Creatives Grab Coffee - From River Guide to Filmmaker (ft. Cairns Film) | Creatives Grab Coffee 81

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

In this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee, Dario and Kyrill sit down with Greg Cairns, an outdoor adventure filmmaker based in Colorado and Montana. Greg shares his journey from river guiding to creating compelling adventure films, offering unique insights into blending extreme outdoor skills with filmmaking. Learn how Greg turned a passion for the outdoors into a thriving career, the challenges of filming in extreme conditions, and the art of finding and pitching compelling stories. Whether you’re curious about adventure filmmaking or looking for practical tips on breaking into video production, this episode is packed with inspiration and actionable advice.TIMESTAMPS0:00 - Intro: Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee2:19 - Guest Introduction: Meet Greg Cairns3:45 - Greg’s Journey: From BMX videos to filmmaking6:08 - Balancing river guiding with early film projects7:34 - How outdoor skills translate to filmmaking11:24 - Challenges of filming in extreme environments18:00 - Wildlife encounters and managing risk20:00 - Budgeting and managing productions in harsh conditions24:15 - Managing a business while being off-grid37:07 - Greg’s goals for the future in adventure filmmaking41:20 - How to pitch and fund unique film projects44:24 - Finding great stories: Greg’s creative process50:30 - Final takeaways: Why curiosity drives great storytellingSPONSORS: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/

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And now, let's begin the show. Okay, hi, welcome back everyone. Today we got Greg Carnes from Carnes Film, based out of Colorado and Montana. Greg, welcome back everyone. Today we got Greg Carnes from Carnes Film based out of Colorado and Montana. Greg, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's good to be here. Yeah, it's nice to meet you guys. Nice to meet you as well.

So I guess let's just start and let's just get a little bit of a background from you. Yeah, so I've been in film for kind of 10 or 15 years now. I started as a little kid with a camera filming BMX. Writing would make little videos about it and then gradually transitioned into it being a profession. In college I started to get paid to make music videos at friends at bars. And then started to shoot some weddings.

And then I moved to Bozeman in 2016 and was just looking for a film job. Um, had some resume, mostly just from, you know, doing work myself. Um, didn't, didn't find a lot partially because there was a film school there, Montana State University. And so there was a lot of kids with better resumes than me. Um, and, uh, was just very stubborn, I guess, and, and persistent. And, uh, just over the years got more and more commercial work and, um, and then started to get into more documentaries and like adventure films, because that's another part of my background is guiding, um, river guiding and mountain guiding.

And so, yeah, that's, that's kind of the trajectory I've had over the years. That's actually something I was curious about with your background was that you're like a river guide and how you've taken a lot of experience from that and kind of applied it into a lot of your work. Like kind of how did you do that kind of simultaneously or like, did you start like kind of like going

into one first versus the other? Because obviously you said you've been like doing films a lot when you were younger, but it was obviously like a slow burn, you know, once you're a kid versus getting into adulthood and really pushing forward. Like what was that whole journey like specifically? Yeah, in college, I went to Fort Lewis College

in Durango, Colorado Colorado and they had a really good outdoor program. And so I kind of began that side of my life as a student guide for their outdoor program. So we take kids on weekend trips and then the training was pretty, it was really good there. And so I was taught a lot about, you, you know, backcountry leadership and, you know, medicine and wilderness medicine and all those technical skills that go with, uh, you know, ski guiding or, or canyoneering or river guiding.

Um, and I'm not, I don't know for whatever reason, I've always been into water and rivers, um, I didn't grow up by the ocean, but I imagine if I had, I'd definitely be a surfer and like a diver. In Colorado, we have rivers, so that was kind of naturally the thing I went towards. And then after college, I had a six day wilderness river trip with a lot of rapids. And I got a job up there doing that in the summer. I didn't have the resume for it, but they hired me anyway and I got lucky. And that job was a really good synergy. It complimented the film work a lot because it paid pretty well for what it was. You didn't spend any money during the summer.

And then when the summer was done, I had a pile of money and I could kind of afford to wait and be patient with film work. And then over the winter, I would, you know, I'd get jobs here and there. And I had this fallback plan, which was guiding in the winter and then not spending money or guiding in the summer and not spending any money

in the winter. And that allowed over the years for that, the film work in the off season of guiding to kind of get filled in, film work in the off season of guiding to kind of get filled in, which meant I didn't have to take like a full-time job doing something I really didn't want to. And there was, it was definitely like some lean years in there, you know? But I made it work and And that will probably took about five years for the before I could say like I

Think I'm kind of full-time doing film and then the guiding has mostly phased out Now I only go on one or two river ships this summer but all all those skills are still applicable. You know, I'm still, I can still go film in a blizzard in the mountains and I can still go film on a raft in the summer. How do you do that? Can you go into detail? I wanna know. Which part?

At the blizzard. So, there's a lot to it, right? Honestly, my favorite tool to bring when I'm filming in the mountains now is an umbrella. I have a little lightweight umbrella that I always bring in. It's always attached to my film pack. And then I use it like a lot. Even when it's nice out I'll use it just to protect me and the camera from sun and wind and things like that. And then obviously like a waterproof

camera bag. And then there's just all the skills that go with being in the mountains, like having avalanche training and wilderness medicine training and, you know, how you use crampons and backcountry skis and how you do rope work in teams. And like that's all the things I learned in college. It's really interesting though, like the, as like your first kind of It's really interesting though, as like your first kind of starting job, kind of like trying to like, that will hold you over until you get into your career, into the video world, because anyone who's jumping into video production

always has the in mind, I wanna make films, I wanna make movies, I wanna create videos, even if they wanna do it on the business side of things. But it takes time to get to that point, because obviously it's not a very cheap career that we've gone into. Obviously it depends on your path,

but if you're going the path of being independent, freelance, and then you're gonna need some equipment, which is gonna cost money. And obviously you need a job that can hold you over until you get to that point. And you were very fortunate to find a great job that can translate a lot of skills into video later on and a very fun one too to be honest like you said something that

saves you a lot of money so you have like a good war chest before you before you dive right into video whereas like for a lot of people the in their situation it's like you know sometimes it's just starting with like a minimum wage job and then it's a very slow burn but even with the great job like you had it took you like you said what five years to get into it? Yeah, I'd say five years to feel like I had pretty full-time work in the winter and the shoulder seasons of guiding, yeah.

Yeah, it's always interesting to hear people's early journey kind of like how to break out of the part-time in video to the full-time. Like for us, it was, we were working at banks as tellers, not the same bank, but different ones. So that's what it was for a little while. And then what kind of was lucky for us was jumping into shooting weddings

and learning a lot of that. Cause that wasn't originally the goal was to shoot weddings in the beginning, but it was something that helped us kind of get a little bit of cash in the beginning to start investing in the business, but also learning skills that actually are very directly related to it, right? Whereas for other people, it's not always so simple. And it's cool that you're still kind of dipping your toes into it with the, what was it, the

river guiding it was called? Yeah. Yeah, river guiding. And another thing that's good about it is, you know, it's a lot of the things that I film are kind of difficult for someone without those skill sets to film. Yeah, it's very specialized. Yeah, and it's like part of the selling point

to hire me is like, oftentimes, like you just need me. Like I don't need someone to help me or another guy there to make sure I'm safe. Or sometimes I'll have a PA if I need one, but usually it's just me. And it's- I can just imagine the job posting need a P.A. pays 200 a day going to be a blizzard.

Climb mountains. And need to withstand being in a blizzard. Is there a blizzard fee that you add to line item for that invoice? No, no, that's they get paid in experiences. Oh, there you go. Yeah, true. Now they get paid experience. They get paid in experiences. Oh, there you go. Yeah, the true experience. They get paid in exposure, weather exposure. Weather exposure.

You'd be surprised in Colorado, there's actually quite a few PAs that would sign up for that. That sounds pretty good. To be honest, it does sound exciting. When you think about it, if you're someone who's just coming out of, well, maybe, but I'm just thinking of it from the who's just coming out of well maybe but like I'm just thinking of it from the perspective of someone coming out of like film school and you don't have a lot of work experience and then you hear of this one one filmmaker who has very unique skill set very

unique content he shoots and he needs someone to help him with some of that work that's definitely a new experience to try I mean obviously if you're if you're if you're for the outdoor, for the outdoors, not a lot of people are for that. So but I imagine like a lot of people in Colorado and where you're from, that being outdoorsy is kind of like a requirement. Yeah. Actually, there's a lot of people that are interested in working on films like that Yeah There's a lot of talented people that are willing to work for not that much money just because it's like a pretty sweet gig for a few weeks to go shoot some film in The mountains. Oh, I would love to do something like that myself But you know, we don't really have that many crazy mountains here in Toronto or in the GTA like

The biggest mountain we have is like a little, a little green patch. I mean, in Toronto specifically, but yeah, like if like those types of experiences, I would love to do something like that, you know, and I can imagine many people would as well. Yeah. Are there a lot of filmmakers in, in Montana and Colorado like you or? filmmakers in Montana and Colorado like you or? Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't want to sell my skills as some sort of perfectly unique thing. I think in the river guiding space, like my skill sets pretty rare just because I can navigate on a sweep boat and class four and five rivers where a lot of other kind of outdoor adventure filmmakers don't have that specific skill set. But in general, in the outdoor space, you know, you see all these adventure films, right? Like there's skilled people making all of those and I'm just one of them. In Montana, in Bozeman especially, there's a lot because of the film school at

Montana State and then also there's just a lot of production companies in Bozeman. A lot of them are doing like b-roll planet Earth stuff you know that because of the proximity to Yeltsin National Park and Glacier You know there's a lot of companies that do Mount Lion cinematography and grizzly bears and things like that. So Bozeman has a pretty healthy stable population of of outdoor adventure shooters and filmmakers. And then in this part of Colorado, there's definitely some in Denver. In this part of Colorado, there's definitely some in Denver. In this part of Colorado, there are some as well.

There's less here just because there's just smaller populations of people here. It's more remote. It's more remote. There's just no like, Bozeman's just kind of just such a booming economy right now. We don't quite have that here. We have more like isolated hermit filmmakers that you know they'll go off and shoot somewhere in the world and then come back and not talk to anyone for a few weeks. That's kind of our story. It's your escape from the world essentially, right?

It's true, yeah. There's a few people here that do that, that live that lifestyle. You probably would recognize their names, but they just like the quiet and the mountains here. I can imagine, you know, it's like, if like the only people doing the type of work that you do or that they do can actually like relate with that kind of lifestyle, right?

So again, it's not for everyone. And that's why it's so unique and it's such a niche what you guys do because not a lot of people have the mental fortitude or capacity to be able to live that type of lifestyle or to endure harsh conditions for a 15 second shot, like just to climb a mountain, literally to just be there and be like, all right, that was, that was three days hike.

All right, let's get out of here before the storm kills us. Have you had any, have you ever had any close calls on your shoots? Uh, that you can talk about. I'm trying to think. I mean, the answer is yes. Um, whether I can think of them right now, a lot of it's like hard to, hard to say because, you know, there's been times when I've been like tied to a boat or something where if, like I have my river knife there or but if there's always the chance that

the bow could flip and I'm attached to it or they're just like there's risky moments but I wouldn't say like I haven't had like an avalanche fly by me or or a rock hurtle past my face well you know climbing and filming mm-hmm there's just underlying risks that are there constantly because of the dangerous nature of the, of the, of the work that you do. Right. It's just something you have to constantly be aware of is not so much like a certain instance. But I mean, like, I guess another aspect could be potentially even with wildlife that you experience

there. Like the grizzly and like, like have you gotten close with any dangerous like bears or anything like that? Or if you what has that been like? Probably the most dangerous animal that I've been around are are like two year old steers in a, you know, on a ranch.

What's a steer? A cow. Oh, OK. Cow. A young a young bull with horns. That's probably the most dangerous. There's certainly been, I've been around grizzlies, but you just, you don't really know how exactly close they are to you. You're just, they're just like off in the brush. Don't they attack humans though?

Or they're afraid? It depends, Dario. It's usually like if, if you're in close proximity, if you're between like a grizzly and their cub, that's when it is. It doesn't matter how far the distance is, like if you're close to their cubs, that's when they almost 100% of the time will attack you. But otherwise I don't think they just attack on sight. Do they Greg?

They can and they have, but it's much more rare than the situation you're describing. Yeah, that's a case where you just always pray that you just don't end up between the mom and the cubs. I don't think I've ever, no one I've known has had that happen to them, but it does happen. So it's just of like getting struck by lightning like it's bad luck yeah I was gonna ask like would an fx6 be

helpful in that encounter you know just like here take the camera what if they like cannons girl yeah but it you know it's not like, the risk to me is manageable. And as long as you have good communication with the people around you and work together to manage that risk, like it's manageable. Whereas like, I imagine being like a conflict, like in conflict zone film maker, like a lot of that risk is kind of just random and not kind of, it's not manageable. That's part of the reason I don't go in this. I don't film that stuff. I'm a bit curious about like what it's like managing a production for a client with these very unique situations. It's very different, like say like if a client comes to you and says, Hey, we need to do a one day shoot in a studio, it's pretty straightforward. Whereas how do you quantify or how do you budget

for something like that? Say like, oh, we need to film something in the mountain with this brand or this lead. How do you go about that typically? What's your process? I suspect there's more leniency in terms of time. So for a film or a shoot,iency in terms of like time. So I'll For a film or a shoot, I'll I'll kind of budget in I'll budget in how long I think it'll take in terms of days and

then The time the scheduling of that is completely up to me and like at that point I it's on me to figure out how long it's gonna take So if if a blizzard comes in or if it's raining or something and we can't film, that's just, I have to kind of eat that cost or just kind of work with the weather. So most of my clients were on, there's a, there's not really short turnarounds

for the work I do. It's, it's like I'll send them something in a month or two and they're fine with that. And so there's that, there's that kind of flexibility into it. And a lot of the clients that I work with are outdoors people themselves. And so they kind of understand the, how that works. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Cause I guess, I guess that's a big factor is like the type of clients that you're,

that you're attracting as a result of it. Cause it's, I don't know why, like I guess in my head I was thinking like, Oh, what if a finance client wants to do something like this? But that's not the kind of clientele that you typically work with obviously. But, and I guess part of theele that you typically work with, obviously. And I guess part of the story, like usually the stories that I'm telling are if there's some sort of delays, like we often can build them into the story. Like if there is weather or we just don't talk about it.

It's usually not a problem. Um, those kind of, those kinds of hiccups, I guess, in our, in, in the stories I'm telling. Yeah. Like you want to be able to adapt to like these kinds of, this kind of content, you've got to adapt to kind of like whatever the weather is typically. But I was curious about how you mentioned that if there's bad weather or something that you have to eat the costs on that.

But what if it's like, say you're managing like a team of people, there's a bad weather storm front. Like, does that mean you have to still pay everyone in that? I mean, I know you mostly do a lot of things by yourself, as you mentioned, but there probably are cases where you do work with a team of like maybe two or three people in that case. Like, how is that

managed typically between you and the client and them? If I'm working with other people that are in that capacity, it's like it's kind of built into the cost I guess and we just take breaks I guess like mm like, try and take a day off and yeah, that's, it's not, that part's tricky to navigate and it's like so dependent on the story and every shoot is completely different on whether, you know, people are there as an athlete and often athletes aren't being paid because they get promotion from it or like the clients paying them separately or yeah and then my PAs I

don't work with usually like other people at the same level as me it's usually like a PA and in that sense the cost is fairly low so I'll just eat that cost if there's delays like that. Very nice, yeah. It's not like weeks long delays, it's like a day or two here and there. Yeah, I was just curious, I'm sure a lot of people would be curious in those situations, because you're dealing with such extreme factors all the time, and I can imagine that anyone who's jumping into these types of productions

will have a general understanding that there are delays and everyone will know that and they have to kind of mentally and kind of like plan it out in their calendars. It's like, okay, we're going to shoot for three days. Maybe one of these days will be canceled, not sure. And then we'll have to reschedule for the other week. So there's already that understanding going into it. It's not like you're locked in for these three days.

If it doesn't happen, you still get paid and then. Oh, you got muted. Why did I get muted there? That's weird. I guess your computer doesn't like you. I guess Riverside got tired of me asking too many questions. It's like enough. I have a question, Greg. So like when you're out in the wilderness like your business is still there

Right. So how do you manage? Being away from it and not being able to like maybe continue pre on some projects or like answering emails and whatnot Yeah, good question Yeah, as you could probably imagine there's a lot of spinning plates It's a lot of different projects in different phases. Thankfully, most of the stuff I work on is scheduled six months out or almost a year out sometimes. And whether or not I get an email on a specific week is usually not a problem.

So I guess the timelines are just way more flexible than a lot of other commercial work I've worked on. So it's just kind of not a problem. The longest I've gone without answering emails is like 24 days. And you kind of hope there's nothing comes up, like nothing bad comes up, but honestly you just like hope and get back and just kind of deal with it. It's just kind of with the clients I work with in that, well, the commercial work I take care of, I make sure everything's where it needs to be before I leave on a big trip. I let them know if I need to that I'm going to be gone for a while. And so the short

term more, the short term commercial work is taken care of in that sense. The outdoor longer-term work, they just know that I'm going to be out of service for weeks at a time. And if they can't get a hold of me, they just assume that I'm off on some production and I'll get back to them when I can. And that's just, it just kind of works out most of the time like that. It's the nature of the beast for you, right? It's, it's, it's your process and you're doing the right things. You're communicating to your clients, letting them know what's happening. And I, I assume also you probably have like the email, uh, notification things like,

Greg is on a way on a production shoot in a remote location. So he likely won't have any connection to talk. I'm on top of a mountain in a blizzard. I'm on top of a mountain in a blizzard. Sometimes I do that, but honestly, I kind of get annoyed by the responses I get. Like, if you email someone and their email says that, I just like, okay, I didn't really need to hear

the response email to read that. So like, if you, you know, you guys from really, Jamie Chin, the, he's like, the most famous kind of adventure outdoor filmmakers. Like if you email him and he doesn't respond, like what do you assume? He's on a mountain. Yeah.

Like you assume he's out doing something. So I don't need like his email to respond to me. Like, Hey, I'm out doing something something like I just kind of assumed he was and if he doesn't respond to me It's not because he's not a professional, right? That's just kind of my my take on it so you're the Jimmy Chin of Colorado I Am not I am not a Jimmy Chino, Colorado Greg is always on a mountain or in a river You know that's that's what we're gonna assume if we don't hear from him Dario. That's what we got to assume now, right? You could assume that you could assume that yeah. Yeah, it's not because I I have like in my email box right now

I have in my inbox 2000 emails I Have some hundred emails seven. Oh, that's it. Okay, that's pretty good. I assumed I just assumed like coming back from a long trip You'll have like 700 I have several hundred. Yes, but I get to them like fairly quickly. I Consistent about not letting my inbox fill up Yeah, like you mentioned you pretty much close out a lot of the, a lot of your client obligations anyway beforehand.

So it's not like you're going to expect a lot of emails to begin with, right? So then you send them emails and let them know it's like, Hey, I'm going to be off here doing this. So I won't be able to work on it. Hopefully you're good with this for now. If there's anything else that comes up, I'll help you when I get back.

So yeah, it's a completely, you definitely have a very different kind of process and workflow than what a lot of traditional filmmakers or content creators would typically do. So it's nice to kind of hear what your side of it is like, the managing side, if anything, right? Everyone's always curious about the creative. It's like, yeah, we get the creative is always cool but it's like

okay but how do you manage that yeah yeah you're right that's interesting I'm curious about your camera brand loyalty so are you a son guy? Canon guy? It's not a question we ask normally. It's not a question we ask normally here. I'm just curious, like up there in the wilderness, which one do you rely on the most? What's reliable? I was a Canon guy. There's a T3i sitting on my shelf over there still. That's old school Canon guy.

It's got the extra firmware, you know, you had to hack onto there to get like your... Oh yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah, so that's still sitting over there I couldn't get myself to get rid of it And then I shot black magic for a few years when that for original cinema camera came out and that was Beautiful but terrible to film on yeah batteries

Yeah, I just remember having this like clip this huge battery I just clip onto my belt and that's what I would have to film with always have it plugged in it was it was a mess but it looked really good and then I switched to a 7s 2 and then a 7s 3 and then FX6 and I also have a A6700 for some of the work where I can't bring the heavier cameras. You didn't get the FX3 yet? No FX3, I skipped the FX3. too much of a it felt too much of the same thing as the a7s3 and i have a colleague who got that and before i was had decided and he's like honestly it's

like the kind of the same thing as the a7s3 well i guess i'll get the the bigger a lot of a lot of people in our space who get the FX6 package or swear by getting the FX3 is like the smaller, obviously like the gimbal camera or the more compact one. So it's just interesting to hear the perspective. Cause yeah, not every, everyone has different preferences when it comes to that kind of gear.

And it all depends on what your personal workflow is like and what content you shoot. So if you don't need it, then you don't need it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. I think if I didn't have the FX3, I mean the A7S3, then I probably would have went with that.

But like the image quality is very similar. The workflow is very similar. Even shooting with it is very similar. The workflow is very similar. Even shooting with it's very similar. And I just didn't have anything in. Yeah, like, and we're also in an age right now where whatever equipment, like if you buy a camera in 2021,

it's still gonna be good to use in 2025 now, I guess. You know, like it's not gonna, like the new cameras coming out now are incremental and they're only there if like, say for example, something breaks or something gets really outdated and then you need to get something new or like your shooting style changes, then you can invest in it.

But like we can't just be chasing gear all the time because your bank account can't afford it over time, even if you finance it over the course. Yeah, but it's fun. It's so, yeah, everyone loves a new toy, right? I will say, since I got the FX6, I'm very happy I got it. And it serves a very different purpose than I think, to me, what the A7S served and what I kind of imagined that FX3 would do for me

um I I shoot a lot of I shoot very quickly when I shoot documentaries And having the auto nd on there is is pretty magic uh for for my ability to like think about What I need to think about while while working quickly Someone needs to send this clip to canon to think about while working quickly. Someone needs to send this clip to Canon. Do they not have auto ND on any of theirs yet? No.

They don't have the variable. Actually, no, they don't have auto ND. They don't have auto ND, they don't have variable. They just have different, they just have like stops, like two different ND stops. Like we're shooting with C70s right now, which honestly for what Canon has, that's probably like the best bang for buck with everything

cause it's compact in love. The new one released. The C8. Which is honestly, which is cool, but it only adds like a couple minor features. So if you already have the C70, you don't really need it. Yeah, you don't need it. But it's like, there's always like something missing

with Canon that is always a little bit annoying, but we do it because we like the picture quality that comes right out of it. Like we used to be so many people back in the day as well, but we were with the A7S2 era and that was such a pain to color grade. So yellow. Even the most basic, well-lit controlled shot you needed to do a good amount of color grading You could never get it right. It was always like some yellow or green in it to be fair Some of the clients we were working with we were working in this wind tunnel at the time too And in this wind tunnel they had lights that had different color temperatures everywhere and combining that there were like 20 30 light

There were like 20 2030 lights in the actual tunnel space and like what was green yellow white what was blue and then coupled that with kit with sony's with the a7s2 terrible tint that it had that was the most disgusting footage that you'd have to like edit over time to make it usable. Oh God. I remember. Memories, you know. I another thing I like about it. Um, I don't know how long you guys want to talk cameras, but FX six, I have a,

my friend, I work with him quite a bit. He has a FX three and, um, you know, he has to build out the monitor on top and then have like, sometimes he has a extra bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has to build out the monitor on top and then have like sometimes he has an extra bad. Yeah it and the FX 6 like even doesn't really matter what I'm doing like it's always

solid and well, well, you know balanced and It's just really easy to move around I don't have to worry about knocking HDMI cables out or I don't really have to worry about the battery but I don't have to worry about knocking HDMI cables out or I don't really have to worry about the battery but I don't have to worry about like knocking the the mic Top thingy off. Yeah, you know, it's like solid so cracks me up about a lot of people like getting something like the FX VR like a smaller mirrorless body and then they Put they rig it they rig it up to the point where it's like why don't you just go and get the bigger version of that camera like you'll see people with like our five C's and they rig it up and everything so it's like

this massive thing and it's like you could just gone to the C70 and you would have solved all your problems to be honest though like C70 also has its issues when it comes to a lot of other ergonomics like the one thing I don't like about the C70 is not as ergonomic as how the C200 was. And that's the ergonomics of that camera were so good that like I, that's one thing I do miss from it. And like they fixed that though. They released the C400.

C400 is basically meant for that. I would love the C400, but again, C80 is your backup camera for that. It's like, you gotta keep going up the tiers. I don't want to keep spending money on gear. I would love to have the C400. C-80 is your backup camera for that. It's like you got to keep going up the tiers. I don't want to keep spending money on gear. I would love to have the C-400. For you to rig up the C-70 to that means you should have just gone to the C-400. But it wasn't around at the time. C-400 came out last year, C-70 came out in 2021. So I think they were pushing us in the C-300 Mark. What are they at? Mark III at the time?

Mark III, yeah. Which was okay, but it was too expensive for what it was. But yeah, that now same thing with the C400. This is the problem with gear. You could really get into a conversation that just goes into a black hole of nothingness. And we've probably lost like a couple of minutes. It already has, because you guys started talking about Canon. I'm like, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. It all comes down to the money. You just need more money to get the bigger ones. Kind of like get back a little bit more on topic though. Yeah.

Now that you're like, you're, you've been doing this, uh, you've been doing this for how much, how many years now in, uh, with this kind of like process? Uh, like almost 10 years now. 10 years. What do you see kind of like, what are some goals that you have for the future in terms of like either the content you want to create or like the work you want to do because I know you have it as kind of like you're more Independent rather than like a full-blown production company

Do you see yourself kind of leaning more into the production company world or do you want to continue just the independent route? Oh Man, I feel like I ask myself that every day So two years ago, my wife got a nursing job, so we had to move for that. And so I left Bozeman and I kind of shut down. I had three employees at that time. So I had like a social media manager and then like a PA slash editor and then an editor and actually perfectly conveniently they all wanted they were all leaving and like one went to one went to LA one went to go do like planet earth style of cinematography which was super cool I was really happy for them all to get those jobs and then I left and I kind of had a fresh start

with at least with the commercial work. I have just a few commercial clients in Montana still but for the most part I just like kind of left that all behind. Cut pretty much like 80% of my costs by like not having an office, not having employees, way less insurance, all that stuff. And I feel like I'm kind of still in that phase where I'm, it's just me right now, my costs are very low and I've moved to a new town. I have a few commercial clients here locally, but I'm not really advertising at all. I don't have an office, no ads or anything like that. I'm still kind of laying low because it's good to have kind of space to think because if people call me asking me to help them, I just always am like, yeah, sounds good, I can make that for you. And then I get, then mentally my mind is taken up with all these short-term projects.

And so that space in the last few years has kind of let me think about where I want to go and so I think part of the answer is Continuing to do like outdoor adventure films that have some sort of Hopefully impact whether it's environmental or you know cultural Some sort of messaging there or education I guess That I feel like it's helpful for the world beyond just kind of entertainment And hopefully getting increasingly paid more for them would be cool, too Yeah

And then I'm trying to figure out How to get funding for films because I have more ideas than people have money for And spending a lot of time, you know, pitching companies is it's working now for me, um, partially because like in the last few years, I've had some success with getting into film tours, like band world film tour and Vancouver, uh, mountain film tour and, and things like that, which has helped because then you can use that to pitch the next projects. But it still has, you still have to spend a lot of time

prepping pitch decks and sending emails and tracking people down and then having all these follow-up calls. And it takes a while to get the funding. Yeah, like tell us a little bit more about that aspect of it, because going into pitching for projects and stuff like that, especially when there's grants,

cause I think that's kind of what you're referring to a little bit more of like companies that are looking to invest money in kind of like certain films and stuff like that. Is that, that's what you're talking about a little more so? Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, in generally, do I want to try and go that method or a

Lot of people now just have their own YouTube channel and they skip the whole they skip that process Yeah Then the question becomes like is to do the stories you want to tell have a large enough audience to Make money on YouTube is like a whole nother question You know, um. There's so many ways to do it. It's, it's, it can, it can be, it can be tough to think about, uh, uh, to decide even, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Um, well, uh, sorry, what was your question again? Well, kind of like a, if you've been like doing a lot of those kind of like, like going about the process of like pitching for these types of very unique projects and clients, like especially with the work that you do with your background, like what has that process been like for you? It's evolved some, but I mean, I guess in general,

I've just gotten like more professional with the process Now I always have a really polished pitch deck That includes like all the details that they clients would want to know and then you know, I have like pass works on there and you know, look books and However, you want to say it, but all that's included. And then it's kind of, it's tricky because some marketing directors at these companies, like, they know exactly what they want and you have to kind of fit into their box. Other marketing directors, which is really who you're working with most of the time,

it's not CEO, it's not anybody else, it's the marketing director. Some of them, they rely on projects, stories to be brought to them by independent filmmakers who have really good stories and access, like a lot of these marketing directors, they don't have access, their employees don't have access to good stories.

So if you, like that's my main currency now that I work with is like, and I've learned that in the past few years is, this, the stories, I mean, I should have known this from the start, right? Like most people do, I think, like should have known this from the start, right, like most people do, I think, like I would just make so much sense, but like you have to find the really,

really good stories and cherry pick those and kind of like leave the rest of them behind or just kind of shelf them until they turn into good stories. How do you go about finding those? Cause that's one of the biggest challenges a lot of people in our industry are facing. Cause we want to create cool and impactful like films,

but to do that, you need to find good stories, which is very difficult to do. Like what is your process like in terms of filtering out? Does it start with an idea or it starts, or does it start with a person for you? It's, I think most of the time it starts with a person for you? I think most of the time it starts with a person. And then the most important thing I found is to just be curious about people

and don't assume anything about them. Like if there's someone, just learn about people, everyone around you, I think. It helps, like for me it really helps because I'm already in an out, in the like outdoor industry. So I know a lot of guides and, um, just kind of interesting people, I guess. Um, and I, I just ask them like, do you have any interesting

stories like that? Like it's okay to ask that. Uh, yes. Do you want to be filmed then Like it's okay to ask that. Yes, do you want to be filmed then? Is that the whole process? That's it? It'll be a movie star? Pretty much. That's essentially it.

Like got it done. There we go. And then it does take, I found it, there's a little bit of a switch between being curious about something and be like, oh, I think that, tell me more about that thing. I was on the Grand Canyon recently with, on a river trip and one of the women on the trip, she's a horse person

and she has donkeys. She has miniature donkeys and she uses them to, she uses them at weddings to like like she puts these like little saddles on them with a bunch of beer and drinks and wheels the donkeys around. You know, I thought you're going to say the donkey is the ring bearer. I think they do. No, they're the bear bearer. The bear bearer leads these super cute little donkeys down the aisle.

Nice. And then I was just asking her all about these donkeys and then she says she, she's like, oh yeah, and then I recently did a half marathon with them. With the donkeys? With the donkeys, yes, with the donkeys. It's just like what? And so then then there was like the switch I was like, will you please like this is really this sounds awesome.

Will you please like let's talk about this because I would love to be there to film it if you ever did another donkey like a donkey marathon. Like it's I don't know where that's gonna go and what they would turn into but I feel like that's worth You mentioning to me if you're gonna do this because I'd like to at least there's a story to explore Yeah, it's ridiculous. Oh, it's definitely it's a cute. It's intriguing I can see it running into that on Instagram reels, you know as you're just going through it Yeah, so, you know, it's got it's got several things for it. Like it checks enough boxes where it's like, okay Let's let's explore this more. But you know,

that learning about that half marathon with the donkeys, you have to ask some questions before it. Someone often tells you those other stories because they either don't think you're interested or aren't going to assume that you're interested in learning about their donkeys or, um, people are just often humble. Um, and they, they don't want to brag about their most interesting stories they have or, or what they're going to do. They don't want to just assume like that.

You're going to find them really interesting and want to want to deal with them. And so it takes like, I find it takes me signaling that I'm curious enough to, to want to know for them to open up about stuff. The other thing is like, when you think about it for a lot of these people, this is their day to day to them. This isn't extraordinary stuff, right? It's, it's normal for them.

And so they may not think that a certain aspect is like, oh yeah, that, that happened. It's like, it's nothing big deal. It's like, what are you talking about? That's, it's crazy to hear, right? Like for most people, it's, it's a completely different experience. So it's more so just kind of just opening up and getting, or opening them up a little bit and getting them to talk about just casually about what their day to day is like. And then you might find some golden nuggets out of nowhere. Like, like like you said donkey marathon like How fast are the donkeys did you beat them? I don't know they're probably faster than me, but I

There's I haven't you know, there's it just happens a lot like a mother friend of mine He's a he's a he's not a professional kayaker, but he he's a dad now, so we can't spend this time doing that but He's not a professional kayaker, but he he's a dad now so we can't spend this time doing that but He's a really good whitewater kayaker and he goes on all these International kayaking trips and one he went on with himself in Alaska by himself in Alaska And he went to go scout some rapid and he he came back to his boat and his boat was gone And he's like Downed River I guess like it got swept away maybe jesus. He's like i'm he said i'm always I'm i'm confident. I did not

Leave that boat in a place where it would go down river by itself It's like I always make sure when i'm on these solo things that I like pull up the boat super far Uh, and he's like there's no way left by itself So he ended up having to hike out through the forest like four days by himself. Oh my god in his dry suit Oh my god. Why before he told me that like 20 minutes before he told me the story. He's like, yeah I don't I was like you want to do you want to do a podcast episode or an interview and see if we can find Some things like I don't really have any stories, you know, like Dave, what are you talking about?

Four days in the wilderness, you got a story, man. That's a movie idea right there. Sometimes people forget, right? People forget and it doesn't click in their head cause they don't think like filmmakers, right? Like we have a unique way of thinking about how to portray people's stories in video format. Other people don't necessarily have that,

so they may not think of it right away, right? So you just have to probe them just a little bit more to get it, right? Yeah. So just being curious about people, the people around you, I think is the biggest thing. Biggest advice for any filmmaker, be curious and be overly curious

because you never know what extra story might come out of the people you're talking to, right? Yeah. That's nice. I think I'm good on my end. Like honestly, that's a great note to kind of leave the podcast on. And thank you so much for joining us. We're going to pull a George Costanza and leave on a high note.

Yeah, exactly. Leave on a high note. Yeah, exactly leave on a high note Thank you guys, it's been it's been good to talk and at some point got to learn more about you, so There's about 80 episodes Yeah, we can chat more after the episode as well, so it's not a problem Cool alright well, thanks Greg. Thank you guys. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app.

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