effective Because as long
as you buy one good camerapackage maybe a B camera, but
typically that's all you needthe investment amount is low
comparatively to a productioncompany.

Yeah.

And then you highly market yourself as the
cam op, dp.
You there, you can make goodmoney, yeah right.
And then the the good thing isyou're not as much dealing with
direct clients and clients,you're dealing with production
companies or um, um, I don'tknow um agencies or things like
that.
Right, so you can I mean youstill have do networking.
I don't think there's any way toget away from boots on the
ground, handshakes, but it's notas involved and that's one way

(13:10):
of making a career and you can.
But again you hit a ceilingBecause the ceiling is whatever
your day rate is that you set.
And obviously you can slowlyincrease it, but it's that times
365.
That's the max money you canmake and that's the max money
you can make.
And that's the negative of, Ithink, the dp came off life,
came up life, because you have amaximum ceiling and nobody's

(13:30):
working 365 days right mostpeople are working.
I don't know a couple hundred ifthat, uh so.
So there is a ceiling.
But again, if it's higher thanwhat you're making now and
you're happy, then that could bea path right, and then it's not
as as time consuming, at least,that you have to be on meetings
.
You know long, long meetings.

I don't enjoy the management side, even a little
bit.
I mean, that's kind of whereI'm at at the ministry.
I'm doing everything exceptmanagement and I don't want it.
I don't want to be in any moremeetings.
So yeah, I mean if I can dowhat I'm doing now and make more
income.
That sounds great to me.

So if hypothetically the ministry was
doubled your pay, you wouldn'tgo freelance.

I don't know That'd be a tough one right,
yeah, I mean, it's all aboutlike I'm really logical.
I'm just ticking boxes.
You know, and you know theministry does a lot for me.

Really, the only one is the money, yeah.
So so tell me a little bitabout this gig.
So I know you're here becauseyou need uh something to rent,
sure, but uh, what's the gigthat you're going on?
How do you find these freelancegigs?
Because, you know you're stillfreelancing, by the way, so it's
not like you have a full-timegig and that's all you're doing
no because, like I said, you'vehelped me.
Now you're, you have a shootgoing on, I know, and okay, it's
not happened, so I don't knowhow much you could talk about it

(14:48):
.
But uh, tell me a little bitabout the, the freelance
opportunities that you'refinding, and how are you finding
them?

yeah, I mean, it's all just word of mouth,
talking to friends, meetingpeople and stuff.
So I'm about to go do a weddingand, uh, the guy that booked me
, I'm second shooting video forhim.
He is a very creative guy, notquite as technical, so he's
bringing me on to be thetechnical guy, so he's going to
follow His wife is thephotographer.
They're going to follow thecouple, they're going to get all
the cinematic stuff and I'mthere to capture the ceremony.

(15:15):
Make sure we get the speeches,get the audio.

All of that More technical stuff which makes
sense.
That's a perfect second shooter.

It's exactly what I want to be doing.
He can worry about the couple,he can make them happy.
He can make them look good.
I'll make sure it's solid,perfect that.

That sounds like a perfect combo.
So how many weddings have youdone?
Is this your?

this is the second, I've done video for I
know you did photos, yeah, I didyou know 10 or 15 enough to
realize that I don't want to doweddings, but video this is my
second.

Second one Are you looking at anything you learned
from the first one, whereyou're like I'm going to do this
or I'm not going to do this oranything?

Definitely shot too much.
The first wedding.
Yeah, Back to my photo.
I just filled every card.
I took everything and then,whatever, I'll figure it out in
post I'll just do all theweeding.
That's what I do with video andI realized I just shot way, way
, way too much.
I need to be more intentionaland I actually I feel like

(16:15):
that's something the ministryhas helped me with.
I'm the shooter and I'm theeditor and I've done a lot of
different stuff for the ministry.

I've done events, I've done stand-ups, I've done
podcasts, so I definitely nowhave a better eye for shooting,
um, so I feel like I can be moreefficient okay, no, that makes
sense and that's pretty coolthat you're finding
opportunities like that, um, youknow, because, plus, the thing
is, you can then try outdifferent shoots.
So when you do go full-timefreelance or whatever, you'll

(16:42):
know, hey, this is, um, I don'tknow my, your kind of, you know
shoots or whatever.
This is what you specialize in,uh, because, um, but in general
, live is pretty good too, whichis what you like yeah um, have
you done anything av related?

that's not for the ministry no, I mean the
first one I did with you.
Yeah, the gig for the carcompany yeah um, that's, that's
been it and some stuff withQuentin.
I've done two or three thingswith him.

Is it similar or is it different to go for
ministry versus other projectsFor live production?

it's very similar .
Actually, I feel like the moreshoot and edit side, the regular
video production is way moredifferent.
Like I noticed the gig we justdid, yeah, um, a lot of the
shots that we're getting werevery similar.
And I it's an event, I've donelots of events, I get it but
your whole thing was like doinginterviews on the spot man on
the street, and that's like, ohI I don't do that everybody I

(17:38):
talk to is like you know anevangelist.
They know how to talk.
I don't have to coach them, Ijust point a camera and they go,
and it's perfect.

I never do more than one or two takes so with
this, it's definitely somethingI have to learn different and
it's very important because youhave to get the bite out right.
It's very different.
I get that, yeah, so sometimeseven with what we're doing.
So we like to get bites tobuild a story around the event,
Because anyone can make amontage.

Yeah.

And plus my thing is, those are useless.
Think from a brand's perspective.
Right, you have a huge eventgoing on, you take some photos
of the day and you put them tosome music.
Sure, people will look at it,maybe like it.
That's it.
Yeah, it didn't really achieveanything, but what we're trying
to do is get them something thatcan, uh, tell a message, tell a

(18:25):
story, and that the moststories very hyper.
What they want to tell, right,it's not just also what is cool,
it's also what.
What's getting the messagingout that we want to be getting
out, whether that's pleasing thesponsors, whether that's, um,
um, you know, inviting, makingthe next year's event bigger,
whatever that they can use toshow people like, hey, next year

(18:47):
let's get bigger sponsorship.
So, whatever they have anagenda is what I'm saying.
Yeah, so soundbites help us getthat out.
But the thing is a lot of timewe're talking straight to people
who are not comfortable incamera, who've never been on
camera, or you know they getawkward, or they don't know what
to say, or they'll say it, butthey'll say it with a bunch of
other stuff that we don't need.
So you have to kind of coachthem, like you said, and you

(19:09):
have to get the bite out of them.
But then you have to think fromthe edit perspective.
That's what makes you way moreeffective, because then you have
to go, oh, will this actuallywork in the edit?
Will this fit into a storylineor will this do something?
Will this fit into a storylineor will this do something?
Cause, you know, sure, they saythis event is cool.
Sure, but what, how does thatfit into the edit?

(19:29):
Right, we have to be able to gooh, this is what I did, this is
what I enjoyed.
Now we can show B roll of that.
Right, you have to think fromthe, the edit perspective.
And when you do put thattogether where, where it makes
sense, people love our recapvideos.
I've shown you, obviously, afew examples because you filmed
them.
I'm like this is what we'retrying to make.
Our clients absolutely gobonkers for these recap videos

(19:51):
because, like I said, they'redifferent, even though they're
saying it's just, you knowtechnically, uh, b-roll to
montage with some sound bites init, technically speaking, but
it's the, the way it's cuttogether and the way the story
flows.
Generally, like I said, clientslove it.
It helps them do way more thanjust have something to post

(20:12):
right about the event.
So that's pretty cool.
So it's good to hear yourperspective.
So next one when you do, whatdo you think you're going to do
different, or how are you goingto change about it?
Or I don't know how are yougoing to change about it, or I
don't know how are you going toapproach it.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's justgoing to be practice makes
perfect you know, getting morecomfortable coming up with

(20:33):
questions and kind of feeling itout yeah, yeah, I think that my
favorite thing is just listento them.
So what I'll generally say ishey, tell me more, right, and
let them talk.
And then generally most peoplewill talk, talk, talk, and then
they'll give you the golden lineright, yeah?
And you just talk to them untilthey do.
And then I'm generally like ooh, I love what you said.
Can you say that again?
And that's, I know, is where I'mgetting my bite, because it'll

(20:56):
be much harder to pull that outfrom that convoluted sentence.
Whatever they said, said yeah,but if I tell them to repeat it,
they even usually get excited.
They're like, oh, they want touse whatever I'm saying.
So they generally want to do it.
Yeah, I'm saying most people,uh, the hardest thing I find is
actually so the way uh, forcontext, for people who are not,
who haven't been to one of myevents, where you're getting

(21:17):
these sound bites but I wantthem to be in an interview
fashion.
So the hardest thing actuallyis I find that you know you have
to get the bite where they'relooking off camera, but it's
just you, it's not like you havea separate interviewer, so you
have to somehow either hold thecamera away or put your hand out
and let them make eye contactwhere you want them to make eye

(21:38):
contact.
To me, that's the the hardestpart.
What do you think about that?

I didn't find it too hard.
I mean, I was on the gimbal, soit's a little bit easier.
I just kind of had it on my hipand it worked out all right,
okay, yeah right, because thatcan be uh confusing.

For somewhere I've been like yeah, I don't know,
make sure they look off angleand you'd be amazed.
Sometimes I get people who arelike they still don't get it.
I get sound bites and they'relooking at camera.
So our option is oh, eithersomehow fit it where we don't
show the visual, or that wholefootage is toast because you
know it doesn't work because itlooks weird.
Most people, when they look atcamera and they're not camera

(22:12):
trained, they look weird.
You know, and you don't wantthat.

The most annoying part was, you know, I had
someone looking at me and I hadthe camera set and I'd go and
they were talking and I wouldglance over just at the screen
and they're like, oh, he lookedand then they moved and it's
like uh see, here's what I do.

I always tell them hey, even if I look away, make
sure you keep maintain eyecontact, that's that's a good
note.
Yeah, no, that's that happens.
That happens even in interviews.
So we'll do a lot of you know,uh, and I gotta bring you to one
of those, so uh, where I ambasically um filming and uh,
we're doing like a talking headright, like an interview, and
same thing.
I'll tell them like, hey, justmaintain eye contact at me.

(22:51):
But you know I'm doing usuallyit's just me and maybe an
assistant, so it's like a smallcrew.
So I have to sometimes lookdown at audio or look at the
monitor or something you know,make sure it's recording,
nothing's failed or whatever.
But, like you said, they'll getdistracted.
That's their opportunity tostart looking everywhere or look
where I'm looking.
So I always I'm like, hey, Imay look down for a second if I

(23:12):
do, which I try not to, but youknow you have to.
So I'm like, try to maintaineye contact here because, like
you said, they're going to,they're going to go everywhere,
they're going, gonna follow you.
So it can be a challenge.
But but that's the good thingis, once you nail these simple
skills down, uh, conferenceindustry is huge in orlando.
You can make a lot of money justdoing events yeah because you

(23:34):
could just be out, you know, anduh, and even as a cam op it's
pretty decent day rate, um.
But if you're like um, you know, if you wanted to talk to
clients, you can charge hugemoney.
I know people charge 15, 20, 30Ks for like a week long
conference which is huge Becauseyou know, once you pay your
second shooter, you can still beleft with a lot of money.
So it's a lot more profitable,I'm saying, unlike other videos

(23:58):
where you have to do cinematicstuff.
It's a lot cheaper to doconferences and there's so much
money in it.
But again, then you're dealingwith clients, you're finding
clients.
Um, it can get complicatedobviously real fast, but there's
potential to make money forsure, yeah, so so tell me um, a
little bit about, um, liveproduction.
So, from a ministry side of it,what are they looking for?

(24:21):
And, uh, who would be right forit?
So, let's say, somebody isthinking about it, because
that's, I think, a very goodstart, right, they want to get
into live, or they just want toget into video, and then maybe I
would submit to low skill,because I do think people should
improve their craft first.
I think it's a good opportunityto help your local church or
whoever, um and uh, not only areyou gaining skills, you're

(24:44):
helping out, helping them too,right, so how would be what, who
, how, what would be a good way,I'm saying, to approach um that
type of opportunity?

sure.
I mean I think for like for asmaller, medium-sized church.
A lot of it is like everybody'sdone everything at this point.
So find a church that you likethe style of and look around
like see what cameras are using.
You know Blackmagic cameras arereally easy to operate for
volunteers.
I like the Sony look better,but we use Blackmagic a lot

(25:16):
because it's really simple.
So if you need think aboutvolunteer-friendly things, you
know the Atom switchers.
You can program the StreamDecks.
They're phenomenal.
I love companion I can tinkeraround all day long and make it
so that anybody can walk up andit's easy to read, easy to
operate.
So think about ways and systemsthat you can put in place to
make it easy for volunteersbecause, let's be honest, it's

(25:38):
all going to be volunteeroperation but then it's just
watching a lot of content andfiguring out the look you want
and then trial and error tryingto get that going.
But I wouldn't try toovercomplicate it too fast.
You can start with two camerasand then grow to a third and
it's easy to continue addingonce you master a skill much and

(26:04):
you've never mastered anythingand now you're.
Well, I spent all this money, Ihave six cameras and it's never
a good product.
It's way better to start slowmaster it and then evolve over
time, because people are goingto see that, oh, it's getting
better and better.
Nobody's going to hop on astream and go well, there's six
cameras, it's great, oh, but theshots are shaky and camera ops
are bad and and and thosecameras are incredible.

You can get them sub 1k easily.
Yeah, market it's and they theylook really good.
Now again, I do think uh,sony's a better investment if
you're doing to do corporate andcommercial video.
Yeah, but for live black magicare great and my favorite thing
is now again we use sony's.
But anytime I have used blackmagic still connect to the atem
and you can control a lot of thecamera functions from the ATEM,

(26:45):
which can be really good.
I don't have, to like with theSonys, I'm on a headset telling
the operator, hey, can you dothis, that, whatever.
But with like ATEM and theBlackmagic cameras we can do
most things from the switcher.
So I don't even have to reachout to the operator to fix the
colors or whatever.
Right, yeah, and I like that'sone of my favorite things and
like so the cost effectiveness.

(27:06):
I think who was it um quentinagain, I think, who was telling
me he got like two or sobroadcasts for like a couple
grand or whatever yeah, I'm likethat's crazy and it's
phenomenal image quality.
Yeah, exactly so so, like I said, the demand isn't really high.
If you're going to do corporateand commercial videos, if
you're doing your own, I guessyou can use them because it
doesn't matter, and if an clientdoesn't care, then they're good

(27:29):
cameras.
It's only when you're going togo join other agencies I think
you're better off with sonybecause the demand is high,
right and you'll.
You'll just find gigs becauseyou're an fx3, fx6 operator or
whatever, or a venice operatoror something like that.
But again, for your own stuffor live, I think Blackmagic are
really good.
The market is flooded with them.

(27:49):
Used market is huge and, like Isaid, there's advantages to
just being in their ecosystemanyway.
And, like you said, they'realso very easy to operate.
I love on the Pocket,especially the menu system.
It's very easy, it's so simpleyou don't.
Yeah, as long as you understandyour exposure triangle, you can
pretty much do it like the, the.

(28:11):
You don't have to learn thecamera per se.
You're not finding it.
Plus, black magic, raw um, Ithink that's really good too.
If somebody does want to do raw, uh, I think, uh, the, the
compression and and the workflowis really good, yeah, and it
works very well with the Resolve.
So I think the whole thingright, it's like a whole
ecosystem.

It's a really good package.

Yeah, that works, and a lot of it is cheap.
The Resolve is free, so I meanyou can't beat it right.

I'm sad.
Up until this point, Blackmagichas been really good about even
their CinemaLine Works, reallyreally well for live production,
but now with the pixis we lostthe atom control and the ursa.
The 12k full frame, not dudethat sensor is so cool but it
doesn't work for live productionyeah, that's kind of upsetting.
Yeah, but 12k, I don't even knowwhen we need it for live well,

(28:59):
it's such a cool sensor becauseit's um, I don't remember all
the technical terms, but it cando 12k, 8k and 4k natively out
of the sensor.
So it you don't have to shoot12k all the time.
You know, with a red or eventhe sony's, if you want to crop
into a lower resolution you'relosing size.
But this can natively do 12k,8k or 4k.

(29:20):
You can shoot 4k b-roll rightout of it like it's perfect yeah
, that's so crazy.

Yeah, I think they're using some kind of uh, I
think pixels like bin togetherand work together, something
like that.
Again, I don't understand thetechnology, but, yes, the way
they were doing it instead of atwo by two exactly, and then
they can.
They can just kind of bin themtogether and uh, so that it's
that way, it's not cropping inand it's still raw, which is
again very incredible technology.

(29:45):
But again, on the other side,the demand yeah, it's it's.
It went to what?
5k or something like thatstarted at 12k, which was
already low.
But again, I think the reasonthat is simple, the truth being
the other side of it.
I don't think there's anydemand for it and that's why I
think they've dropped the priceso much, considerably, which is
is huge, by the way, 5k orwhatever you can buy this for,

(30:07):
wow, I mean just to think aboutit.
But again, I think that's whythe price is so low is I don't
think that many productions areusing it.
I have, in the last two years, Ican count on single hand any
time a camera was used that wasnot either sony or ari, right,
and and and most times was itwas red, and that too, like the

(30:31):
quality sucked, because nowadaysthe you know I'm talking they
were dsmc2 type of reds, right,um and uh, and they were.
I was like they're not keepingup, because you know they were
really good when they came out.
I own a couple myself, but uh,with the way the technology's
moved, uh, I don't think they'rekeeping up, uh as as well.
So they're, they're losingground, is what I'm saying.

(30:53):
Uh, so it's either it's thesony or uh re in the, the high
end is captured, the wholemarket.
So if you're trying to playinto the corporate commercial
market, I don't, I don't knowhow much work you'll find if you
show up as like hey, I'm a DPwith my 12K or sub package, I
don't know how many commercialswill be like yep, that's what we

(31:13):
need.
You know what I mean.
Unless they are trying to hyper, do like something for Apple
Vision.


We are something hyper specific I don't think
you're going to find, but againit has use cases.
Think about now I'm saying itmyself Apple Vision.
It'd be really cool to make itwith that 12K sensor.
But again, I'm saying, outsideof those hyper-specific examples
, it's not good to stay in thatsystem For sure.

(31:42):
So it's kind of like don't know, uh, I mean, talk about our
youtuber that we were talkingabout.
Uh, lioness tech tips.
You were in the hat we weretalking about before.
I think he.
I saw a video years ago whenthey came out he bought like
five, six of them and then theydidn't work in their own work
got rid of them so fast exactly,and that was a huge loss for
them.
So that's what I'm saying likethey don't fit in the workflow

(32:04):
for most people, even though thecamera may be incredible.
Uh, so, like I said, my adviceto people would be again, unless
you're doing live, stick tosony.
Yeah, sadly, it's just again abetter roi, and that's only I'm
saying not because sony's betteris because it'll pay for itself
faster.

Yeah, I mean especially in our world.
You know we all love tech, soSony is easy enough to learn
Really.
My only recommendation is forBlackmagic for volunteers.
It's so easy to operate, it isgood image quality, it is low
budget.
It's a great option for achurch, you know for instance
but I mean, I prefer the look ofthe Sonys, I prefer the
workflow.

(32:43):
The autofocus is phenomenal.
You know the FX6 with the NDlife-changing, Exactly.

No, but you have a very good point and I'm even
saying like, if you're doingnarrative movies or you're like
an indie movie filmmaker andit's your movies, as long as
it's your project, you don'thave to go fit in somebody
else's workflow.
Blackmagic are incredible.
I'd buy a um, like you said, uh, pixis or even a arsa or
something like that, uh, wayover and way earlier than

(33:11):
anything, sony, because then youknow you don't have to worry
about what anyone, anyone else,is using or wants you to use,
because with that be raw, withthe, the resolve workflow,
everything, I think you can geta better image out of it for a
lot less money.
That money can be put intoother tools, uh, so you know the
investment will be betterpayoff.
But that's the only scenario.

(33:33):
Or, like you said, for churches,where they just need bodies.
They just mean, or they'redoing a podcast or whatever,
they just need five bodies.
It doesn't matter.
You know if it's sony or not,um, but yeah, so that's.
That's pretty cool, um, thatyou know these options even
exist for people.
Can you imagine, like in thepast, like buying a sub 1k
camera and used that had thatphenomenal image quality?

(33:57):
and lenses are cheap too,because I think micro four third
kind of died yeah.
Um, I loved it.
By the way, I I used gh4s, youknow I'm so excited, so that was
what 2014 15 whenever gh4 cameout, that that was incredible
camera for the time and I Ibought one immediately right and
I loved it.

(34:17):
Uh, but now I feel like, eventhough I know they've they
released g7 or whatever, I thinkmicro four thirds kind of dying
or dead.
So but the again.
The advantage is market isflooded with lenses.
If you want to buy nativelenses, I think you can find
really good deals on them.
Olympus, I think, died too, thewhole, you know micro four

(34:38):
thirds and it's easy to adapt soyou can always grow into a
system.
Exactly.
You can start with E with eflenses, which are really cheap,
and canon made in amazing eflenses.
Uh, so, yeah.
So the point is cost wise.
It's just incredible.
You can adapt or you can justbuy native micro four third
lenses for really cheap on theused market yeah and go start
making amazing images, which iswhat it's about, um, or just

(35:03):
doing live, and there's so muchmoney in it.
By the way, I've been doinglive since 2020 and I've I do.
I would say about 30 40 percentof my work is still live, um,
and we do a ton of it.
And, funny enough, I do want totalk the other side of it.
I don't know if you've donethat yet.
Have you done any remote remoteproducer thing?
We do that a lot now.

(35:23):
So, uh, that is a huge thing.
So another place where ATEMsnow you can do this without an
ATEM.
I still prefer ATEMs.
So there's a huge demand nowwhere people don't even fly in.
So they'll be like hey, we haveclients that we need to capture
an interview with, or we needto do a three-person round table
with four cameras or threecameras or something like that.

(35:45):
That's a very common request,and you can find these gigs all
over the country and the clientmay not even be in the same
state, right?
So all they want is you to sendthem a remote feed.
So, technically, not live, butyou kind of run it live.
And it's such an easy setup tohave something like.
So I think everyone should ownan ATEM even if you're not doing

(36:06):
live I love this ATEM extremeCause what I all I have to do is
plug the cameras in and even mycameras, like.
Obviously, sdi version may bebetter, but since we are using
FX sixes and FX threes, thisworks better because all our
cameras have HDMIs, even the FXsixes, so we can plug them all
in, do a quick little multi-viewof three camera, four camera,

(36:30):
you know in the software and,bam our way, can send it out to
a remote producer.
And they love it because if youdo the old method of, you know,
using Cam Links or OBS, orwhatever.
I mean you could do it, but thenyou have dongles everywhere and
then also you know more pointsof failure, plus a lot of times
you can just send one, becausemost people only have one in

(36:51):
their arsenal, and then theclient's only seeing the wide
cam, they're not seeing thetight cams.
The overall experience you canprovide them is so much better
and they love it because youknow they're not there.
So any information you givethem is valuable.
So them being able to see allthe angles, them being able to
see the colors or the exposure,whatever being able to hear, is

(37:15):
incredible.
And it's so easy to do withthese ATEMs Like five minutes of
setup.

At most it's eliminated a whole workbox with
stuff in one device, exactly.

And it's so easy, easy and also, like that, they
can convert.
I've only had once an issuewhere we threw a signal into it
and, uh, the um, the extreme,the mini extreme.
I still couldn't read it as inbut generally they have
converters in them too, thatthey can.
They are rather as a converter,they're scalers, so as in, if
you throw like a wrong framerate into it, like you throw a
60, with a 30 and a 25, it caneasily manage that.

(37:50):
In the past that was a pain.
So I started with televisionstudio HD.
They couldn't do that, but youhad to make sure with a
decimator or something you weresending it the exact frame rate.
But you don't have to do thatnow.
I mean, you get it relativelyright, throw the, throw your
hdmi's in and it just kind ofworks.
Yeah, and and as dp um, Ihighly recommend it is what I'm

(38:13):
saying.
If you cannot offer remoteproduction capabilities, which
is a lot of productions nowadays, it makes you uh, easily be
able to stand out and, like Isaid, it's nothing extra for me.
We were going to do the shootanyway.
If I just can throw a couple ofHDMIs in and send the client a
feed, I don't know why that's abig deal to me, right, yeah, and

(38:35):
.
But you would be amazed howmany people are not doing that
yet.
So I highly recommend peopleyou know who are listening, just
go buy yourself an ATEM.
I mean, and it doesn't have tobe the extreme, you could just
buy the mini pros or whatever,right, just four channels.
I don't think you're.
You're rarely doing multicammore than four.
I'm talking where you'd haveremote stuff, obviously for

(38:55):
churches you probably need more.

I mean for versatility sake.
I would almost even recommendthe extreme, Like we were
talking about dual USB-Cs, soyou can send to the laptop with
webcam and USB record at thesame time.

Very smart.
Yes, exactly.
And then they make the SDIversion too.

So you can multi-view and program.

Exactly, and if you're only using SDI cameras, I
would program exactly, and ifyou're only using sdi cameras, I
would even recommend that,because I think it's even more
output.
Yeah, uh, the only reason Idon't have the sdi is because,
like I was saying, I only I.
We use fx3s and fx6s, right, soit helps.
I wish they would make a like ahybrid version.
That'd be really cool so yeah,we had like, uh, you know, half

(39:33):
hdmi, kind of like televisionstudio hd again.
I love that because it was forsti and for hdmi.
That to me would be instant buybecause then we can do sti
directly from fx6s instead ofhaving to use hdmi because hdmi
is not a reliable connector.
Yeah, but anyway.
But there's these things likesee, so it's live.
I don't think it's just forpeople doing live.

(39:55):
There's a lot more benefits inlearning something like atem,
because I think even dps canreally get their money's worth
by being able to do this remoteproducer thing so in that
scenario, are you the oneleading the interview or is it
the remote producer?
it depends.
So, yeah, if it's an interview,I've had that where the remote

(40:18):
producer is leading it.
But sometimes you know, I'msaying like you're doing like a
round table where nobody'sleading anything because you
know it's probably moderatorspart of it or some kind of
conference or something.
Uh, the main thing is that theyget a feed.
It's kind of like sending, likeI said, live, but you're
sending the multi-view out yeah,pretty much to, instead of like
the program.
You send the multi-view outyeah, pretty much to, instead of
like the program, you send themulti-view out and generally

(40:38):
Excel do the four by the quadview, basically multi-view,
because at most, like I said,typically three to four cameras
and basically what you're doingis giving them the opportunity
to observe what's happeningwithout while they're not here.
Gotcha, right, and you sendHDMI audio out to one of the
feeds and that's their audiofeed, so they also hear live

(41:00):
audio, so they can kind ofcomment on that.
It just makes it easier.
Think of this way, right, likeI have done that too, where I've
been the remote producer.
So what I'll hire?
I'll give you an example.
Some client reaches out andthey say, okay, we need to do a

(41:20):
video, we'll do interview withone executive in chicago, one in
san francisco, one in orlando,right.
And then it's like, sure, andwhat's the budget?
So if it's like a good budget,let's say they said 20 grand.
I was like, okay, perfect, I'llfly to all three cities.
Well, I'm in local orlando.
The other two we can fly, wecan make it perfect, we'll bring
all the gear.
Now they go out of the budgetis like eight grand.
Now you can't, you don't havethe budget to fly with gear and
everything.
So then you offer, okay, awesome, we'll do it with a remote team

(41:41):
.
So you hire somebody local togo run that interview, but I
want to make sure the framing,everything is perfect.
So I will ask that, hey, canyou send me the feed through
Zoom or whatever, and that way Ican make sure it matches.
So I'm saying I can even be theremote producer and now I can
make sure the shot I did inOrlando matches the other team.
Right, it's as simple as that.

(42:01):
And then, like I said, if Iwanted to, I can even conduct it
with the client.
Yeah, and then the other sideis when I'm the production
company that some otherproduction companies hiring,
same thing.
I'm sending them the remotefeed because they can just A
remote feed because they canjust a just watch it.
A lot of times it's just thatyou know if you're doing the
correct stuff.
But then a lot of time they canhave just some input like, hey,
I don't like that plant in theback, or I don't like this or

(42:23):
whatever, and then it's veryeasy for us to fix now, then
later, and that's what I'msaying.
I've had other people that doremote producer stuff.
They only send the main cam out, like the wide cam or whatever,
and I highly recommend doingthis way because I love it,
because they can a see the wholeproduction and they can comment
on the tight cameras and stuff.
You don't want, um, anything inthe in the back end to go, oh

(42:45):
we this, we don't like this orwhatever.
Right it's, it's so much easierto fix in the moment.
So it has multiple advantages a, they just want it nowadays,
like especially if they're notflying it, which is a common
thing now Budgets are gettinglower and lower, you're expected
to do more.
And two, it just, like I said,eliminates that gap of they

(43:05):
don't know what you're doingtype of thing.
They see exactly what the finalframe looks like and, like I
said on your side, if it soundslike a lot, it's not Because
once you set it up.
It's set up.
You're not messing with theATEM, it's not like you're live
switching or anything.
You're just sending theMomomotivio out and if you're
smart, you can even set it upfrom your home before you leave.

(43:27):
So it's all.
All the settings are set.
You just plug in, you send and,and it's pretty good.
And one of my favorite thingsagain, we're gonna now make this
all about AT.
So one of the things on theextreme is, on this side you can
actually select what you'resending on the output one, which
is what we're doing here.
And then my favorite thing withthat is so you can technically

(43:47):
typically I'll leave it onmulti-view right like this, so
they'll get the multi-view.
But then if they're like, oh, Iwant to see one camera in in
detail, I can actually go tomultiple different cameras so I
can actually zoom without likedoing too much effort.
I can show them a zoomed inview out of the proper view
frame of each cameraindividually and then go back to
multi-view right, so they canlook in detail if they wanted to

(44:09):
.
And it's so easy to do.
Like I said, it's just pressinga button, like once you play
with this it's actually veryeasy.
It looks daunting but it's not.
And then, um, and, like I said,it's very easy, it works the
workflow perfectly.
It's better, I think, productthan the other options which
would be, like I said, a camlink, maybe obs, the other way

(44:32):
of doing it.
Yeah, I think this is a mucheasier solution and it has
internal live streamingcapabilities too.
So if they wanted it, usuallywe'll send it to you through
Zoom, but I'm saying if theywanted it sent on Vimeo or
YouTube or whatever.
Technically we can directly,through the device, plug an
Ethernet and send them the feedthat way too, without even

(44:53):
needing a computer.
I've had such bad luck withthat Really.

I know so many people that that's their thing,
they stream out the Ethernetevery time.
It's failed on me Really Halfthe time I've tried it.

I don't want to jinx it.

That's how this podcast goes out, so it hasn't
failed yet but yes, I mean yeah,that would be.

It's worked for me , Like I've done it multiple
times.
Obviously, I don't typically doit for client.
We use like a bonding, you knowa thing?
So I use Teradek stuff, butvideo, no, what's that?
Liveu makes good stuff, sothere's a lot of yeah.
I highly recommend using anencoder if it's a paid project,

(45:31):
but I'm saying, if it's likesomething like that, like where
it's not mission critical, itjust works directly without any,
any input, any extra products.
I'm just saying this I thinkit's a good.
What is it Like?
I think a thousand bucks right,and you could probably find a
cheaper used.
I think it's a.
It's a really good investment.
Even I'm saying as a DP, not,you don't even have to do live

(45:59):
production, just as your remoteproducer unit and, like I said,
it'll pay for itself.
I mean, half my shoots are thatI'm doing with other companies
are where they're not flying inanymore it's like god likes that
.
So, um, I can't imagine notgetting the money back the
return.
It's such a useful yeah plus.
Then you can, if you reallywanted to not, it may not be for
everyone, but if you're likeyou, where you like it and you
love the technical part of it,you can now go into the live

(46:21):
world and make more money justdoing the live switching and all
that other stuff, so you canactually do more with it than
just the remote producing.

We use them a lot at the ministry even when we're
not live streaming.
So like we'll set it up in thestudio when we don't want to use
, or even up in the podcast room.
You know we'll do a two orthree camera podcast and we'll
do a live switch just to speedup our edit.
You know we'll.
What I'll do is I'll record theprogram in here and then record
isos and cameras and then justrebuild it in premiere.

(46:49):
But now I have a basic cutalready and that just speeds up.
You know a whole lot in theediting process.

Yeah, and that's the goal with season two.
For our podcast, I want to havea remote producer.
And live editing is because,again, you know, we're a video
production company.
This isn't making any revenue.
We don't have time to go editand that's why I didn't do
multi-camera this season.
But ideally we want to right,because it just makes it more
dynamic.
And I was like, when we're gonnado that, we're not gonna edit
in post, we just going to golive and I'm going to have a

(47:16):
producer, just live switch andthen we're done and it'll be so
easy and, like I said, thedevice can record, so we'll have
the recording already ready togo.
We don't have to do anythingand it's already switched, it's
edited, there's a cut and now,yes, will it be perfect?
Maybe not, let's live, yeah,but having seen other live

(47:38):
productions, I think it'll bepretty good.
And, by the way, people like um, a lot of people go like, hey,
how do I make no mistakes?
I think there will be mistake.
It's live production.
But once you see big budgetlive productions, how many
mistakes they have?
Like if you pull up grammys oroscars, or and these are huge
productions, right, yeah, howmany mistakes do they have?

(48:00):
You're right and I and I'mpretty sure I don't know if
you've ever looked at it thatway, but like if I'm watching
any, I can just catch up like,oh they, they messed up.

I can't watch.

Yeah right, it's like I know they, they didn't
mean to switch that or whatever,and it happens and because you
know it's production.
So what I'm saying is peoplealso need to be not that hard on
themselves.

Yeah.

Like, if major productions with multi-million
dollar budgets can mess up, youcan mess up a little bit, just
don't have major messes.
Yeah, but a tiny switch hereand there is not the end of the
world.
It happens.

Yeah, it's how quick you are at fixing the
mistake exactly and learningfrom mistakes so talk about that
.

Let's uh go.
I, because I'd completelyforgotten that you helped me
with that live show.
How was that?
If you remember, we did like acar launch together yeah where
we live streamed it, uh, whichwas incredible to even know that
we have a car manufacturer inorlando it was a pretty cool
company yeah exactly and then.
So how was that experience, ifyou want to talk about it, how
was it different than theministry's live streams?

(48:56):
Obviously, we were launching acar, I think.
We had to light it and all that, yeah, so, and we also had to
do it live too.
It was crazy.
It wasn't just on the internet.
Their own team was watching ittoo, so we had to put TVs there
so they could watch it andlisten to it.
We put speakers.
The point is, it was like anevent production there, but then
also it went online and Ibrought you in as the technical

(49:19):
director I think it's the role Icalled it Essentially just
helped me put it together right.
I think it was a team of fouror five of us or something like
that, so I don't know if youremember from it.
It's been a while.
But how was that experience, andhow would you describe it
different than the live stuffyou had done for the ministry?

Sure, yeah, different than the live stuff
you had done for the, for theministry.
Sure, yeah, for the ministry.
Uh, it's never that quick aturnaround.
Um, for us it's.
It's a much longer stream, youknow, say, a whole conference or
a whole service or something,and generally we'll be in the
day before, two days before.
So we have a lot of time toprep, a lot of time to get it
dialed in.
There's always going to be, youknow, the event staff that's
doing lighting, projection,whatever we'll hire in something

(49:58):
like that.
So for me it's a lot morefocused and I have a lot more
time.
It was really interesting.
We only had what?
three hours if that to set upand we were doing all the
lighting, we were doingeverything.

So it was it was really fun actually to have to
be that quick and, you know,think on our feet and problem
solve quick, quick and it wasfun, yeah, and then we we had to
bring everything, so we had toload in, set it up and go live
in like two or three hours, yeah, and that was the the whole
setup time and I think we didgreat, uh, because you know we
also had a problem solve, likeyou said, because they're like

(50:30):
oh, we want these tvs here.

Oh, so we're gonna run the wireless camera
and we didn't have a, a wireless.

Yeah.
So they didn't tell us about it.
So they wanted literally therequirements was hey, we're
going to have a camera on tripod.
And then when we showed up,they're like, no, we got to show
the car, which makes sense, butthen why did they book one
camera?
So I'm like, oh well, we'regoing to go handheld, right, do
what you got to do.
And it would have been sosimple because the cost wouldn't

(50:56):
have been any different.
I would have brought a secondcamera anyway or brought the
Teradex anyway.
I'm saying so it wasn't thecost factor, it was more like
them not being, I guess,prepared or whatever.
And it's fine, that was theirfirst live stream.
But what's crazy is that waslike the purpose behind the van
setup now, because I never wantthat to ever happen again.

(51:18):
Now if somebody goes, hey, canwe make it wireless, I can be
like sure, give me a few minutes, let me go to the van, we could
pull it out.
We couldn't do that.
Then it was like, no, webrought what we needed to bring
because we planned it all out.
We can't just all of a sudden,you know, go wireless because
that's not the plane or anythinglike that.
So, but, but clients will dothat to you.
Welcome to video production.

(51:39):
They will uh just go.
Oh, by the way, can we show theinterior of the car?
We can do this, and they'relike uh, are we gonna do that
from a tripod?

like no, we can't .
It's so interesting hearing theclient perspective.
Yeah, they don't know our world, they don't.
They just know what they want,and most of the time they don't
know what they want untilthey've seen it and know that,
oh, that's not what I want.
So it's learning how totranslate through whatever they
say, figuring out.
Okay, actually I need wireless.

Yeah, exactly, and , like I said, the good thing is
we were able to solve theirproblem.
We just went handheld and Ithink we did great.
I think the footage came outgreat, the live stream was great
and, like I said, in the futuremy goal personal, was I don't
want to have that issue.
And then that's not just oneexample, that happens every
shoot.

(52:27):
So it's like there's somethingthey'll throw at you, right?
So that's what the idea behindthe van was.
I'm like, if I have 99 ofeverything right, I still
obviously don't carry all mylive streaming kit in there, so
they can't just go live.
They can't tell me, oh, we'llgo live, so it doesn't solve all
problems.
But 99 of the problems withthey're like oh, can we throw a
frame here or can we make youknow?

(52:48):
I don't know.
Like you said, can we gowireless or there's something
like that, or can we have acouple extra mics or things like
that, where I can just quicklybe like, okay, sure, obviously
won't be instantaneous, we stillhave to go to the van, but it's
a lot simpler to go to the vanthat's probably parked outside
their building than to be like,oh, we'll go to our studio and a
lot of times you're.
You know, it's not even apossibility to come back to the

(53:10):
studio to grab something.
So that is at least the ideabehind it and, um, you know I
don't want that to ever happenagain in the future.
But that was neat.
I'm so glad you were there.
You were able to see theproblems that we had and how we
were able to solve them.
Uh, but very different than,like I said, ministry that's the
stuff I love, though.
I love, like I said, buildingthe system, working the problems

(53:32):
out like yeah and I stillremember I was like oh so you're
here as the technical director,now can you become the cable
wrangler because, that's whatthe job changed.
Right, because that's what wegotta do, because now we're like
hardwired but we're technicallymobile, yeah, which is very
interesting.
I don't typically do that, uh,but but I know in live that is a
thing, that that is done aswell.

(53:53):
But that was interesting for mebecause normally I would like
to say a pterodactyl orsomething like that, just to
resolve that situation, uh.
But, like I said, looking backat that stream, it came out
incredible.
I had such a good time and, uh,I'm so glad you were able to be
part of it and, uh, talk aboutthis.
Once we're done, I gotta inviteyou to another shoot.
I would love to have you sure um, like I said, it's so fun to to

(54:14):
, to do these shoots and to haveyou on them, and then that's
another thing I want to talkabout, like work-life balance.
So luckily, like I said, youhave a full-time job.

Yeah.

But they are very friendly with you doing these
freelance work, yeah.
So how incredible is it to havethat kind of freedom at your
job where you can pick up gigs.

Yeah, I mean it's great.
I mean that's like I wastalking about earlier, just
ticking the boxes.
The ministry has beenphenomenal being crazy flexible.
You know, I'm on salary, Idon't have to clock in and out.
You know, generally we get towork from home on Fridays, so
that is kind of a floater dayfor me.

Generally it's like editing or you know
whatever last minute task isbefore sunday um, and yeah, it's
, it's great and that'sincredible.
I think if people can find itlike some very much like going
pro, um, you know, likefull-time in it.
But I'm all for if you can, ifyou can find a workplace that is

(55:12):
willing to um, you know, payyou, that gives you the freedom
and it's letting you do what youlove.
And at the end of the day, ifyou don't want that hassle of
where's my client coming fromtomorrow, because that is the
unknown in the freelance world,I think it's a really great
choice to go get a job.
Like I said, it wouldn't be forme, but that doesn't mean it's

(55:35):
not for everyone.
And even if you want to be afreelancer, I think it's a good
place to go get your skillsright.
I don't know where else can yougo, do live streams and learn
because you know if you'recoming to my, you know on my
regular shoots I'm willing totry people, but live streams I
don't want to typically riskpeople who don't have experience
with live because, yeah, youdon't have opportunity to learn.

(55:56):
We gotta do it right oh,minimizing mistakes exactly yeah
so.
So it's like very rareopportunities where you can go
learn live and a ministry orchurch or you know something
like that, or and it doesn'teven have to be that if you're
you know, I don't know asynagogue or wherever there's
any kind of religious place.
I think they need liveproduction, so, uh.

(56:16):
So if you know you, you followcertain religion, I think that's
the best place for you to go ayou're not only you know
volunteering I think it's greatbut then also you can actually
gain that experience and they'remore forgiving because they
understand you're a volunteerthe bar is so low, like anything
you do, if you're really trying, it's going to be better than
everything out there exactly,and I think that's the that is

(56:40):
so great to to tell you what youjust said, because I think that
is the best opportunity tolearn live and there's so much
money in life.
people take this opportunity, govolunteer, um, and practice and
learn from people like you,because I'm sure, uh, now that
you're experienced, if anyoneelse joins the ministry, the
ropes and things like that andthen they can become an expert

(57:03):
and then eventually, if, let'ssay, they do go freelance, they
can now run a live productioncompany and make a killer money,
and that'd be one of thehardest things otherwise to
learn if it wasn't foropportunities like what you have
at.

CFM and that's how I got started, you know, as
a cam op at my church.

Look at that.
So, yeah, I think that's a verygood way to start.
And then, once you have yourskills and your confidence, or
even, if you want it becausesome people may never want it If
you're just happy and you knowit's paying your bills, then I
guess that is it, but if youwant it, I think it can be a
good stepping stone to that.
Finally, the life for you quitand you go.

(57:40):
Oh, I gotta go.

I gotta go full time now, all right, and I'm
ready to go and hunt clients I'monly right on that line yeah,
you know I'm I'm not looking tobuild something like, like, like
you got yeah, I mean, but younever know, I mean with quentin.

I think you have good opportunity.
I mean me.
I like I said, I love havingyou, I love having you as uh a
can op that we can, you know,bring on.
And, like I said, you do greatwork.
I've never had issue at all.
Your work is amazing, appreciateit um, and even julie, my
editor, said really good thingsabout you.
She was like oh yeah, uh, hegot really good shots, so make
sure you bring him to this nextevent, and that's why I

(58:12):
completely forgot about it.
Now we're sitting.
I, oh crap, I have anotherevent shoot?
I would love for you to come ifthe schedule works out and then
so yeah, so you do good work, soI don't think you should have
an issue.
But I also think, like I said,quentin's a great friend and I
think he's building somethingreally cool and if it works out,
there's obviously again a riskwith everything you do, but with

(58:38):
but with this new studioconcept that he has.
Uh, you know, I think there's agood opportunity there and so I
know he wants you to be a partof that.

So if you guys can build something there, and
that can be your opportunity Ifeel like there's definitely
enough work out there for me tohelp others build their stuff
and I can make a decent livingand I can do what I love and I
don't need to worry about theother stuff exactly so.

So is there a certain number?
Uh, let's go real, like theyou're trying to hit, like where
you're like, oh, if I could getpaid this much I'll go happily,
but help some build somebodyelse's.
You know this, but and I'mhappy, what is that number?

Hmm, I don't really know a specific number
yet.
I mean, I just I want to becomfortable, you know, Hopefully
at some point I can buy a house, you know, hopefully at some
point we can afford kids.

But is it like six figures higher, lower, is there
or no?
You don't have a number yet,right yeah?

I don't think I have a number.
I mean, you know a lot of sixfigures.
That'd be awesome.

But I'm not not, like I said, I'm not trying to
build something big.
I'm just trying to provide forme and my family.
So you just want somethingwhere you're going to be able to
pay your bills.
Like you said, buy a house.
You know the basic things thateveryone wants nothing crazy, I
think you're.
You're basically like that'swhat I want to do.

I want to do video, I want to make this much
money and I want to be I want tomake enough to afford the life
I want to live, but also have agood work-life balance.
You know I'm not trying to workevery single weekend and kill
myself and then not get to enjoyall the money I made.
You know.

Vipul Bindra (01:00:02):
Exactly.
Yeah, no, that was like one ofmy biggest things.
You know, before I wentfull-time, I was freelancing, so
I was, like you, at a full-timejob.
So not only am I working and Iwas salaried too, so I was
working way more than you knowyou need to be so anyway.
And then I was also on theweekends or whatever right doing

(01:00:22):
gigs.
So it's like when am I gonnasee my kids, you know, and I had
one kid at the time and I waslike I'm not seeing my kid and
it's like she's gonna grow upand not know, you know, her own
dad, and I was like that's notthe life I want plus you know
you can't take a vacation.
I still remember I wanted to goon vacation and it's like, oh,
you cannot go for this long, youcan only go this state.
So I'm like, oh, so you'redeciding when I go.
Take my time off, not me, youknow.

(01:00:44):
It's not like, oh, this is thebest days to travel.
No, no, no, this is the dayswe'll let you go.
And that was where where mythoughts started churning.
I was like I don't know, thisis right for me.
And then this was incredible,like earlier last year and, to
be real, we did less vacationswhen I became freelance.
There's the negative side of it, because, you know, then you go
, oh, I'm working all the time.

Andrew Keller (01:01:05):
Then you're the one telling yourself oh, I can't
do those days, but last year itwas so great.

It was like I was like, hey, we haven't taken.
Obviously, being in orlando, wego to theme parks all the time,
so technically we takevacations, but it's not, it is
count as vacation, you know,because you're at your home just
going to a theme park.
Anyway, I was like, oh, let'sgo on a cruise.
And it was just incredible togo on.
This is, this is a week, I'mjust going, I'm not taking any,
any projects this week, so it'slike I didn't have to like go,

(01:01:31):
ask permission from anyone,right, I just had to block my
own calendar, like, okay, now Iended up technically taking
calls and emails, but I didn'thave to.
But what's crazy is, uh, and itfelt great, that freedom where
I was just like, okay, this isthe week like hookah cruise,
like I didn't have to like go.
Oh well, it can only be this dayto this day, to this day and it

(01:01:53):
was just like nope, this is ourtime, I'm blocking it off and
I'm not taking any projects.
That doesn't matter what it is.
And, funny enough, I was like,if I even get a project, I'll
just pass it to someone else,right, I can always sub it out.
So it's not like I cantechnically still not be working
while I'm, uh, on a cruise, butthat was incredible to be able
to do that, and that is thefreedom that I think has its

(01:02:15):
pros when you go freelance.
But I do see your perspectivetoo.
If, obviously, you're happy togo freelance if the right
opportunity came, but at thesame time, if something with
Quentin or somebody else,whoever, gave you a good
paycheck and let you still dowhat you want to do, then you're
happy to do that.
And yeah there's nothing wrongwith that.

And it really just depends on the gig.
Know I'm really lucky with theministry I'm at now.
I haven't had that, thatproblem with with time off.
You know they're reallyflexible yeah I gotta give them
a little notice and work aroundsome key dates, but it's worked
out, you know that's incredible.

So tell me this now.
Let's say you do go full-time.
Let's say you go free or youare full time, but I mean like
you go on your own.
Uh, what type of gigs would youlike to find?
What would be like an ideal gigand rate that you're thinking
about?

Yeah, I mean I haven't really nailed down a
niche yet.
There's a lot of things I love.
I do tend more towards liveproduction and the technical
side.
That's really what I love backto my IT degree.
But yeah, I mean, I don'treally know if I'm that into you

(01:03:26):
know, spec shoots and add likemore creative stuff.
It's just, it's reallyinteresting.
I love being around it, butit's not my passion.
I do really prefer thetechnical stuff where I can
really use my brain and problemsolve.
So I'd probably lean towardsthat, but I'm open still to

(01:03:47):
figure out a niche that fits mewell.

So you're most likely leaning towards gigs that
are going to be, or will leantowards gigs that are going to
be like.

Use that technical expertise from you
whether that's, I don't know,camera or live or whatever, it's
really what I've built up themost, yeah, and I think you're
also really good with post rightBecause you edit as well.

Do you do After Effects and stuff like that?

I know enough to do what I've needed to do.
I'm not an expert on AfterEffects, Because in live you've
got to do lower thirds yeah likethat.

So is there a particular software you guys use
in the ministry or we use thein the full adobe suite,
photoshop, after effects.
Yeah, all that so how are youbringing it on?
Are you using the media bank?

yeah, okay, here's the gears.

Okay, so because you know, I know there's a bunch
of softwares like we use athing it's called heitler live,
something like that, and Ishould know the name.
But anyway, I think I showedyou that at that event we never
ended up doing it.
But there's software solutionsto lower thirds or whatever.

I like doing everything in hardware as much
as possible.
I mean, we do use ProPresenter.
That's a really good PowerPointsoftware.
It can do a lot of animationand stuff.
But I like doing it in hardwarewhere things can't crash.
We've had so many times.
Right now in the studio we'rerunning an M1 base model Mac
Mini and it has two quad Declancards and two outputs.

(01:05:09):
It has like 11 displays on it.
We are cranking that thing.
It's awesome and it works.
We can do Zoom, iso andProPresent presenter key fill
and stage display and it's great, but I don't love to trust it
yeah so as much as I can do inhardware.
You know we just set up ahyperdeck so we can do video
playback through the, throughthe system.
We use the keyers.
You know anything I can get inhardware, I try to go that way

(01:05:31):
no, that's my favorite thing,like, uh, funny enough, that's
how I use it.

So hyperdex is like one of my favorite things.
So my live streaming kit, wehave two hyperdex.
I've consolidated a lot.
I had like baby I started sofunny, started with like looking
at quentin's racks and stuff, Istarted like big rack and I
slowly, slowly got condensedbecause I realized the type of
gigs we're doing.
We want to be just small andefficient.
You know, instead of if theywant that huge of a setup,

(01:05:57):
they'll call you know somebodylike a quentin anyway for sure
what they're calling me for islike they want the live stream
to look better, right, withthose fx6 looks and that cinema
type of quality which is nottypical with broadcast cameras,
right.
So anyway, so yeah, but that'slike my favorite thing.
Uh, so I have a hyperdeck thatwe use for like playback, and
then hyper deck for recording,and it's like so cool to be able

(01:06:21):
to go in the rack where I justplug one output and it just
automatically routes and givesme more outputs.
But it also goes to the hyperdeck and then my favorite thing
is you switch to it, it justauto plays, you don't have to
like cue it.
It's the perfect timing.
There's nothing you have to doand it just works.
Again, coming back toBlackmagic, it just kind of
works and it's so good to beable to do playbacks and things

(01:06:45):
like that.
So now I want to go more intowhat do you think is the future
of video for churches and thingslike that.
So, obviously, 2020, 2020, welearned that everyone has to do
it and now that everyone isdoing it, you know, and I think
a lot of churches still do it onzoom, things like that, even

(01:07:07):
though we no longer have to, youknow, stay at home.
What do you think the future isgoing to go as far as
technology and video and mediago?

and I do think it's just going to keep getting
simpler and simpler.
There's such a commodificationof video it's.
It's, on one hand it's hard tostand out, but on the other hand
it's really easy to stand outbecause anybody can pull out a
phone and record, but noteverybody is going to do it with
the luts and with the color andwith the cinematic movements,
and so I think it's, I thinkit's going to be interesting

(01:07:38):
seeing how people choose tostand out in that way.
I also have a little bit of ahot take.
I don't think every churchneeds a live stream.
I feel like a lot of peoplejump into a live stream because
they feel like they need to toreach people, but most churches
don't get the views to support.
They would be much better offputting that money into another

(01:07:59):
part of the ministry.

Or just doing a better live production in the
church itself, I think.
Yeah, yeah, in-house.

Yeah.

Cause.
Just I think if you do it well,they can.
You know you can make a showand I think people Most churches
have such a limited budget.
Yeah.

Unless you're really going to put the effort
and actually make it yourevangelistic ministry, you're
better off saving the money.
I really feel Okay.

That's pretty cool or interesting to hear from a
video guy saying, hey, you don'tneed a video, but I get it.
I mean, like I said, I lived inAlabama for a few years and I
was just surprised how manychurches there are.
I I was like, are there evenenough people to support that
many churches?
because you know, they, becausethat's what churches are
fighting for, right.
They want viewership, they wantmore people to join the church

(01:08:46):
and come listen in the messageor whatever, and um, uh, but if
there's one like every year onthe corner, you know, if you're
small enough that there's no wayeveryone can grow that large.
I'm saying like whatever, yeah.
So at that point, um, I think,like you said, yeah, if you have
a limited budget, if you have asmall membership, then you're

(01:09:08):
probably better off using thatmoney somewhere else where you
can make a bigger impact and ifyou do want to live stream,
actually put the effort in tomake it high enough quality that
people are going to be there,you know which is exactly where
we were talking about earlier.
I think this is the perfectopportunity where somebody who
wants to learn live needs tostep up.
Like they need to go to thechurch that you know they go to,

(01:09:30):
especially if it's a smallerone.
You need to be the one saying,hey, let's go live stream, let
me make it better, or whatever,because then that's where you're
learning, so you get somethingout of it.
But then you can benefit thechurch by putting on a real
production or doing a betterproduction and maybe getting
some benefit out of it.
Right, yeah, yeah, so I thinkit goes.
Then that was it'll be a bothlike a good relationship, both

(01:09:51):
ways yeah, the church isbenefiting from it and you're
benefiting from it by learningand growing your skills and
things like that.
Uh, but, yeah, uh, but do youthink ai will replace you?
Because, to be real, mostchurches have a standard format,
right, uh, so once, uh, youfeed that into an ai system,
normally I'm very bullish on,like ai is not going to replace

(01:10:12):
filmmakers because, you know, wehave this creative vision,
we're doing something unique.
But church is one place where Isee, like you said, it's going
to get highly commoditized.
I don't see why we couldn'tprogram an ai to switch, because
you're like, hey, this is, thisis a program, right, you learn
it's a large lm light so you canbeat it.
Enough live streams and I thinktechnically nothing stops black

(01:10:35):
magic from pulling, putting outa product that has that built
in and then it can switch.

Again standardized.

I'm not saying something unique.
If you're doing somethingcustom or unique, obviously I
don't think AI right now isthere.
But I don't also foresee rightnow why an AI couldn't switch a
church live stream, because it'sso.

Yeah, I mean maybe it'll get there at some
point, but I feel like there'senough stuff out there that
shows how bad it is.
Like I, I get recommended, likeat least twice a week opus clip
to like pull podcast, podcastclips or, like we do, uh, sermon
clips.
So we'll take the sermon, cutit up into the, the bites of the
message and whatever, and we'vetried it and we try it, and we

(01:11:14):
try it and it just spits outgarbage because it has no
context for what we're talkingabout.
It'll do you know the spot thathe was the loudest or he'll you
know it'll trim just one minute, but then it missed the meat of
the point and it's going to bea long time before it can really
understand the content.
And I mean that's the biggestpoint.
You know we're not just tryingto pump out garbage.

(01:11:35):
That's the whole reason.
I don't want people to livestream like, yeah, you need to
make it intentional, you need tomake the content worth it, and
I think ai is a long way offfrom that okay, so you think,
for pulling the actual goodstuff out, it's not there yet
maybe, maybe it could mix a livestream, yeah, or something you
know.
Save that operator, maybepossible.

(01:11:56):
But there's a lot of what I dothat I it's gonna be a long time
before it replaces it.

Okay, that's good to hear uh, because you know a
lot of people in our industryfear ai and I feel like it has a
good tool.
Uh, that can be very you know,very beneficial, but I don't
know if you need to fear oranything I feel like so many
people don't see the value ofquality content.

They see just people posting five times a day
on TikTok and they grow.
They think they can do the samefor a church or a ministry or
whatever.
Nobody wants to watch garbagecontent.
Yeah, you might get some views,but nobody's going to latch
onto that.
And why bring your reputationas a church down from that?
You want to be known as thechurch with the theology, with

(01:12:40):
the content, with the reason whypeople want to show up.
Don't put out garbage, put theeffort behind it, do it right,
and AI is not going to do thatfor a while.

I get it.
So how would you, what wouldyou tell somebody how to
approach their church?
I guess, with this idea, whatis there a right way to say it?
Like, hey, let's pull outbetter content.
If you have a church you'regoing to and you think they're
putting out garbage content interms of quality and content,

(01:13:09):
how would you suggest somebodyhere approach them and then you
know, let's say they want tolearn, they want to get better,
but at the same time they wantto help them, not put garbage
out.
What would be the good way, I'msaying, to approach?

I feel like a lot of churches view social media
and their media presence ingeneral just kind of as a have
to.
Oh, we'll just do somemarketing push, we'll do some
Facebook ads, we'll do somewhatever.
But I really view what I do forchurches as another form of
evangelism, as spreading thegospel, and so if you, if you
can get a pastor to look at itthat way, it's like, oh, okay,

(01:13:42):
that's my job, I'm supposed tospread the gospel.
This is another path for it.
I'm as important as yourworship leader.
As you know, someone that goesout on the street like video is
important to spread your message.
Put some effort behind it,cause otherwise you're just like
those people on the street thatsays Jesus loves you.
It's like, okay, nobody's likefollowing up with them.
You're not.

(01:14:02):
You're not really doing much.
Put some effort behind it.

Okay, and that was you're going to.
You can get the word out tomore people.

Yeah, no, I completely get it.

And at the and the , and the technical side and the
creative side of it is, youknow, like I said, you want to
stand out, you don't want to beputting out the same thing that
500 of the churches are puttingout yeah you want to stand out,
you want your message to topenetrate past the noise, right,
yeah, and and again, I think,like I said, I I would just

(01:14:32):
suggest people, especially thisis, I think, for more people who
are like starting out or youknow who are- who are?
who want to just learn live orjust production.
In general, I think it's a good, like you said, low, low bar to
entry.

It doesn't take a lot to be better than everybody
else.
Exactly, it just needs a littlebit of intention.

And then the the other side of it is, I think,
what you, once you do, master,that not only will you help the
church, obviously, but the otherside is, I think you'll come
back um ready to take on, likebigger projects, where with
corporations or wherever, whereyou can actually charge a good
penny, yeah for for being ableto provide, because, uh, I mean

(01:15:14):
talking about you, say, inchurches the production quality
is low.
Uh, I'm not gonna name them,but you guys can pull up.
Av is basically monopoly byit's like two or three companies
all over the country.
They have partnerships.
No matter which hotel or resortyou're going to, it's going to
be one of the three.
Usually I'm saying the in-houseoption.
I'm saying, and they have kindof cornered the market because

(01:15:35):
they're the in-house options.
Typically, most companies justgo with the in-house options and
the quality is garbage.
It is so much garbage andthat's what I'm saying.
Like with not that much effortwe show up.
I'm saying a typical corporategig with like four bags, four
pelicans maybe, and we can putup a better show than that av

(01:15:56):
company with all these racks andracks of equipment that show up
.
Uh and again, I think it'sbecause they don't care.
Uh, it's simple.

It's not that they couldn't it's just that
check, check a box yeah, exactly, it's just again highly
commoditized.

At that point they're just like we are the
default anyway.
They don't have to like fightfor the business, right, and I
think that's why they're puttingout garbage, because it's so
funny.
Every live stream I've done formy clients they're like this is
the best.
We do these events all the time.
This is the best, or this isincredible, this is so dynamic
or whatever, right, the, the,the compliment that we get, and

(01:16:30):
I'm like I don't understand likehow the av companies are
charging double, triple of whatwe were charging, right, and
just putting out like the puregarbage.

And that's the crazy part.
Like churches, I get annoyedwhen they don't want to spend
any money and it's a bad product.
But these people are paying bigmoney and it's still a bad
product.

Yeah, it's still a bad product and usually, like I
said, it's just like maybe awide and a tight and that's all
they're switching to.
So many times I've been to avcompanies where they're trying
to play back a video and thevideo just doesn't play.
It's been like what, like youknow, I don't, I don't get it
like nowadays.
Like I said, if you're using amac mini or whatever I don't
know, or hyperdeck now I get,hyperdecks are a little

(01:17:11):
sensitive.
I think you have to be likereally pro res yeah, yeah or
whatever.
But but I'm saying a computer,if you're using for your
playback, and m1 most times canplay literally nowadays, any
format, it's not that complex.
So I don't understand whereI've been like, where I'm
talking av companies gettinglike a hundred thousand dollars
for conference and we're sittingthere five minutes awkwardly

(01:17:33):
because they can't play this,this video that they're supposed
to play, and and it's like whatis happening.
I can right now show up with mylaptop and, I know, play it,
and I don't know what tool theywere using, obviously, because I
wasn't the one doing that av,but the, the point in front of
me, yeah, the, the, what'sactually out there.
It's not that hard to be betterthan that yeah and and and, like

(01:17:57):
I said, these av companies canask for 100k, 50k from these
corporations.
You can go for 20, 25k and do abetter job and, uh, and you
know, make a killer living doingthat, because it's not that
hard.
If you again cared, that's themain thing I think it doesn't
come down to um skill it comesdown to is that that if you
again cared, that's the mainthing.

(01:18:17):
I think it doesn't come down toskill it comes down to is that
that if you care, you're goingto put an effort, you're going
to make the event nicer, theirevent's going to be nicer and
they're going to hire you againand recommend you again.

And it's, you know, it's a cycle.

But again, and the only reason I think it is the
way it is it's a monopoly.
I say monopoly it's like athroppoli or whatever, but you
know what I mean like it's likethey have a, they have a fixed
choice an easy pick and and it'slike, oh, we don't have to
fight for our work, we don'thave to work hard, and uh, and a
lot of times they even putfines on them.
Our clients have to pay like afee to bring an outside vendor

(01:18:51):
and I'm like that's never madesense to me.
We've had the at the ministryministry.

A few times we were at the convention center
and we still had to pay for allour operators to be there.
We brought all our ownequipment, we hooked in, we did
everything.
But, there was a guy sitting ina chair and we had to pay him.

Yeah, exactly, and you have to.
And it's not even their person,that's what I'm saying.
It's like the start partycompany, company that has the
the deal with them or whateverright.
And uh, and you have no choice.
And uh, you, either you eitheraccept it or you don't.
That's just how it is.
And in a city like orlandowhere, like I said, there's
conferences and events happeningliterally every day, like tens

(01:19:28):
of them, uh, the amount of workthat's out there is is crazy,
and you just have to convert afew of them.

You don't need all of them.

I.
I think that's a killer way tomake a living and, like I said,
as long as you learn and I thinkchurches and places of worship
are the best places to learnthis Because, like I said,
they're more willing to letnewbies come in I think once you
become an expert, this is avery good path to follow and,

(01:19:57):
like I said, it may not be foreveryone.
Maybe you go in thinking, oh,I'll do live, and then you come
back and go eh, it wasn't for me, that's okay.
At least you'll still learnvideo production skills, because
you're still operating cameras,you're still switching, which
is kind of like editing, you'restill learning storytelling and
all that.
So I think there's stillsomething to be gained.

(01:20:24):
Obviously, the learning,storytelling and all that.
So I think there's stillsomething to be gained.
Yeah, um, obviously more so ifyou want to do live after, uh,
but there's still something, uh,you know.
So is that what you think withquentin, that you guys will
target uh, more live, you, you,this, all this conference work
that's happening, hopefully, uh,and then be able to like, take
over at least some of it, andthat's like it's huge money.
Yeah.

That and potentially like integration.
A lot of churches are runningreally old stuff.
They have never put moneybehind it, so you know, maybe
bring us in to update the system.

Yeah, so you're just going church to church and
just updating the system, makingit better.

And then doing trainings on that system.

Yeah, that's pretty cool too, because there's
so much money in education I'vedone funny.
Like I'm not, I'm an indian.
Uh, you know.
So I'm not a christian, but Ihave done so many trainings for
churches where they've hired meas a consultant, where I've gone
and like shown them how tobasically, uh, do it better,
yeah, right, so, yeah, there'sso much money in just
consultancy, which is what kindof this right education uh is,

(01:21:15):
uh, yeah, and.
And so not only there's money,but then also, like I said,
you're again updating theirsystem, you're helping them kind
of get up to date on the rightway to do it, because they're
again probably stuck in old waysand most of them probably, like
I said, been in 2020 and justbought whatever they could, and
now they're stuck with thatbecause that's whatever was
available and unfortunately,just pieced it together over

(01:21:37):
time.

Yeah, where at some point you need to overhaul
yeah and actually make itvolunteer friendly, you know,
make the system, and that'ssomething that, like, I love.
Again, going back to thetechnical side, if I can spend
the time and program it rightand make it really easy for
somebody to operate like that'sthe best of both worlds.

Yeah, exactly, and and, like you said, you can
make it easy where volunteerscan step in and get it done, and
, who knows, maybe you can alsospark interest in those
volunteers to now one day become, you know, filmmakers or
whatever, and that's that's likeyou said.
A lot, a lot of people arelearning.
I'm seeing the spark startsthat way, like either through
their place of worship orthrough skateboarding or through

(01:22:14):
bmx or stuff like, where theyjust love their hobby and they
just want to film that hobby andthen it becomes into this.
Oh, I actually enjoy filmmakingmore than my hobby and I want
to make a career out of it and Ifeel like any opportunity where
you can have that spark show upis a good opportunity, because
until people actually experienceit, they have no idea, you know

(01:22:38):
, if they like it or not.
And, like you said, live can bevery daunting for a volunteer
and if it can already beprogrammed, it's better for the
church anyway, because it's likeall ready to go.
But then it can make it veryeasy for a volunteer to just
step in and go.
Oh, this is what I do.
Okay, I can press the button, Ican switch right, you know,

(01:22:59):
because I don't have to likeprogram these transitions or
whatever else you're programming.
Um, things like that.
Do you think there's money inthere?
Like what can?
What kind of money cantypically?
and again, I know we'reguesstimating here, but yeah
what do you think like a typicalsmall, medium-sized church
would pay for?

something like that.
Oh man, it really just depends,because I mean a lot of the
budget would be going in puttingin here.
A lot of it's going to have tobe a full, complete redo of the
system.

So what are we looking at?
I'm saying like, let's look atscale because, like you said,
it'll vary.

Yeah.

So it'd be like a low end to a high end.

Yeah, I mean three, 4,000,.
You know an eight, a mini and acouple of cameras, again four
or 5,000.
Um, I'm not really that intosound.
I'm.
I would love to learn more, butI'm not in that world yet.

(01:23:55):
So, you know, pa amps, all that, that's another big chunk of
money.
That's honestly where I thinkmost churches are going to spend
the most money, that'sstretches are going to spend the
most money.
That's the thing that mattersmost good audio matters.
A lot um, and you know we'relooking at potentially a weekend

(01:24:15):
.
You know friday, saturdayinstall sunday into monday
training and one weekend geteverybody set up and then maybe
a few months down the line,another consultation okay, so
you're thinking maybe what thatsounds like about 15, 20k, I'm
guessing probably something likethat.

And is there profit in that?
Because again you're buyingexpensive equipment technically.

Yeah.

So you're just thinking what Rates for the
technicians for?
The three, four days.
So okay, so that's pretty,that's not bad, I mean.
And like you said, the goodthing about churches is they're
everywhere.
I mean not as many in Florida,but they're still everywhere.
But the thing is, nothinglimits you from just Florida,
right, technically, nothingstops you guys from going

(01:24:52):
through this in the Bible Belt,which is what Texas, alabama,
mississippi, all these statesyou know and that have a lot of
churches, and then obviously therest of the country.

There's some big companies out there Summit
Integrations I followed them fora long time.
Uh, church front is another onethat that does this remotely,
Um, kind of looking at theirstrategies and copying their
homework a little bit.
Look at that, Look at that.

And that's very smart.
You know I'm all about see alot of people think like you
have to be, like, extremelyoriginal.
Yes, you have to be extremelyoriginal.
Yes, if you have an originalidea, be original.
But a lot of times, if allyou're trying to do is help for
example in your case, inQuinton's case, trying to help,
let's say, churches integrate,just look at who's market leader

(01:25:42):
or the top three market leadersand then study them as homework
, or you know, I don't iterateon what their work is.
Point is, you don't have to bethat original, especially when
you're starting out.
Yeah, like a lot of people like, go, I have to have this unique
, extremely unique offer.
I don't think you do.
I think, as long as you have agood offer right, and if you go
like hey, here's the marketleader, they're offering this,

(01:26:04):
this, this to you for this price, maybe I can do it for 10%
cheaper, 20% cheaper or whatever, right, that could be a good
start.
Now, eventually, I do think thatwhen you guys become set in the
market, you can then go startyour unique offerings or
whatever.
But I don't think people needto immediately go.
I'm going to do somethingunique.

(01:26:25):
I think, if they're trying todo what I do, which is corporate
video, you know you can only dointerviews so many different.
Now, sure, there's a scale ofit.
There's, you know, putting aphone in front of someone and,
uh, you know, doing it with,like I don't know, uh, alexis 65
or whatever.
Right, there's a scale.
But still, at the end day, onceyou master interview, you

(01:26:46):
master interview yeah and Idon't know why you need to fight
that.
You know like I wouldn't go like, oh no, where are you in?
Interviews are going to beextremely unique.
No, you're going to just dointerview.
Why don't you just learn it andstart doing them until you know
you've done a few hundred?
Then maybe you can I don't knowcome up with like a custom,
unique option.
I think that's easiest way tomake money is when you study the

(01:27:08):
market and, um, you know, youjust follow with it instead of
just immediately, when you havezero market experience, trying
to I don't know, uh, innovate.
Yeah, I feel like I don't knowand I'm not saying it cannot be
done, but I feel like it's awrong business strategy, when
you don't have any revenue, togo and try to do something
really crazy that you haven'teven tested the market with.

What do you think ?
Yeah, I mean I'm definitely notinto the business side, but hey
, I'm here to fill a client'sneed.
If they need the interview,like they've always had, I can
give them the interview they'vealways had.

Yeah, I don't.
I don give them the interviewthey've always had.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't know why we need to um,you know, like I said, start
something brand new immediately,especially, like I said, when
you you're not experienced, likeyou said, in business or
whatever, when somebody's new,uh, what makes you not be
interested in business?
So my thing is, even if you are, um, you know, let's say, just
working with quentin, you'll bethe technical guy, right, you're

(01:28:04):
still, you know you have's sayjust working with Quentin.
You'll be the technical guy,right, you're still.
You know you have to sellyourself in life 24 seven.
I feel like that's just life is.
So do you think that's going tobe a disadvantage for you not
being interested in business orany?

of that it for sure will be, and I need to
learn more.
I definitely need to pushmyself out of my comfort zone in
that way.

What do you?
What makes you not interestedin it?
It's just you don't care?
Or it's just I don't know, it'sdaunting, there's a lot there
that I'm just.

I'm an introvert, I love my technical stuff and I
just want to live in thatbubble.

I know I can't do that forever, but yeah, no, I
feel you because you know I'm anintrovert.
A lot of people in the videofield don't know that, but like,
that's because I'm an expert inthe field so I can talk about
it.
But like, if I go sit in a youknow, I don't know with some
people and they start talkingabout something I don't know
about, like I said, outside oftechnical stuff or video stuff,
I I'm an introvert, I'm like Idon't know what to talk about.

(01:28:56):
I'm probably going to be quietas hell and uh and uh.
But no, that's, that'ssomething that is very, not, um,
not a good trait to have in myopinion.
Not that, again, you can changeit.
Who you are is who you areright, but at the same time you
know, let's say, you're even thetechnician In my opinion you
show up and if you're just quietdoing your own thing, people

(01:29:20):
are going to think, oh, he wasrude or whatever.
Right.
That's just the perception I'mseeing, and perception is
reality.
You want to be the guy who'slike, friendly and talking, and
not because and just because.
Then people you know they likethe experience, they like to
have it being your own and Idon't think that means being
fake.

Yeah.

But that also just you know, I don't know.
I feel like that's what I'velearned as an introvert who runs
a business that you have to begood at communication and even
if you don't want to be, becauseat the end that's what makes
this part of client experienceand it is very important because
even if you may be thereprogramming ATEM, programming

(01:30:01):
the cameras, if you're just likeI don't know, I feel like not
friendly or not talking orwhatever, then clients may just
perceive as, oh, he was justrude or whatever, he was helpful
or whatever, and then you don'twant to have that perception.
Have you experienced that inlife, or have you noticed that
at least?

yeah, I mean, yeah, I definitely need to, like
I said, push myself in that way.
But I I feel, like you know,face-to-face I'm all right in
that way.
It's just the client relationscold calls, like you know, the
management behind the scenes,that is not my cup of tea.
I mean, I can be personal, I'mall right in that way.

Yeah.
So what's your camera of choice?
I know've shot fx3 with me, fx6with me.
I know you use black magic, uh,with the ministry?
What other camera systems?
Uh, do you have a preferenceout of all this that you like,
or?

like sony a lot.
Yeah it's.
It's easy to make it do what Ineed it to do in the moment.
It's just so flexible.
Um, I've actually sold most ofthe gear that I have.
I have a A7C2 in my backpack.
Yeah, I really gravitate to theFX3, fx6.

Because you don't need any gear anymore.
Right, because again, theyprovide everything for you.
But do you lean towards FX3 orFX6?
What's your style between thetwo?
Are you more compact, hybrid,or do you like more beefy body,
more rigged out or whatever?

it really depends on the production.
So if I'm doing an event, shootum, like I did with you,
generally I would do fx3handheld.
I can just get in tighter, youknow, move faster um, but if
it's a live stream or aninterview or something I'll I'll
go for the fx6 all day longokay, so that makes sense.

So you're you're because I know, uh, everyone is
style like I'm more fx6, uh guy.
But again, a lot of events, weuse fx3 on a gimbal.
That's kind of what you did forme and that's just because you
know you got to be able to go,but you got to also be able to
be smooth, and things like that.
Um, uh, do you think, uh, um,like that, this is, this has

(01:32:06):
gotten all like similar.
My only issue is that everythingis now Sony, so there is a
certain look that Sony isbringing, which is not a bad
look yeah but if everyone isshooting Sony, then everything
starts to look, unless youpurposefully and I'm also not a
big fan of purposefully makingfootage teal and blue or green
giving a certain look justbecause, because you want to be

(01:32:27):
different.
But typically these camerashave looks and I think the Sony
look is now so overused.
Do you see that as an issue orno, that everything's going to
just look the same?

I mean to a point .
As long as you're delivering agood product that the client's
happy with, I'm happy, and Ifeel like Sony can just do that
so consistently.
And a lot of it does come downto taste.
I'm super not into the crazyLutz teal and orange like you're
talking about, but I do like avery contrasty, punchy image and
I feel like that's not supertrendy at the moment.

(01:33:01):
So hopefully I stand out justby that at the moment.

So hopefully I stand out just by that.
But yeah, no, then right now,the, the whole filter thing is
in which I'm not a big fan ofthe, the popular one, um, people
throw what is it?
Black, the black promise,promise, yeah, I like the
hollywood black magic, uh,better, just because I feel like
the way it renders highlightsis nicer, which I don't know.
If you notice that fx6highlight response is terrible,
I feel like as soon as you throwlike a promist on, it looks

(01:33:29):
even more horrible.
Uh, because you know it createsthat halation even at the
lowest setting and most peopleare not using 1.8, they're using
like quarter or whatever, andI'm like this is too much on a
camera that's already, you know,halating by itself, I don't
know, in highlights.
So I don't like that look.
But yeah, you're right, it'svery common and popular now, and

(01:33:52):
even not Blackmagic, eventhere's other companies now
everyone has a mist option thatpeople are throwing in, right,
I'm a sucker for it a little bit.

I have the short stash everyday filter on my
camera right now it's a quartermist and a circular polarizer
okay they're great every day forstreet photography or stuff,
but I'm I'm not a huge fan on.

Yeah, on for video yeah, I think, like I said, I
really like hbm, so I I do useit.
I use hbm one eighth for thattoo, like I said, eighth, and I
do like it because it doesn'tcause as much halation.
I like the way it rendershighlights better but, like I
said, I'm still not a fanbecause I personally am not a
like.
Like on Alexa, amazing, I useit all the time.

(01:34:36):
But, like I don't know, fx6response to me is just, I don't
know, I'm not a fan of puttingmore, uh, more mist on.
I'm saying fx6 sensor yeah, andbut that's a common theme.
I find most people have learnedabout filters, so it's like,
and every nd is coming up with amist built into type of thing,
so it's like it's, it'severywhere that low contrast, um

(01:34:57):
uh image is like really outthere right now, yeah, um, but
no, it's good.

No, I'm not either.
I mean, I like high contrast,yeah, dark shadows.

Yeah, no, I do like to crush my shadows too.
I do like the like I said.
I don't have an issue with lowcontrast look, I think it's a
good look, but I think it'soverdone.
But so is gimbal usage, I thinkit's overdone.

Nowadays it's like everything's just a similar
look and it's like again Ireally don't end up using a
gimbal too much, I mean for the,for the ministry.
Everything we're doing isreally fast run and gun.
We do a lot of worship music,so it's a lot of basically
concert-esque um.
So I I like to get handheldmovement yeah, no, I, I like

(01:35:42):
handheld movement.

I think it's more, especially if it's done right,
especially that's when I love Ihave fx3 over fx6.
I really like the ibis.
Yeah, it's not the strongestbut you know it can help with
that handheld because gettingthose punching in, getting those
close-ups with like a 70 to 200, I think it's incredible look
and fx3 is so perfect becausethat ibis and the lens and the,

(01:36:04):
the camera works together and Ithink it gives you enough
stabilization where you can getaway with the handheld look and
it just looks so natural andlooks nice and you don't have to
use a gimbal or whatever.
And it'd be hard anyway with a70-200.
That's like one of my favoritethings I would love for you to
do on that event that I'mthinking about bringing you
favorite things and, like I said, I would love for you to do on

(01:36:25):
that event that I'm thinkingabout bringing you uh to uh.
That'd be really cool if youcan switch between like a 24 70
and a 70 200 and get meclose-ups, because I think
that's just an incredible look.
Yeah, um to get um, but yeah,that's.
That's pretty neat.
So this is um.
Like I said, I love thetechnical side of where we're
touching in um.
Do you like to go?
Do you use anything, auto or no?

(01:36:47):
You're just all manual mostlymanual.

I mean, for photography I'll generally set
it to aperture priority, justlet the ISO figure it out.
But for video I'm pretty manualeverything.

So are you still doing photography like paid or
just more like enough for fun?

I do paid photography very scarcely.
Uh, I do paid photography veryscarcely.
We just did a maternity shoot,my wife and I.
I will do it.
I don't.
The same reason.
I don't prefer weddings.
I don't like working withindividual families that are
really picky.
You know one of the worstexperiences I had I did a
graduation shoot and all thephotos of the graduate were

(01:37:23):
phenomenal, but the mom didn'twant to pay me because her
five-year-old had glare in hisglasses on one.
All the photos of the graduatewere phenomenal, but the mom
didn't want to pay me becauseher five-year-old had glare in
his glasses on one of the photos.
I was like what?
Okay, like I, I don't want todeal with people.

Yeah, so I I stay away from you at least.

Yeah, yeah they worked it out, but it was like
it wasn't even a photo of thegraduate, yeah, and it came into
a big fuss.
I was like, all right, i't, Idon't need this stress.
So I kind of stay away fromphotos for that.
But I do love photos.
I still do a lot of eventphotos, just, you know, around
churches, or you know, I'll takeHannah out and we'll go to the
beach, take, you know, someportraits or whatever.

Okay, so it's more like finding an occasional pay.
It's my way to get about, yeah,so you're still focused mostly
on making money through video.
Yeah, yeah, which makes sense,and that's how we've always
worked together through video.
Um, how was the networkingevent?
So that was really cool.
So you attended the networkingevent with quentin and we did it
at c10.

(01:38:17):
So, yeah, that was really cool.
I know how was your experiencemeeting people, getting out
there, talking to other peoplewho are like doing that
freelance journey and obviouslysome of them are like you had a
full-time job too, so how wasthat?
tell me about that experiencemeeting every it was really,
actually, very interesting.

I, I don't know anybody you know, I'm the worst
video guy.
I don't have any contacts.
It was really cool gettingplugged into the to the group.
You know I've known quentin fora while, um so getting to work
with him and seeing other peoplein the group is is really
helpful um do you meet anynotable people where you were
like, oh, this could help me orat least give you inspiration or

(01:38:54):
something like that?

I don't know did you have any meaningful
conversations where it changedyour perspective?
Or at least because I know wealso did the educational
segments he had three peoplespeak.
There was a lot going on thatday, so I'm like I don't know if
that did any of that changeyour perspective or open your
mind or anything like that.

Yeah, I'm trying to really absorb as much as I
can.
Unfortunately, I'm just notready to jump ship yet, so a lot
of it's kind of gatheringinformation and then holding it
away for later.
So I didn't really feel like Iapplied too much right away, but
it's really good to to get thatknowledge for when I'm ready to
jump and to make connections.
Same thing for when I'm readyyeah, because it'll be very easy

(01:39:35):
.

Now.
You can go all the people thatyou met right like, hey, I'm
freelancing now or or whatever,I'm available to hire whatever,
and you never know what comesyour way.
And that's, I think, the partof what these meetups are, right
, you just meet variety ofpeople and all the different
skill set, all the differentpositions, and you never know

(01:39:55):
where what happens.
Yeah, is it?
Maybe somebody you end uphiring because you need a
freelancer, or the other wayaround they need somebody and
you, uh, you know you they getto hire you.
But that wouldn't have happenedhad you not met these people
yeah and you wouldn't have metthem had somebody not put up a
meetup together and you can getsome valuable information out of
it because, um, you know, um,that he had.

(01:40:20):
You know, uh, like I think alexand adam speak about some of
some really cool stuff.
Like even I learned, like I'mnot charging for storage, even
though my storage costs arecrazy.
Like I got to show you theserver before you go.
So it's like you know that allcosts money and if you're not
accounting for, you know, in theclient invoices or whatever, it

(01:40:40):
may not be direct, I don't knowif I'll put like a storage fee
in there and again, you could,could, but it needs to be built
into my calculation because it'slike that is a cost right and I
hadn't.
I didn't know that until thatday.
I was like, oh, that's a veryvalid point.
Why am I not including thatwhenever I do my internal
calculation, that that is thecost that I have and then I have

(01:41:01):
to bear?
So things like that you learn alot.
Yeah, may be simple, but thatyou didn't think for, or you
didn't come for.
Because you're not thinkingabout it.
And that type of cost appliesto everyone, because even if
you're a DP or whatever shot forsomeone, you're still storing
their footage.
Because guess what Clients willsix months later reach out and
say, hey, do you still have it?
And if you have it, negativeexperience if you deleted it,

(01:41:25):
which is fair, obviously,because there's cost.
And if you do have it, that'sgreat.
But now that means for sixmonths you were using a hard
drive or somewhere, all thatdata.
That means you had costs thatyou didn't charge for.
So something like that.
I feel like those are reallygood.
So I'm glad you attended one.
Can't wait for you to attendmore, yeah, and meet more and

(01:41:48):
more people, and maybe that'llhelp you in any way.
I don't know what it will be.
You never know who you mean,and they may just be like, oh,
there's a gig or there's this orwhatever.
That's like, uh, big enough orright enough, or you go, oh,
this is this is exactly what Imean.
um, and then you jump ship, oreven if, even if you don't, the
one thing I do like about you islike you're able to do enough
freelance work without having tocompromise your job in any way,

(01:42:12):
so you don't have toessentially quit right, unless
you have enough work where.

And I like it at the ministry.
You know I'm not looking toleave.
You know if I can do both, if Ican get enough side work to you
know, support my family andalso stay at the ministry.
I'm perfectly happy with that.

So is it just you?
How many people are there?
I know Quinton works, but he'slike a contractor, right?

Yeah, we have three full timers and then a
handful of contractors.

Okay, and Quinton is a contractor, and that's how
you met him.
How long have you known him?

We started about the same time at the ministry.
That was um early 21.
My hire date was like april 1stand he had started on right
before that okay, so, so, andthen I know you guys are good
friends.

That's how I met yeah uh you, because, uh, I
needed someone and uh, herecommended you and I think I
came by.
He wanted to do something at cfan and, um, I don't even
remember what we were doing,like some kind of camera test or
something right he just wantedevery camera he could get to
shoot the same thing, and Idon't think he did anything out
of it that uh, but it was socool to hang out with.

(01:43:15):
Uh, like, say, you and we hadalex and a bunch of other people
and it was really cool to have,like what, 10 cameras there, if
not more made for good picture.
Yeah, I know, it's really cooland uh, and that's the thing.
When I met you and I was like,oh, this is really cool, we're
like connecting becauseobviously you care about video
and and everything like that,and I was like, oh, that's
really nice to meet somebodyelse.
Technical, because that's whereI found myself.

(01:43:37):
Weird, because I'm verybusiness.
I don't know if you could telllike I'm running a company here,
I'm very much like pro businessand all that, but at the heart
I'm just, uh, I'm a very techguy, right, I love to go to the
core of um, you know, like Idon't know the tech about the
cameras and like the lightingand everything, and I'll go
immerse myself like I'll obsessover and then want to learn

(01:43:59):
everything to do with it.
And that's what got me intovideo initially, because it was
so tech focused, um and.
But I don't like bring it upwith most people because most
people don't care about it thatway.
Right, most people are like,talk to me about the images or
the creativity, which is cool.
I love that too, but I'm justsaying most people don't care
about like what I saw using,what aperture using and why are

(01:44:21):
using that?
What look is that giving?
All that?
You know the technical part ofit and I love how a certain
aperture or shutter speed orwhatever can do to the image.

And how can I?

manipulate it to do whatever I want it to do, or
whatever.

And especially on the Sony cameras, where the
levels of dynamic range changeon the ISOs.
So it's like counterintuitive.
You want a higher ISO when it'sbrighter outside because you
have more highlight retentionand it gets really nerdy really
fast and once you actually startto really dive into that, you
go, oh, or like my favoritecamera before this.

Actually, technically so, my favorite
sensor I would say on the lowerI was under 20k cameras was the
c70 because that dga sensor andI loved it because it had one of
the best shadow responses than,I would say, any sensor I've
used outside of alexis.
And I was like, oh, I canactually purposefully
underexpose image, which youdon't do on most cameras,

(01:45:16):
because you know it'll just killyour shadows and same thing
very nerdy, I would love to dothat.
I was, I'd be purposely a lot ofpeople.
Why are you doing that?
I was no, because I want toretain more highlights, and this
is one of the rare cameras Ican do that because I know how
much I can pull up from theshadows and stuff like that,
cause you know, once you learnthe sensor, you know what you

(01:45:36):
can do with it, and and like Ino, but I love doing that with
the 70, so kind of like that,and and uh, that's like.
Like I said, I love gettinginto the nerdy part about it,
but you can't and that's what Iwould even suggest to people
like you can do it with yourfriends, but you, when you go to
a client, they don't care.

(01:45:56):
They don't care what camera youhave, what settings you're
using, and rather that can be adetriment.
It'd be like, uh, like I thinkI had david on the podcast uh, a
while back where we werediscussing and he was like uh,
you know, uh, you know.
Imagine if you called a plumberand he spent 10 minutes telling
you about how nice and shinyhis crescent wrenches while you

(01:46:17):
have a leak going on, right?
and you go just fix the freakingleak and it's kind of like that
we can get all nerdy about this.
Camera can do this, this, howmuch dynamic range I have, or
whatever, while the client goes.
I just want to get this videodone.
Can we film the ceo, right?
So it's like uh, you know andthat's why it's cool to know
each other where we can nerd outabout this stuff while we're

(01:46:41):
not annoying the client talkingabout how beautiful our camera
is, where they don't care.
You know, usually, like I said,they like the big size If you
have a camera that looks big orthey don't care it's one or the
other, and even then they'lljust say, oh, that's a nice big
camera or I've had.
It's so funny.
This is rare, but I was in ashoot recently where we pulled

(01:47:02):
out the two FX6s because it wasan interview.
So it's my a and b cameras andmy fx6 I rigged pretty, you know
, matte box, um, um, you know,with a v mount and all that.
But anyway the client goes uh,do you ever use bigger cameras?
And I'm like what are youtalking about?
What bigger cameras?
You know, like in my brain I'mlike I was like yeah, I mean,
depends on the job.
It's like they get moreexpensive.

(01:47:22):
I don't know if they'd get anybigger than this.
You know, like in my brain I'mlike I was like yeah, I mean,
depends on the job.
It's like they get moreexpensive.
I don't know if they'd get anybigger than this.
You know, sure I could rig morethings to it, but you know
that's unnecessary but anyway.
So I'm saying that's alsohappened, that's rare, but where
the client goes, do you want touse anything bigger?
I'm like this is already fairlybig to me right now because you

(01:47:43):
know I could pull an fx3 andget 95 of the image for this
tiny body.
Yeah, but clients are like that.
You never know.
They'll say the weirdest things.
Uh, where, where you know itcan throw you off for a loop for
a second, you're like what?
Or usually say, oh, that's avery big camera, that must be
very expensive.
I'm like, well, it is decentlyexpensive, but it's not because

(01:48:04):
it's's bigger, it's just becauseit costs what it costs.
But anyway, I'm saying outsidethat clients don't really care
the size or the quality of yourcamera or whatever.

It's so funny now , like you know, the Raptor X
and the Borano they're basicallythe same size for way more
money.
It's like, yeah, you can spenda whole lot more money, but it's
not going to look thatdifferent.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, you can spend a whole lot
more money, but yeah, it's notgonna look that different.
Yeah, it's, it's a five, tenpercent.
And now, uh, it does matterwhen the budget is high.
So I've had people ask like andthis is like, uh, and, and you
would probably get this what I'msaying like a lot of filmmakers
typically don't get this.
They go I don't get it.
My fx3 looks so good.
Why would I ever use a red, orwhich reds are not used that
common anymore?
But I'm just saying like, whywould I use a v-raptor or or an

(01:48:50):
alexa mini lf or whatever, or 65or 35 or whatever?
And I'm like, well, it's kindof like it's hard to first
explain if you have no idea, butI'm like it's like, think of
this way, why would you not usea cell phone?
Then it's the same scale, right?
It's like if a client pays youmoney, why aren't you using a

(01:49:11):
cell phone?
Why aren't you using an fx3?
Why are you using an fx6 orwhatever camera?
So the scale goes, whatever,but you're right at the end day
it's like five percent once youget to a certain level, which
cameras are so good?
Now you're chasing pixels,right, you're like chasing very
minute percentages.
Now, that matters.

(01:49:31):
Like I use, I'll tell you me A.
When a client's paying me 30grand a day, they expect me to
use the best and I'm going touse the best tools and I find
now this may be a personal thing, but I'm pretty sure it's to
everyone because it'll accesseverywhere.
Like I'll rent minis or miniLFs that's like the camera I
typically rent and I'm usingthem because the skin tone is so

(01:49:54):
beautiful and especially whenyou're filming, like people with
various different skin tones,right, I love how it renders not
only Caucasian skin tone butalso darker skin tones, and I
haven't seen cameras that canmake skin tone look so creamy,
nice, it doesn't matter themoney.
Now, yes, does that mean if Iput a burano there or an fx6

(01:50:16):
there, the skin tone is justgonna be trash?
No, you know what I mean.
But it's like that.
It's like the the scale rightwhere it's like that.
It's like the scale right whenit's like, hey, we want a
corporate video done.
Okay, what can you spend withme?
5k?
Well, we're using the FX6.
That's what's in the budget.
I don't have five grand to gorent cameras when the whole

(01:50:36):
video is five grand.
But now if you're like, hey,yeah, we're doing something,
high end budget is like 20, 30k,we can afford to do that on
this video, then I'm like itwould be disservice.
Now, could I shoot it with thefx6?
Yes, but then could I shoot itwith an iphone?
Yes, but I'm going to use thebetter tool because I want the
people to look at their best.
Just like why I would bring ahair and makeup artist.

(01:50:57):
Right, I would bring an hmubecause, uh, I want the client
to look their best.
I'm going to bring an alexabecause I want their skin tone
to look the best.
Not that it's necessary, right,just like on a five grand video
.
Nothing stops us from using acell phone and I'm pretty sure
and I can't believe I'm sayingthis I would have not said this

(01:51:17):
a few years ago, but now aniPhone 16 Pro, max or whatever
on log is a very good image.

It's really good.

Yeah, with good lighting, because lighting makes
a bigger difference than thecamera.
So if you do good lighting, youcould you technically use that.
But am I going to know?
Because I have a better toolthat will render against skin
tones better than that.
They'll give me better dynamicrange, even though I know
iPhones can fake better dynamicrange.
But you know what I mean, likeI love that about, uh, the fx6

(01:51:45):
is that the image is really good, it's really creamy, it's
really nice.
But now again, I'm not going tocompare that to the alexa, but
I'm not going to use the alexaif I have enough money, if I
don't have enough money to gorent them and make enough profit
.
Simply is that.
And but anyway, that's what I'msaying.
Like I've had that happen wherepeople go the scale.
So I, yes, I don't think youneed anything more than an
iphone nowadays, but you willbecause you have the more budget

(01:52:08):
.
Right, the client says I have ahigher budget, you know, then
you use a better tool.

Well, in that same vein.
You know the scale also doesn'thave to be a vertical scale,
but there's so many phenomenaloptions in the same price point
you really can pick the optionthat fits the shoot best.
So if I'm super run and gun, Ijust need to put something in my
backpack and go get footage, Igrab the fx3.
But if I'm going to do, youknow, with time code and with

(01:52:34):
you know, more ports andwhatever, I can grab an fx6.
Or just want the best imagequality and go get a komodo x.
Or it's awesome that everythinghas such a phenomenal bar of
quality now that now I'm noteven thinking about, well, can I
get the image I want?
But it's like what's going tomake my life easier or what's
going to fit this productionbetter, built in NDs versus IBIS

(01:52:55):
versus you know whatever?

And I think also it's about the right tool for
the right job right.
If a client hires me and theywent, they want their content to
look like UCG.
I'm using an iPhone.
It's not about money.
It's about that's the righttool, because it's going to look
like a user made it Versus 5Pro and FX6.
It's going to look like aprofessional image and that's
not the right tool.
So you also use the right tooland that's why I tell people yes

(01:53:21):
, your iPhone's great, yourFX3's great, your Komodo's great
Nowadays.
Yes, your iPhone's great, yourFX3's great, your Komodo's great
Nowadays.
Camera doesn't matter.
You know what matters, to me atleast, that can make or break a
shot Lighting, sound.
People will watch a terriblelooking video because they're
used to it.
Crappy content is everywhere.
They will not listen to acrappy sound.
They will not listen to or theywon't look at the videos and

(01:53:43):
let well, or whatever, somethinglike that.
So I think you're better offspending more time and effort
into lighting and sound thancamera, which is crazy coming
from me to me.
You know the camera guy first,then lighting and sound and all
that, yeah, but that's just whatit is.
Uh, don't you agree?
Don't you think like it makessuch a big, bigger difference
than any camera would?

(01:54:04):
Because you, you're splittinghairs, right?
To me personally, thedifference between Alexa and FX6
is just that it's skin tones,so it's not that huge.
It's important, but it's notworth a 50 grand camera versus a
6 grand camera, right?
Yes, we'll use the right toolbecause, oh, I have more money,
sure, I'll rent a better tool.

(01:54:24):
Yes, we'll use the right toolbecause, oh, I have more money,
sure, I'll rent a better tool.
And I'm sure my clients, as Iever expect they will use the
best tool for the job becausethey're paying a top dollar.
But it's not like that huge ofa difference.
It's like I wouldn't go buy itis what I'm saying anymore.
Like in the past, having boughtan Alexa, I wouldn't buy it
anymore.
Now, I don't think it's worthowning it.

(01:54:45):
Having bought an Alexa, Iwouldn't buy it anymore.
Now, I don't think it's worthowning it because the times I'm
needing it, I can charge myclient and they're happy to pay
it, and if it's not the righttool for the job, they're not
paying it anyway, so it doesn'tmatter.
So I don't think those twotools make any more sense owning
them, unless you again want tooperate a rental house.
That's different, but yeah,that's another thing people go
into, like you don't have to buygear anymore, just rent it, and

(01:55:05):
as the gear gets better, Ithink you can bill your client
for it.
So if you need it, just rent it, and if you don't, you don't
need it.
Yeah, don't need to invest init or anything like that yeah,
that's.

I mean, that's what kind of the boat I'm in.
I'm trying to.
I mean, I like I said before II've sold basically everything I
have and I have an a7 c2 and a40 mil prime just for photos and
stuff.
But I'm really looking atwhat's like the minimum viable
package for me and I think I'mprobably going to go fx6 route,
you know, a 300 in a softbox, acouple tubes, just a really

(01:55:38):
basic package, and then I'll getlike 90 of what I need and rest
.

You can always rent right yeah, if you need it,
you can rent it, and otherwiseyou're good, and that's.
If you need it, you can rent it, otherwise you're good, and
that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, you're right, I thinkmost people just need one
package, and maybe it could be acamera, maybe a good A camera,
maybe a decent B camera, andthat's about it and you can do
90% of corporate commercial work, and anything else you can

(01:56:04):
always rent.
You know, you can always add toyour package, like I've got a
whole van out there.
So, it's not.
It's not like there'slimitation on what equipment you
can find, and and it's a betterinvestment too, cause then your
startup costs to be goingfreelance wouldn't be that high.
Right, yeah, you can go nowinstead of like, oh, let me save

(01:56:27):
10 years to get this stupidpackage that will be old anyway
by that time, because you knowcameras age like so poorly.
Uh, like I said, they look sogood, but the new ones come out,
like especially sony.
They're churning out, I feellike new bodies every six months
and it's like I'm.

I mean I'm kind of sad, though, because it looks
like we're not going to get anFX3, fx6 upgrade for a little
while.

I have heard, and again these are rumors.
I've heard something is coming,but again I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't want to speak on rumors, but the good thing is or I say
good.
The crazy thing is, for me atleast the demand for FX6s is so

(01:57:08):
high that I don't think it'sgoing to change like immediately
, even if they tomorrowannounced oh, there's an fx6
mark 2 or whatever, like I said,I don't think it's going to
make fx6 tomorrow be likeredundant because the image is
good and they're being usedeverywhere.
I mean, reality shows are 90right now, just fx6s, maybe with
fx3 thrown in I don't know whatsony could do.

I mean, like there's a lot that they could
prove.
Yeah, you know, ergonomics wise.
Like I would love a betterscreen built in.
You know, I'd love, you know,audio on body.
Yeah, I'd love the ai autofocus like we have on the a7 I
think that's where it's probablygonna be.
I don't think image quality isgonna change now I don't know
how much brano.

I think br Burano is the perfect idea of what an
FX6 March 2 could be, Not thatyou know, I'm saying it's
guaranteed, but I'm sayingusually when you look at
companies, that's what happens.
Right, it comes to the higherend, then it trickles down to
the lower end, and the onlything I foresaw like foresee
personally is based on Buranofinally being able to get IBIS

(01:58:04):
and NDE together, and then alsothe whole AI stuff that they're
doing now in their cheaperbodies.
That will trickle up type ofthing.
But yes, you're right, thesensor's already this good.
Now obviously we can allhypothetically say we would love
more dynamic range, we wouldlove better codecs, we would
love more options.
I don't know why they don'tgive you their H.265 codec on

(01:58:26):
FX6.
Makes no sense to me.
The naming scheme on clipformat, like I love the way.
On FX3, like second, I can goon a tangent.

You can label them.

you know with the date automatically and the file
names makes it so easy.
You can do that on FX6s.
Doesn't make sense, why not?

That's my biggest gripe with sony that they
release a firmware and thendon't go back retroactively and
fix it across.

So it's like they've added, like you said,
things at the lower end and thehigher end, and typically I'm
saying, when they'll release it,they'll, it'll just trickle up
and down.
Yeah, but to be real, it's notthat much.
But at the same time again, uh,the way at least I invest in my
gear is wherever the industrygoes.
If tomorrow they launch an FX6Mark II or FX9 Mark II or
whatever, and that's whateveryone's using, then that's

(01:59:11):
what I'll buy because I'mrunning a company right.

To me.

It's ROI.
It's like is the demand there?
Is my camera going to work?
Sure, I'll buy it.
But if the demand won't shift,like Burano.
So immediately as Burano wasannounced I was like and shift
like Burano.
So immediately as Burano wasannounced I was like, oh, I'm
going to buy two.
That's going to become myprimary A and B camera.
But then they launched and Iwas just waiting.
I was waiting for a reason.
You know the way I buy gear.
Somebody's like, hey, we needtwo Buranos.

(01:59:34):
Okay, I'm ready to invest.
So let me buy them instead ofrenting them.
But then I didn't care.
Same thing where, like we weretalking with black magic, they
don't care, just use whatever,yeah.
Or they were like oh, yeah,we're gonna use fx6s or fx3s.
Or hey, can you use alexa?
Right, it's either nothing.
That's what I hear at least.

(01:59:54):
I would love to know people incomment.
They're feeling differently orhearing differently.
But it's like just use whatever.
Or use fx6 or alexa if theyhave a high budget, that's's it.
I haven't heard the word evenred, which is so crazy to me.
It used to be common last fewyears.
It's like nobody's demandingfor that.
I'm saying you can use it, butnobody's like calling to say

(02:00:14):
like hey, I'm an agency, can youdo the shoot for me?
Can you please shoot on red?
Or can you please shoot onNikon or Canon or whatever?
I haven't heard those words inat least, I would say, two years
which is crazy to hear that themarket was so consolidated, I'm
saying by the FX6 and FX3s,because they were so good,
Because technically the camerasare old but they consolidated

(02:00:38):
the market so well that andthat's why I told people invest
in them even now, because Idon't think market is going to,
in one day, fully switch,because markets don't change
that fast.
Yeah, but if it does happen, I'dbe happy to like say I want to
personally buy boranos.
I think it.
It fits well in my workflow.
Plus, I like that I can use mye-mount lenses and all that you
know, so I see use for it.

(02:00:58):
but, like I said, I'm justwaiting for demand and I haven't
gotten any calls for it and I'mlike it'd be silly me and I'm
sure I could if somebody callsme and says, hey, we need to FX6
.
And I'd be like, yeah, we canupgrade you to Burano.
But then I'm like that makes nosense to me.
If they're just calling for FX6, just use the FX6 that we have.
So that's the only reason Ihaven't bought Buranos right now

(02:01:19):
.

So anyway the point is you?

You're right.
I don't know what they can do.
There is obviously things theycan fix, but those things could
technically already be fixed byfirmware and FX6 if they wanted
to.
I don't think they want to.
I don't know what it would taketo bring the H.265 codecs, but
I think they should be there,because the M1 Macs cut through

(02:01:41):
H.265 footage like butter and Idon't know why we don't have
that because it's on FX3.
So you know stuff like that.
I'm saying they couldpotentially add it if they
wanted to, but if not, you knowwe'll wait till Mark 2, see what
happens, and then I would loveto see.
I'm going to do the same thing.
I'm going to wait to see.
If everyone just goes crazy onthem and then the market just

(02:02:03):
switch, then sure I'll happilybuy a couple, but if not, then I
think I'm happy.
As far as quality goes, I'm notreally missing anything.
So yeah, no, it's crazy.
Well, look at us, it's alreadybeen two hours.
This was an incredibleconversation.
Thank you again for coming andtalking with me.
I hope it was fun.

(02:02:25):
Before we go, anything else youwant to say or add and tell
people where to follow you.

Sure, I'm on Instagram andrewkellermedia and
yeah, it was great to be on theshow.

Thank you, Andrew.
Always a pleasure talking toyou and can't wait to talk again
in the future.

Yeah, man.

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