Creatives Grab Coffee - 3 Founders, 1 Vision (ft. Rise Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 84

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

In this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee, Dan Morbin, Mark Lunt, and Mike Lienard from Rise Media (South London) share how their passion for parkour sparked a dynamic video production venture. They discuss overcoming early challenges, investing in cutting-edge gear and efficient post-production workflows, and fostering a supportive team culture rooted in trust and collaboration. Packed with actionable insights for marketers and video professionals, this conversation sheds light on the importance of balancing client expectations with creative freedom—all while delivering standout results that help brands rise above the competition. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Episode Intro and Sponsor Messages 02:19 - Welcome: Dan Morbin, Mark Lunt, and Mike Lienard from Rise Media 06:10 - Early Days: Freelancing, Gear Choices, and First Big Contracts 15:20 - Parkour Origins: How Action Sports Fueled Their Filmmaking Passion 25:50 - Investing in the Right Equipment: Cameras, Lenses, and Production Tools 32:10 - Server Solutions and Backup Strategies for Seamless Post-Production 42:40 - Building the Team: Hiring Editors, Producers, and Nurturing Growth 56:40 - Balancing Client Expectations with Creative Freedom 01:05:58 - Wrap-Up and Future Aspirations at Rise MediaSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

Welcome to Creative Scrap Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creative Scrap Coffee is hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazerov from Labs Productions. Our goal is to share knowledge and experiences from video production professionals around the world. Whether you're a freelancer looking to start your own business or a seasoned business owner aiming to scale your company, this is the show for you. Join us as we develop a community of like-minded creatives looking to learn and help each other grow. Welcome to the business of video production. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Before we get started with the show, let's go over today's sponsors. Do you have a shoot in Toronto?

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And now, let's begin the show. Alrighty, here we go. Today we got a special episode for Creatives Grab Coffee. This is our first episode with not one, not two, but three guests, surprisingly all from the same company. Welcome RISE Media. We got Mike, Dan, and Mark. How's it going guys?

Yo, how we doing? Hello, yeah, very good, thank you, very good. All right, so before we kind of jump into it, give us a little bit of a background about you guys and Rise Media. Cool. So we're a small video production company based in South London. We're a team of nine and we've been operating for a while since 2011.

It's quite some time now. Myself, Mark and Dan founded it whilst we were at uni. And the kind of work that we do is pretty broad to be fair. We've sort of span everything from events to branded content and commercials. Dan, do you want to tell us a little bit about how we met? Yeah, sure, yeah. Well.

Sounds like a love story. Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably the more interesting part of, yeah, it's an interesting part of Rise really. So the three of us, we're all friends before the company started. Mark and I have actually known each other since nursery. So like day dot really, isn't it?

What, when we were about two? Yeah, it's been a hot minute. Yeah, so we've known each other for a very long time. And then around the age of 15 was when we met Mike. That was all through parkour and free running. So at that sort of age, we were all jumping around, launching ourselves off stuff. And I think what goes hand in hand with that

is cameras and filming stuff. It's a bit like the skate scene. When you're doing stupid stuff, you wanna film yourself. And I think that's kind of where our love for camera developed. I guess also with the whole we grew up in that kind of MTV generations. There was no YouTube. It was all just like Jackass. Yeah, Jackass.

That kind of stuff. Yeah. So we were doing lots of stupid stuff, thinking we were celebrities, you know, and filming ourselves doing stupid things. And then that developed into almost doing like little comedy sketches, little scenes like that. And that's where it kind of stayed for a long time. And then when it got to around, you know, college kind of years, we, um, we was making more kind of refined pieces of work, maybe I might have said that

back then looking back on it now, maybe not refined. Yeah. Let's not show any of our old films today. But then, yeah, then we went off to university and me and Mark turned up there on the first day. We were doing digital film and screen arts was the name of the course. And lo and behold, Mike's there.

And we're like, oh, Mike. Yeah, that's kind of where we got close. It's funny because until uni, we were friends. We were good friends. Not anymore. But we weren't, yeah, we've fallen out in the 10 years since. No, like, at school times, you, Mark and Dan

were kind of rivals in a way, because they were the other guys who were jumping off stuff and filming themselves. So I had my little lot of friends and we were doing our stuff and you guys were doing your stuff. Yeah. And in the end, it was a bit of a match made in heaven

because we ended up going to uni together and working on things as a team. There was a bit of competitions beginning with. We were from different schools and we kind of had like the, we're both doing the same thing, both trying to film, like film ourselves doing parkour and stuff.

And there was this rivalry, wasn't there? Yeah. We have mutual friends, you'd always hear about what Mike's been up to. He's just done a double backflip or something like that and you know compete with us and then yeah bumped into him at uni and we were with him for three years at university lived together and we started doing music videos first at university didn't we like as a three and yeah started the company was it second

year of uni? It's pretty similar to you guys, right? So it looks a lot like it sounds like it. We did the same, yeah, we started working together, doing videos for the student groups at our uni, and we were getting paid for it, so it was funding the hobby, and then when we graduated, we're like, let's take a chance, Columbus did,

and here we are 10 years later. Yeah, that's spot on spot on like we were fortunate enough where our course allowed us to submit work and coursework as a group rather than as individuals. So the three of us and I think we had some other things as well, there were other people in our team and yeah so we were submitting work which was being paid for. So we were doing music videos, submitting that as coursework and it was nothing. We weren't getting much money at all.

It was a couple hundred quid. Yeah, a couple hundred quid, but still for us, it was like, well, we're getting paid to film stuff now. And it was a good feeling. And then when it came to the end of university, we kind of thought, well, let's just give this a go and keep doing it. We started in, the company formed in 2011,

but it was actually around 2014 when we all were fully in. The first three, four years was kind of, I was doing a little bits here and there, freelancing, all three of us were doing our own little bits, but we kept kind of putting our money collectively back in that pot. And then we had enough to buy our own camera, then a a bit of lighting and before we knew it that that pot had kind of grown and the equipment had grown. The funniest thing, remember we had, we used to work out

my parents living room and at the time our kit store was the cupboard under their stairs. That was our kit our kit storage was under the stairs. And now just imagine getting all our stuff under there with no chance. Yeah, it's crazy when you think. I'm sure it's the same with you guys. You don't necessarily notice the change as it happens. You always think, you know, I'm working hard

and sort of like, okay, we've got a new client, we've got a new camera. And then it's all of a sudden I've got another member of staff and then it's, oh my God, we've got a whole kit room and a team of nine. Yeah, it's rare to see opportunity to. So what changed for you guys, what changed for you guys where for the first couple of years

you guys are still freelancing doing your own thing? Like, what was the change of where you guys can start as a company? Yeah, I mean, the first few years, obviously, I mean, for anyone starting a company is hard. I think especially in video, cause you're not only limited as to the clients that you can win, but you're also limited as to

like the kit you've got and the budgets that you're working with. So it was really freelancing. We had our own things going on and we kind of funneled that money through one, you know, company account and save. And the time that I knew that we were probably onto a winner was a company a large like publishing company News UK got in touch

with us and it was through a freelancer I used to do a lot of Glycam stuff that was kind of my thing and I was I was doing Glycam on a job and a guy said my flatmate has she works at EGK and they're looking for a company to take over their events. And obviously I thought at the time we're too small for that, but we pitched for it and we won it and it was the first time that we actually had a contract in place

with a forecast of work. So what was it, Denmark, was it a year's worth of events? Or it was like a preferred supplier type thing. Yeah, I think it was a preferred supplier for the first year, yeah.. Yeah it was something tangible where we could be like we know that we've got at least some work you know for the next year. So that's where it changed was really that first win. Yeah an actual bit of repeat work. I think more than anything that was just like a massive confidence booster because we went from being like feeling a

little bit like kids with cameras to like looking into like a big glass building, going into a boardroom, sitting down with people and winning a pitch. And it was like, okay, this is real now. Like we've got a real job. Yeah. A real project to work on. And off the back of that, we pretty much,

so News Corp's obviously massive organisation. They've got different brands. So we kind of bounced around within the brands inside that company. So that was a good bit of growth. And then our second large client, Hearst Magazines, came on board through word of mouth. And that was a really similar thing. So a large publishing company with lots of brands. They've got Esquire, Men's Health, Women's Health, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, amazing brands. And it was mainly editorial work and events that we

started with for those guys but that was the changing point wasn't it I think we having two large clients really changed the game back to back that and it changed everything for us yeah I think that I think we did a good job though I think of even though we are all doing our own freelance thing we all still kind of pitched for stuff. And the front was always Rise. It was always this collective, like the team. So even though we were all kind of,

it might have been a job that I had won, but I'd still market myself as Rise Media. And I think that's both bode well for us. And that kind of team attitude, to be honest, is still a massive part of who we are today. It's kind of carried through, I think, to the kind of ethos of the whole company. You have a team of nine now, but everyone here

are friends, aren't they? It's all really nice. Well, also, in the beginning, when you guys are kind of starting out a business like this, especially when you don't know the business as you're starting it, you're also trying to learn and freelancing is one of the best ways to do that. Because then you get on to certain projects you otherwise wouldn't be able to

get as a starting production company. And so and I have mentioned many years that up until like the pandemic, it was almost as if we were just two freelancers that happened to be working together on our own projects, but we were also still freelancing a lot with like different companies so we can learn, grow our networks, meet other people, because also you also have to make money to live, right? Because that was the biggest challenge. And when you have two partners, it can be tricky, but I can't imagine like with three people all trying to work towards the same goal you know everyone still has their own different financial goals and like financial needs and so that was really

the only way for you guys to kind of really build a foundation a solid foundation so that you could actually grow a business from it right yeah that is yeah I mean having the three of us is you know it's fairly unusual to three co-founders, but it's been a bit of a blessing in disguise, I think, because there's never a split decision. There's always a two or one, two v one. So whatever comes up, there's always a decision made.

You can't have like an odd number, and even numbers rather. Does that cause problems? Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. How is decision making done between three? Because always there's a loser technically. Yeah, I think the key about that. How is decision making done between three? Because always there's a loser, technically. Yeah, I think the key is that the three of us are friends before business partners, aren't we?

I mean, that's always the way. And so, you know, everyone's got an ego, but I don't think any of us have ego so big that we can't, you know, we get the message of two people are against another one, we kind of take it back to the ego. Okay, you guys. I think as well, we've just been fortunate in the fact that the three of us have got very different skill sets you know Mark's

very technically minded Dan's very sort of hands-on production sort of minded and I'm very sort of like people person minded so between the three of us I think we all recognize that we know what we're good at and we know what the others are good at. And I think that helps a lot with decision making. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a project. Technical mind doesn't really come through in this current image, but yeah.

Well, we're talking to Mike, Dan and Mark, the friends, right, but also the business partners second, right? Yeah, having that level of building a level of trust and understanding of like what everyone's strengths and weaknesses are, what their roles are in the business is very key to have good, to maintain good relationships. Because Dario and I, because there's two of us, if ever we're coming at it like a, how do you say,

an impasse on something, it can get very difficult. But that was back in the day when we were kind of both doing a little bit of everything. It's still like, it's normal. It still happens, right? But now we have more set roles in terms of like what we're responsible for. So we kind of let the other person

handle those aspects of the business because it helps make things a lot easier. And we trust each other. You know, it's been now what, 10 years that we've been doing this. So there is a level of trust built on a foundation like that. So how does- I wanna go back to the decision making,

you know, 2v1 and whatnot. Like the answer you guys gave is very logical. But sometimes when you're having to make decisions, there's the emotional aspect as well. So how do you guys overcome that? Because again, it's three people. So it's a little trickier, especially if two team up on one. I think if it's like the same like it's more so like if it happens Does it happen frequently where it's like the same two versus the same one?

It is a real mix. With Kit, it's usually me and Dan V Mike, actually. When it comes to kit purchases, like we've got, you know, wanna buy new lenses or wanna buy a 4D. Mike always wants the 4D. We always want the lenses. Yeah.

But yeah, with kit, it's usually me and Dan V Mike, but everything else is random, I'd say. I think that, yeah, like in the moment, you can kind of, I'm just trying to think like, actually back to the last time, there was like a decision that we made where I'm just trying to think like actually back to the last time there was like a Decision that we made where I was the person that was it was against it. I think In maybe in that moment, like you said Darien is a bit of an emotion or something

But as soon as I go home, I just forget about it and just come back to work next day and it's just like Yeah, what was the last big decision? Put you put trust in my trust in you guys That's it if you if you two think one thing that I don't, I must, there must be something wrong with what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just quite a unique thing. We've spent a lot of time together. I mean, at uni we literally live together, you know,

so it's, and you guys went to primary school together, and then, you know, the first time I met Mark, he tried to do, I was trying to do a backflip, and he couldn't backflip, and I was like, look, man, I tried to do, I was trying to do a back flip and he couldn't back flip. And I was like, look, man, I'll spot you. You put your hand under the sort of, under his lower back and I'll spin you around. And like, there's no way you'll land on your head.

That's what I said to him. I've never seen anyone drop on their head. The first thing he does is jump up. I bodge it. He comes down on the back of his head. That was the first time I met Mark. So you know. Exactly what you said would not happen.

Very trusting. A high level of trust. Yeah what you said would not happen. Very trusting. A high level of trust. Yeah, it's going back to the back flipping. It's like the trust fall, you know. Yeah. I just went up, tucked my legs and just went into a little egg and it just fell like an egg just straight onto my head.

I have no idea how you guys do that. I have no idea how you guys do that. Well, we're still, I wouldn't say we're in that scene, are we? But we still, we know a lot of people who are, you know, the London free running parkour scene was pretty big and still, it's probably bigger than ever now. And it crosses into production massively.

Yeah. A lot of the free runners that we used to train with are now like professional stunt people, or they've gone on to become DOPs or directors themselves, which is really nice. Yeah, that was something I think I brought up before, wasn't it? There's a lot of people we've noticed have come from that. I'll be talking to a Steadicam operator or another camera operator and a lot of the time

they've come from this extreme sports background. Whether it's, you know, we've got Brendan and Nick, both used to be into wakeboarding, love wakeboarding, used to shoot that Claudia Claudia, I do for you amazing director. Yeah skateboarders BMX's It seems to be a bit of a trend I find of like and maybe it's just that thing at least in London Well, I don't know in Canada if that's a thing or not so much I think I have been noticing with a lot of guests that will be coming on like if they're into like outdoor Content or anything like that. They do have a background in

Be being in that sport, right? And I guess it translates well because they're filming themselves and each other and then they get good at it and they're like Well, I like it. So I might as well just go into it Yeah, and I think you when you're when you're that age, you know the chances are your career as a professional parkour athlete isn't gonna take off. But you've still learnt skills from camera work and filming and then you're like,

oh, okay, I've got this though, so maybe I can use that. Yeah. So it's not, so those who can't do teach, it's so those who can't do film it, because it happens. Yeah, yeah, I think that's kinda how it works of how it works. But it also makes sense though, because you're basically, you have a close understanding and you're almost like an expert of the subject matter and how that sport or hobby or whatever

it is you're into, like unfolds itself. So you're able to tell stories that are pretty authentic as well in regards to it. And then that becomes a little bit more of your thing as like a good foundation for like a baseline. Whereas like, for example, Dario and I, when we started, we were in our business school and no one else was doing video there. So there were a lot of student run organizations

that were acting like little mini businesses in the university and they all needed video content. Like 2013 was like a, 2013, 2014 was the year when independent video was kind of like everyone wanted to have their own video for whatever it could be, no matter how small. And so that's how we built our foundation with a lot of businesses, finance companies, you know,

in that sector, cause we had that first exposure there. It doesn't sound as glamorous or as cool as, you know, in that sector, because we had that first exposure there. It doesn't sound as glamorous or as cool as, you know, parkour jumping or wilderness hiking or anything like that. Probably paid more money though, mate. Yeah. I mean, it was student groups. It was student groups. So you don't really make money.

They did pay, though, at the time, compared to like, you know, working at Hollister or something. It was money. Yeah. Well, I made sure we were getting paid at least something. It's not a lot, but at least like, like you know working at Hollister or something it was it was money yeah well I I made sure we were getting paid at least something it's not a lot but at least like I think the first few projects was like $150 a video but it was almost surprising that it was like hey we're actually getting paid to shoot video while we're in university it was almost like it almost felt like a little

cheat code, you know As well because the transition into like DSLRs, you know when we're at university Everything was all quite cam called like ex 3s and all that kind of thing and then the 5d mark 2 came out and that's when we got into it and then like camera equipment was suddenly quite accessible, you know, and You could just get a 5d mark, slap a 50 millimeter 1.4 in there and everything looked really good. And it was just easy to make cool content. And the glide cam. And the forward, and the glide cam.

The glide cam. The glide cam balanced that to this day. Oh. Yeah, he was never good at balancing it. I was the glide cam guy. I don't think I ever balanced it. We still have our old glide cam and we're Considering putting up on the wall as a sort of right through that out as soon as I have

I have it in the back. There's like a trophy with With the can of tea to with the Canon t2i which was the first camera that I started shooting videos with so now that's That's just on my mantle there. It's like this is the first tool that that made me money I was gonna ask you guys like what kind of kit did you guys start off? Did you do the whole like Canon to like Sony transition that kind of seemed to happen back? We're back with Canon now Well, we switched back to Canon cuz in 2019 because at the time we were with the a7s twos And we've mentioned many times where those that camera had a lot of great features, which is why everyone got it.

But the look of it was just absolutely horrid. And you had to do so much. Oh yeah, the battery aspect too. I mean, to be fair, like Canon R5C is terrible for batteries too. But that's the besides the point. The point was that like the look of it was always a hassle for post production. And you always even like a simple interview, you had to do quite a bit to just make it look even natural. Right.

And I we got really tired of that workflow. And so we we saw how a lot of other shooters that we had worked with in the past, they were just shooting with cannons and their footage was always so easy to work with in post. So we just decided to switch over to Canon and kind of stuck there now. So yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool though. We pretty much went Canon and then moved over to Sony at the A7S Mark II sort of time, had a couple of those

and then got, it was FS7 after that. Yeah, the Sony FS7. And. Yeah, that's only FS7. And now we're running pretty much three FX6s and two A7S Mark IIIs for all our event type stuff. And we had a red Gemini which did us really well for years that we loved. That was kind of our bigger setup, but we've actually just sold the Gemini.

So we're in the market now for a new bigger cam. Yeah, we found we weren't, when the jobs came up where we were looking for a cinema camera, oftentimes we're working with a DOP or a director and they want to use a certain camera, they might want to use Arri or they might want to use a Red Raptor or you know the Gemini was getting a bit old, but they want to use something for that project. So you know we're in that point at the moment, oh, did we buy another big cinema camera

to have in house? Or did we just hire in, the same way with lenses, you know, you'd hire in the lenses you wanna use for the bigger projects. It's not really worth investing in the massive camera systems at this point. Like the one thing we learned is that it's better to have a good workhorse setup

for like a lot of like the medium to small sized gigs because it helps you work within those types of budgets because those are for projects and clients that don't really care what camera is being used as long as they're being delivered high quality stuff. That's all that matters, right? From a business standpoint, that is a tool that's actually going to be making you money as a result in the long term

Whereas if you put say 50k into a cinema camera that gets used what once or twice a year or three times You're gonna rent it out at that point Yeah, like and and to your point if you're working with people that constantly want different setups all the time it's it's just throwing money away at that point. And the glamour of owning the latest Ari or the latest Red, you know, it's the old school thinking when you just started out, right, it's like, oh, finally I had this camera, you know,

like that made sense back in the day because like the cinema cameras, I remember like the C100 was like the first one that I really wanted to get as like a workhorse. But when you just spent like a 1500, two K on a camera and that's all you could afford, you're making like $500 a project. It's not easy to just justify 9,000, $10,000 to spend, you know, in the beginning, whereas now it's crazy how, how low the barriers to entry are.

Yeah. It makes sense if you're a freelancer because that would elevate you to a certain level of project because if we knew someone that had a red, for example, we would just bring them on for those types of projects. So right away, they're opening themselves up to a ton of different types of gigs they can get, right? But as a business, like it's just cheaper, like find the guy that has it and just bring him on.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, conversely, Like it's just cheaper, like find the guy that has it and just bring him on. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, conversely, it, the, the one good thing about having something yourself, so for example, with the red, like we didn't really need the red. I wouldn't say the red made its money back, but what he did do is it allowed us to have a really good setup that we could use for whatever we wanted and not free of charge because we paid for it, but without the feeling of having to pay for it, you know, to rent it out.

So passion projects, or just tinkering about of it. I really enjoyed having that. But from a business perspective, probably not essential, but from a sort of creator and sort of creative point of view. It was super exciting. It was lovely to have it just there. Yeah, when it turned up that day, it was like, oh my God, it was like, like three Christmases came at once.

When it played out the red. It turned up on my doorstep. The delivery man just left it on my doorstep. I wasn't there the whole day. Oh! I just came back, I was just in my flat, like, oh, okay, cool. Like an Amazon package, here you go. Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully no porch pirates were there to take a look, you know? Yeah. We'd have people literally stealing stuff from the letterboxes like a few weeks before like there's a red camera on my doorstep We had a nice juicy drop today didn't we we've got some lenses that showed up Yeah, it's speaking of this kind of similar subject so we wanted to get a nice set of primes because we just realised that it's kind of silly that we don't. But again we wanted something that was like that mid range, like a decent mid range to

fulfil all of those kind of jobs you mentioned, like the mid-tier jobs where they want a really good image, something that's decent but they're not too specific on what lens exactly. So we got a set of Sigma Cines. We had an unorthodox set as well, didn't we? So we went down to CVP. I don't know if you guys know CVP. It's the kind of biggest camera and lighting retailer. Is it like B&H?

Is B&H this? That's America, isn't it? B&H? B&H is more global, really, than anything. I guess it's like a VizTech equivalent. Like VizTech. VizTech for us. So we went down to their showroom and just tested out a few lenses,

and the Sigma Cines were the ones we decided on, because they had a kind of more cleaner, clinical look. But there was an option of the 40 mil, rather than the 50 mil. We could have got the 50, but then it was like, why'd you get a 50 and a 40? But we option of the 40 mil rather than a 50 mil We could have got 50 but then it was like do we what you get 50 and a 40? But we just loved the 40 and we decided to build the set based on that being our 50 So we went for was it 20 mil 35 that 20 mil 28 40 40 65 85 101 oh

Because they just got it today. They just got it today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're rolling out. They want to get off the podcast and go play with them. I was going to kind of bring the conversation a little, like, let's bring it off the gear talk,

because I know a lot of our listeners don't want to hear about gear. I'm sorry, this is just what people tell me. Yeah. But let's tie it into that. So like as a business, how do you guys go about like making like a big purchase decision or like an investment, right? Like what are the decisions that kind of go into it?

Well, one thing that we've always had a lot of pride in is the fact that we've we've kind of bought it outright and we've taken a long time doing it. So it's a I don't know if other people are doing what we're doing, but I love just owning something outright. If we can, I'd actually rather wait and save up and then just buy it rather than have it potentially on finance or leasing it or anything like that. So it might've been a slower way to grow, but in times like the pandemic, we didn't have overheads for kit. We just had everything We knew we could just shut down shop and it's not going to cost anything and when the world reopens we can we can start shooting again

and also it means that We've always just got stuff to hand which is properly ours And that's something I've always sort of taken pride in we've definitely not grown quickly in terms of kit. Everything's been very slow, but we've really considered every purchase. And kind of going back to what we were saying earlier about, okay, a cinema camera, two, three times a year, you might use it or really need it. Whereas with our FX6s,

they're out every week, several times a week. So we know what we need and we know what's worth buying. And we've always just taken our time and just saved up and bought it. I think it's, yeah, it's how much you're gonna use something isn't it? Also things that I like I don't mind buying things like lighting, grip, lenses because they're gonna be used forever. I mean some of the grip stuff we've got is gonna outlive me and my grandkids. Lenses as well if they're looked after

properly they're gonna hold their value they're looked after properly they're going to hold their value, they're going to keep. So it kind of doesn't really feel like, I mean obviously it's a big purchase but you're kind of putting your money in that thing aren't you? Especially the lens, it's an asset. Cameras, I think we take a longer decision when it comes to cameras and yeah just I think we look at the market and we look at what other people are using. Oftentimes we'll buy stuff based on the freelancers, the people that we're working with, because you know, then you know you've got that synergy. If I know that like the three guys that I like to work with, DOPs, camera operators,

have all got Sony FX6s, FX9s, then it's a perfect decision for us to buy and buy into that equipment and that line. So yeah, I think that's a big part of the choice, just assessing what other people are using in the people you'd like to work with. That can weigh under the decision. So that's working with, like, you're basically, you're basically seeing what the needs are of your workflow, which is a big thing. And one thing as a business Like you're basically, you're basically like seeing like what the needs are

of like your workflow, which is a big thing. And one thing as a business that you always need to do is figure out how to simplify your workflow. Because if you can do that, then you're able to take on more projects in the long term. You're able to, you know, wrap up projects a little bit quicker sometimes for, for people, if you're shooting with like

three different cameras for a project, that's gonna slow down the post a little bit because you have to match everything. In that case, and that was actually one of the main decisions there. And I also switched over to the Canon brand was because most of the people we were working with were using canons. I'm 100% certain if everyone around us was using Sony's, we probably would have stuck with Sony's as well. And yeah, you're kind of like, you're kind of at the mercy of like your network and your market around you,

because that's what the standard is, based on the people you work with. And yeah, like with cameras, it's more so you have to purchase something that you know you're gonna get a lot of use out of, because it's not gonna be an asset that you could sell. Whereas those lenses, if eventually you wanna sell them, they will retain a lot of their value. But also what's good is that you could use them across a lot

of different cameras. So it's all about what you're gonna use as a business frequently, which makes sense as a purchase. Do you guys have a budget that you set every year in terms of gear purchases? Because that's kind of what we started doing for ourselves. Every year we have a certain bucket we can take money out of for equipment and then whatever doesn't get used up just kind of gets poured over into the next year. That's smart. I mean, we should do that. We should do that. We don't really. We sort of play it by ear with how well the year's gone sort of thing and how, you know, you kids come out and that kind of thing. It's, yeah, we don't have a set part,

but that's a great idea actually. I mean, going back to the whole productivity and sort of maximizing your workflow, there's so much stuff that we've bought in the last two years that I hadn't anticipated having to pay for. So things like offsite servers, our Parsec sort of machine, we've got a proper edit suite now

where everything's plumbed in from like, what have we got Mark, QNAP and a Synology. All editing off that, no more sort of like external hard drives and all of that stuff there and more edit machines for the staff. And that's all things like, in my head, I'm thinking cameras, lights, grip, the van, the fun stuff, but actually what's really changed

the game for us in the last two years in terms of efficiency has been all of that stuff, all the infrastructure has been amazing. It's true. It's true. Silly thing as well. That's a challenging one. That's a challenging one to see like with the servers and seeing what system will work there. Like for right now with where we are as a business, we have a lot of backup drives for a lot of different projects that we're working off. It's not the most efficient system actually. It's not. I would love to hear how you guys.

It's not the most. Yeah. I would love to hear about your backup process. I couldn't even tell you. Yeah, come on. I can tell you, if you want. We used to be all on hard drives, like, you know. Remember the early days, all hard drives,

back it up onto physical drives all the time. Then we slowly moved into SSDs because they became more affordable and now we've gone through a full QNAP system which is just a big server which is super fast to edit off everyone plumbed into the same machine so just a big hard drive then that backs up onto another system which is your redundancy which is on the older projects so all like the newest projects whether we're currently editing sit on the fast server.

Then every night that backs up onto one other server. And then after that process is complete, it backs up and comes to my house. So this is the third offsite backup basically. We used to use Dropbox as that third offsite backup, but it just got too expensive. They hiked their prices up last year, and we just thought it would be way more tangible

just to buy our own server, like big one-off cost, but it's a one-off cost. You don't have to pay a subscription service every time. It's like nine grand a year or something like that, I think Dropbox wanted us to pay, which was not sustainable. They were like, no, not doing that. So just did the one-off cost

and we'll make our money back within a few years. I don't know how they don't get, I don't know about Dropbox. I know Google Drive says you get unlimited in a certain tier, but it's not. You're capped at 14, I think it's 14 terabytes, something like that. So it's a total lie.

I don't know how they don't get sued for that. The online backup approach is always hazy because it's such a huge recurring cost. And that's why we've kind of, we're still like in the limbo of, we mainly work off of SSDs and then we use like tower hard drives as main backups when projects are done and archived and stuff like that.

And it's okay as a system right now because of the certain volume of work that we have, but like, if we start getting a huge influx, it's gonna, it's gonna become a challenge. And I've been looking into so many different, you know, NAS drives, uh, tower drive setups and backups like you guys probably do. And like the, the problem is it's so expensive then it's like, what can you figure out really works for you or how can you anticipate what will work for you, right? That's the challenge.

Have you guys used that Google, I don't know if Dropbox has an equivalent, but Google has like, it's not like part of Drive. It's like some deep, it's like, it's for like long-term storage. So like you upload it there and, it's like, it's for like long-term storage. So like you upload it there and then it costs like, like fractions of a cent per megabyte or something like that. Do you know what I'm talking about?

No, I've heard of it. I think they don't like put the servers like deep in the sea or something like that to keep them cool. Is it that thing? I just know it's like, it's like fractions of a cent per like every megabyte or something like that. It's not that expensive, to be honest with you. It just looks very tech focused.

So I kind of like looked at it a little bit and said, this is way over my head. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I would say get a company into this. So who do we use? Duplia? Yeah, there's a company called Duplia.

Because it's complicated. Yeah, it's so specialist in that field by specialist in post-production Like video bludgeoning in our country as well They've serviced a bunch of other companies and we sort of had a system in place with the server already But when we wanted to upgrade the system and have it like off-site backup We got them involved and they really helped with advice and stuff Yeah, just made it flow I think the key thing as and just made it all flow. I think the key thing as well wasn't it is that as our team was growing we needed the

infrastructure to support that team. So rather than having the drives that we're working off originally that would be fine if it was always the same editor but we often, it might be John is working on an animation for a project then it needs to go back to Ray because she's working on a different aspect of the project. Everyone could work off that same drive because everyone's connected to the same drive. So it wasn't just like a space or security thing, it was just a matter of as our team grew, we needed that.

Also, just meeting the demands of like working from home expectations and stuff like that. So with our system now, anyone can remotely edit off of the actual footage. They're not using proxies or anything like that. They can just beam in and edit off of the server, which has been huge. And also that could be really handy with booking freelancers. We're not tied into,

are you free to physically come here on this day or do we have to ship a drive to you? No, they can just log in and just edit on our system. So it has been really good. How does that work? So they don't have to download the footage? It's all online? It's all on a server, Dario. There are such interesting systems I've seen out there.

And they're not cheap, though. Because you also need a lot of terabytes. Is the editing like, I'm assuming you guys use Premiere Pro? Yeah resolve. Okay. So how does that work? It's connected Software called parsec which is free everyone can get it and it just basically allows two computers to talk to each other But it's really low latency really like fast and we've had a few problems with it, but nothing significant It's yeah, we'll get like a freelancer in and they'll just beam straight in So you've got a machine set up. Yeah. Yeah, you've got a dedicated machine for this. Yeah

Yeah Parsec's the software and you just use that software to remotely access another computer And you just use your peripherals like here right now if I wanted to get like edit something in the office I just use parsec use my mouse and keyboard and I'll just be controlling that computer and you will just be sitting in the office seeing like little ghost cursor moving around doing all the work. Yeah it's how I know that Mark's actually working when he's working from home I just look like a ghost mark. But yeah we access the server and use the server there basically.

Yeah and your servers are in three locations right your office, offsite and then at Mark's place, right? Yeah, so we've got this, a backup, like the primary edit servers in the office, then there is a backup in the office as well just in case we needed to get something from the archive and then I have the offsite one here as well and we still residually have some Dropbox storage as well, but we but getting rid of that soon. How do we get on this? Oh in terms of investing in kit so yeah this this is the kind of thing like that that has been a massively more of a game changer I think for us over the last few years than any lenses or

cameras or tripods or all of the fun stuff actually. What about people? Like what are you guys doing to invest in your people? Well what do you mean investing in the people that we already have? Or do you mean how are we recruiting? Let's focus on people you already have. How do you help them grow in your company? Yeah, so we've got a couple of things. The team's pretty much, obviously myself, Dan and Mark run it. We have our own specialities. And then we've've got John who's our head of post-production, Kin is a shooter editor, Ray is an editor and then Sarah is our newest member of the team and she's a producer. In terms of helping them grow, there's a couple of new initiatives we've started in the

last year so one of them is our passion project initiative so we were invited well we have invited everyone to pitch any passion projects idea that they have to us. And as a team, we'll choose the one that we all like the sound of the most, both in terms of how fun it is, how cool it is, and also how achievable it is. And then Rise as a company will facilitate it and fund it. So you've got all of Rise's kit and some money behind it to make it happen. And other than that, just being really on it with like team reviews.

So a couple of times a year, making sure that we're doing a team review with each member of the team to get their thoughts as to what we could be doing better, what we could be providing them with, and also the direction that they would like their job to go in. So that's kind of it.

It's very simple stuff. I think that's important. I think that's important because you can get bogged into the day-to-day doing the same stuff. But then everyone has those moments, am I doing what I want to be doing? So I think it's about giving people that voice. In the past, we've always done our directors' sort

of biz dev chats, just the three of us. But we've started now. we still do that obviously, there are some decisions that we have to make, but we've opened it up to the team. So we're not sure at the moment if it's gonna be at the end of every month or maybe every quarter. We've just done our first one, but it was really beneficial where we open that chat up

to the whole team. So we're talking to the whole team about topics which previously only us as company directors were discussing. And it was brilliant, wasn't it? Like we got everyone team, but it was great. It was like a company therapy session. It was really good.

And I think it helps them to feel more engaged and connected with the actual company and the direction that we're taking rather than just being told, right, we're doing this now, we're doing this now. Another thing, Dario, would be I think that retention is a word we use. So like we really like the team we have here and it's important to us to keep them. The hardest part is like finding good people. So that's why we spend a little bit more on the office that we have here. You know we could be in an office that maybe isn't as nice but we spend a little bit more to be in a place

that we all enjoy coming to every day. We do little other things, little perks, like gym memberships, healthcare, that kind of stuff. Just, we like to keep everyone happy. Yeah. I'm just wondering, because you mentioned being more open with your employees, kind of like about the business and the direction you guys want to go in and whatnot How do you decide what to divulge and what not to divulge because obviously like you can't be 100% open

So yeah, I mean, I think I don't I don't think it's case of not being open It's just this certain thing, you know, I'm not going to go discussing profit and loss that no one's asking me for those questions anyway. So, you know, it's just fairly straightforward. But it's pretty open. Actually, there's not much that we don't really speak about. Yeah. No, if it's if it's like, look, we've had a really good quarter this year.

We've got some spare money. We're going to buy some lenses. It's harmful. You know, we just be open about it and we'd, we're very grateful for people's thoughts. It might be a member of the teams like, you know, have you thought about maybe not getting the lenses? And then we have think about it? Or have you thought about getting something else? Yeah, we're pretty, we're pretty open. And I think it's that it comes back to what we're saying, isn't it? Like, I think we're a big, it's that it comes back to what we're saying isn't it like with I think we're a big it's that team ethos

We're all friends kind of aren't we everyone's friends here and we're pretty open about everything Yeah, sounds like you guys have like a good synergy between everyone and like that's kind of what you've been aiming for for the last little while But one thing I was actually curious also about was Was like what was like the first one or two hires that you felt you needed to make to really make the business kind of grow and expand in a meaningful way for you guys?

John, John was over there right now. John was our first hire. And John is an editor. John's a fantastic editor, animator. And I think that was, it wasn't, I've never been too much of an editor myself. I can edit, I'm not a good editor. I prefer shooting, directing.

So the editing front kind of fell more on Mark and Mike. And it was at a point where we were getting busier with production. So Mike was sort of being drafted in more to be on shoots with me. So then more and more editing fellow Mark. So that was the first I think pinch. But when it was a bonnet. Yeah.

Yeah. And you guys know editing can just take forever kind of, you know, you go out and do a shoot. It's usually that day editing gone from car for weeks. So that was our first kind of pinch point that we wanted to address. And it was kind of production really, isn't it? Like after, just in terms of pre-production, organizing logistics, call sheets, quotes, invoices, all of that kind of stuff. And creatives too, you know, coming up with concepts, pitch decks, that kind of

stuff. So I think a good creative producer is a great person to have. Someone who can do the more admin, the spreadsheet stuff, but can also be really creative when they need to be. That's a good skill to have. The order in which we sort of hired was, John was editor first, then we hired Katie, who's now left us actually,

but she was like a editor producer, a bit of a hybrid sort of role. Then we hired Ray, because again, the editing was the bottleneck for us for a long time. So Ray's an editor, and then we hired Kin, and Kin was our first like shooter so full-time shooter editor and he takes a lead role in all of our equipment, everything to do with that side of things. And then most recently we promoted John

to head of post-production so he's now, the idea is as we bring more editors in he's gonna oversee them and most as we bring more editors in, he's gonna oversee them. And most recently we've hired Sarah, who's our first producer. And that's been really nice having a producer because before that it was me, Dan and Mark produced and organized everything. So having-

And Katie issues there though. And Katie of course, yeah. So yeah, that's been a huge- That's something I was gonna ask you guys actually. How do you find, when it comes to the producing of projects, sorry there's a police car going by. Yeah, wait for the car. How do you guys manage the sort of producing

side of things, pre-production, because that can get really on top of you, and then the shooting, the editing, how do you manage that side of working in the business compared to working on the business? You know taking that time to sit back and reflect. I mean I've done about you guys but we find that has been an ongoing challenge over the years to Find a time for the three of us, you know Even just two of us to set sit aside for a couple of hours or half a day and be like, okay

We're not doing anyone's work today. We're just thinking about rise and how we move forward I figured that would have been easier for you guys to do because you have three there's three of you, right? doing anyone's work today, we're just thinking about rise and how we move forward. I figured that would have been easier for you guys to do because you have three, there's three of you, right? With Carol and I, it's just two, but with three and then it seems that the division of labor between you guys is pretty well divided, right? Like you have Mark working on like the tech and like the look of all your content and Dan, I'm assuming you're like the sales and growth guy.

No? No, I don't know. I think Mike is. Is it Mike? Yeah, it's Mike. That's more me. Dan's a creative and a director. Yeah.

Mark's background is, and skill set, is editing and the tech stuff. But he also does a lot of company stuff. So accounts, all of that stuff. Poor Mark. look at him. Great. He does all. I do a lot of producing as well.

So a lot of client communications and organizing all the shoots, doing call sheets and all that kind of thing. Getting teams together, talking to freelancers, you know, getting kit booked in. I do a lot of the day-to-day stuff when we're planning shoots. But I've been going on less and less shoots. You're a fantastic director.

You really are you are you're really good whenever you started a few crackers shower of love no he is he doesn't think it but when he when Mark takes on a project and directs it I reckon you'll probably better me a mic yeah so far with it you know exactly what you want it's not often I get a compliment, so thanks very much. That's the business partner talking, not the friend, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The shouting of love. Our roles, that took a long time, didn't it, to fall into.

For the longest time, we'd be putting our profiles up on the website and we'd look at other people's websites and see what have they named themselves. This person's the CEO or this person's head of this, head of that and we were just like what do we put down like something just for the sake of it because at the time we were all just doing a little bit of everything and I think in the end it took us a very long time to fall into roles that we have done you know we're talking about over 10 years and even today we still do a bit of a mixture of everything, but I think that's kind of the nature of the work. And it keeps things fresh as well, doesn't it? You know, you always do the same thing every time.

It's nice to be able to do a bit of everything as well because, you know, you don't need to do the same thing all the time. You don't need to just be editing, don't need to just be shooting. It's nice to, in this industry, there are lots of different ways to enjoy yourself, you know? And I guess we've sort of like held onto that as we've grown, you know? We'd like to sort of dip our toe into a shoot every now and then, or like, like dip your toe

into an edit every now and then, or do a creative somewhere else, you know? It's nice to- I went through a phase where I was directing a bunch and I really enjoyed it, and I think I burnt out a little bit doing that. And like now now I'm really enjoying almost tapping into early rise media days so I'm back on like biz dev lead generation

social media posts that sort of stuff so yeah I think we all chop and change a little bit how about you guys how do you split your sort of work? Yeah it took us a while to figure out what our rules were as well we ran into the same issue where we were trying to do the same stuff and for some things like the other guy is just better. I think the last two, three years we figured out who is good at what and we just let the other person take care of that. For example, on our shoot, I would say if it's like business development or stuff like that, or sales, like I'll take over that side of the

business. And then Carol will take more of like the creative aspect. But he's also good at like client management at times, right? So I'm good at bringing them in and then Carol's good at bringing them in and then Karel's good at keeping them. That's a good way to break it. Yeah, that's actually a good way to put it. That's actually a good way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. There's like in this industry, obviously you have to be a bit of a Swiss army knife with everything. Be really good

at one thing, but know how to do a lot of the other aspects of the business because if you don't know how to do those other aspects, it's harder to do a lot of everything else, right? So like Dario can handle some of the creative aspects as well, but it's easier for him to focus on just sales and business development because that's his skillset, right? But he knows what goes into those other aspects. He knows what I can handle.

And then that's what he can kind of pitch clients on when he's first bringing them in. And then like when I'm doing creative, I understand like what it takes to pitch to a client. So I understand what limitations there are. It's like you can't pitch an idea that would cost $20,000 when you know the budget really is only 10K or 5K. So there are those aspects and like Dario does handle some client accounts where he's

doing a lot of like the face-to to face communication and then handling coordination with other freelancers and then I just kind of oversee the creative in that area. Whereas there's other situations where I'm handling the clients and the creative and then Dario is just like a second set of eyes just to help make sure that things are kind of on track. So we're kind of like helping support each other with whatever projects and clients we're working with but if you really broke it down that's the way Dario put it was best he brings them in and I keep them. The main thing is communication isn't it like you can have the different roles you know and switch around but it's about when you get on a project I think the three of

us are very good at communicating on from the get-go. Okay, I'm directing this or I'm producing this So I'm gonna take on the the the client communication for this and as long as you've got that communication clear from the start Then you can all fit into those roles Yeah Yeah with us like what usually happens is like let's say we're both gonna be on set for that project both gonna be on set for that project. Like I'll handle the producing for that and then we'll co-direct it and then Carol you should be the DP for it, right?

So clients actually get a pretty sweet deal because they get technically two producers for the price of one. But yeah, that's usually like what our breakdown is. And again, even what our projects, let's say like I'm involved in like the creative aspect and the shooting if we start post and I get busy with other stuff like Carol just takes over and oversees it or even with the pre-production if I get busy bringing in like other people or focusing on

other projects and Carol just take over and I'll basically be like a client thermometer in a way because I notice my talent is like kind of like knowing what the client thinks. So I'll be looking at her stuff and then I'll tell Kyril, it's like, I don't think they're gonna like this. So then he gets upset at me and then I let him calm down and then it gets done. You know, it's like you work all that time

on like a creative vision aspect for it. And then it's looking great. And then it's like, Oh, but we can't include that shot because the client won't like that it's like, Oh, damn it. You know, like, then you have to like figure out a cool way to kind of swap it out. But a lot of the time it is better because then you're also getting creative in other ways to kind of push past that first initial idea as well. Cause sometimes client limitations

can actually be to your benefit because it gives you like borders of like what you can kind of work with. And then how can you make something awesome with those limitations? It's like, say for example, one thing a client says is like create a whole video that doesn't show any particular faces

other than like the one person, right? And then you have to develop a creative video that doesn't show any particular faces other than like the one person, right? And then then you have to develop a creative with that limitation. I need to send this recording to you, Karel, anytime you oppose what I tell you. Yeah, I know, right? I'm just going to save it and then just going to save it. First stage is denial. And then what? The second one is acceptance. Yeah. I think that's a very normal push-pull within our industry though because you've got the side of us that just wants to make cool videos and then we've got the side of us which is

trying to earn money and please a client. So it's all that's sounds like a healthy way to manage that. It's also a budget thing as well, isn't it? Because you say like client limitations, that could also just be what budget you've got to manage that. It's also a budget thing as well, isn't it? Because you say client limitations, that could also just be what budget you've got to work with. That's one of the things I always quite often end up saying to clients who maybe aren't so used to working in video production is, how much is it going to cost to make

this video? How long is a piece of string? You could take that same exact brief and go and shoot it on Free go pros or you could be shooting it on free, you know Alexa Alexa mini so it's you could take the same brief and scale it up and down as much as you need and And I think that's one of the things you've got just find that balance of with the the client limitations the budget All of that stuff kind of a challenge for them, right client limitations, the budget, all of that stuff. Kind of what's right for them, right? Yeah, the biggest challenge though,

that is oftentimes I think the most frustrating for a lot of people is when they are asking for a certain kind of creative or at least a certain kind of type of coverage, even like say for example, it's an event that you have to create a promo video for. There are so many things that are happening, but they only want to pay for like one person to show up or max two.

When you know, in fact that you need at least three people to get that kind of coverage. It's that's the most frustrating thing because then when, you know, you obviously have to compromise, you know, in those situations where it's like, okay, this needs three people, but they only have enough for two. How are we going to get this done? A lot of what you have to do is communicate to them it's like, okay, this needs three people, but they only have enough for two, how are we gonna get this done? A lot of what you have to do is communicate to them beforehand is like, hey, you know,

what you're asking for is the work of three people. We will do what we can in this situation based on what you're able to pay for. But, you know, that's usually the biggest push pull I find where it's like, where you need a little bit more hands on deck when, when not. Cause like, when you think about it, like say for example

if you were to hire, like a client hired you to shoot a promo video for them, but they had only enough for like say one shooter to show up, right? But that one shooter now has to take extra time to set up the shot, unpack the gear, bring it in, do the light test, do the sound check. One person doing everyone's role takes more time, so you can shoot less in that day, right?

Oops, what happens? You might have to come in for a second day, right? So there is that kind of aspect you have to communicate as well. It's like, you can hire less crew, but it's gonna be slower too, right? I think we've noticed that with when it comes to, there's so many people out there now

who do offer video production as a service. There's a lot of people who are very good at being what we call a one-man band. Turn up on your own, you do the camera, you do the lighting, you do the sound, and that's perfectly fine. You can get great results like that, but I think we've got into a stage now

where we're quite confident on being able to say to a client, and I think it's important to be able to say to a client that that's not how we would do this, that's not how we would advise to run this shoot, this is how we would do it. You can work with those budgets, but I think there is, because the scene is so competitive, you're competing against all of those.

Sometimes you'd be surprised about how the client reacts to that, you know, rather than sort of say, okay, well, we can do it with two people, but we would recommend for if you just say, we're not going to do that and we don't advise that you do it because of this, because you know, the it's it's more risky, you know, there's more room for error on the day. Or, yeah, we might need to come back for a second day, which is going to cost you more than if you just hired the four people to begin with. Oftentimes the response is actually really good. And they'll either say, thank you.

We can't work with you on this project, but we really respect your decision to turn the job down. And they might come back or they may well say, we take your point and maybe we can look at our budgets and up them. And if you're also firm like that, the one big benefit is that you're also protecting yourself from being portrayed as a company

that doesn't do a good job, because unfortunately what will happen is that when there are those limitations and a company who obviously needs the work, you know, needs the money, is gonna say yes and try to figure out a way to do it. If anything does happen, where the video doesn't turn out as the client expected, to them and to anyone else,

it's not gonna matter what the context was or the circumstances, they're just gonna be like, that's what that company produced, that wasn't good enough, we're not gonna hire them again, right? So you also wanna be able to protect your reputation to a degree and it's challenging sometimes, especially when you're working with clients

that have such specific oversight too that start being very, a little too involved in the process of the video that you're making, then whatever they suggest completely butchers what you're making and then you can't show that to other people because then people are gonna be like, oh, that wasn't good what you made, right? So you have to vet clients in that way,

whether they can afford what's needed to do for you to do your job and to do a good job, or how, like, I don't know if the word meddling is the right way, but are like kind of like too many cooks in the kitchen type approach. Because no matter what, you can never fully escape that. Once in a while, you're gonna be dealing with the client that has like 50 stakeholders who wanna give their input

so that they can say they contributed to that project. Right? I really see having a happy client at the end of the projects as a fine art and it's not necessarily to do with how good the video is, it's all to do with their expectations compared to in relation to how good the video is, right? So if they're expecting the world and you're not delivering it, even if it's an amazing video, they're not going to be happy.

But if you can outdo their expectations, then even if it's not an amazing video by your standards, they're gonna be happy So whether that's delivering on time whether it's being able to achieve quite a lot on a small budget or whatever it is so there's definitely a lot of education that you can sort of Provide to the client to help set yourself up for a successful delivery I think at the end of the project one of the lines I've used quite a few times and it's completely true is if a budget's not quite there for you to be able to do the job it's not even just about like oh you know because you'd often say I don't feel like we can

complete this project to a quality I know you will be happy with so it's not even about what I think it's that I know that they're know you will be happy with. So it's not even about what I think, it's that I know that they're not gonna be happy with the quality of the outcome. You know, you kind of put it on their expectations. You can look at their previous work, what the brand looks like, how, and you can get an idea of what they're gonna expect,

and then you can say to them, yeah, I don't think I can do this to a quality that you're gonna be expecting. That's a good way to put it for sure. When you phrase it like that to them, it's going to basically make the onus on them. It's like, it's not my ability, it's not me that's hindering the ability.

It's like what you're providing me as a resource. Like there's not much I can do. And that's definitely a good way to put it. The client experience is so key. And as you guys put it, sometimes you do a video for a client where it's obviously not your best work, but it's very much in line with what they're hoping for and even better than what they're expecting.

But you created such a great customer experience of how you listened to them, communicated with them, delivered the project for them, even though it's not your Spielberg level film, they're very happy with that. Whereas, as you said, sometimes in other cases, you produce something so great, but the client needed it like in a certain way

or in a certain timeline that was difficult to deliver based on the resources. Even though the video turned out great, the experience wasn't as great, so that's what they're gonna remember. They're gonna remember how you made them feel as well. Yeah, absolutely. We always say that on a shoot day,

it's kind of like, it's our day to day, it's what we do all the time. So I love going on shoots, but for the client, that might be the one shoot day they do that whole year. That's a fun day for them. They're out in the office, so we always do our utmost to make that day fun for the client too. I think that comes back to it as well.

You're giving them that positive experience. Customer service is everything, isn't it? On that note, I think we should probably wrap this up because we're at the one hour mark. But before we do, as is tradition, how did you guys come up with the company name? Oh, do you know what? I don't know. We were at university when we came up with it. I remember it, but I don't know how we came up with it. I think it's because you're quite sort of like politically minded. Do you remember? Yes. Rise up.

This is right. This is true. politically minded yes this is right this is true oh yeah we were going through the whole like what was that documentary zeitgeist we were going for that phase like the zeitgeist phase where it was like you know we were edgy teens and it was like very like yeah rebellious kind of thing so I think that you guys have like a check of their t-shirt Yeah, I didn't go that far but yeah, we were quite edgy at the time I think I Think some of our first productions were yeah pretty pretty cringe Yeah, it's probably to do with that, you know, and then we had the the peaks with the logo which we'd like to know Okay, like a mountain kind of thing the peaks with the logo which we like it's not all kind of came to the mountain kind of thing yeah it was very spiky the first logo one of our friends was a

graphic designer at uni and he put together like a few logo ideas and it sort of he gave us that logo they sort of married quite well with rise I kind of regret the word media I kind of want to move away from rise media because if no one ever calls this rise media it's maybe just the rise guys. You heard it here first. Nice. You heard it here first.

We'll rebranding rise. I'm not going to do that. He said the rise guys. I'm down for that. Yeah. The rise guys. I kind of like that. I like that one a bit more too.

That's a good one. We've got a, we've got another social media account which is called the rise guys. So that refers to me, Dan, and Mark as directors. And that's from the client saying, oh, let's get The Rise Guys on it. But Rise Media as a company. But yeah, maybe we should change just to Rise. I like Rise.

Rise is cool. Yeah. The Rise folks, The Rise group. Throw in some ideas, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Before, actually there is one more question that I did wanna ask also,

and this is something we might be asking future guests. What would you guys say is your dream project that you wanna do, or like the dream client that you wanna work with? I think you'd have to ask each of us individually. That's what I'm doing, yes, individually. I would love to work on like an outdoor clothing brand something like a piece of brand content for that something like that so, you know the likes of like North Face or Arc'teryx and

be Shooting a piece of like active brand content out in the mountains somewhere the Alps, let's say I'm pretty similar to that to be honest. I'm the Alps let's say. I'm pretty similar to that to be honest. I'm into what Dan's saying there. I quite like mini documentaries like branded documentaries that kind of thing. We did some stuff for the BBC at the beginning of last year which is really enjoyable and I'd just love to do more stuff like that. Just short form mini documentaries which tell real stories and that have purpose you know. I really like the property video side of what we do and some of the lifestyle stuff that we do so it's more

cinematic with a bit of production and I'd love to transfer that into either a really nice global hotel brand or super yachts that's what I'd like to do. I want to go to the Sun and shoot using a drone and a 4D and I don't want too many crew on it just to be me and a few other people and just shoot and a couple of beers. A couple of beers, a couple of pints, right? Yeah. A couple of pints. Yeah. That's why I like that. Also different. I like that though. It's like you guys all have little little personal goals within the business you

want to do and yeah, just support each other and like doing that. That's great. Actually mine is very similar to Mark's as well in doing a lot more like short form, uh, mini documentary projects. Cause that's not one that we get to do too often with a lot of our corporate software and tech clients, obviously. Cause there's a lot of, you know, promotional aspects that go into that. But, uh, yeah, that's, that is one thing in the future. Nice.

All right. into that, but yeah, that is one thing in the future. Nice. Nice. All right, well, if you guys want to find these guys online, go to risemedia.co.uk. It's very different from just.com. All right. Who else has that domain? And social media is for Instagram at rise media UK you guys on tik-tok or

Not in just should we be on tick tock should we get on tick tock? I? Guess I guess that's well if it's like a band Yeah, I know if you lose the US there goes 330 million people Yeah, anyway, thanks guys. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. It's been great. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee.

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