Creatives Grab Coffee - Building a Successful Production Company Partnership | Creatives Grab Coffee 58

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Jesse and Denver from Old Saw Studio discuss their journey of forming a partnership and running a production company. They share their experiences of working together, the challenges they faced, and how they navigate their different roles and responsibilities. They also discuss the importance of aligning their visions and tastes, as well as the need for compromise and conflict resolution in their creative process. In this conversation, the hosts discuss various topics related to networking, first impressions, the importance of pre-production, the challenges and benefits of having an office space, and the risks of committing to a long-term lease. They also touch on the value of shared workspaces and storage solutions, the importance of considering overhead costs, and the decision-making process when it comes to hiring full-time employees versus freelancers. The conversation concludes with a discussion on editing software preferences and a wrap-up of the conversation.SPONSORS: Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.com Audio 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.com To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/ #videographer #videoproduction #podcast

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creatives Grab Coffee is hosted by Daria Nuri and Kirill Lazarev 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? Do you need crew or a strong production partner to help you with your project? Laps Productions is one of the top

production companies in Toronto and your go-to video partner. With our strong creative skills and extensive network, we can help you achieve your goal. Laps Productions is able to offer you production services, white label services, or finder fees for project handoffs. Reach out to us on our website at LAPSProductions.com to learn more. My name is Mehran. Welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you are a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera packages, or lighting and group plan packages.

You can see our contact information in the link below. We are more than happy to help you guys out. Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativescrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody I'm Matt welcome to Audio Process we are a boutique audio company doing location sound sound design post sound ADR Foley we service equipment we do all your audio needs here in Toronto we got you covered come on downrocessing.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com.

They'll be waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you. And we're all going to have a real good time. And now let's begin the show. All right. Welcome everybody to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. I've already lost track of what number we are at at this point. You know, I think after you get to episode 50, at that point, you just kind of stop counting. And anyways, today we have Jesse in Denver from Old Saw, a production company based out of Edmonton, Alberta. Welcome, guys. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us. So is this like your first podcast that you've been invited on or is are you guys already seasoned pros at this point um it's the first podcast in this in the industry for sure that i've been on i've done other podcasts with friends just on various things but for sure like like of this nature yeah that's how it was my first we did like our friends uh we tried to do a podcast with our friends and then we decided to actually turn it into a little something a little bit more professional yeah like the covid board the covid board uh podcast that everyone tried to do yeah denver you said it's your first yeah this is my first podcast

always kind of wanted to try it out because exactly like you said you have all your friends gather around and uh and you know you're a bunch of idiots let's be honest nobody wants to listen to that but uh you always think it would be a good time yeah we basically did like one recording and then we listened back to it i'm like yeah this can never see the light of day but then dario and i were thinking to ourselves we did like four recordings was it four i thought it was like two yeah yeah yeah we started this podcast called uh the well gents podcast yeah yeah yeah i think our facebook page is still up for it and we we had this whole like line order type of opening for it and it actually was pretty cool but then we decided not to do it and uh but then

we just say you know what dario we should probably we should probably both do something like this and then we came up with this idea and just here we are more than 50 episodes later but anyway we kind of digress a little bit before we dive into it guys tell us a little about a little bit about yourselves and an old saw yeah um so old saw was actually started by a friend of mine as like his own little classic kind of freelance gig where you give it a little name back in like 2014. So it's actually been around for a long time. And then he did that for a few years and I would collab with him. and then in 2018 we incorporated and became Old South Studio which is what we are now he went

to Vancouver to pursue the DP route so you know had to go off for bigger better things I bought the company from him and then Denver came on just at the beginning of 2023 and we're a year and a half into business together now. So Denver and I own the company and we've just been grinding it out. This new post COVID world, figuring it out, figuring out how to do good work and what's needed. And yeah, that's kind of where we're at now. Wow. That's, that's a very interesting story. I don't think we've ever had a guest like with that kind of story in place

where you've been in it for like 10 years in a certain way and then having somebody kind of join in as a partner much further down the road. So Denver, what was that experience like kind of jumping into somewhat of an already established company and trying to make your footprint in there? Yeah, it was interesting for sure. I had worked for a media agency before working with Jesse and kind of, you know, was pretty, started pretty early on in the agency and grew with the agency and, you know, just mutual parting of ways and decided to do something else. Coming into an established business, it was kind of cool because, you know, obviously we had a lot of clients. You kind of had an up on that already. You had some clients established already, some recurring clients.

You could look at the books and go, okay, these clients we know are going to give us X amount of income every year because they've been doing it for the last five years, which is great. But it's also, I'm a very, I'm a very technical person, a very process oriented person. And so coming in and basically, you know, from a from a bigger agency mindset with with more employees, more people to something that was a little bit, a little bit smaller, a little bit more boutique, a little bit more, a little bit more niche, um, was, was, was pretty interesting and fun. Uh, it felt like we were back in the early days of, of the agency again, where you're, you know, you're kind of figuring things out and, um, just kind of going with the flow. Like you're doing, you're doing everything. Um, but at the same time, there's a history there with the business itself. There's a history there with, you know, I know I had done it before and I'd been in

a business that had grown before and could grow it again. And, you know, lots of, lots of, uh, skills and expertise were kind of gained through my experience in a bigger company let's say um so that was kind of what I felt that I I could bring to the table um and what I tried to bring to the table in the first year so are you guys friends like how did you two meet yeah well at his the agency he worked at they actually hired me to be an actor in like one of these little things and then i i had i had heard of i had heard of denver and actually i hired one of his one of his ex-employees it's a pretty tight-knit kind of you know industry i guess over here in edmonton so denver and i met and i was like this guy's pretty dope and he does

coloring and he had a coloring suite at the old place and so i got him to color one of our projects and we kind of became friends and then yeah sure enough left that and i was like well i'm looking for some help so hit him up we grab lunch and the rest is history well you guys really have had a very interesting uh kind of journey to to how you guys kind of like started partnering together. So just to kind of clarify, it was, was it like a merger or was it like Denver, you left that agency to join Jesse? Yeah, I left that agency to join and rejoined Jesse or, well, I left that agency. I took a couple months off just deciding what I wanted to do with my life and if I wanted to even stay in media or not in video production.

And then, you know, Jesse kind of approached me and was like, no, this is what I think, this is what I have to offer you. And we just kind of took a couple months to see if it would work, and here we are. So you guys like split 50-50 now in terms of ownership of the business, or how do you have that settled i think like part of the situation i guess was like denver was really with it with that agency from very early on but never had ownership and i felt that was something i could

offer him that was unique was saying hey come on board and like i'm actually gonna let you buy into this company and where we can build something fresh from scratch. So he's at 25% right now. We're going to go to 50-50 later this year. Okay. So it was a kind of like a first to kind of like test the waters a little bit. Exactly. Did you guys first test the waters though before joining together for a period? And like, how long was it?

Did that take before you decided, okay, let's fully join together? Yeah, actually. take before you decided okay let's fully uh join together yeah actually so um jesse and i had had lunch a couple days after i left the other place and that was more just to catch up and whatever but when he which would have been july uh when he actually approached me and said hey this is kind of my idea this is what i think you should do what I'm, what I'm kind of pitching to you was October. And then, uh, so we took a couple months after that, basically started, we would meet once a month for, you know, the three months. And, but also on top of that, come October, I started joining them on some shoots, uh, started just coming on board, you know, kind of giving some consulting, giving some advice and just kind of being a part of it.

And then we, it was kind of, it was early December when we had decided, okay, yeah, this is the route we're going to go. So we, we officially partnered on January 1st of 2023. What are like the, the, what's the split between the roles and responsibilities you two have? That's a good question. I think like, yeah, I think what drew me to Denver and why we work pretty well together is we're quite different.

And maybe you guys could relate to that being complementary with skill sets. So I'm much more, well, I'm definitely quite a creative person. I'm more salesy, definitely trying to like figure out new and interesting ways to do things and especially when we're on set or on a shoot it's like you know this is too standard this is too boring let's make it weird let's change this up you know I like really thinking from that angle and Denver's more like okay but like you need to learn how to like book light and like you need to learn like you can't shoot in that bit right or whatever you know it's more like he brings that technical side to things and so you know i i kind of ended up stop i don't touch the gear as much anymore and more so denver's taking on that and then i'm more taking

on clients sitting down brainstorming with them and obviously we collab on everything but that's kind of more where the split happens. That sounds similar. Yeah, the way I like to say it too is Jesse is our deposit from the client, and I'm the final payment. So he gets the client and brings it, and I'm the one who's like, all right, we're going to get it to that finish line, and we're going to get paid for it kind of thing. Yeah, that's kind of what we have going on hill yeah rolls down the hill our arguments are always similar where it's like kate we have to get this client finished up through the door we got to keep moving you know and he's like yeah but we need to do a good job on it like i we're not gonna rush through this part i'm like oh so there's this funny back and forth where it's like kate denver we can't like and not that he does this but like we can't put that many extra hours into this project because

i'm thinking more like how do we keep the food on the table type of thing where he's like yeah but we we're trying to make good videos here you know and so i think having that tension so they come back yeah and they come back totally totally yeah i think tensions like that yeah like i find like those kind of tensions uh although in the moments they might be a little bit like ah it's a little bit annoying at the end of the day we're both fighting for a better outcome for not only for the uh not only for us but for the client as well and i think it's important to have that if we we had, if you guys had, say, two people who are very laissez-faire about the whole process, then, you know, the content will suffer and the product will suffer at the end of the day. But at the same time, you want to be able to also deliver a good client experience. So you have to keep pushing the boundaries as much as possible on both ends to kind of find good, happy mediums.

Because there is no one-size-fits fits all solution for every client, right? It always varies. With some clients, a little bit more of the experience and the flow is a little bit more important than with others. The product is just slightly more important, but it's all these little variations and things like that.

One thing I kind of wanted to also pick your mind about, Jesse, is that because you were with a partner for so long and then you went solo, it's hard to find a new partner to kind of like bring into the fray. And so a lot of people opt to stick as solo producers within their companies and then just hire out a lot of like the technical aspects or crew up based on the needs of certain projects. of like the technical aspects or crew up based on the needs of certain projects. Was it just the opportunity of Denver being there and like looking for a good opportunity and a partnership that just kind of made you jump onto that? Or was it something that you were actively looking for like before that?

That's a great question. I don't know if I was particularly like headhunting per se, but I was getting burnt out. And I think that probably a lot of freelancers can kind of identify with this where after Caleb, his name, he left, I was on my own. And it actually worked pretty good because it was really during COVID that I was on my own. And I was kind of just working out of my basement and like producing, you know, a bunch of random stuff. And COVID was actually decent for us with like getting video projects that everyone needed it. But I got really burnt out. And I think the thing I was wanting to point out is just like there's something about having such a large breadth of things you need to be responsible for.

Even if it can fit in an eight-hour day, it's just like too much bouncing around mentally. And so it's like, I haven't like from books to like color, right? It's just like, everything is just on my plate. And even if it's not that many projects, it's just very overwhelming and it's hard to stay organized. And I think that was getting me really burnt out, just being alone, handling everything from start to finish. Um, and so I was definitely looking for something and i ended up getting a little part-time job at a cafe just to kind of ground myself um and that ended up being super beneficial for me just mentally and also like networking wise was crazy like i i just you should just

work at a cafe part-time because you just the people you meet we've gotten so many projects just from me working we made a joke joke you can never jesse can never leave that job because he just gets us so much work out of it what that's so that's so interesting i think i would have thought like if someone was burnt out the last thing they would need is to get a part-time job yeah doing as soon as you mentioned something as simple as that yeah but that's it it's like it's simple right and like for me it's like i i just needed someone to say you need to be here at this time and do this simple task because for me i had everything right like it's like i could just do

everything any all day and so there's a certain like keeping yourself accountable to that's emotionally exhausting sometimes right that's that is the most interesting thing i've ever heard i would have never thought that the solution to being overworked is to go work for someone else and ironic yeah and on and ironically that has become like your what networking vehicle like how do you go about so you're saying you find clients while you're serving coffee it's like here's your latte. By the way, I have a production company. It's Edmonton. I think it might be a little different here in Toronto.

I think it's very unique to Edmonton. That's for sure. That's what I mean. I'm just trying to process the comfort. This is unique to small towns, basically. Genius, though. And I'm not there anymore. So I was just there for a year.

And it was like 15 hours a week. And I think the point of what I was trying to say with the overworked thing was it wasn't even like an overworked commitment to hours. It was more just like it was more the actual scope of what I was doing was just like bearing all the responsibility for everything was getting me really tired. And so I needed like I almost needed routine, if that makes sense. And so I needed like, I almost needed routine, if that makes sense. Did you have enough to hire like, did you have enough to like maybe hire a project coordinator or someone part time to come and help out with like all the menial stuff you have to do on a day to day basis? Yeah, I had an editor and, and he was my kind of the guy that was backing me and he was huge, but he never wanted to like upgrade into that project coordinator space. And so I ended up letting him go.

He just was like really content just editing. I was like, Oh man, but I kind of need like help. And he just wasn't wanting that. And so that he's an editor. It's not, it's that's right. Editor cuts,

you know, he doesn't handle emails and all the, it's like telling you, it's like telling a fish to walk. Yeah. Well, at some point that did happen well okay well technically speaking yeah okay but um i mean that's that's still pretty interesting look denver this is not to say like

you know like we're trying to find reasons why he shouldn't have gone with you right but we're just kind of curious what that kind of like thinking is like. But I completely understand what you mean, Jesse, in terms of feeling overworked with the amount of like the scope of things, because sometimes you'd be doing like one task and then there's an immediate need for something else, which takes time. And then that other task gets put further down on the totem pole. Like today, for example, like one thing we're doing is we're working on some of our own content, right? So I'm like busy editing. And then I have a client call that I have to make a call for.

And then, oh, good. We signed the project. Let me now put together the contract, send it out, confirm a few things. It's like, oh, before I knew, another two hours that should have been for editing now already gone, right? It just, like the more thing, different kinds of tasks you have, it really extends the time it takes to complete some of them. So if you're doing it by yourself, it makes sense why you need to bring someone else on board. And to be honest, I feel like Dario and I have been spoiled with each other

for the last 10 years doing this, because we've always been able to lean on each other for help in those sense. Don't get me wrong. I want to kill him every now and then. 100%. 100%. you guys are you guys are young you're like into this what like a year in this relationship look how jesse was agreeing it's like you guys have only been married for like a year what do you know you're talking to a 10 year 10 year veterans in this you know you guys should still be in you guys should still be in the honeymoon phase by now. Wait until you get to the point

where they call or like Denver Jesse will call you or Jesse Denver will call you and you just ignore the call. That's when you know it's been a while. You know what? I'm not dealing with this. It's like, I'm busy. I'm busy. If it's really important, he'll send me a text saying it's important. It's like, okay.

He tells me he goes to the library now to work every now and then as an excuse to not answer my calls. I know what he's doing. I go there, but the benefit of going to the library is that I can't answer your call. That's one of the key benefits. I'm looking forward to getting there. We'll keep working on it. Yeah, but it sounds like you guys already have a good dynamic after just such a short amount of time as well. What would you guys say is one of the first maybe initial challenges that you might have faced when you guys started like working together

when when did you guys start working together you said 20 23 last year like a year and a half yeah yeah yeah so like what was like an initial challenge or challenges if you guys had. Yeah. Well, how do I, there, there, I think the, the one that we still argue, not argue about,

but we still like conflict with to this day. Um, like I think coming in, how do we put, how do I put this? Not that it's mean, but just how do I, how do I put this?

Um, I think, I think that, that um i had been i feel like i feel like i'm a shrink listening to a couple um i think like coming in jesse and i had very different tastes. And I remember like at the, at the last place, literally watching, watching one of the videos that Oldso had produced before, like obviously while I was working at the other agency and watching one of

the videos and I came in and I, and me and my team, we sat down and we watched it and we went like, dang, like we would never make something that good here. And not to say that it was because of the people we had or, or, you know, even just the agency in general or whatever, but it was like, there was something about, about that video that, um, that just really stuck out and was just like next level, um, good. And, you know, we, we produced some, some fantastic stuff over there. And we had, we had a lot of, I had a lot of like incredible people on, on our team. But there was just

something about it that really struck out to me. And then coming into it, I think, you know, my, my brain often goes to, let's just, you know, let's just get it done, move on and, and get to the next thing. And which is, which is kind of opposite to what we were talking about earlier, where, um, we have to, you know, I'm, I'm usually the one slowing it down and being like, okay, no, let's make a quality product. Let's make this good, whatever. When it comes to shoot day. And it's like, you know, we're two hours behind and we're trying to just move through. It's like, I'll, I'll basically be the first one to be like, okay, well, let's just not worry about lighting the shot. Let's just get the shot and move on kind of thing. Or let's not worry about being nitpicky on this and

let's just move on. Um, and I think that was, that was really challenged by, by Jesse, uh, that was challenged in myself coming into it and realizing, hey, I want to make these things that are just a cut above what I've done in the past. And I think, I mean, it's kind of the funny like back and forth of my probably natural tendency is slow and cinematic. Whereas Jesse being a little more ADHD is punchy, quick, get it done, crisp, fast and edgy. And we, and a little bit more puts you, puts you on edge and makes you feel something. Right. So, uh, it's just a little bit of it's it's, I think that was our first, like conflict was really just like trying to align our visions and tastes because ultimately we wanted the same thing to deliver a great product. Um, and trying to align our visions and tastes because ultimately we wanted the same thing to deliver a great product um and trying to align our vision and taste to each other so that when we're on set and when we're shooting these projects and planning these projects we can

actually make something cohesive that stands out so how did you guys come to that compromise lots of arguments yeah well yeah arguments but honestly like i think both of us have the ability to just be humble in the right moments and that to me is key if you're working with someone who is unlike you to actually like stop yourself and listen to what they have to say and then patiently sort of say well here's my angle now it obviously doesn't always happen that way but i think we're pretty good at it. And every time we do that, we end up with a really awesome product. I think the key thing we've realized is that's not the same as splitting the difference. Right?

And so it's not the same as saying, well, let's just do half of what I want and half of what you want. That normally turns out really bad. And we've done that in the past where it's like, well, kind of meet in the middle. Don't meet in the middle. More just like, okay, whose vibe are we committing to here you know and obviously yeah it's all it's super contextual but well times where i'm like well let's do this he's like i know but this is like this this doesn't fit what we're actually making here i'm like okay that's true and there's times where i'm like oh that's like there's got to be a more interesting way to do this and then then Denver will stop and think, I'll agree. Right. And then we'll

take the risk on that. And oftentimes they pay off. Yeah. I think if you look at it as, uh, I think if you look at it as the other person being like, uh, the first filter for your ideas and you being the first filter for their ideas, it's a good way to kind of help, uh, help each other think a little bit more about like that initial idea how you can expand on it how you can change it or or something like that and you'll get the you'll get the feel of how the other person thinks as you as you go through that motion over and over and over like you guys like you said you're only like a year and a half in and it sounds like you've already done quite a bit in that time whereas dara and i you know it's it's 10 years in and we're still we're still we're still growing with that right things change we don't but we

don't butt heads anymore like we don't butt heads yeah we used to have the same issue back in the early days and then you just get to a certain point where like the thing that helped the most with us was just having a more solid pre-production process because then a lot of details were figured out in there and then come production day it was just a matter of time really knowing what to do get certain things based on the time constraints that we had so a lot of the times now that we do buttheads it's literally just because like we just don't have time to keep getting all this stuff. I'm usually just telling Kirill to hurry up because we've got to move on. That's really the only problem we have now is that Kirill takes too long

or he wants too many takes, and it's like, okay, well, we're already behind and we've got to move on. That's really it. That's probably the biggest one, yeah. It's not even really an issue. It's just kind of like you're in the moment. For example, if you're the one you know you're in the moment like for example if you're the one shooting you're in the moment you kind of want to get certain angles or certain takes and then you sometimes need someone to tell you it's like hey like we've already gotten a few we're running but that's like basically the ad role kind of like

kicking in at that moment it's like we got we got to kind of move on to the next one all right it's like okay cool which you need to have on set right are you am i coming through still here oh did jesse freeze because i for a moment i thought that was a very odd frame he's really thinking intent he's really listening intensely right then he's really just oh my god he better be able to join in he should be oh yeah do you think he'll be able to join in if we're still rolling i wonder because well i yeah he should be able to join in i just i just don't know how he should be able to i don't know how the edit's gonna work now because we have riverside use ai to edit this up as the episode so i wonder how this is gonna work

out he's just gonna start start off with Jesse like this. That look. Just like fully like I'm listening to you. That's how we should do it. An episode one day is just all frozen and we're like, oh, we're just joking. You thought we were frozen, did you?

That's a classic Jesse look too in all of our meetings. He just kind of goes down and looks up. And it's like, what's going on? It's funny too because his webcam on his computer usually cuts off half of his face. So it's just like down here. So he's like. Just like slowly coming up like this.

Exactly. It's like, we need to fix that. But sometimes because he likes it when he thinks, he kind of goes like this. And like, he'll just have a toque on and you'll just see his toque popping up in the frame. And you're like... Just a toque. Clients are like, who are we talking to right now? It's, I mean, I don't know if it's still recording or whatever.

But I mean, I kind of wanted to, I can say this now. I wanted to say this about the coffee shop thing of like networking and whatever. Like Jesse's a very unique personable guy. Like he makes those first impressions. He asks the tough questions right away. And so like for us to network and get work from a coffee shop was purely just like, because people were curious of like like who the heck this guy was one asking them these deep questions or whatever off the bat. And two, just like,

he's a, he's a quirky guy. Like they just want to get to know him. Right. So that was really like, it was a testament to him of just being a good networker, um, being in that, being in that role and being a good, being a good people person. So very quirky. That's what makes him him. And, uh, it's, it's been, it's, it's very, it's very fun to be a part of that. I love how he joins in right now. He got, he got back into the room and all he hears is like, he's a very guy and that's just he just joins in it's like what up yeah um sorry boys i are the internet's weird today which is really annoying but we're back it's it's funny because i basically finished talking and then i looked over and i'm like no no thoughts and you were just in this frame where you're like you're frozen like very intently listening

i do i do think that way i was just thinking about how funny it must have been it's like these guys just want to get a coffee and jesse is over there asking them questions about their business and this and no but dude their life goals like people the people loved me there and it's and i and that was never my MO. Like I was never like, I'm going to market my, it was just like, what else do you do? Oh, I do video, right? Like people, you just get talking, you're just getting through the line. I used to do that at the bank too when I was a teller. So I relate to that. Yeah, I get it. I get it. It's funny. I wanted to bring this up. Like when you said like the pre-production thing is what solved a lot of

those sort of tensions. I feel like we're speed running what you guys did in those 10 years because that's exactly where we are now too and like where it started for us i kid you not was your guys podcast nice so we listened to one yes man i listened to one where you guys were talking about like your proposal process and i was like talking to denver like, this is like, this is so, this makes so much sense. Like we need to do this. And it's like funny. Cause you think it's just the simplest thing,

but like sometimes you just need it spelled out for you. And I felt like you guys would do that on those, like some of those episodes, especially the salesy ones. Those are all the ones I'd listened to, but yeah, that's like, that's what got it roll.

The ball rolling for us like a few months ago, maybe close to a year. Yeah, that's how it was for us too. When we started understanding how much of a step-by-step process there needs to be for just the initial stages of the whole project. Before, we were trying to basically create a document that just had everything from the details to the details to the creative to the mood board storyboard examples like it was basically doing the entire project in one document and we we kept like taking things out putting things in and then realizing okay this is all important but we don't need to do it all at once let's let's first start splitting it up and honestly like from the last episodes you've probably listened to it's probably went through a few different changes it changes until now it changes like

on a weekly basis oh 100 100 yeah i remember when we were first doing them girl was like oh you know like don't do it so that they have it because they might share it with other people i was like girl like you go like even if they do it like it changes so often just look at the one from like the month before like it's completely different and sure like nothing's new under the sun with that stuff really either like you don't have the proprietary proposal process like you just have a process and i think like yeah that's the thing is like i always say to denver let's just make something and then you have it written down and then you can be like this is wrong but at least you can say why it's wrong versus just not being able to say anything at all right and so like just having something is like you're already

like ahead of like 80 of businesses who just just are dogging it like i was for years where you're just like yeah we'll just make it happen right whereas like now it's like cape perfect we have our discovery call that's where we gather this info. It's more about listening. And then if you're interested, we kind of give a price range. And then from there, we sit down with your brain. And he's gone. What a nightmarish day to have internet problems, eh?

Oh, he's good. He's still here. He's frozen again. He's frozen again. No, no, no. Oh, yeah, he is. He's frozen. It looks like a profile picture. Oh, man's good. He's still here. He's frozen again. He's frozen again. No, no, no. Oh, yeah, he is. No, he's frozen. It looks like a profile picture.

Oh, man. Poor Jesse. Oh, poor guy. And usually, like, our office internet is 10 out of 10. It's super reliable. Never had any problems. But today, we were in a call earlier before this, and he got booted out twice, too. Oh, so he's just one of those days where the internet is just having some issues for him.

So you guys are in your office right now right so jesse's jesse's in our office i'm at my house my home office okay yeah we uh we kind of killed the whole office thing early on like we've we've we've gone back and forth on it but we never really committed to it actually we were we want to do it but it's we want to do it but it just doesn't make sense yet that's you know that's just what we were thinking about it um we were almost about to do it we're about to pull the trigger like a year ago at the beginning of 20 i don't know uh mid 2023 beginning i think we were 2023 or 2022 it was either like we were looking we were looking into it a little bit more in depth in 2022

because we just came up with a project. No, no, we were about to start go looking with our agent friend and everything. In 2022, I think it was like around like April to May-ish. Yeah. Thank God for that. Thank God for that because then, you know, what happened with the economy and everything, we would have been in a very bad spot right now because that would have been a three-year commitment.

Right. Yeah. Because here the rents are insane for anything in Toronto. I don't know how it is in Edmonton. No, no, they weren't bad. No, no, Carol, they weren't bad. 3K a month is still pretty pricey. Yeah, but the space was big.

If we wanted to to we could have got something smaller for half of that we we wanted something that was spacious that was the issue well yeah because like if you're gonna do a studio where you could actually shoot in it like like that's the whole point where you could actually create content if you don't have that then what's the point of even getting a space right yeah? How big is your office? Oh, it's a closet. It's actually an old, like our office that Jesse's in right now is literally an old, so the building used to be owned by a church and then they kind of like sectioned it off

and so now it's kind of like a shared co-working space. But we are literally in the church's old coat closet so it's just enough to store equipment and have two desks in there that's it the whole thing not bad the whole point but look the whole point of the office for us was like okay like we weren't being too productive at home we were having issues with that so we're like at least we can go there and then excuse me it'll force us to work and whatnot so i'm glad we didn't go that route because it would have been a very expensive way to work um yep but now for me at least i have i have a library right next to my building so i just walk over there in the mornings and i just spend like several hours

there the ymca is right next door so i Oh, nice. Go do a little bit of cardio, work out a bit, go back to the library, finish off, go home, eat. Like it's much cheaper that way. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, the benefit of having the space

was more so also like, OK, if we could actually use the space to shoot some of our own content, even have some client content done in there, you know know like that that is going to pay for it a little bit as well and there's going to be a lot of value that comes

from it but again if we were to sign on for a contract it's like three grand a month that's 36k a year and i'm not even including probably the 10k up front that you probably have to put into it utilities just to make it into as well too. Like it just, it'll just add up. Sure, the expenses they don't mention. Yeah. And that was the thing that we realized. That's why we realized like, okay, you know what? Let's, if we absolutely need to use the space for anything, then we'll rent it out at that point,

if we absolutely need it. So up until now, we've been able to make it work with staying remote. And honestly, like with just two people, you really don't need something permanent as of yet, right? Once you start growing a little bit more, then maybe you might have to start thinking about it. But I know there are a few companies that we've had on the show that I think are remote and are like five, six people even. Honestly, Carol, even if we do get to that point, i would rather just get a shared work or rent out a shared workspace for like a day or two if we need to yeah exactly meetings like i'd rather do

that than commit to having a big office space like the overhead cost alone like i don't know man there's a lot of those like me because like with our our jobs like it's usually the first thing that will get cut in a marketing right yep so it's always like you know like if something happens like has like it's happening now in our in our economy like ours is the first one to get cut out of that budget why take the risk at least now like unless during the pandemic uh i knew this one uh marketing agency owner pretty small but had like a few big contracts like uh before the pandemic and then they had an office downtown team of like maybe five to ten people and this office was costing her about i think it was like eight grand a month

at the time which was fine because she had a lot of great work coming in she had a team that she had to manage it made sense before pandemic pandemic hit she had just signed like a three-year lease two months before the pandemic and was or i don't know if it was three years maybe two years but yeah imagine that eight grand a month for two years locked in and there was no way to get out of it and that just scared scared me like you can't go into it right because you just have to stay home yeah so like that's like one of those like harsh examples of like how when you get locked into something like that it could really decimate you if you don't have a plan b or anything like that i mean granted covid was just like a whole separate thing and

we've beaten that topic to death at this point. But it just goes to show that anything can happen. And you have to really make proper business decisions based on current and potential situations that come down the road. And even though Dario and I knew we were in a good space at the time, we knew that the next few months was going to be lucrative. Who knows what's going to happen next year?

And lo and behold, the economy tanked for a little while and like i'm just really glad that we didn't have like i think we would be like 70 80 grand down in rent alone bro don't even conservative at this point i can't even imagine it would have been i did the calculations and i was like girl this is going to be about 100 g's in three years three years i was like you wanna i was like if you really want to, I suggest we just set $3,000 aside every month, put it in a savings account, and then maybe in two years, if you want, we either use it as a down payment for a condo

or something else. At least we can build equity with a place. Instead of paying someone else's mortgage on a property, I'd rather we get something out of it through the business did you tell them about our space yeah church yeah we're just talking with it yeah church closet 500 bucks a month i mean for 500 that's not that's not bad that's not bad okay like we gotta run lean dude like you gotta i mean that's what i love what you guys are saying like i think that's so crucial is the cash flow piece where you're just not getting smoked well in mind we have a storage locker as well for all of our equipment like a 10 by 10 foot storage unit which costs now i think we

got a good deal on it like something like 150 once okay so like 180 roughly a month which is not bad even just to store all your equipment because that's also part of the need you know like for during the pandemic dario and i we were just basically storing half at my place half at his place complete nightmare to kind of get it get it out there and the biggest issue i had back in the day was needing to assemble everything on a cart in my condo bring it down to the to the parking lot load it into my car then go to the location then back and then bring it back up and it was just such a crazy nightmare at the time that we ended up getting our own storage locker especially since the equipment list kind of like got bigger

it just became easier to store like that and that makes sense so basically our only overhead technically is yeah like 180 in terms of storage or physical space, right? And for you guys, 500 bucks storing all your equipment and having a space to do work, that's not too bad. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's not bad. We're in a similar situation again too with like, like even bringing on a part-time person or something, right?

Where it's like okay well you know back in september we were pretty swamped and we're like oh we got to hire an editor we got to get a part-time editor but then it's like well look if we look three months down the road we can't afford that editor like yeah you know and i'm glad we didn't do it but now we're now we're in another mind another spot where it's like okay is is this the time and and we've got now we've got like contractors and and well subcontractors helping us out and everything but it's like, okay, is, is this the time? And, and we've got, now we've got like contractors and, and well, subcontractors helping us out and everything, but it's kind of that, yeah. Like when do you make that commitment to a space or a person or, you know, that's, it's a jump in costs. Like when can you justify that? Right. I think it also depends on the person

that you find, because I found that a lot of the people that we're working with are freelancers which yeah we would love to bring them on full-time but it's going to be very difficult to bring them on full-time because they they also want to be working on different kinds of projects with different companies finding full-time people you're going to have to completely redefine what the role is almost to find those people because people who want a full-time versus sticking to freelance they're completely different mindsets that they might have so you have to see if you could even find that as a possibility right um but i don't know it's it's something that we're also not there

yet like we have uh we have a like you a bunch of different subcontractors that we bring on for post for production as well dar and i strictly handle the pre-production for all projects on our own, just to kind of keep everything streamlined and yeah, full-time editor would definitely be the next hire, but who knows, right? Like, I mean, projects are like, can come in an influx at once. Like for example, in 2022, we had a project where we were shooting for three weeks straight every single day

for this one client. And we had to produce 80 explainer videos in one month. So that was like one of those times where it's like we ramped up and we basically brought in one of our freelance editors, air quote full time, just to help us tackle that project from start to finish. But then we might have like a month where it's like one small video

project here and there, or if it's something minor enough that we can do it in house. Like if there are some projects that are simple and quick to do, I would, I would do it in house for the team because then, you know, it helps kind of streamline some things and we don't like when you work with an editor, there's a lot of back and forth sometimes that happens, right? Which can delay the process sometimes. And if it's something very quick that you can get to a client out instantly, then you will make the judgment call based on how much work is going on at the time. Right.

Do you guys use, uh, what do you use for like, do you use DaVinci cloud at all? Or how do you guys do your editing? Yeah use for like do you use da vinci cloud at all or how do you guys do your editing yeah we use frame io oh man you guys do you guys edit da vinci or your premiere premiere premiere we're not we're not da vinci we're not part of the black magic family all right okay well we man we've been using da vinci cloud it's disgusting it works so good it's just like open up the project on any computer full speed it's crazy yeah it's it's for like it's been out a couple years now and i when i i mean we just learned about it a month ago and i was like this should have been a bigger deal than it was like my jaw was on the floor for like three days figuring out like really because i was always a final cut guy

and that was what finally switched me was was cloud and it's pretty it's pretty nuts has an apple abandoned final cut not yet but not yet okay they're still supporting it it's still it's still getting updated it's still i yeah i i mean i edited on final cut for like 15 years so it's like it's a it's a tough one to let go i was i was editing a wedding yesterday or like doing some edits on the wedding yesterday that i had done in final cut previous before switching and i'm like man i just i miss how snappy and quick and fast this is. Um, but I mean, it's, I said five years ago or 10 years ago, I was like, this program is not going to exist in five years and I'm shocked it's still around because I mean, Apple's pretty much putting all their chips behind

DaVinci at this point too. Yeah. The Final Cut was never, was never a favorite of mine, uh, because of like the whole transcoding process. That's what I learned early on. And then I found that most people that we've ever interacted with know the, the Adobe suite. So it's just been pretty straightforward to stick to it. Like, yeah,

maybe eventually could be better, but that means not only do you have to learn it, you have to find editors that edit in it and work it because what happens if you have to take over something on a project from an editor that isn't familiar with it right then it's like for sure oops but um anyways i i think we're kind of like heading close to like the the two o'clock mark that we and we've already lost one of our uh patrons on the episode so for the third time in this episode, Jesse is MIA. Oh, dear. You think we'll be able to?

All right. Well, I should wrap up here. Yeah, we were just talking about what we were saying. Yeah, I'm sorry. I feel like I'm ruining your guys' podcast here with my stupid internet. You know, it's funny. The audio, the people listening to this on the go with audio is not going to know the difference you know just you know the rest of us just took over the

conversation at that point yeah but no everything's staying everything's staying in the way it is this is awesome yeah hopefully there's enough usable stuff there for you oh for sure for sure but anyways thanks guys for for jumping on like i know this was a little bit more of a quick episode than compared to our usual like hour hour and a half long ones that we typically do but uh let's keep in touch and let's chat again a little bit more in depth you know it doesn't have to be in a podcast format either but uh great to finally meet you guys and and also thanks for supporting the show for so many years as well. We appreciate that. Yeah.

No, great. Thanks for having us on. And I mean, thanks for all the valuable information that you've provided us with your podcasts over the years. So it's been, yeah, it's cool to finally meet you guys and get to talk to you guys. Likewise. Hopefully we can keep it going.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we'll keep it going. Thanks so much, boys. Thank you guys. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Peace out. for sure we'll keep it going thanks so much boys thank you guys all right take care bye peace out thanks for listening to this episode of creatives grab coffee please make sure to follow and engage with us on instagram tiktok linked YouTube, and your favorite podcast app. Creatives Grab Coffee is created by Laps Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creatives Grab Coffee is also sponsored by...

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