From Zero to Dream Studio: How to Build a Thriving Video Business

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
all right, Emmanuel welcome.

Emmanuel Gallegos (00:06):
Thank you for coming, my friend.
I know how busy you are, ofcourse you were like one of the
top people on the list.
I felt bad because, uh, wealways have a great uh schedule
and then I'm over here tellingyou I'm gonna be late.

I made it, I made it.
I know a little bit late, but Iwas able to make it well, I'm
glad you're here, um, you know,and so to all the new listeners
and the reason, and you know,we've been talking about this
for for years now.
at this point, I wanted to startthis podcast because, um, these
are the conversations that Iwish I could hear you know when
I was starting up, because thethe real truth is, over all

(00:38):
these courses that are availableonline, you can learn so much
from people in the industry oraround the industry who are
actually in it instead of, youknow, just trying to sell a
course.
So you were one of the firstpeople you know I wanted to have
on here, because I think youhave great insight, so thanks
for coming.

Like I said, thank you for thinking about me.

If not, you know, like I said, we'll jerk around
for two hours, but hopefullypeople will learn something out
of it.
I mean, I don't knowno-transcript, like you say,

(01:26):
it's.
It's.
It's easier when we do it alltogether.
Right, we learn from each other, because there's so many
mistakes that I wouldn't havemade had I known about it had
somebody been there like, hey,don't do this or or this.
At least I found was a waste oftime.
Yeah, so now that you know Ilove that.
What about?

what we have is a community of creators, so
so you can actually share ideas,you can bounce ideas, we have a
group chat, we all talk,sometimes we even have sometimes
we have movie nights too.
When there's a good movie thatcomes out.
Yeah, oppenheimer.
Yeah, I remember that Dude, myeyes.

we went to what IMAX.
My eyes were like literallylike that was so bright that
knocked us out for sure.
I was like am I going to havemy vision?

left.
We were pretty close to thescreen.
We were breaking our neckslooking up there.

Yeah, that was definitely fun.
But yeah, see, that's what I'msaying.

We have a, I think, great community at this
point, but I want to ask youlike what makes you want to do
video, like why video it'salways funny, because I feel
like it slowly changes over theyears, because I feel like I was
.
I don't know if other peopleget this, maybe it's like ADHD,
maybe it's like some people haveit, maybe they don't.
But when I first started I gotobsessed with wanting to do

(02:32):
movies.
So I had zero experience.
I was in my last year ofcollege and I was just a
lifeguard and I had a.
I bought a camera.
I bought like I think I boughtan m50 and I was like I want to
make as many movies as I can.
I want to do this.
I know it's going to be a grindfor a few years.
I just want to make as manystories as I can.
So I found Facebook groups.
I want, you know, talk to asmuch people as I could.

(02:54):
I begged people to have me ontheir sets and I worked on like
I think the first year I workedon 12 sets.
Then the following year Iworked on like 10 and then a
little bit less and less, untilyou find out like, all right,
like if I'm doing this full time, I want to make money.
Let's let's figure out how Ican make money and then you
figure out, you know where your,where your city, you know what,

(03:16):
what video your city does themost In Orlando.
You know, I think I thinkweddings are really popular here
in Orlando.
I think real estate is reallypopular here in Orlando and in
corporate are really popularhere in Orlando.

I think real estate is really popular here in
Orlando and then corporate isreally popular here in Orlando
and conferences and conferencesyeah, a lot of conferences.

I always call that corporate too, but I know
that's kind of like a don'tcorporate event type of
situation.
So then it's like, okay, well,I'm not going to move to LA,
it's in the middle of COVID.
That's not a great plan.
I'm not going to move to LA,it's in the middle of COVID,
that's not a great plan.
What do I want to do?
What do I want to focus on?
So I did video for a few yearsand just trying to figure out
what's my niche.
And then I slowly I think nowin 2025, I'm more in the

(03:54):
commercial space commercial andcorporate space and I'm
comfortable with that and Ienjoy doing that type of work.

And you know what I find interesting about it.
I think you're the only personI know that does this.
You're always shootingsomething, Whether you're
getting paid or not.

You're shooting something.

You're the only guy in that who's like oh, I'm
shooting this for a client.
Or hey, let's go film acommercial for a watch.
Or let's go do something withthe models or something.
You're always shooting, which,basically, is what we all want
to do.

So you're definitely passionate about it.
Yeah, it's.
It's always that thing of like.
I have a one of my friends,fernando I.
We always talk about this andhe said there's one thing that I
always think of when, like, Iget frustrated.
It's like if you want to dowhat pays the most it's not
filmmaking you can do a bunch ofthings that you can get paid
for a lot.
Don't be wrong.
In the top tier filmmaking andyou know movies, you know top

(04:43):
agency commercials you can makea lot, a lot of money.
But you can make a lot moremoney doing like 20, 30% of
other things.
There's a lot of things thatyou can make a lot more money
than than this, especiallystarting off.
A lot of the starting off isjust making.
It's just doing it for free ordoing it on the side, but you're
doing it because you like doingit, you like the process, you
like getting a result, you likeso doing it.

(05:08):
You like the process, you likegetting a result, you like so
might as well do it.
And if you keep doing it andyou keep having fun, it's not
going to feel like a chore, like, yeah, I want to make money,
but I want to have fun and youdon't always get the chance of
having the funnest or, you know,the most fun time on a shoot.
Sometimes it's like a talkinghead hey, it's fun, you know,
making sure the lights are great, but then you have one setup
and then you sit there for likethree hours, four hours.
Or you have to do an event whereit's just all like doctors
talking about surgeries andyou're just capturing that, but

(05:29):
you're like, eh, I'm having funbecause it looks great, but I'm
not telling a story, which ishow I started off with, with
just wanting to tell a story.
But everything has their ownniches and then each niche has
thing that you can getpassionate about.
And, yeah, just keep doing itevery day.
I do need to do it more often.
I think the past three monthsit's just been family time and

(05:51):
fixing up the studio andplanning what's going to happen
for 2025.
But I was planning on doing aspec shoot, hopefully in the
next month or so.
Look at you.

Talk about studio.
By the way, you started astudio.
What's the name of it?
Again?

I own Studio 124.
It's here near downtown Orlando, on East Colonial, and it's a
400 or 600 square foot photo andvideo studio.
We have a side wall, paperbackdrops, a bunch of different
movable backdrops as well.
Pitch mode Emmanuel.

Yeah, full pitch.
If you guys need models, if youguys guys, hey, we don't peddle
anything on this podcast, butokay, no, for real.
I mean, it's a, it's a reallynice space, I mean if somebody
needs a space.
I mean I see the use of it yeahwhat I find, what I want to know
and I think I'm sure the peoplelistening would want to know is
the economics of it, becausefor years I wanted to build a

(06:41):
studio right that, I think we'vetalked.
I was like my dream would bebuild an office, maybe shared
space, have a psych wall, maybehave this.
And you're one of the crazy oneswho went out and did it, but
for me I could never make thenumbers work, because most of my
shoots are travel or onlocation, because corporate and
commercial work 100%.
What made you want to leap intoit and how did you see the

(07:04):
future ROI or how did youjustify the financial of it?

So I talked to a lot of friends that own
studios as well, because I wasthinking about the same thing.
I was like is this evensomething financial?
Is this something where you canmake money off of?
And the straight answer is ifthis is your main source of
income, then having a rentalstudio isn't going to be what
pays the bills, your main sourceof income then having a rental
studio isn't going to be whatpays the bills.
Especially in downtown Orlandothere's well like in a 10, 15

(07:29):
mile radius there's like 20, 30studios.
So if you want your mainrevenue to be, hey, let's just
rent out the space and just sitthere and do nothing, you're not
going to be making that muchmoney in the long run.
But my main source of income isfreelance DPing.
And then I have a productioncompany.
I have Adapt Media with myfriend Fernando and we do more

(07:50):
commercials or corporate work.
That's slightly larger Iwouldn't say crazy large scale.
It's more like on the middlebudget, low budget for agencies
or brands, and then my mainthing is just getting hired out
to go.
Either I fly out, I do DP work,and then boom, I have the
studio.
Where I have the studio, peoplecome, they rent it out.
We have a pop-up photo shoots.
We're actually doing a masterclass tomorrow.

(08:11):
That's gonna be our firstmaster class where we have
somebody come in they do asession, and our goal wasn't
necessarily to make oh, let'smake a bunch of money.
Our goal was like, hey, let's,let's have a creative space for
us to be creative, kind of likehow you said like, hey, I like
to do fun shoots, just to doshoots.
That was kind of like the basisof making that, and then I have
two partners with it, whichkind of helps us.

(08:33):
Hey, I'm not spending all therent myself, I have two other
people that help me with therent, two of the people that use
it and these other two otherpeople are more photographer
based and then they can use itbecause as videographers I get
hired.
I go somewhere else.
I don't go to like my own, youknow, studio for shoots, because
mostly it's someone's officeoutside a, uh, a conference

(08:55):
center.
So it's not it's not always,you know, it's not something
that I've used for my specificwork a lot, but it's a place
where I use for, like, mymeetings, uh, where I have my,
my meetings with my two otherco-workers, uh, and a place
where I use for like my meetings, uh, where I have my, my
meetings with my two otherco-workers, uh, and then we just
plan stuff for the student,just have people come into the
studio, use the studio, have thespace, have fun, and we're just
.
This is our first six monthsusing it, so our goal is to see

(09:15):
how it goes, grow it, see how wecan.
I guess, like we want to havelike a little creative hub for
people to come in and just dolike their use, creativity with
their photos, and then us helpand just slowly create a little
community around.
You know video and photo that'sincredible.

No, I think that's smart move, because now you're
splitting rent three ways, right, so the cost to go into it is a
third.
And then on top of that, uh,like you said, it's a, it's a
space, right, it's your space,that's where you can be creative
, you can have meetings.
You're not doing that in yourapartment, in your home, right?
so it makes makes absolute senseto me I'm just, I'm just uh

(09:52):
happy that you're the crazyenough person out of all of us
to go and actually do it, tojust throw money at something
and see, and see if it sticks,yeah, and works, that we
actually.

We had a, we had a meeting today and we're
actually super excited about howwe want to scale it.
I think the first six monthswas all right.
This is work and can we do it?
We would have rented out a fewtimes.
We were able to have somepop-up photo shoots.
We did a dog one, we did aHalloween one and we know it can
work.
And now the goal is all right.
How can we implement it?
And about being, I would say,like a video, or a lot of people

(10:23):
just call entrepreneur,entrepreneur now it's like now
you have to do more businessthan the video side.
I usually get stuck on meetingsor trying to get clients or
trying to get you know biggerpackages, and sometimes I end up
doing that more than the videoitself.
So you go into just thinkingyou're going to do video, but
then you have to manage.
You got to figure out how to domarketing, SEO, you have to do

(10:45):
all that talk and then the videoaspect, which is what I got in
there for, becomes a smaller andsmaller smaller piece of the
pie.

That's what happened Sounds about.
That means you're gettingsuccessful, so have you, did you
have your first six figure year?
Last year?
I think you were busy.
I think, Did you get there?
Or you closed, or you're aheadof it.
I think you didn't check yournumbers.

That's the first thing People do, right, I
wanted to close my eyes, becauseI had Two weeks with the family
and I just closed my eyes.
But I think I'm almost.
I think either I'm there or Iwas About to hit six figures
this year.

That's awesome.

My last six months Were very, very busy, my
very busy.
My first three months were slowof 2024.

And then I just went straight from there Cause
every time I asked you, for Imean, we did do decent amount of
projects together, but you wereusually busy, which is a good
sign that means you know thingsare great, um, which is
incredible.
I'm so happy for you.
I mean, like I said, you have astudio you're successful.

DP, you're doing great.
I mean, what's next?
Then I mean at this point, I'mnot trying to do anything too
crazy other than oh, my God, Ithink to throw a little bit of
criticism on myself.
I like juggling too much and Ithink now that I'm juggling a
good amount of stuff.

How many are you juggling?

So I have email films with my full
freelance.
I do full freelance with thatIdent Media, where we do
commercials and we're going outto try getting more clients with
that.
And then the studio.
We're having a studio rentalspace where people can come in.
We have our photographers thereto do that work.
We're trying to domasterclasses there.
So the goal is now it's like Iscale these and make these a
little bit more successful, ormore work with, you know,

(12:27):
freelancing, and then moreprojects with the production
studio and then more peopleusing the rental space and then
from there we'll see what we can.
We can add and I'm not evengonna jump in my, my personal
life of how then that's a wholeanother crazy ball of yarn that
I'm trying to to compact andit's it's always crazy how, like
what you think you want whenyou first start, then, like, the

(12:48):
bar keeps going up.
I was like, oh, I remember, Iremember, uh, it was like 2020,
because 2020 was like the firstyear I started.
Like the c70 came out and I waslike, oh, if only I could have
that camera.
I got that camera last year andI'm just like, all right, if
only I get this.
And then now, if only I getthis, you know, set of lighting,
if only I get this.
The bar is always going higherand higher.
So I think it's just kind oflike, you know, taking

(13:10):
everything one step at a timeand then really like my goal.
I think this year is just tryingto scale what I have right now
and make sure like I don'treally care that, like, hey,
great, look, I have these threethings, but I want them to be
successful.
I want the three things to besuccessful, um, and just, you
know, put time into that andjust do more.
Because my, out of all thethings I do, my favorite thing

(13:31):
to do is like brand, like brandfilms, like brand commercials,
like something that like tells astory, like very visually
appealing.
And I know sometimes, you know,as videographers we don't
always get to do that a A lot oftimes it's I do a lot of social
media content, a lot ofvertical content, which is still
like very I don't do, like Idon't do like, you know, gopro

(13:52):
run around, I set up a talk andhead lighting to all that stuff
that we all, you know, we allget used to doing, but then it's
, you know, it's standard, it'sbasic, you know you get so used
to that, so you want that littlecreative edge.
So I think we all have our goals.
I think my goal for 2025 isjust, yeah, like just get, you
know, growing more income inthat, in those three aspects,

(14:14):
and just getting more projectslike that, getting more, getting
more gigs.
And then also, like you know,on my personal life, you know,
enjoy enjoy some aspects.
Don't enjoy too much becauseyou get so stuck in this world
that you you kind of live in theworld of like, video, video,
video, video, video, videogrowing or selling or doing this
kind of.
I think it.

I think a lot of people can admit, once you do
this for a while, it kind ofeach your, each at your life,
each of your personal life Imean that that, but I think
that's with any entrepreneur youhave to be crazy enough to
first want to do it, and thenyou have to do it all the time,
so you just become like thatbecomes you.

Exactly.

And then you don't want it to blend into your
personal life, because the lastthing you want to do is go to
your significant other or yourfriends and then be talking
about video.
Especially if they don't give ashit about video.

And then you're like you know they don't
want to hang out with youanymore.
And then you figure out, uh,you're the, you're the problem,
you're that guy that's alwaysblabbering about his video thing
or this or that.
And then even uh, even evenfunny enough, like when you
start making more and more moneywith this, when you're an
entrepreneur, at least how Imean a bunch of people I've
known great, you get all thismoney that you thought you'd
never get.
But now it's right back to thebusiness.
So, it's like great, I got, youknow, more money than I thought
I was going to get two years ago.
Well, that's going straightback into the credit cards I

(15:29):
bought, all the studio costs,all this, all that.
So it's like it puts everythingin perspective.
I don't think I still feel asrich as I was when I was poor,
but it's just kind of likeyou're just allocating money for
your business now.
This is like an engine you haveto take care of to make sure
you get more money.
So it's, you know, it's always,you know, life's an interesting
way.
We're like yeah, I'm doing whatI love and I'm happy and I'm

(15:50):
super fortunate that this is myfull-time thing.
Um, but you always gotta, youknow, you always gotta be, I
guess, put everything inperspective and be like, hey,
this is something I I'mprivileged to do and I am doing.

No, that's my, my thing.
You know, I've, I've learnedand I finally accepted.
You can never have enough moneybecause, especially with video
business, because what happensis like like you said, and it
shows like, oh, if I could onlyhave you know so much money,
like I don't know a few thousanddollars every shoot I'm gonna
be, I'm gonna have so much money.
But then you forget shoots thatpay more.
They require more expenses.

You gotta get more crew or you gotta get more
equipment.
You gotta get more education,better sd cards, better battery,
better, everything right andand then next thing, you know
your costs are so high.

And then you're like, oh, but once I have
everything, I'll be good.
But then you realize, oh, thesecameras no longer relevant.
This lighting isn't older.

Now like everything's like getting older
so it needs to be replaced, andyou got to be updating it.

And then the higher you charge, the more you
gotta spend.
So you can never have enough,so sure you're making double but
now your expense is double.

Yeah, exactly , yeah, anyway, anyway, man, oh
my god, I mean, I wouldn't doanything else, but yes, this is
crazy how do you feel about?
I know you're more of theperson that loves like.
You're more up to date on thetech and stuff like that.
I used to be, but then I'venoticed like the more time I
spent researching tech then theless time I was making money
using the tech I already had.

(17:13):
But right now I've triedstaying away from like the
YouTube videos of brand newequipment, dropped this or brand
new that?

Yeah, no, that's actually very smart.
No, and see, that's what I wantpeople to know do as I say, not
as I do.
but you know, I'm at least awareof it I do love gear, I do love
technology and plus I'm, I havethis obsessive personality and
that's what separates me, right,like we all are good
technicians, we all make greatstories.
So I think what separates meand I've kind of accepted it

(17:43):
after years of knowing what I do, different I am.
I'm obsessed, like, about videoproduction.
So I, I, I have this thing inme that I have to know about
everything, right, what's new inthe, especially, like we tested
earlier last year, the wholereflective lighting thing.

I went to.
I yeah K-Flow, right yeah the.

I went the.

Godox kit the .

K1 light flow kit.

I think is the thing.

But but I went on.
You know multiple sets.
I would hire graphers and theywould have the crls panels and I
was like holy crap, this isgreat, I want to learn it.
And then I went all over andyou know, not only on the top, I
would be the one.
It's so funny I'm supposed tobe doing something else on the
set.
I'd be on the side like hey, sowhat do you think about these
panels?
Like, why are you using them?
Because you know, you know andstuff like that.

(18:28):
And then you know, it's just the, this inner thing in me you
want to learn everything, andthe what I love about this
industry is you can never knoweverything, so I'm always like
you're always learning.

Yeah, I'm always waking up, every day
going I don't know about this.

I don't know about this, but I don't know about
this.
But which is good that means itkeeps me because somebody like
me.

It keeps you in an industry where you're
always you have something tofeed on.
You're always eating.
You're always growing.

Exactly Because when I used to have jobs, the
biggest thing I hated was if Ididn't have a promotion in four
to six months.
I was done Like I couldn't newand then with video.
Now the good thing is I'm goingabout 14 years into it and I
haven't yet wanted to quit, andI think that's what it is.
It's because there's so muchhappening, so much news, so much

(19:11):
change, and the people whodon't um you know keep up with.
Obviously you don't have tokeep up with my obsession level,
but you have to keep up,otherwise you're going to be
left behind, because you knowtechnology's changed and if you
are not there, guess what you'regoing to be dinosaur and you
know the asteroid's going tocome for you.
100, yeah, so, so so I that'sactually to me a positive of the

(19:33):
industry but a negative for mypersonality that I spend way too
much time testing and andworking.
But I think that, like I said,that's I think, is a competitive
advantage.
When I somebody tells me aproblem, I generally know how to
solve it and it's because Ifreaking know about so much
stuff he does.

I've called him on.

I've called him on set this thing I rented from
you.
What's going on?
Yeah, exactly, I should stoprenting you things.
I'm like where's my roi if I'mdoing tech support on the?
call, but no anything for you,but no, that's that's what I'm
saying.
I.
I just love it.
I'm just so glad I'm luckyenough to to be able to make a
living from it.
But, like you said, the lessonhere is to make a living from it

(20:14):
.
I had to let uh, let thebusiness person ripple bender,
come out and and succeed, notthe creative and not saying that
I couldn't can be creative I'mstill going to be creative.
I still get to do all the funstuff.
But when you have to make money, you have to treat it like a
business.
It cannot because you know, asa creative person, you just go

(20:35):
oh, you only have 100 bucks onthe set but this movie sounds
really exciting.

Let me be on it, right, I've always wanted to
do this.

Yeah, I've always wanted to put my C70 in a car
and drive it.

You know what I mean.

I'm just trying to be you, but what I'm saying is
that's kind of what I think mostcreative brains go.
They just go.

I just want to do it.
I'll do it.
To do it yeah.

And then that's why they realize oh crap, I'm
not making any money, I can'tpay my bills, I have to go get a
regular job.
And they leave this passionbehind because you had it, like
you said, treated like abusiness.
You have to at some point yeah,you have to talk about revenue,
your costs, your profits, yourinvestments of gear, if it's
even worth it, because are yougoing to get your return back on

(21:20):
?
what you're investing in itBecause you buy it you don't use
it.
Now it's worth half.
You know not worth it, type ofthing.
But yeah, it's a whole freakinglesson right.

And then it's like you have to balance out
that type of very carefully oflike, hey, how creative can I be
and how much do I have to focuson business?
And some people they love thebusiness aspect of it and that's
amazing, and then some peoplethat like it less.
And I think you need to findyou know what fits your
personality best, but alsounderstand, like you know, some

(21:52):
parts will make you more moneythan others.
You can be the bestvideographer, but if you know
you don't know how to sell, thenyou know you, you can be on the
most shoots, but you knowyou're not getting that money
back because you didn't know howto you know rate yourself
correctly.
You don't know how to giveyourself a day rate.
You don't know how to you knowhow, um, what's it called?
Um?
Um talk to the client aboutgetting a good rate or or even

(22:16):
packages or whatever absolutely.

And then there's the opposite side of it, right
where you do get really good atselling, and then your technical
skills are way, way far behindwhere you went to a client.
You pitched them a 30 grandproject and somehow convinced
them you can do it.
And then next thing you knowyou show up with you and two of
your buddies and you're like,all right, let's knock it out of
the park.
And then you know it doesn'tmatch up.
I'm not saying it'll be a badvideo, but it won't match up

(22:38):
what the expectations are righteven you go to it to do the
project and you just end upbeing a producer which isn't bad
if you love producing great.

But if you go into being one of the person
that wants to create acommercial as a director or a dp
or whatever, and then you'rejust not even doing it, you just
hey, I can't do this, I have tobe selling, I've, I've done, uh
, and that's the thing too.
Like sometimes you're, you'reon set and you know that you're
on set losing money because youcould be making the next sale,
you could be making the nextmoney.
So it's just that thing.
It's like you you got torealize, like, what you want to

(23:07):
do and sometimes some positionsas an entrepreneur, you have to
make the sale.
Like there's been times where,like there's three shoots on the
same day, I gotta hire twoother people and I can't even
pick my favorite one.

I gotta pick the one that pays the most because,
exactly and I mean to be realyou, once you get to a certain
scale, that that's what the jobis.
It's a puppet master, right,where you just are out there
doing the sales, managing theprojects.
You're not actually the guydoing anything creative.
And a lot of people don't getthis.
They're like, oh, but I couldthen be on set and do better

(23:37):
than the puppet master.
No, the reason people arewilling to pay a guy at that
scale I'm saying because onceyou scale, scale you're the
puppet master.
And the reason people arewilling to pay that much is
because they want reliability.
When you are investing 50k to100k, let's say, on a corporate
video budget, right, yeah, youexpect it to work, you expect it

(24:00):
to be right.
You can't risk that money.
So you'd hire somebody.
You know for a fact they willmake sure this is done, this is
done how you want it done, andbecause you know it's their head
on the line, right, exactly.
But at the same time, they'renot really doing much.
But being the puppet master,they're hiring the right people
to execute on it.
That's just the scale of ourbusiness.
Yeah, you go from doing it tonow just leading it and then

(24:21):
letting the other technicalpeople to do it, yeah, exactly.

So I think yeah, and then I think, once
you're doing it, you realizewhat you want to do.
I think some people just don'twant to be the puppet master
because they enjoy the technicalside so much.
That's perfectly fine.

It's just hard to make that much money doing that.

But then you cap yourself on how much money
you can make Exactly.

I think you said this like there's only 365 days
out of the year.
Yeah, you have a day rate.
You can only make this amountof money.
Yeah, times that.
And then remember you.
Most people also have to thenremember in that math there's
travel days, usually half rightright.
Then there's prep days that arezero paid.
So you know what I mean.
Once you take that out, yeah,that's your cap and then there,
that is it.
Like there is no more.
And the only way you can scalethat is by having other people
work like I can be like hey, man, I'll go to do this project for

(25:09):
me.
Or like now, obviously, thatyou don't make that much, right,
you can only pull a certainpercentage, like 20 to 40, off
of it, but now that's free moneyin a way.
Right, that's the scalebasically.
And then we're both of us arehappy because you're like hey, I
got work.
And then I'm like oh, I gotsome percentage for managing

(25:30):
this project yeah and that'sthis, that's how I think it
scales.
Um, but yeah, like you said, noteveryone wants to be a puppet
master, yeah, and which is whythey have a cap.
And then they're like how can Iraise this cap?
And it's like, uh, it's goingto be hard, and at least being a
technician- you can, you canstart a studio or maybe you can

(25:50):
open other avenues of income Doreal estate inside.
I mean at that point videobecomes just a hobby, right Then
then?
Then what's the fine?

Well, I mean, like you said, yeah, it's a
hobby, but I mean, if you stillmake money off of it, it could
be, like I don't know, apart-time job that you like to
do.

Yeah.

If you really want to make more money and
still stay as a technician.

I mean it's possible, yeah, but my whole
thing is look, and you know I'vesaid this a million times.
I'll say it again there is somuch money to be made.
You make money.
Yeah, there is nothing better.
Uh, if you're, if you'repassionate about I'm saying that
, then make money.
Yes, obviously there's easierways to make money, but there's
no reason you shouldn't bemaking money doing this you just

(26:33):
have to understand what peopleare willing to pay for.
Yeah, and stop selling prettyvideos, because I don't think
that many people want to pay forpretty videos, especially as a
brand.
Yeah, what they want to pay foris videos that work yeah, so
just start selling that Startselling videos that actually
work.
And if you don't know how tomake those videos, go meet
people around you that know howto make those videos.

(26:53):
It's very simple, it's not acomplicated process and I think
money's there because any brandI will give it.
I'm a video company and I'llpay you to make me a video that
makes me more money.

You know what I mean I think the secret too
is that I think a lot of peoplestart and I started with hey,
you're selling, you know, your,your business or your video to
individuals, and then yourealize when you ask for a
thousand, 2k, 5k, 10k, it'scoming out of their pocket and
they see it as a whole differentthing when it's coming out of
their pocket.
But when you're talking to abrand, an agency, a company,

(27:28):
that's the budget, that's just anumber and that's you know.
For companies that even don'twant to spend it, in their mind
it's like, ah, it's just tax,like my taxes will take care of
it.
Boom, whatever I want this,this is going to grow my
business and it's more.
You know, it's easier to toconvince them and even convince
them.
It's just you're telling themhow to make money.
Yeah, okay, do this video on.
This video will get.

(27:49):
You know, put this video infront of the clients you need
and then boom, you'll get.
Your revenue is going to go up.
Rather than, hey, a person thatjust wants, like a photo for
the family or done videos forindividuals like a year or two,
Just because you have to.
it's that you're bashing headson, trying to you know, I guess

(28:12):
convince them that this is goingto grow something.
But if they don't care about acompany, they don't, they just
want something personal.
They're not going to see thevalue in that Exactly Now.

How much I love making videos for individuals,
not individual I mean like forbusiness owners, because you
know that's the most satisfyingones, because you can show them
the results.
I think the easiest way to makemoney is to go to brands where
there's a marketing director ormarketing manager, somebody you
can work with, because I find isit's not their money.

(28:41):
I hope that makes sense.
So a budget even doesn't makeanything.
Here's who your client is.
Your client is that marketingdirector.
What they want is your video tomake them look good.
So they're the hero in thestory, right?
So, um, the point is they, whenyou make that video, if that
video makes the loss or itdoesn't work for the client

(29:02):
whose head is on the table, thatmarketing person, yeah.
So they want to hire whoever.
They don't care about the money, even though they may say, oh,
we only have this much budget.
They want to hire the rightperson for the job that's going
to get the best video done,that's going to get the results
that they're looking for, whichis going to make that person
look like a hero to the boss orto the CEO, or to the board, or

(29:22):
whoever.

Oh, this guy knows what he's doing, that's
all they see, they just see themarketing guy.
Sometimes they didn't even meetthe production company Exactly.

Exactly, and that's, I think, what people
need to do is find these people,build a relationship with them,
make them trust you andobviously keep that trust up.
But the money doesn't matter tothese people because it's not
their money.
They'll write you any check aslong as it gives the company
enough roi, because, remember,if if they give you a million
dollar check, they better make10 to 20 million dollars off of

(29:49):
it.
otherwise, yeah, you know, itdoesn't matter, yeah simple math
but but the the certain thingwhere they're like, oh, this is
our budget doesn't mean anything.
I've had so many times clientstell me like oh, we want to make
a video, our budget is 10 grand, right, and I start to ask them
.
I'm like you know, it soundsgreat, but then.
Then you start to ask thevision.
Oh, we want to hire actors, wewant to do this, we want to do
that.

It's like this is a huge production.
We want to have a 10-day yeah.
We want to have a specialeffect yeah.

We want to hire mark hamill to be a cameo yeah,
we want this, this specific songin it, you know, from this
famous artist, you know.
And then, once you like, figurethat out anyway, like what
their budget is.
You have to then be like look,this is how we can do it within
your budget, this is how we cando it better and the correct way
, but this is what the budget isgoing to have to be.

(30:34):
Yeah, and then you draw theline right there, because you're
telling them the truth andusually, in my experience, they
come back and they'll sayokay'll, we'll do the right
budget because we're gonna do itright.

And the biggest thing I've learned the
hard way a few times issometimes you want to please a
client and you're like this isgonna, this is a little bit.
Sometimes it's just even alittle bit below the budget.
You're like, should I saysomething?
Should I should?
I just bite it?
You know, just just you know,bite my tongue and, and you know
, do a little bit extra workthem, this could be a good
client.

(31:03):
It always bites you in the butt.
Yeah, always bites you in thebutt.
Um, even there was one timewhere I told this lady like, hey
, like we don't really do motiongraphics, but you know, we'll
do super, super basic motiongraphics for this, even though
the budget isn't even there youthe whole editing.

(31:31):
And then I went out of my wayto do myself I'm not a motion
graphics guy, but hey, I, youknow, I I did a pretty decent
job, basic motion graphics, yeah.
And then she, she was like Idon't really like it, can you
redo it?
And didn't do it like this.
And she sends me a wholeadvanced motion graphics thing.
And I was like, lady, I toldyou like this, you don't have
the budget for this, you havebasic motion graphics.
Like, yeah, can you justslightly closer to this, to this
?
I made it like 50% closer tothat.

It's because, like I said, I mean, that's nice of
you but, like you said, itultimately came to buy you.

She didn't get what she wanted she didn't
want to hire me again and it'sjust miscommunication.
And sometimes you just have tosay no before you, even if you
know that budget's not there.
It's not even that you can't doit or not.
I know motion graphics people.
They could easily have done itbut they're going to charge a
double triple and then theclient starts.
But then that's when yourealize that's not the client

(32:13):
for you or they have tounderstand that they need that
extra and sometimes it's out ofyour hand though.

So, for example, I had a situation earlier this
year where I was working withsomebody in the company.
They were like, oh, we want youto record a speech and I was
like, what's the budget?
Oh, we don't have one.
You tell us.
I'm like, well, what level ofquality.
I could do this for one personfor a few thousand, versus 10
people, for 20, 30, 40 thousand,I don't know.
I mean, I can make budgetsdepending on what they want

(32:41):
anyway.
So, depending on what they wantanyway.
So ultimately, I went with likefour or five person crew, six,
seven grand, like it was a veryreasonable price.
And that's editing toomulti-hour speech.
Anyway, we executed the projectand I I brought two extra
cameras and two extra peoplethan what I promised them.
So actually over delivered.
So you would think the clientshould be happy and the the main
guy, who wasn't technically myclient because I'm hired by one

(33:05):
of the employees, was not happybecause their wardrobe was not
great, looking on camera thewhole time.
And this is a live audiencespeech.
My crew can't stop them.
We're just there to record aspeech to a live audience.
And they were upset about it,even though we had zero control
over it, even though I wentabove and beyond.
Um, there was a wardrobe issuethat happened as he's giving the

(33:27):
speech and there's no way wecould have done anything about
it, honestly, and um and so.
So there will be all these uhcircumstances where they're
happy.
At that point, all you gotta dois customer service, like hey
you know it's not great, but youknow there's nothing much.
Yeah, that could have been done.
However, for the next time, wecould have a wardrobe person or
whatever, but at the same time II was like you don't want to be

(33:50):
interrupted.
Right, you're in your zone,you're giving your speech you
don't want somebody like hold on, hold on, stop, like fixer,
unless it's something crazy.
It's just a tiny little, youknow yeah, that's something as
camera people.

I'm pretty sure they didn't even notice.
Yeah.
Yeah no, like camera people, asa camera guy, like I don't
notice hair, I don't noticemakeup.

Yeah, I have to like really like ask myself.

I was like do they like?

this hair and sometimes yeah, you're focused
on exposure and framing, yeah,making sure the light, you know,
rolls off the skin softly andmaking sure there's three-point
lighting and making sure thatthe on your left cheek.
That's why we have makeupartists, you know unsung heroes.

They specialize on that, yeah.

Yeah, exactly, and that's their job.
And if and sometimes I get itnow we do work corporate jobs
where they that's the one of thefirst things right, sound cuts
gets cut, makeup artists getscut.
It's like, okay, you're the DP,and then those ones guess what?
Like then you know there's notgoing to be anyone to pay

(34:44):
attention to those details.

I mean, we can try a little bit, but
there's a limit to what you cando, and then the client expects
like, oh, like well, you'redoing all of it.
You should know.

It was like well, you cut the budget in two thirds
.

This is the only guy that's here.

So what's your solution for that?
What would you change to nothave such For the lower budgets
or?
Like but just in general, justnot have the miscommunication,
Because I think the biggestthing to me, at least with
Bindro Productions, if they'reworking with me, I want them to
be happy right.
At the end of the day,nothing's more important to me
than my name and my brandespecially since I was stupid

(35:22):
enough to put my name on thebrand.
So to name and my brand,especially since I was stupid
enough to put my name on thebrand, yeah so.
So to me, making the clienthappy is very important, but at
the same time, sometimes whatthey're requesting is
unreasonable, like like there's,like, for example, the past.
There's no way to fix thepocket.
Now, in the past and even thepresent, I'm just like I try and
ask them, like how could wehave fixed it?
It's a lie, we're not even infront of the room.

(35:43):
There's hundreds of people, andthen we're in the back of the
room.
So so what?
What's your perspective on that?
Like, how do you?

I think there's a few steps.
I feel like, once you start, Ithink you should always once you
.
I think, once you have enoughequipment, once you have, once
you're comfortable with yourskillset, you should have a have
either an Excel sheet or aGoogle I forgot what they call
it on Google.
Google sheet Google sheet, yeah, and just really nail down what
you're willing to work for.
What's your, I guess?

(36:12):
get out of bed money Like hey,this is what it's going to take
for at least me, bare minimum,to go out and do a shoot and
then just depending on yourclients, it's like, okay, what's
the bare minimum to make thatproject happen.
And my whole biggest thing iswe get into this job because we
enjoy doing it, we like doing it, we want to have good

(36:34):
commercials, we want to havegood event shoots, whatever
you're doing.
So if you have a budget thatyou feel like it's undervaluing,
you don't do it, because thenyou're going to do the doesn't
matter, like, even if it's agood project, a bad project, if
you feel like you're undervalued, you're not going to put the
same energy.
You're going to go to it, um, alittle bitter.
You're going to go to a bit, alittle bit annoyed.
So guess what?

(36:54):
I get it.
Sometimes you're going to paythe bills, um, but in those
circumstances you're not goingto come in with the same energy.
You're not going to want togive 100%, knowing that you feel
like you're going to take anadvantage of.
And then that second thing it'slike that communication of like
sometimes you're gonna have tosay no if you know that their
budget just isn't there and itsucks sometimes, and sometimes
you're in that tough situationwhere, like am I gonna pay rent?

(37:15):
I gotta do this, I gotta dothat?
Should I bend over backwardsand and know that this project
isn't gonna?
You know it's gonna be really,you know, be really?
You know a lot of free hours, alot of free man hours,
especially if you're the name toget it done.

Yeah.

But then you're always going to the
client's always going to have anissue with it If the, if the,
if the budget's a problem, theclient's always going to have an
issue with it.
And that's something you learnover time when you try helping a
client out, when you try doinga bunch, three hours of work.
So I think my, my, my tip, mytip would just be like hey, like
, if you know the client, justhave your base of how much you

(37:49):
feel, how much you you have theexperience, how much you know it
would take to do it, if notmake some calculations or put an
extra 20, 30% just in case, andif you can stay firm with that
price and they say, yes, firmwith that price and they say,
yes, yeah, hey, you're solid,you know, you know you have the
budget to do and you have acouple, a couple percentage you
know, 20, 30 extra to makeif anything happens, you can
make it happen.

(38:09):
If it's underneath of what youdon't think you can happen, I
feel like unless you're willingto do you know, bend over
backwards and and do work thatyou're probably not going to be
happy with, then the client'snot really going to be happy and
that's.
That's a lose-lose.
They've they lost.
Let's say, the project'sactually going to be like 12, 15
, 20k and then you say yes tolike three thousand dollars.

(38:31):
Yeah, that's now in their mind.
It's three thousand dollarsthat they wasted because they
still didn't get the productthat they wanted.
So either they're going towaste two grand or then, or
they're not going to waste anymoney, or they're just going to
hire somebody else and then getdisappointed again, and that's
even better for you.
Sometimes you say no, they goto somebody else, you get a
disappointed job, and then theygo back to you and be like you
know what, maybe 10 grand mightbe worth it.

Yeah, if this was a product with two grand and
then you could do that with 10grand, yeah, exactly it's just,
you know, in very similar vein,I think the biggest game changer
for me and again silly wordgame changer was but um, when I
genuinely was like I realized um, you don't need those projects
anymore, because what happens is, you know, and then I get this.

(39:11):
You know the starving artistmindset you've got bills, you've
got rent, you got food yougotta buy, you know other
expenses that you have.
Then what happens is, eventhough, like you said, the
budget isn't there, uh, whatever, like you know, but, most
people end up taking it or atleast negotiating something
whatever, but then you're notbringing the energy, you're not
doing the right.
What I found, at least for me,was as soon as I got to a stage

(39:34):
where it was like, okay, now Idon't have to say yes, I can
choose, I can say no, I foundthat my business skyrocketed
because now I was being fullyupfront with people, like they
would tell me an idea and I'mlike, hey, this can't be done.
Right.
And most times people saw that,like they saw the honesty,
because it'd be like, hey,here's one way I can do it,

(39:56):
here's what we can do, or here'san alternate way we can do it.
You'd have to up the budget onthat and that may be more closer
to the vision you're having,right.
And then once I started to givepeople genuine advice, where it
was genuinely like, hey, look,you don't say yes to this, I'll
be fine, like my, my, my billswill still be paid, so I am not
like that desperate, uh, to getthat project.

(40:17):
I found more people wanting tocome back to me, even if they
usually were like I will thinkabout, are we not in the it?
Like you know, you didn't hearback and all of a sudden it was
like oh hey, you know, wethought about it, we definitely
want you.
I've had like argue well, notthat often, but I've had a
couple of meetings where theclients were just like we don't
see the value and they're theones who want to work with me

(40:39):
and consistency is moreimportant to your brand.
I'm gonna make the same videohere and here.
It makes sense versus youhiring local people in two
different states.
The point is and they couldn'tsee it and I was like that I
completely understand them, thatit's okay you don't have to
work together.

Yeah, right, and I walked away and it was so
funny.

When they called me, they were like let's do it.
You walk away from a call whereyou're like this is never gonna
happen and that's okay.
I was honest with them, I wasup front, I gave them the right
advice, which is to me whatmatters now.
Now and then and it's funnyenough when you get that call,
you're like oh, and even theemployee was.
It's funny when we're actuallyshooting it, the guy, uh, not
the owner, uh.

(41:17):
That one of the employees waslike I didn't you, you
definitely didn't think this wasgonna happen.
I was like nope, nope, but he'slike hey look you guys were the
best and that's what, what thatis, and I mean and and that gave
me such satisfaction in thatmoment, because I was like they.
I'm so glad I stuck to my guns,because you know if you're
desperate, you would have beenlike oh, that's fine, I'll just

(41:38):
take the local shoot, you cangive the other shoot, because
that's what the argument was.
Right, they?

wanted to give the other, they would have
done it, and then they wouldhave been mad at you that it
doesn't look the same.

Yeah, it doesn't match or whatever right.
But what I'm saying is, bysticking to my guns and not
being desperate to just be like,okay, sure, I'll just take half
the shoot, it made them abetter product and it made them
happier, made me the right moneyand at the end, india, everyone

(42:06):
was happy.
That's just the truth.
But I do get it.
I don't.
I don't think you can, anyonecould just start doing this.
So if you're like desperate to,like you know, pay your rent.
Then you can't have thatmindset.
Even though you're saying thatmaybe to a client, inside you're
like how can I make this work?
And and that's.
And that's why I think thefirst step is to not be in that
that mentality.
Get to a scale where you cansay no yeah and I feel like, and
then just don't say no just tosay no.

You say no for a reason right, especially
even like starting thispart-time, like I know a lot of
people, even me, like I had ajob, a full-time job, while I
was doing this part-time for afew, um, just because, hey, I
got I need rent, like I neededthese, this amount of money a
month to make sure I'm fine, andthen, once, once you have that,
then, like you said, don't getme wrong, at that time I still
said yes to almost everythingbecause, starting off my first

(42:49):
couple years, but that mindsetof, hey, I don't need to do this
, I think clients, once theyfeel that they feel that power
over you, like, oh, I can tellthis guy needs it.
I mean, you know, and they'rebred to lowball you, they, I
mean you know, and they're bredto lowball.
You, they want to save moneyfor their company.
That's what they want to do.

And the scope keeps changing.

Yeah, the scope.
Always, the moment you say yes,the scope starts multiplying.
They want to add this, theywant to add that.

Let's also do this .
Let's another half day here.
That's what I'm saying.
You got to always havecontracts, you got to have your
scope of work defined, becausethose are the clients I find
again, uh, yeah, I've, uh, youknow, I've had where, uh, and
again I've discussed this otherpodcast but clients that pay
higher value you more, and Ifound that they will, um,

(43:36):
essentially, uh, you know, giveyou the freedom and then they
end up getting the betterproduct.
It's also the clients withlower budget.
I've noticed exactly, yeah,that doesn't happen.
Yeah, it's like they're withlower budget.

I've noticed exactly, yeah, that doesn't
happen yeah, it's like they'revaluing you for your insight.
They're valuing you for your,your skills.
I think people that are lowerbudget they value you, thinking
like, oh, now I paid you, nowI'm your boss.

Yeah, you have to do what I say and do it how I
say it and then neither one getsthe better product, because
they're not the expert on video,yeah, and, and the people who
they hired weren't happy, sonobody gets what they yeah it's
so, say you gotta hire experts,then you gotta let them be
experts too, um and that's thatback, because if you could do
yourself, you would have done ityourself exactly, or you could

(44:16):
have done it in-house.

But you pay somebody, yeah, grand, 20 grand,
40 grand, 50 grand.
Yeah, because they're gonna,you know, get the, get the right
tps.
They going to get the rightcameras, they're going to get
the right cast.

And I mean, at the end of the day, it is a
business.
You are out there to make money, right?
I don't know anyone's lying totheir clients.
I mean I don't think you'regoing to your and I mean maybe
some people are, but I'm notgoing to my clients and saying
charity.
You know, like I, all I want todo is help you.
Yeah, like I have bills, I haveexpenses.
However, I'm also there togenuinely help them, right at

(44:50):
the same time, I make moneybecause I help, yeah, so they
gotta let me help them if.
If they won't let me, then Idon't know how to help them.
Because if I don't even knowbecause 90 of the time my
conversation starts with we needa video, okay, what does that
mean?
Right, and so you have to digdeeper to even figure out what
they want.
And if there's a client whodoesn't even want to communicate

(45:10):
, then you can't solve a problem, right, until you know what the
problem is.
Yeah, so anyway, that's what atleast I find is the budgets.
When they get higher, that partgets easier.
Yeah, but then there's thecontrast.
I meet so many video people who, when they suddenly start to
climb up, then they justfreaking go oh, I can make more

(45:31):
money, that means more profit.
And they don't realize when yougo bigger, you make big money,
but your profit chunks actuallygoes down, because they expect
you to not keep 25 of the 50grand.
They expect you to, like yousaid, said hire the better crew,
get an editor.
Yeah grip, yeah a sound guy yeahthat's how it will make the
project worth 50 grand, not thatthey just expect you to make 25

(45:53):
a day right now you know.
So there's, this is a contrastto, I guess, both things in life
, uh, but either way, um, Ithink that's that, uh, at least
what I'm noticing what happenswith?

clients.
Yeah, I literally got, um aclient call back for another,
another production, and thefirst shoot, um, what's it
called the first shoot.
I, I, I sent my money.
The second one, I almostdoubled it because I wanted you
know fairly, because they neededmore things, they needed a
longer video, but then, becauseof that, because I need, you

(46:26):
know, an editor, and then now Ineed a motion graphics guy and
then now I need an extra personon set because we're doing sound
and we're doing three-pointlighting.
I really look at the money I'mmaking as because, like I hire,

(46:48):
like in my vision, how much am Igonna go in there, for how much
my assistant, how much is theeditor?
and I'm making almost the sameamount of money yeah, in their
eyes I'm charging triple, butI'm I'm really not just because
that's how scaling works.
You need somebody else.
You can't, you can't andsometimes you don't want to do
it all yourself, like I'm not afan of editing are you charging
a production company fee, atleast when you're doing that?
Yeah okay, so, so, at leastyou're okay, that makes sense
but the thing is like that goesstraight to like the production
in my mind, like I don't evensee it.
That just goes straight to yeah,whatever, and then I get mine
and then I'm kind of like you,like that's still a big portion

(47:11):
still goes to the production,yeah, but uh, and I'm totally
fine with that.
That's just kind of yeah, ofcourse you get comfortable and
that's how you you gotta makemoney.

So and then I'm I'm doing the same way where
it's like oh, here, budget, okay, here's the production
company's money.
Now, here's the crew I'm goingto hire, and if I'm on set
because sometimes I'm not, I'mgetting other people to do it,
but if I'm needed on set, thenI'm going to take my day rate
out.
Okay, that's going to be my dayrate and that's going to be
your day rate, or?

whoever's on set Right.
So I think you're doing it verysimilar.
You can't overpay you.
You can't be like all right,well, 25 grand.
I'm going to hire my friendsfor $200 a day.

I've met people who've done that man, and then?
They're like.
Why did I not get them torepeat Like.
Why did they not come back?

These PAs suck.
They don't pay attention Likethese guys are from like fresh
out of college.

Yeah, exactly thing that this I've seen on
sets is like where you're infront of a client and somebody
goes like a p, like I don't know, somebody you hired, and
they're like so how do you setup this light, how do you set up
the stand?
You have to understand theclient's perspective.
they're just like hey, I paidyou five, whatever and then now
you have people on set who don'teven know how to set up, yeah,
a light set, and then theyprobably do.

(48:26):
I'm just saying they don't knowexactly your lighting and
that's why you got to hirepeople or get them comfortable
or at least communicate better,because the last thing you want
is your client doubting yourcapability.

Yeah, I think part of it.
Even if, like, let's say, youdo a shoot and it's chaos on set
and you're making the clientnervous, the end result is the
masterpiece.
They're still going to benervous about hiring you again
Rather than hey, you made surethey're comfortable, you made
sure that the process was good.
If they're going to be, theywant the process to feel nice.

(48:57):
They want to feel like whatthey're.
You know, what they paid for isin good hands.

No, and that's what I talked about in our last
meetup.
I was like look, you know, Idon't know if you were there, I
know you had left somewhere inthe middle.
I left before you were here.
Okay, so you missed that, butthat's literally because I
remember I was going where'sEmmanuel, I wanted to talk, give
an example about you, and thenthey were like, oh, he left.
I was like, oh, come on.

That felt so bad.
So I was going to say goodstuff.
Then I was like anyway.

So um uh no, but what I was talking about was um,
I gave an example.
What was I talking about?

you made me lose um, we're talking about
making sure the client iscomfortable with, with.

Oh yeah, so so the biggest thing is obviously the
hardest part of this.
Thank you for the reminder.
The hardest part is getting theclient.
Let's be real, you don't haveto have any video skills,
nothing.
The hardest part is going toclient, convincing them that
you're the right person for it.
Right, let's say, you got thebudget, whether you know about
video or not.
Then the second hardest thingis actually client experience.

(50:00):
A lot of people miss that.
They go straight to the nowokay, I got to make a good video
.
They miss that middleexperience because the next time
the client's going to see youright, they met you, you sold
them the video.
Maybe you had a middleexperience, because the next
time the client's going to seeyou right, they, they met you,
they, you sold them the video.
Maybe you had a production callor something in the middle like
a pre-production call, butoutside of that, they're seeing
you at the shoot for the firsttime.
This is when you're supposed tobring whatever they're worth and

(50:22):
and and, not saying that maybe,if it's just a simple talking
head, you couldn't do it withyour tinal fx3 or whatever, or
your C70.
The problem is the client'sexpectations have to match
whatever the budget was, and alot of people, I find, forget
that they're like well, this isgood enough, right, this will
get them what they need.
But you have to remember theclient doesn't know what each

(50:46):
camera costs, what the cardcosts, what the battery costs.
They can only visually see.

As well as how you interact with the people
you hired Exactly.

But I'm thinking like things like you know and
silly stuff like how big yourcamera is, how big your light is
.
All that plays into the clientexperience and I think people
should focus on that and I'm notsaying just bring absurdly
large lights or absurdly largecameras.
As a DP, the moment you gethired, if you, if you get your

(51:16):
day rate up to 1500, just put amap on your camera and then
it'll be like, yeah, exactly,man, 1500 is worth it.

This that's when you put the man box on.
Yeah, if it's less than 1500, Ikeep the map box in the case.
I'm like I'm not putting themap box, like I don't need it.
Well, there you go, then.

That's now I know.
Uh, that's how's how we can goto your photos and Instagram.

Right, You're like wait a minute, that's the
shit.
You got paid over $1,500.
He got paid $1,500.
He got paid.
Look that one.
He got paid $1,350.
No matte box.

But that's true though, right?
Yeah, it's so funny and, to bereal, I do use matte boxes, but
I use them because I like to useHBM filters on them.
But, however, let's be real.
Even when I'm not leaving thefilters, I'll just leave them on
because it's part of theexperience.
Yeah, the perception to aclient the camera package, you
know, with their battery,V-mount battery, the body, the

(52:04):
lens, the matte box.
Handle you know microphone itlooks like what they expect the
camera to look like.
Handle you know microphone itlooks like what they expect a
camera to look like.
Yeah, a tiny camera, eventhough maybe the same camera
doesn't, doesn't portray to themvalue.
And I'm not saying again, anyof this is correct.
It's just the perception fromnon-video people you have to
incorporate in commercial video.

Play into that, and you can still be
successful without, yeah, doingthat, but some clients do care
about that more than others.
Yeah, um, for sure, and I mean,as I think, as a dp too, like
if you're just doing, if you'renot growing a business if you're
just a freelance dp, I thinkyou can get away with you know a
certain amount a certain amountof like.

It depends on the shoot.
Yeah, if it's like a socialmedia project, I mean don't
throw a mad box on it.
But you know what I'm trying.
Obviously you judge the project.
The idea is if it's, if it'slike adidas and it's gonna go on
national tv even if theaudience isn't gonna see the
matte box the client prefersyeah but even if we were just
talking about like that 25 grandproject, where it's like the

(53:03):
client expects the project to beworth 25 grand and I'm not
saying again, all your skillisn't worth that money, I'm
saying you have to match it upHire the right crew, bring the
right equipment and also clientperception Make them feel like
the production was worth themoney they invested in it.
And obviously, ultimatelythey're still going to judge you

(53:24):
in the video.
But I'm saying that's the firstimpression you're making and it
better be good, Because guesswhat, these companies, companies
they will keep coming back toyou if you do a good, right job
and if you don't and you mayhave done a great job if they
don't feel you did a good job,they're not coming back I'm
gonna give you a real worldexample from last month.

I got hired from with one of my friends and
we go out to uh to to a clientto do to do a shoot and he was
telling me he, yeah, they reallydidn't want to hire us.
They kept telling like, yeah,we have people in-house, we can
do the video in-house.
And he pushed for him to do it.
And they finally said yes.
But they said yes likebegrudgingly and they really

(54:03):
thought that they could do itthemselves and our goal was to
make sure they knew like theymade the right choice.
Our goal was to make sure theyknew like they made the right
choice.
We went in there.
We brought the best camera callwhen we had we set everything
up.
We were super friendly.
We made some jokes.
Make sure that they had a goodtime that there they were,
talking to the camera, make surethey were comfortable and they
had a few you stinkers in thefirst couple of takes.
But then you sit down, talk tothem, make sure they're

(54:24):
comfortable.
Uh, get some water and thewhole shoot.
I think it was an eight hourshoot.
They had a great, had a blastthey were.
They were even to the pointwhere, because it was a couple,
there was a point where the guywas just cracking jokes.
I didn't hear him do a, say ajoke the first hour or two and
then he just started crackingjokes.
He started smiling, he startedhaving fun.
The video started going byfaster.
There weren't that many retakes.
Everything was going great.
By the time we were done Idon't even think we weren't even

(54:46):
done yet it was like a breaktime.
They were like, yeah, and thenext time we fly you, okay, we
fly you out here again.
We're gonna do something big.
I want to talk about this, wewant to talk about that.
And boom, we already lockedthem in because they were having
a good time on set.
We made sure they feltcomfortable.
They made.
We made sure that a little bitlike uh funny, but we made sure
it felt overwhelming.

Yeah, the camera setups okay, I said, this felt
like oh shit, we can't do thatourselves.

They have three-point cameras.
They have a whole, the Rode.
I forgot what those are calledthe Rode audio setups.

Yeah, the Go 2s.
No, the Pro 2s or whatever.
No, the thing you're usingright now, oh yeah, the.

Rodecaster, the Rodecaster.
Okay, I never do audio.
I just sit back with the wholeroadcast of the headphones, the
lighting, everything and thenthey're like, oh, like we, we
actually got our money's worthyeah, exactly, and they didn't
even see the video, yet theyhaven't even seen the edit at
all exactly, and that's the.
That's what you want the clientto feel.
You want them to feelcomfortable.

(55:43):
I think, yeah, something Ialways try pushing is just uh,
customer, uh, what's it called?
Customer service?
Customer service my first likefour jobs were just customer
service at theme parks, and it'sjust like making sure the
customer feels heard, makingsure they feel valued, making
sure that they're having a goodtime, because when it's their
money, they want to make surelike this was worth their money.

Yeah, I think my best example for this is Five
Guys Like absurdly in my opinion, again absurdly priced
hamburgers, cheeseburgers.
I think their burgers arepriced way too high.
But here's the thing you orderfries for them.
It doesn't matter what size youorder, they'll be half like the
same size.
Let's say you order small fries.
They'll put not only smallfries in the box, they'll be in

(56:32):
same amount of fries in the bag.
They purposefully give youdouble the fries.

It's not a mistake.

They made overdose , you exactly but what happens
is your human emotion, like Idon't even want to eat those
fries.
But when you open the bag yougo oh my goodness, I got a small
fry or I got a medium fry andthis is like feed five people
fries and and it's, andobviously they charge you that
in the, in the sandwich orwhatever, in the burger or
whatever.
But the point is they madetheir money.
That was already part of thecost, but what you ordered was a

(57:00):
small fry.

The perception is completely
different, exactly.

And then instantly you go oh wow, no other fast
food place does that, right, orwhatever, and you instantly are
like happy about it, right, andI think that's how you have to
think of video production.
It's obviously do the right jobright, hire the right people
with the right equipment toexecute on the budget right.
However, pay a little bit ofattention to, I think, the

(57:23):
element of, like you said, uh,the experience, because I think
that will help you when you goto show the video and when you
go get them to give you a reviewor to get them to become a
repeat client or retainer clientor whatever, you will have a
higher chance of success justbecause that first shooting

(57:44):
experience and that wholeexperience in general was beyond
what the expectations are.
And here's some real lifeexamples for me that I do.
I always will bring an extraperson.
So like, if the shoot saysyou're going to have three
people and two cameras, yes, youbet they're going to have three
cameras and you know an extraperson there.
I always budget for an extraperson.

(58:05):
Now, it may be only a PA or I'msaying a smaller extra camera,
but there's always more thanwhat I budgeted.
And the advantage because theclient knows my deliverables or
my contracts are very clear.
This is what because you know Idon't want any arguments, it's
a clearly says like this is whatyou're going to get.
You're going to get, let's say,two half day shoots.
You're going to get threeperson crew, two cameras, right

(58:25):
and lighting and sound orwhatever.
So they know what they'regetting.
So when you show up with anextra person or an extra camera
and they go oh yeah, this isthey.
they know this is more than thatright and it feels good yeah,
it feels good as someone.

You and you throw mad box on your camera.
Don't forget always a mad box.
Yeah, if you want to make themfeel good, throw a mad box on
them.
That'd be like yeah, this islegit.
Um, yeah, like, always givethem more than they feel like
they asked for, even though inreality, like you said, they're
already paying for it, like thebudget's there for a reason.
But make sure they feel likethey're getting a little extra

(59:01):
and it's not going to pull likeoh, you're getting a little bit
less, exactly.
But, you're probably going toget that client as a retainer
client or a client that comesback and that's worth way more
than an extra couple hundreddollars.

Here's what I'll tell you.
I think you may know this.
Here's what I found Now that,again, like I said, initially
when I started the productioncompany journey I didn't have
anyone to lean on.
I knew a lot of people, butnobody that wanted to share
their information, which Ithought were successful.
Now that I know they weren't.
That wanted to share theirinformation, which I thought
were successful, now that I knowthey weren't.
Eventually, when I actuallyfinally met the people who were
making real money, you found outthey're very open to it.

(59:36):
And there's one common threadthat at least I found In the
corporate and commercial worldpeople who are making seven
figures or more.
They're A very open to sharetheir information and, b they
treat their clients like royaltybecause most of their money is
coming from four to five topclients.

(59:57):
Like, if somebody thinks thatsomehow every year you're going
to get 50 new clients who aregoing to give you $10,000 to
$15,000 projects, you're out oftheir mind.
I mean, maybe there's oneunique case, but typically it's
the same people.
Tell me if I'm wrong, right?
It's the same people giving youwork over and over again is how
you make majority of yourrevenue.

(01:00:17):
Obviously, you'll get newclients.
Some will become retainers,some will not go away from being
retainer, but typically it'syour top five clients that will
make 80% usually 70 to 80% ofyour revenue, and the rest, all
of the extra ones, just make thetiny amount, yeah, and so what
you want to do is be looking forat least that's what I'm
looking- for I'm looking for mynext, you know, adding to my uh

(01:00:40):
pool of people who are actuallypaying my bills, and the only
way you can do that is by makingthem happy.

Emmanuel Gallegos (01:00:46):
So they keep coming back over and over again
so you're rather and especiallyif they're good paying like like
.
It's always a weird thing where, like, some people try doing
more of its low budget becausethey want to feel like they're
adding more.
But when you have bigger budget, I keep that mind, keep the
mentality like, hey, these guysare giving good money, like I
don't, I don't mind singing anextra hour, I don't mind.
Hey, like, guess what?
Here's some screen grabs, wegot it, look really good exactly

(01:01:08):
or even, or even.
Uh, if they're not, if theactual person hired using on set
updates?
Yeah, they love updates and uh.

Vipul Bindra (01:01:16):
But no, yeah, keeping a client is way more
cost effective than getting anew client and and some of the
best way man is, it's again.
I'm a data hoarder.
I tell people there's nothingmore valuable as a production
company than client data.
Which I mean by data for us isvideo, like you said, sometimes

(01:01:36):
what we'll do is like year endor just randomly for a client
that we may not have worked fora few months.
We'll just I'll tell my editorslike hey, take some footage,
like throw them a quick littlesomething, right, and then when
you give it to them they're justlike, just like hey, they're
surprised because they're notexpecting that and for us it was
maybe I don't know four or fivehours of edit cost.

(01:01:57):
But for a client that's like, oh, hey, you repurposed that old
footage to give them something Idon't know.
Like hey, do we just notice youhad a five-year celebration?
Let's say they didn't hire usor they didn't even do anything
major.
You can quickly throw a littlemontage or something for social
media and you send it them.
It's those little things and Iknow, in our group at least,
people have talked about sendinglike physical gifts or stuff.

(01:02:19):
I did try that six, seven yearsago, like I tried to send thank
you cards and stuff, but Ifound this digital like using
our data was far more valuablethan using our physical, yeah, a
business card anyone can send.
Yeah, or but I'm saying even atoy, like a gift, like a pen or
or or some kind of bouquet offlowers.
So I'm not saying physicalgifts are bad, but at least for

(01:02:40):
me our data is what we have thatthey don't have right
especially as a productioncompany.
We keep all the footage.
Footage, yeah, um, and, and youcan repurpose that.
It makes them so much morecontent and it doesn't need to
be something grand, obviously,spending a lot of your money on
post-production, but I'm sayingI find that at least is that
cherry on top where they gofrick.

(01:03:03):
I got to keep coming back tothis person.

I got to make more videos.
Yeah, and especially like youcould have just been on their
mind and then they forgot aboutyou for six months, eight months
, maybe a year or two, sendingthat, you don't know.
That could be the time thatthey're thinking about doing a
commercial, doing whatever nicheyou're in, and they're like we
should do this.
And then boom, the video popsup Right at the perfect time.

(01:03:24):
Guess who?

they're going to hire, or it may even not be the
like.
Oh my buddy here at this golfcourse is freaking, thinking
about getting a video orwhatever I don't know, uh, but
yes, just do nice gestures.
Again, I think the simplifies,like give them a good experience
, yeah, during the production,definitely, and then after
you've delivered, maybe a fewmonths after just go above and
beyond for your clients.

Man like keep them and have a good time.
It's like like you should befriendly with your, like it
shouldn't just be only a moneytransaction.
I shouldn't be like just nottoo friendly.
Yeah, yeah, don't be toofriendly, keep it professional
but yeah, like it's good to seethem on the street and talk.
I saw a lady that hired me at arestaurant.
I went and I talked to her forlike 20 minutes caught up with

(01:04:07):
her was this I recommend her,her the food I liked.
It's good to see it's like thisis what we do this for a living
.
We want to have fun, we want tomake sure we have a good time,
and even for the shoot in DC forus it was like yeah, like well,
technically we got to talkabout that shoot, but, yeah,
that was a fun shoot.
That was a fun shoot, but thatwas a fun shoot, but I mean,

(01:04:28):
thankfully you didn't hire me,but even if Adam was there and
he was there we probably wouldhave done the same thing.
I'll take a tiny credit, yeah,he definitely brought me, so I
was like let's bring Bipple out,let's bring Bipple out, let's
explore the city and enjoy thepeople.
You're there, even the clients.
We ate with the clients.

We talked and we threw some jokes and so, um, the
shoot that you're talking about, we went to a few months ago,
um, adam, our buddy, who's gonnabe on the podcast, um, uh, uh
later.
But he, basically um, is makingthis documentary and he brought
me on um as like the dp, Iguess, uh, for that that first

(01:05:08):
uh section of it and it was, andthen he was like hey, who do
you want to bring with you?
And the first guy was like yougot to bring Emmanuel if it's in
the budget and I was like youguys obviously talk and figure
it out and it worked out.
But, what was amazing to me wasand like what you're talking
about was normally here's atleast what I do.
I'm so freaking lazy.
I travel, you know.

(01:05:32):
I don't know we were last yearfreaking some.
I even went to Arkansas, of allthings like it's.
You know it's random like wetravel so much so I just go
freaking airport to hotel roomto shoot back to hotel room, you
know, maybe eat out, but that'sabout it.
Like I'm not really likelooking at cities, versus what I
liked about that shoot was notonly I think we made great
images, I think we killed it forthe, the, the equipment that we

(01:05:55):
brought and the, the setups andeverything.
It was just fire.
But then later, you know, if itwas me, I would have just been
like, all right, let's go to theroom, and so I love that
hanging out with you.
Because you were like no, let'sjust explore the city, and
normally I would have been likeno, uh, but you know it was you
and you know we're cool.
So I was like yeah, absolutely.
And then I think I had theblast of it.

(01:06:15):
We were literally like late inthe evening, just on those,
those rental bikes.

Yeah, even though I made you spend five
dollars.

Oh no, dude, that was expensive I mean I and you
don't realize this, because youknow we're just having fun,
we're just riding, riding out itwas like 50, 60 bucks.
They charged me for the littlee-bikes or whatever it was.

Oh, no, we got e-bikes.

Yeah.

So what we did is that we were.
It sucks that the sunset was soearly, but we wrapped at like
five dropped our camera comingoff went straight to.

DC and just drove around yeah, pretty much Our
bikes and just looked at alllike the national museums went
out to all the monuments went to, the capital made some, but the
weather was.
Yeah, we wrote back.

That's a talk about that um, and but yeah,
it's just like, like, like Ikeep saying before, like you do
this, because you do this,because you love it and like hey
, take advantage, like I love,but that's an extra advantage
that I don't take normally.

I'm saying that was fun to do because you know
we're in a beautiful place.
It's fall weather, dc that was.
I think it was incredibleweather incredible weather.
It was like red and and yellowleaves, falling exactly trees
and we, which we don't typicallyget in florida we have just hot
and more hot and even morehotter if you want to see like a
, a natural Floridian, see any,any any or if you want to see

(01:07:33):
their jaw drop, just take himanywhere where there's red and
yellow trees Exactly, treeleaves falling off, or even snow
.

Yeah, you see snow and you're like, ooh,
Exactly, yeah.

That's like my kids oh my God, my daughter's
been like we want to see snow.
I'm like not here, you're notgonna see any snow here.
I mean this weekend, yeah,unless it's like you know, fake,
I took the mice skating, ohyeah, but anyway, um, but yeah,
no, that was.
It was beautiful weather.
It was incredible shoots andincredible food too.
I think the places we went to,like, we had like, uh, students

(01:08:04):
from what?

georgetown, whatever, singing at the bar
georgetown I forgot the bar, butwe went to georgetown and there
was a acapella group yeah, theywere just singing behind us
yeah, and we're just thereeating, having a good time, and
it's it.
It's the experiences thatmatter and, and I think that
whole thing, it was okay.
What, like a four day?
yeah, I think, with travel itfelt for me like a week, because

(01:08:25):
we had a whole shoot day.
Then we had dinner with withsome of the clients and we went
out explored, uh, and it was,yeah, it's just make, make them
make the most of it exactly, andthen I think that's what I want
to do more in 2025 I want toactually and thank you for the
inspiration.

Yeah, when I go to these cities actually, you know
explore them instead of justyeah.

Take your manual I'm down for just making
man on my tour guide yeah andyou know.

But you know, enjoy it, because I think while
you're there, enjoying, that'san extra bonus of us doing what
we do.
If you're traveling, so muchmight as well, especially that
traveling itself is such ahassle.
Yeah, no man, Especially withall this gear.

If I'm only in the airplane, then on the
shoot, then on the airplane,nothing wrong.
I love shooting, but it'sexhausting in a way.

Like doing anything is exhausting,
especially with that big caseman that's.
Oh my God.

I saw it on, I think, b&h, and I was like, no
, don't buy that, I don't.
I almost bought it for thetravel one in Dallas.
But I was like, oh my God, I'lljust jam my 300C in my suitcase
and hopefully it doesn't break.
Thank God it didn't break.
But yeah, even with that Vegasone, I was so close to going to
that Zedd concert because I loveZedd and I think it was you,

(01:09:40):
you, me, and then like two otherpeople and I was like, hey,
anyone want to go to the Zeddconcert?

with me.

And everyone was like no, we're tired.

I was like, yeah, we went to the casino, didn't we
?
No, that night we went straighthome.

I think, but I was so bummed that I was like
I don't want to go to these guysI want to see because I I'm a
person that, like I enjoy thingstenfold than when with somebody
else.

Yeah, like be happy we saw hoover dam or
whatever at least we were ableto do something.
But but see, that's what I'mtalking about, like, I think,
exploring the towns and andthat's something on top, because
we're already going to beworking.
Yeah, I think, if we can makeincredible images but also have
fun, and I think that's what Ilike about shoots with you.
Yeah, typically, I find mostother filmmakers are like we're

(01:10:19):
like so used to traveling, we'rejust like hotel, like I don't
want to go see the town, yeah,but you bring that energy where
it's like no, let's go explore,let's go see this, and like, and
then, and every time I've doneit, it's like no, let's go
explore, let's go see this.
And every time I've done it, itwas worth it.
It made the trip better.
That DC trip was one of my mostmemorable shoots.
Funny enough, budget-wise itwas one of the lower ones.

(01:10:39):
But when I go back and I'm likedude, I had an incredible time
I'm telling Adam I was like dude.
We got to do the rest of it.
By the way, when we're donewith this podcast, we get to
watch the draft of that video Icompletely forgot.
Yeah, he just sent it to me.
So, so we get to get first lookat it.
I love it and uh, so, butthat's what I'm talking about,
like we, I'm like, dude, I'mdown for it, because this is the

(01:11:00):
type of shoots we're talkingabout helping a buddy out making
an incredible documentary aboutan incredible topic that
matters.
Uh, that's going to bring aboutan impact and we got to explore
the town and hang out with eachother and discuss business
strategies and just fun.

I think that's an expassion.
I feel like I did.
We're counting that as adocumentary, right, because I
know it's a little bit morecorporate, but we're counting
that as a documentary.

Yeah, that's a documentary, but then that would
be my third documentary.

I did three documentaries in 2024.
And just the more I do them themore I'm like this is.
This is so enjoyable, andespecially, I think, as a viewer
of a finished documentary, likeon netflix or whatever you
watch a documentary oh, okay,okay, cool, two, three hours.
What's the story?
But when you're there, for eachinterview is like an hour,
sometimes two, yeah, and evenfor the I did one.

(01:11:48):
Uh, it's called uh, empoweredink and it's about, uh, breast
cancer medical tattooing and weinterviewed I think eight uh
victims of breast cancer, uhsurvivors, and then we it was
like an hour interview each, sodamn, like we're sitting there
for a whole hour and justhearing their story, hearing
them like the emotional parts,and we talked to the medical

(01:12:11):
tattoo artist, we talked to theresearcher, we interviewed I
think 10 to 11 people and youget imagine each of those as an
hour.
So that's 11 to 12 hours ofcontent and then all the B-roll
that I'm not even going toinclude, and then it's all
crunched down to an hour and 25minutes.
So you get so much when you'rea part of a documentary and it

(01:12:32):
minutes.
So you get so much when you'repart of a documentary, um, and
it's amazing because you can,you know you can see it and then
you can see the final product.
I want to I think that's also anew goal when I start pushing
in 2025.

Yeah, slowly, do more documentary work and yeah
pushing that I'm gonna put itout there, since this is
actually going.
Uh, you know, live, um, my,yeah, that would be like a dream
, like at this point I've donepretty much everything in the
corporate commercial world.
I feel like that is to be.
That could be done, at leastthat I'm interested in doing.
But here's my other passion.
I love formula one.
So if I could just do some kindI mean, I know drive to survive

(01:13:01):
already exists, but I'm gonna.
You know, like I said, I'mgonna manifest it.
If I can just do a documentary,something with formula one,
like if somebody could just payme dude, I would, because that's
like incorrect.

Combining literally both my passions could
be several yeah, man, that'slike I think I know you said
like there's like three or fourclients that pay like your main
bills.
That'd probably be the amountof budget they have.
That'd be one of your main andone of your favorite, exactly no
yeah, I would, I would.

That would be one of the things which would make
me drop like everything and gofocus on that for a while.
And again, it doesn't even haveto be actually Formula 1 itself
, but like one of the teams orsomebody you know, I'm saying
some documentary around therewhere I could have pitland
access or I don't know, justaccess to the drivers or
whatever.

I mean that would be incredible and it just
adds on to the experience and Ithink that's I want to.
I want to always remind myselflike hey, like, do something new
, do something creative, because, like before I did this, this
didn't seem real, this I didn'tseem like I could travel and do
shoots and explore, dc, explorethis yeah, I'm doing it, but you
know, you shouldn't getcomfortable with it.
Like, hey, like, I still dowant to make movies, I still do

(01:14:05):
want to make documentaries, likegreat, like that's my next step
.
How do I get to that?
What do I gotta do to getbetter at this?
What do I gotta do to makebetter connection?
So it's, it's, it's a great,it's a great career.
Man, this, um, anyone that'slike nervous about starting?
Yeah, I think it's a greatcareer.
You just have to let it.
You have to let it evolve, youhave to let it change you in
ways of especially how to makemoney and then how to make good

(01:14:27):
content.

Like you, you learn from it and then learn the
parts that will keep you afloatin this crazy economy so what
would you tell I mean, I knowit's a little cheesy thing to
ask people what I want to knowlike what would you tell
yourself?
You know, if you could go back,now that you've learned all
this business knowledge and notjust just knowledge in general
would you tell yourself two,three years ago, when you were,

(01:14:48):
you know, coming up in it?

uh, what would you tell yourself to do
then immediately, instead of nowsurround yourself as fast as
you can with people that knowway more about what you want to
know about um that, and thenalso learn more of the business
side, because I think it's soeasy to get passionate about the
visual side and I I think, yes,you can get really, really good
.
There's this thing that Ireally you know, saw a lot is

(01:15:14):
like you can, you can learn somuch about a certain aspect, but
then you're gonna get thingcalled like diminishing returns
of like how much, especially ifyou want to make profit like hey
, you can be, let's say, ab-tier videographer and like
knowledge.
But but yeah, you can be an Aplus tier, but you know the
sometimes the amount of moneythat you'll get from B tier to A

(01:15:35):
plus tier just on knowledgealone isn't going to be that
great.

It's more on connections.

It's more on business, it's more on those
other aspects.
So if you're starting off, yes,the visuals and getting good at
your camera and doing all this,it's going to make your images
look great Overall, I think thebest way of getting better is
just experience, just being onset and just you know trials,
and every single time I'm on setI learn just a tad bit more and
I'm like, okay, don't do thissetting or do this setting or

(01:16:01):
this is a little bit better, butthat business aspect of getting
to know people, getting to talkto clients, being able to close
a sale, will make this career,I think, easier to jump into
earlier than some people dopart-time or some people even
they jump into this thinkingthis is going to be their whole
life and then they have to goback to a full-time job or a

(01:16:23):
part-time job.
Yeah, and it's always a bummerbecause we have bills to pay, we
have things to pay.
I don't.
I don't think I could startthis now with zero knowledge,
with all the bills I have to pay.
I'd have to do so much.
You know, you know full-timejobs, you know maybe even
another part-time job, and thendo this, which is this is a lot
of work and I we've put.
I think once we do this, we putso much hours and time into it I

(01:16:44):
wouldn't I don't even want totalk about how many hours I put
into just research or how manynights I just spent like
watching the new camera gear orthe new this or the new business
tactic or all the things youlearn.
So if I could go back, I guessto simplify, it is just like be
surrounded by people that knowmore than you, uh, and just be
their friends, just just befriendly, be friendly with

(01:17:06):
everybody you know and thenlearn not just the creative side
but the business side of howyou can make this a reality.
Because it seems all nice andglamorous from you know the
youtubers especially.
They make it look really niceand glamorous, but, uh, you got
bills to pay, and the faster youcan figure out how you can pay
bills and if you can find themiddle ground of paying bills

(01:17:27):
and doing your passion, I thinkthat's where you can get a good
sweet spot exactly.

I think.
Uh, I think you hit it rightwhere what I tell people, man,
the best thing you can do isfind the people and surround
yourself with the people whereyou want to right there is.
There's nothing better you cando for yourself.
You don't have to go buycourses or do something crazy,

(01:17:52):
it's just those people are outthere, right?
You're like hey, I want to bethe best video guy or I want to
be the best editor, I want to bethe best production company
owner.
Whatever you want to be, findpeople in your area who are
experts in that and then just gotalk to them.
I'm pretty sure most goodpeople will accept it.
They're like hey, I saw thatyou're a DP.
I saw your work.
It's incredible.

(01:18:12):
I would love to learn more.
Do you have some time forcoffee?
How about next Wednesday orThursday?
And you know most people.
You'd be amazed.
They're like down to share,especially if they're successful
.
They're down to share and talkabout it, and they love talking
about it because that's whythey're successful.
And then you are right therewhere you want to be and that's

(01:18:37):
where you ask like hey, tell meyour story.

Or or, even better, like what do you think I
should be?

doing examples how I started working with you.
Yeah, I mean, dude, that thatstory's still amazing and that's
why I still remember it.
Because, uh, what was it?
david's meetup, right yeah and Iwas so hesitant.
So, by the way, one rule sowhen, as soon as I, you know, I
was a freelancer like you, soI'd seen all the negative.
So when I started my productioncompany, my only thing was even
no matter who I ever hire, Igotta pay them something.
I don't want free people on myset because I don't want to take

(01:19:00):
advantage, I don't want anyoneto be ever able to say it.
But then that opportunity cameand I really wanted someone to
like PA or whatever, to justassist, and there was no budget
for it.
So they was a meetup and I waslike, look, I don't know how to
bring this up, but this is anopportunity.
So I already have like sixperson or whatever.
We had crew five, six person,but right, and I would love to

(01:19:25):
know your perspective in asecond.
But mine was like, hey, youknow, it's not not pain, but it
could lead to way more payingthings.
And, uh, you, you obviouslyvolunteered and that's what I
like.
I knew you again, I wouldn'thave brought just anyone else
from my email, just so.
So don't email me I knew you inperson.
We'd met a couple of meetups.
Yeah, uh, you do.
I get too many emails like canI come work with you?

(01:19:46):
It's not to be, mean it's like,unless I know you, and I knew
you.

Yeah, so at that point you have to be
comfortable with the person.
Yeah, exactly 100%.

And what I loved that incredible was like you
were there.
You were there early, youbrought your gaff tape, you were
ready to go, you were ready to,you know, switch roles Because
at the end and as soon as thathappened, I needed I didn't know
anything about your skill setyet, which was good, but I'm
just saying I don't know ifyou're a good camera guy, you're

(01:20:13):
a gaffer, whatever you are.
I just know that you aresomebody who's there and you're
willing to be part of the team,to do whatever it gets to be
done and, like I said, it was alittle awkward for me at least
personally.
I don't know if it was for youto just hire someone for free,
because I don't like that, but Ithink I hope and I, like I said
, that's what I want to knowfrom you that you felt the you

(01:20:33):
got the return on yourinvestment with me because we
did what I hired you a lot, Ifeel like for the last over two
years.

Yeah, the past two years it's, yeah, I
think, decent amount.
I would say, yeah, are you I100 it's like one free, one free
project, and then what we wentto vegas together we've been to
twice or thrice, like two, threetimes we've been to Vegas
together, dc together, we'vebeen to Miami together.
We've done a lot of projects andit's just going out and, I

(01:20:59):
think, dropping that ego of likebecause I was working, I was
making, you didn't need to dothat for me, but you did it and,
like I said, I appreciated that, and then kind of what, like,
the advice I gave was like, oh,I I could tell, like, oh, this
guy knows more than me, this guydoes this, um, like I'll take
whatever advice he has.

(01:21:20):
Or like, let me, I just want tobe around them, let me see, um,
you know how I can relate to you.
Know, I love, I'm a, I'm a veryI love relating to people, I
love connecting to people.
So, and then we connect a lot.
We always talk about eithercamera gear we're always just
business or anything.
Yeah, we're out and just getdistracted and just talk.
It was just kind of like hey,let's you know this guy.
Always he knows more than me.

(01:21:41):
I'm down to give my for someone.
That's um, for people I haven'tmet like I, you know me like
I've done.
I've done pre projects.
I haven't done them in the pastcouple months because the whole
studio thing.
But it's not bad to go outthere and just put your ego down
and just work with somebody andjust have fun with somebody and
just make something together.
And then when you seesomebody's skills, when you show

(01:22:03):
off your skills, sometimespeople like they'll remember
that.

Yeah exactly they want you back somewhere else and
and the truth is remember, andthat happens at any level.
To be real, I don't know ifI'll ever work for free ever in
long, long time, since I've donethat.
But if Roger Deakins callstomorrow and says, hey, I need
an assistant DP, guess what I'mworking for you?
I don't even need to know whatthe budget is.

It's kind of like that Everyone has somebody
or some level goes like hey,yeah, exactly, they're like hey
camera person and there's nobudget, but we'll let you be.

You know, track side or whatever, and I'm like
dude, I'm there.
Normally I would never say yesto a free job, but that's what
I'm saying, it's, it's.

There's always that for somebody, yeah
and you have to take advantagewhen you don't have kind of what
we were talking about before,when you don't have the
privilege to say, no, you got topay rent.
Yeah, yes, free project mightseem like, uh, like I'm working
and I'm doing for free, butthose are probably one of the
most.
I think I've gotten the mostwork out of doing work.
Yeah, because you connect withpeople and they see the value
you're bringing exactly um.

(01:23:03):
You know some.
You know I've I've done morefree projects.
I haven't lit anything but theones I have I've I've led to.
You know great friendships.
You know great work, a lot ofknowledge you've learned, and
then you bring it back to yourown and you bring it back to
your own skill sets your own theway you work, the way I do a
lot of my camera stuff, the wayI do my three-point lighting,
was based on how you showed mehow to do three-point lighting

(01:23:25):
and then, ever since, likethat's just how I do in my
three-point lighting.

It just works you know, and it's not set rule, but
yes, it works most of the time.
Sometimes you just have to dodifferent based on location.
Yeah, but see, and that's what Ilove hearing that cause, you
know, and I know you never feltthat cause I even asked you.
I was like I hope I'm nottaking advantage of you, but
this is the job requirement.
I just want an extra personthere and I don't have the
budget for them.
But what's incredible is thatyou got something out of it and

(01:23:52):
it seems like to me we worked alot over the last, like I said,
two years.
I think it was worth it andthat, if you learn anything out
of it, man, like I said, it wasgreat and, like I said, what I
learned from it was from you too.
It's just been, like I said,having fun on set and being open
, because you never know fun onset and being open because you
never know, because, like I said, I wasn't open to the idea of

(01:24:13):
having someone free on my set,being real with you, and you
were like that first exceptionin a long, long time and to me
it was worth it and that's why Iwas like, oh no, I gotta bring
him more and anytime I could.
Now let's be real.
You know like sometimes budgetsdon't work or things don't work
, or location it's fly, andwhere they don't have budget to
fly you, but anywhere I could, Itry to bring you on, because it
was like hey, you were fun, youwere different, you were an

(01:24:35):
extrovert very, very much what Iwant on a set, I think for a
few months we're workingtogether like almost every yeah
pretty much.
Yeah, I mean even this year.
I feel like we did.
I said this last year, we didtons of projects.
Uh, I mean, like I said, wewent to d wasn't mine, but you
know we did it together, butthen also the conference that we
did for like four or five daystogether.
So I think there was a decentproject.

(01:24:57):
We also did a bunch of stufffor my financial client up in
the villages that we did.
So that was decent.

Yeah, we did a lot.

Yeah, I think we did a lot and that was great and
that's after me going.
I think he's beyond where I canhire you now which is great.

I think it was mainly the studio took a lot
of my time.

Yeah.

The studio took a lot of my time, and then
yeah, and then I got to Samething.

I've been kind of freaking.
I've been pretty much AWOL forthree months trying to build
this space out Exactly, you know.
So I get it.
But ultimately I think you andI have had a very good working
relationship and it was the bestexception I ever made and, like
I said, I was so glad that youwere willing to do that.

(01:25:41):
But yeah, tell me more.
Tell me more about our.
I don't mean if you haveanything, if you don't, but what
would you say?
How would you describe ourworking relationship, the
projects we've've been through?
Do you think it's helped you?
Obviously that was good to know.
I didn't know, about thethree-point lighting thing.
Yeah, but what?
How would you compare?
I feel like you've worked inthe area a lot.
You've been on a lot of sets,so how would you describe my

(01:26:04):
working style compared to a lotof others, or how I conduct?

that or just in general.
You know, I want to know, Ithink something that you, you
bring in when you do your sets.
That I like a lot is you.
You always try bringing morevalue than the client expects or
the client does.
I think you invest a lot inequipment and your knowledge.
I think a lot of people I thinka lot of people even in like

(01:26:30):
even they'll probably get paideven more than probably you or
me, but they probably just don'teven bring the same equipment.
Or we even had a discussionbefore the podcast of people
that have more money or have thebetter equipment but then they
don't know how to really usethat to the best of their
abilities.
So it's just kind of like hey,you, you, you put the time into
it, you, you put the time intoit, you, you put the energy, you
put the money into it, and thenyou know what you're talking

(01:26:51):
about.
And then I think clients knowthat when you talk to them, they
know that you put the time intoknowing your craft, you put the
time into this.
There isn't a I don't know thereis.
Hey, you have this question.
Here's a solution.
Yeah, and I feel like you withand I think that's that's super
inspirational for for anybodythat's trying to learn how to do
their things like, hey, makesure you put time into your

(01:27:12):
craft, make sure you go outthere, like that.
I think that's also why I I dospec guides like hey, like, let
me test out my camera equipment.
Like I've learned so much of mycameras on either cheap projects
, paid projects, uh, or freeprojects.
I just go and, okay, every timeI do something, you learn, uh,
what rig you like.
You learn this camera works.
You learn what your camera isgood at.
Where your camera is not goodat, uh, you learn how to talk to

(01:27:33):
your clients.
Yeah, so it's yeah, making surewhatever you say, you have you
put the time into just backingit up and making sure that
you're confident in what you'retalking about well, that's good
to hear, man, because ifanyone's going to tell you the
truth, it's you, because I feellike again, we've worked so many
uh, you know.

So if there's anything negative, feel free to
get it out, but I feel like weworked enough.
The last couple years that youshould know enough about, and
they were all different stylesets we've done.
Conferences we've done liketalking heads we've done events
yeah uh, we've done, like I said, uh, live streams.
We've uh, we've donedocumentary.

(01:28:12):
I mean a very wide variety oftype of projects, right?

so yeah, and it's, and it's always good to.
I always like I have a thingwhere I've noticed this, where
I've learned to just bounce off,uh, and I feel like I've
learned to like fill out whatneeds to be filled out in the
room.
Yeah, so, for example, like onthe dc shoot, you were doing all
your technical stuff and theclient was there and I was like,
okay, well, I'll make sure theclient's comfortable.
Hey, we're doing this, just soyou know.
Hey, we're doing that.

Yeah, and I appreciated that because I had
to literally do the remoteproduction stuff, set up the
remote producer thing.

So I was like so, figuring out the Wi-Fi, and
good to be a.
The goal is to like hey, likeyou're hiring me I want to make.
My goal is to make your lifeeasier.
Like my goal isn't, uh, hey,great, vipple is hiring me, I'm
making more money.
No, my goal is okay, he'shiring me.
What does he need?
Does he need this?
Does he need okay, he needsthree cameras.
He needs it here, here, herehe's letting here.
He likes this lighting, I'llmake sure I'll put this lighting
.
Yeah, he wants this aspect?
okay, boom, and then just useyour skill set to make sure
they're hiring you for a reason.

(01:29:11):
You hired me for a reason.
You're hiring me to make surewe have a good time on set.
We're making sure the imagelooks good obviously priorities
the visual looks good and thenthe client has a good time.
And then I, from what I hear, alot what people tell me is like
, hey, when you're there, theclient has a good time yeah, and
that's very important.

Yeah, and, and somebody who's an introvert I
love hiring, like I said, peoplethat are like you, who are a
little more extroverted than atleast I am, because I want my
clients to have a good time andif I'm so busy figuring out
everything, I don't want to behave people on set.

It's hard.
It's hard when you're doing thesetup, but not to discount it.

You're also very good um, technically and also,
let's see, this is why I like tohire, so not, I don't think you
don't have military backgroundright but, you're very similar.
So I'll tell you, I like to hirepeople who are x like, uh,
military or anything, or army orwhatever point, because I find
the biggest skill set that I'veseen those people acquire is

(01:30:04):
they can be leaders, but theycan also follow right, because
in military there's a hierarchy,so, matter what they were
leader of some and then followerof some, so they're very good
about it, and that's the skillsthat I noticed in you, which was
like you said.
You immediately I knew I waslike Emmanuel's worked with me,
he knows exactly the kind oflighting I'm expecting, and then

(01:30:24):
so I'm like Emmanuel, hey, canyou help light this up and can
you help light it up?
And then I know there'll be 90%there.
I may just have to tweak alittle bit and I don't have to
like teach you.
I never stood once there andtold you I wanted this Right.

You just figured it out Like you were
able to, or even on sets whereyou're not there.
Yeah, okay.

Yeah, you were able to follow right and
automatically.
And then, but on the same timeI'm setting the remote
production stuff, you're able tolead.
You realize, hey, this is whatthe client needs right now.
And you lead, you're like, oh,they need to know what's
happening, why it's happeningExactly.

And so at one point you're a leader, but on
the other side you can do bothroles which is very, very,
believe it or not, it's not thateasy, because you've got to be
able to do both and um, I thinkI think in production, either if
you're doing doc narrative orwhatever, even if you have a
specific position, your goal isto make sure the project goes
smoothly as long as you like.

(01:31:19):
Make sure the project goes,because sometimes, guess what?
The the gaffer is distractedand that fight that has no
sandbag yeah, what are you?
Gonna do ignore it or you letthe do yourself.

Yeah, you're not doing anything, right, not do
yourself what you're not gonnathrow power poses.
Tell them you're the dp.

You ask me a question about the f-stop I'm
not gonna shout at you for notknowing it's you or me it's,
it's, it's really, um, I I thinkone thing um is me kind of
going on a little bit of atangent, but one thing I it's
I've noticed from, I guess, theAmerican education system is
that the belief of if I just dothis, I'll be successful.
If I just do, if I just followthe rules, if I just sit there

(01:32:00):
and if I just have my head downor if I just make sure
everything is good, I'll gethired.
But then, like at that's how Igrew up in America of like, hey,
high school, just do this, this, this, you'll get a good job
and you'll get paid and whatever.
Then you go to college, andthen sometimes a lot of colleges
, they keep you the same mindset.
And then the moment you get outof school you're like, okay,

(01:32:22):
what do I do?
And then you, it's just there'sso many like you have to be,
have to have the entrepreneurialmindset, I think now more than
ever, and you have to do morethan one thing to be successful.
You have to be able to this,like what we do, it's more
business talk, it's moreconnected with clients, it's
solving the problem, it'sediting, it's video shooting,

(01:32:42):
it's sometimes doing Photoshop.
There's a thousand things youhave to do and you have to take
it upon yourself to learn ityourself, or ask somebody, uh,
to show you the ropes, and youhave to be out there and and not
assume, just because you havethe bare minimum set of skills,
you deserve more than youactually do.
Yeah, because that's not.
I don't think that's workinggeneration anymore yeah, I think
we have to be better than thenext person, and then that

(01:33:06):
requires you to put more energy,time and efficiency in in your
skill sets and who you are.

And I don't want to get too much into it, but the
thing is, what I've noticed is,again, the system is designed
to make you a worker bee.
Right, it's designed for you toget your education at least
schooling, and if not, you knowcollege if you want to go there,
but ultimately you're going tolead to go work somewhere.
Right, you're going to go workeither at a fast food restaurant

(01:33:35):
, or you're going to go work ata tech firm, or you're going to
be a coder, but regardless,you're going to go become a
worker bee.
And I think what the world islacking, or at least we're not
training people enough, is theskill of entrepreneurship, and
that is what America is based,based on.
You know us inventing things oror building things, or or I
don't know just being at theforefront of innovation.

(01:33:56):
And the only ways you can dothat is you have to stop.
Stop and think for a secondright as a worker be, you're
trained, okay, so here's theprocess.
Right, you do a, b c, d andthen you just do that right.
You flip your burger or whateveryou put, put mayonnaise, you
put ketchup.

They teach you all the way up to D and then
you get to F and you're likeNow what you didn't teach me F.
I'm not doing it.

Exactly, or you're just so miserable because
they're paying you less thanwhat you can afford your rent
for.
So you're like how am Isupposed?

to survive on this little pay, especially in
a place like Orlandolando.
Man, it's crazy expensive yeahso.

So I think that's what the emphasis is, and if
it's not there, then you leantoward youtube university,
because you have if they havethat mindset despite the the
system trying to make you aworker be.
Uh.
The only place most people canturn up to is either someone in
their life right or to youtubeuniversity to find all this
knowledge.
And then the problem withyoutube is there's gold on here,

(01:34:52):
but at the same time there's somuch crap yeah so you, the
hardest part is not theinformation.
It's filtering through the crapwhere there's people you know
who have no experience tellingyou what to do.

Uh, to get to the, the golden information
that you need, or even themtelling you like sometimes it's
gold information, but you're noteven at that level yet.
You don't know what a f-stop is.
You don't know what this like Idon't like and then you have to
, and then every differentcreator thinks you know
different knowledge, and thenit's a headache to go through.
But you're going to have to gothrough it, but it's free,

(01:35:25):
though it's free, it'saccessible.

You can do it on your phone, which pretty much
everyone has nowadays.
So as long as you have the itch.
But that's what I'm saying as asystem level.
We're not creating the itch,but if you do have it, you can
fulfill it.
You don't even need college, atleast for what we do.

(01:35:47):
You just have to like I said,dig through YouTube and find the
good stuff, and hopefully notwatch the trash stuff, yeah, and
then hopefully you can findsome people locally around you,
um, who are willing to, you know, take you under the ring or at
least uh talk to you, or coffeeor whatever, yeah um, and then
provide them value, exactly like.

I don't think if I, if I just was like, oh,
I'm not getting paid, I'm onlygonna do this, this and this on
that job, that I did, no, andthen I would have never hired he
would.
He would have been like, well,this guy doesn't give a crap.

You know there was people on that shoot that were
never hired again.

Yeah, exactly there you go.

That's what I'm saying.
It is what it is because theydid the bare minimum.
And I'm not saying thisattitude.
Also, I don't like people aboveand beyond.
The idea is just be part of theteam, man.
That is simple.
Obviously, we all have roles.
We all have, you know, certainpay that we're getting.
So I completely understand that, Like you're like oh, I'm not

(01:36:38):
going to obviously work 15 hours.
If you hired me for four hoursI get that, you know.
But what I'm saying is, at thesame time, just work in a team,
Like again life is simple.
Let Life is simple.
Let's not complicate it.
You, you you're in a set, youknow help out yeah.
Now, if it's somethingunreasonable, I get it, like you
know, obviously at that pointthen you don't go back.
But if it's like a littlereasonable hey, there's a few

(01:36:59):
bags Like hey, do you mindhelping load?
Why not?
We are all working together.

It's a whole project If you're the producer
director if you're the one thatgot the gig or if you're the PA.
Like the whole goal is to makesure the project goes in
smoothly, exactly.

And I think that's the attitude that gets you
successful.
Obviously, you have to work onyour business skills so you can
be the leader and make themajority of the money.
Because obviously, as atechnician you're not going to
make money Right?
So I, when I'm the producerdirector, I make way more money
than when I'm helping otherpeople out as a right.
That's just, this is how it is.
All you can ask for is a dayrate, travel rate, maybe

(01:37:37):
expenses, right, what's this?
You can charge a lot more.
You can charge production feeand you're doing that, so I get
that.
But at to improve your skillsif you're just doing work for
yourself, right, you have tohave to have a balance of
everything yeah, and I thinkthat's the key and it's kind of
what we.

I think the topic we started off in the
beginning it's balancing outwhat you want to do because,
like you said, like you willmake more money if you're
producing, if you're the oneplanning out the shoots, you're
the one doing the sales, butyou'll probably have more fun
doing a dp if if that's what youwent, you know, started off as
yeah.

And it's.
But it's actually the harder tobe real because guess what?
Now you have to have a littlebit of knowledge of everything,
because if you are not producingyour job but you don't know
anything about sound or lightingor whatever, now you're
choosing between five sound foryour gig.
How do you pick Right, ifthat's one thing?

(01:38:32):
So as a producer it becomesslightly harder because see, at
least as a skill set, as a dp,you can master it right.
You're like, okay, this is whatI'm going to do, and you don't
even have to own the camera ifyou you know, have like alexa,
for example.
We'll say you can learn enough,uh, and maybe even rent once,
like just so you practice.
So you, now you're a skilledoperator.
It's not that complicated, themethodology of f-stop or

(01:38:53):
aperture or whatever, andshutter speed and all that is
the same.
It translates between cameras.
So your framing, yourcomposition, all that you don't
need to relearn.
That I'm saying for differentcamera systems.
But worse is when you're aproducer.
Now you've got to hire a goodsound guy, you've got to hire a
DP.
You've got to hire a good soundguy, you gotta.

Hire a dp, you gotta hire a grip, you gotta
hire a gap.
Yeah, what if your?

grip shows up with like a, with like I don't know
some kind of condition wherethey can't lift weight.
So you're like uh, how do youdo grip work without?
And I'm not like, I don't know,I don't even know how to, how
to maneuver around that it'scrazy that the more you grow in
your career, the less you youhave to do.

But you started off as it like you said
a producer.

It's just all those responsibilities yeah, you
didn't even think about that.
As a dp, you just get high, youshow up to set with a smile on
your camera and just exactly,and now you're like you have to
learn a little bit abouteverything which you may not
even be interested in.

Like I say, let's say you're not interested
in sound, so you're like, ohcrap, now I gotta learn about
something I don't care aboutit's a different set of
challenges yeah, and it's like Ialways tell people and
encourage people, like, hey, ifyour real passion is dp and you
don't want to do more than that,you can.
You can still be verysuccessful.
You can make definitely sixfigures just doing dp work, and
that's that's a that's a goodamount of money yeah, exactly if

(01:40:05):
that's what you want and thatmakes you happy and guess what
like like less, less equipment,less stress, less, because guess
what the bigger projects wereum that had dog and I'm making
the calls.
Sometimes they're morestressful than me just showing
up and just pointing my camera.
Yeah, it just kind of depends,and I think doing both is a good
middle ground, because, hey,guess what?
You're growing connections,you're, you're providing a

(01:40:26):
different type of value to theclients, uh, and then you can do
those bigger projects you canshow off and you can be like hey
look, I did this commercial forthis company or this or that,
and then, if you get lucky, youcan sometimes even be the CP on
that, if that's your favoriteaspect.
And then sometimes you just geta great gig as a freelance CP
where all you have to do ispoint your camera, press, record
all day and then you get thefootage off and then you get

(01:40:47):
paid you go home just chillingnot having a good time I, I, I
personally love the mix that atleast I did in 2024 yeah and I'd
love to, um, I'd love to domore of both and just and just,
you know, have those balances ofof jobs.

No, I think, uh, man, that's what I'm saying.
This conversation is so amazing, that's what.
I think I would have loved tohear what you need and I think
that's exactly where I am rightnow.
So I started, like I said, withfreelancing, where I only did
freelancing.
Then I started my productioncompany and for years I only did
production.
I would not take any job,freelance or DP or anything.

(01:41:27):
And then the last couple ofyears I've been doing both and I
found this is what makes mehappy, because there's a balance
.
I'm on other sets where I'm notthe boss, I'm not in charge,
and I'm learning so much.
I'm hanging out with creativeand, like you said, less stress.
It's like, oh, bring thiscamera package or whatever, and
you know I'm there.
Or sometimes it's not even acamera.
Like, oh, bring the soundequipment, you're going to do

(01:41:48):
sound or whatever.
Or you're going to be thegaffer.
I get to have fun, I get to be,and I also get to see the other
side of it.
What are the requirements?
Like, hey, they didn't tell meabout this or this.
You know, lunch wasn't good.

Or you know, crafty wasn't good.

You know what I mean Things that you learn.
And then the shoot freakingdoesn't start till 2.
And now it was freakingmidnight.
It's like what it's been 14, 16hour days.
What are we doing?
This was bad planning.

This is going to be some nightmare shoot,
yeah, by that producer.

So now, when back to my shoot, you know I go okay,
I got to plan this better.
I got to make sure you knowthat I scale the, you know,
schedule it properly.

It's a great bounce back and it's a great.
Yeah, like, like you said, likeshould always learn from every,
every shoot.
And I think, like what peoplesaid, like school only teaches,
skyrocket, absolutely.

(01:42:53):
I think we've all been blessedto be on sets where we've been
challenged and we've learned andnow you know, always do record,
always, oh always bring theright batteries.

There's one lesson that nobody you know, that's
most important hit record,always hit record if you don't
hit record that's the best wayto never get hired.
I've seen I've seen those memeson instagram when it's like
when you shoot a client for twohours and you press the record.
If you don't hit record, that'sthe best way to never get hired
.

I've seen those memes on Instagram when
it's like when you shoot aclient for two hours and you
press the record button and thenyou see the record button start
working and you're like, did Ijust not record for the past?

two hours.

I have nightmares about that I think I
call them production nightmareswhen you're like oh no, I
formatted the card.

Luckily I've never done that, but I've seen other
people.
That's why I'm so obsessed.
Like always, both cameras cardsI always simultaneously record,
always back up in multipleAlways, always, always, always,
always.

Back up to the cloud.

I cannot lose footage.

I've learned to appreciate some cameras and
the way their buttons feel whenyou press the record button,
Because you know you're likeyeah, okay, hi, it's recording
some cameras, yeah some cameras.
You're like, you press recordand you don't really know.
And then, um, this happened tome years ago and I was doing
more bend coverage.
I'd press record and I get anice panning shot and I look and
it just says standby and I'mlike, ah, and then you have to

(01:44:03):
do it all over again or the lasttime.

Okay, something funny similar happened.
I mean, it was just B-roll, butif you remember, on our DC
shoot.

We got our gimbals crossed.
You got to tell the details.

So essentially, I had a Ronin RS4 Pro and an RS3
Pro, and then the FX3C went onthe 4.
And then D went on.
3.
Point is they were supposed tobe reversed, so each were
already paired.

So for the people that don't know, you can
pair the gimbals to the camerasBluetooth, especially the FX3s,
and the gimbal itself has arecord button.
So, you can.
It's great because you canpress record straight on the
gimbal.

Yeah, it makes it a lot easier.
You don't touch the camera, youdon't affect the balance and
you know, five, ten minutes intoour B-roll session I'm like why
is it standby?
I?
Know, and see, it's me, I knowI hit record.
I'm like this is not recordingand then I'm like I feel awful
because then I'm like what ishappening here?
And I do again.

Two minutes later, it's not recording.

So what was happening was you were hitting
record.
It was stopping my recording.

I was tinging your recording oh my god it was
.
I'm so glad we caught quicklyso it wasn't like that, it was
like five we caught on up tolike five minutes, five, maybe
ten minutes max.
Yeah, but I was, I I thoughtthe same thing, but we're both
quiet because we're in front ofthe client.

We're not gonna say that, we're not gonna be
like.
Why isn't my camera recordingexactly exactly why we work?

so well together.

We both knew what was happening, we both kept
quiet.

We both kept our mouth shut and then they
were like are you done with theB-roll?

No, just a couple more seconds, I got the same, I
did the same panning shot fourtimes making sure I got it on
B-roll and I was staring at thered button.

I was, like it says, record.

Oh, that was funny .
But see, that's what's so silly.
So even after years and yearsof doing this, it happens, and I
don't even know how thathappened.
The cameras just sort ofswapped.

But hey, we caught on to it, we got the shot
, the the footage came outbeautiful I don't want to, but I
just love that we both had thisexact same reaction and we
stayed completely quiet.
You're like why isn't my camera?

yeah, I was like I first time was like maybe I I
could have had a crazy, you know, jet lag, I don't know.
But the second time I was likeI know for a fact, I hit this
record button it's not recordingwhat happened.
I'm sure you were feeling thesame thing.
You're like why is this?

dude, I did a whole like over the shoulder
pan at the newspaper Go back totheir face and they're looking
at us.
I'm like what?
What is this?
All my hard work.
Anyway, that was a fun day, but, like I said, no harm done, we
caught on to it.

Did you tell Adam that story?
No, are you guys going gonnahear this?
Oh, he's gonna have nightmares.

After this he's like why is this b-roll so
choppy?
He's cutting at the perfecttime oh, that's funny.

Yeah, I wonder if he's tired of that.
Yeah, I would love to ask.
He has an editor, so maybe theeditor thought the editor was
like why did they keep cuttingat random times?
They should be recording thecutting it makes no sense.

Anyway, I keep seeing footage of just her
feet.
What's going on?

when we were packing up.

I saw my camera rolling.

I was like why is it?
Recording and thanks to mysimultaneous recording.
Even if you delete it, it wassaved.
But no man, that was funny.
That was the only time I couldthink of I had anything like
that happen.

But it won't happen again, ever you know.

for me that's like the lesson.
It can happen only once, causeI will fix it.
Like the first time ever I didsome kind of shoot.
I don't do the music stuff, butit was something like six
camera, like a music thing.

Anyway recording.

Yeah, you could call it that like private
concert or whatever.
And I did great Remember thisis with low resources, I only
had like GH4s back then orwhatever but I recorded it.
The footage came out great.
I'm like, dude, I'm doing shotslike cool movements.
This is just me recording thewhole band somehow with GoPros
and you know cameras, what Icould at that time.

(01:48:10):
Point is, I came home and I'mlike, oh, you know, and I was
getting paid like 600 bucks,which sounds like a lot, and I
was like, oh, this is so easy,all cameras are going to be
lined up.
I just got to hit multicam, youknow, final cut.
I could just hit the button andI'm done.
Oh, dude, I started editing.
It Guess what Freaking thingwouldn't sync because there was
so many freaking cameras and itwas.
And you think, oh, line up thewaveform.

(01:48:32):
Again, I'm very technicallysound.
There was something wrong, someframe rates.
Point is it was not freakingline up, dude, that 20-minute
edit whatever became a freakingthree, four-day edit.

At that point I was like okay, this was not
worth it.

Now I'm working at $2 an hour because I'm trying,
because I had to manually lineup everything.
So it did work it just it wouldnot work automatically and
guess what?

the?

worst one and only time I've been in next day I
bought tentacle sinks foreverything.
I was like from now on,everything will have time code.
I am never again experiencingthis and I've never had that
again.
So you know only once.
But yeah, that was a nightmare.
Oh, and one last one that I hadrecently.
Somebody I used to have abutton just in case to burn in

(01:49:15):
the light if you're doing a livestream or whatever.
Again, I don't know why,because it's still going to live
.
Never had an issue, because Iknow the button not to press it,
but I think you were with me atthe Miami shoot that what
happened yeah.
So I think what happened is wewalked away to have some snack
or whatever and somebody elsewas trying to adjust a camera
and they accidentally hit abutton and freaking, burned,

(01:49:36):
burning the line.
Thank goodness it was thephantom lot, so it's a good
conversion lot.
It didn't really ruin that muchyeah, I'm pretty sure.
Again, I wasn't there, we wereboth yeah away.
but that's what I think happenedand that kind of annoyed me and
the first thing I did wasdisable that button.
I was like never again, youknow.
So again, it wasn't like theend of the world.
We were able to salvage it.

I remember when you told me and then I
thought so hard I was like Ididn't press anything.

Yeah, I was like this was S-Log3.

Yeah, I know for a fact.
Three, yeah, it makes no sensebut then.
But then you realize you knowsomebody else messed up.
You know I, I have a horrorstory and this is why I always
recommend, especially if you'reyou're, if you're someone in
college or if you're interested,do this for free.
Trust me, like the first coupleshoots is do it for free,
because I think the bestmistakes to do is when you're
not getting paid.
The moment you're getting paid10 grand and you make a mistake
that you couldn't be making whenit's free, then it's game over,

(01:50:32):
like blacklisted from at leastsomeone's circle.
But it was like my first yearand I was doing a lot of
narrative works and I got hiredto do all this is free, by the
way, but hired to do.
All I was getting paid waspizza, I think, pizza, and then,
like some lunches, pizza, pizza.

Pizza.
What type of food is that?

Get out of here.
Lunches, pizza, pizza, pizzawhat type of food is that pizza?
All right, so, uh, my friend, Iwas shooting with my canon m50
at the time.
My friend was like, hey, um, Ihave an adamos ninja, you can
shoot progress from it, so youcan put it on top of the camera,
connect it with a hdmi andthey'll record pro res.
It was like awesome, let's doit.
The first scene was all the way.
Oh yeah, the first scene waslike a huge, like long, long

(01:51:20):
take.
We go there.
It takes two, three hours.
It was all the way in the beach.
We shoot it and then I get homeand then I press play on the
footage and something.
If you guys never have donethis, the Atomos takes a video
and it records exactly what itsees on your image.

(01:51:40):
So if you don't have a cleanfeed, it records all your
settings onto the image.

So you didn't have a clean feed, I didn't have a
clean feed, and then you have tohave both a clean feed you
can't have a clean feed youcan't have a detailed feed't
have a clean feed.

I didn't have a clean feed, and then you have
to have both a clean.

You can't have a clean, you can't have a retail
feed in the clean feed yeah,it's a, it's a cheap camera.

It's like it was 500.
So the first day of the shoot,all you see is like the one.
It wasn't even like.
It was like the edges.
Maybe I could have cropped in.
It would have been ugly crop in, but it was like the rule of
third lines then all thesettings on the side and then a
big waveform on the bottom rightand I'm just like oh, wow.

(01:52:17):
Did you?

reshoot that, or you got fired.
I mean you were free, so Idon't know.

I told them I feel so bad and they might hear
this.
But I told them this was likefour years ago.
I was like, hey, by the way, uh, we might have to reshoot the
thing again.
And they're like what, whathappened?
And I was like, oh, the cardgot a format.
It was too embarrassed, tooembarrassed to ever say it.

Oh my god to me.
I would have rather heard thatother story.
That sounds more fun than cardguard format.
Oh so I have the footage, butit just has overlay, I feel like
.

But I mean, my logic at the time was like I
feel like I look smarter if mycard got formatted than if I had
my display display informationon the screen the whole time I
was probably my most, mostembarrassed.
I don't think I've ever messedup that bad, but that was, by
the way, that was my first year,that was a free shoot and that
was the best time to make thatmistake.

Yeah, and that to me that's not that bad.
For me, I mean, it's badbecause you have to reshoot.

But it's only one day.
Imagine six days of shooting.
All the footage is unfixable.

That's exactly what I like the Ninja monitors
for.
It's when sometimes you knowyou want to record the feed, but
outside of that, yeah, that'skind of crazy.

Yeah, if it's planned, perfect.
If it's not planned, it's notgoing to be.
That would be a nightmare, ohdude.

I had to worry about that Right now.
The setup is so funny Again.
Even after doing this for years, I was like I got to make sure
that the ATEM gets the freakingclean feed.

We need a producer.
Hey, who wants to come producethis podcast for me, please?
Zero pay.
Hey, look at that.
Even on the shoot I had tolearn the the roadcaster,
because, um, the guy um we'rewith, like the, it was a newer
one and he didn't.
It was, uh, they had a noisegate on there and once you, once
you edit audio, you know what anoise gate is yeah, you

(01:54:07):
instantly catch.

What a noise gate is yeah, I'm pretty sure we have
one on right now and we wereyeah we definitely have one on.

I'm like but it was noticeable because I
don't know.
I don't know what was going on.
It was noticeable, so it'd be,because it was two people
talking.
They were right next to eachother.
It was literally kind of likethis setup and in the first take
we just could not figure it out.
And then, when the clients wentback, I just was like, whatever
, I'll go in there, I'll figureit out and I figured out it was
you turn off the processing,yeah yeah, and we had to.

(01:54:33):
We had to turn it offindividually in the mic.

So that's what we couldn't figure out oh, you
don't okay, you said you didn'twant more.
Basically noise gate to be on,yeah, yeah, and then once it was
off because it kept cutting thethe voice.
Oh yeah, which I mean it'shappened a couple times to you,
so hopefully not yeah, which iswhen I brought the mic in.

Noise gate is great, as long as you know.
Yeah, your, your voice is rightover the line, look um, you
know, this podcast is zero uhfunds.

We're not peddling anything.
We're not.
I'm not trying to make anymoney this is just conversations
.
So we got to go auto a lot.
So the processing is on.
So I'm curious to see actuallyaudience.
Uh, you know what, whatfeedback we get?
We can always turn it off giveus a review.

Um yeah, I mean, I would love to know how
the audio was awful nobody wantsto listen to your, to you, it's
my god you kept cutting offhalfway through the important
information oh, my god, okay,I'm gonna tell you the.

This is how tomorrow you're going to have 20
clients.
What, what did he say this?

guy, did you hear that?

Just do that.

Yeah.

If you don't do that, you're not making a
million dollars?
Yeah, that's on you Anyway, butno, that's kind of funny that
you talk about it, because, like, look, hey, we're doing this
just to provide free value andjust to have good conversations.
Man, this is the type ofconversations I want to have,
even now.
Like I said, I don't, I don'tI'm it doesn't matter how long

(01:55:57):
I've been doing this.
There's always something new tolearn.

There's always something better to do
and there's always something toreminisce on of like oh, I did
do this.
Like oh, I should be proud ofthis.

Or oh yeah, this is how we exactly and it brings
everything in perspective yeah,or share these simple things
that you know I learned from myideas like now never use a
camera.
That time could, but thathappened that one time long time
ago, and I've never had thatexperience so clearly.
The system works you know, youlearn from your mistakes and you
never do them again.
But if you're listening to aconversation like this and you

(01:56:30):
already plan for those mistakes,then you'll never even have
those mistakes.

So it's kind of like I don't know, and that's
what the client's paying for.
Yeah, the reassurance that likehey, if I hire you for a
wedding you're gonna get thekiss.
Yeah, if I hire you for realestate, you're gonna have a wide
angle, you're gonna know how totake a photo or how to do like
it.
It's not that you know.
The skill is that you've doneit so many times.

It's a clear Exactly, and especially once the
budgets get higher, it's on you.
If there's $100,000 on the line, you better hit record, and if
not, then you don't belong onthat set.
You can't go up to them and belike hey, sorry, the card got
formatted.

Yeah, I formatted the card I'm so sorry
or the clean feed.

It wasn't the clean feed, it wasn't on.
Yeah, exactly.

Although I can edit the video, but you'll
see a whole.
You'll see some extra stuff onit, even sometimes, like once
you do this, like I've seen somevideos on live and it makes me
mad when I know they shot it raw, with no LUT or C-Log or
whatever, and they leave it, andthey leave it.

I'm just like why?

Why do you think this looks good?
What's going on?
Please hire a colorist.
I don't know if you saw this.
This was like a year or two ago.
There was a video on TimesSquare on one of the big screens
and one of the frames one ofthe frame, one of the clips.
It wasn't the warp.
Stabilization wasn't processedso you just see the you see the
blue line that says warpstabilization and it's just on

(01:57:58):
time square and you're just likelooking at it like what?
How did that happen?

oh my god.
But see, that's what I'm saying.
That's what.
Why would clients would pay youmore?
It's the reliability to show up.
Like you know, I think in mylast as a production company
seven years I only canceled ordelayed one shoot.
Even that I didn't cancel.
So somebody was going to comehelp me, called in because they

(01:58:23):
were like they had COVID andthat was a legit reason at that
time I was like, okay, yeah,please don't show up.
But then at the same time timewe can't do the first person,
and they were very important uh,you know the of some hospital,
whatever.
And she was really mad.
I mean I, it's fair, I was like, hey, look, here's what's
happening, my client, and has my, my um, my contractor, my cam
up, whatever has, uh, it's covid, so I'm gonna have to delay

(01:58:46):
this, but we can do this laterin the day.
And she was like, well, I'm notavailable today.
Then I was like, well, then,here's my exception, I will
specially come out tomorrow withdifferent crew and we'll
capture you.
And she was willing to do that.
So, it's fine, we worked it out.
And then, the funny enough, westill.
I called quentin, which wasgoing to be on the podcast
eventually.
And then, but I called him, Iwas like, look, dude, you're
supposed to be in the shootlater, can you come earlier?

(01:59:07):
And he was nice enough to comean hour or two.
So the second, because you know, again, corporate, we're doing
literally sometimes 10, 20interviews in a day.
So the second location afterthat, I was there and he was
there, and we did the whole day,um and uh, made it happen and
then we just had.
I had to just go back and getthat one um, pick up that one
shoot later.
But, like I said a lot of times, you're working with these

(01:59:29):
people who have such tightschedules and availability that
you know canceling or whatever,even delaying, is not an option.
But, like I said, only done itonce and even that I'm like I
wish that had not happened but,I, could not have predicted,
yeah.

COVID was a hard time, for sure, yeah.

That was just crazy.

It's just crazy.

Plus you know it's like you can't take that
liability.
I'm like, once you tell me that, I mean even then I'm glad he
told me that, because that wouldhave been even worse.
But I'm like, okay, well, atthat point, you know, I just
wish I had a little earliernotification, because then I
would have been able to getpeople there on time.
Yeah, I guess something, yeah,yeah but it is what it is you
know.

Yeah, I think those mistakes are best early
in your career.

Once you make those mistakes, then you know
for a fact you're not going tomake it again.

At least you now know what you're not going
to do.

Yeah, exactly, and that's why they're paying you
high money, because the truth issomebody else gets COVID.
You're still responsible, right, and I hope that doesn't happen
.
But if somebody gets anaccident, or your tire blows in
your grip, man, or whatever, atthe end of the day, regardless
you are, if you're the producerI mean you're getting the big
bucks then you are responsiblefor making sure the shoot

(02:00:37):
happens, because if they'rehaving a hundred thousand dollar
loss, guess who's responsiblefor it?
you are because if you're theproducer, yeah they're gonna
look at you.

Real funny if uh if no one shows up the set
or something gets canceled, eventhe actor.
Oh, the actor got COVID.
I'm sorry, I messed up my money.

Which is why you got to get insurance.
You got to get you know, makesure you know you get iron
contracts from.
You know actual attorneys thatyou know, cover your butt In
these cases.
You have kill fees, you have,you know, rain, whatever clauses
in there, I don't know, I'm notan attorney, that's not legal
advice.
But follow, you know, ask againthe right professional.
You gotta have all these thingsdone to protect yourself.

(02:01:18):
But also, again, remember bereliable.
Right, that's all that is again.
Make it simple, just bereliable, just know you're
responsible.
Um and um.
Yeah, I think rest will justfollow.
I mean, it's pretty, prettystraightforward from there on.
Anyway, I think time to kind ofwrap these things up so thank

(02:01:39):
you for coming man, this was anincredible conversation
had a great time you knowanything before we go?
Anything you want to ask me, oryou know anything you want to
add to it?

we covered a lot, but yeah, thanks.
Do you want to add to it?
We covered a lot, um, but yeah,thanks, thanks, do you want to?
Do you want to shout out yourstudio, or is it still?

I don't pedal anything, guys, but why don't
you shout out your Instagram?

Instagram yeah, you guys can find me, so I
have three Instagram, so feelfree to follow whichever one you
guys want, or you can followall of them.
Company at that mediapro.
We do commercials, we docorporate work.
We also have my.
If you want to hire me just asa freelance dp for documentaries
commercials, uh, emannfilms,underscore fl.
There's another email films intexas.

(02:02:18):
Apparently they took my usernameand then um my studio if you're
ever in the orlando area, ifyou need a photo and video
studio, feel free to swing by uh, studio 124, uh, near downtown
and east colonial, and that'salso the instagram too, but
that's also.
That's both awesome.

Well, thank you, hey, please go follow him.
I I barely post anything oninstagram somebody at least who
does post some things, sodefinitely again.
Thank you for coming, man.
Um, I really want to thank you.
I think we've had someincredible memories on set and
offset the last couple of yearsand hopefully we'll get to
continue doing this uh, next fewyears.
And, like I said, my only hopeis you grow so much that, uh, so

(02:02:58):
far it's been me hiring you.
I want to eventually be whereyou're.

So, yeah, so so far ahead that you're hiring
me, I can't wait to hire you andyour grip truck too.
And you can, we can put it touse.

We can exactly, man we can.

We can show off to the clients like, hey,
look at our, look at our sexycar.

I will happily put on your shirt and I'll go
happily impress your clients foryou, that's.

That's exactly what I'm looking forward
to doing not buying any morecamera equipment, just hiring
vipple as my camera, that that'dbe my dream.

I think we got to continue collaborating, so again
like I said thank you forcoming, man, and uh, we'll keep
doing this.
Yeah, all right, peace, peace.

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