Creatives Grab Coffee - Results Based Videos and Passion Projects (ft. Capture The Moment Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 22

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production, hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov.Our goal is to make the video production industry smaller by creating a sense of community. Whether you are a creative, an entrepreneur, or a professional there is knowledge for you to learn. Join us as we have industry professionals from around the world come on the show and share their insights on the industry and business. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Welcome to Video Production.This weeks guest is Matthew Collings from Capture the Moment Media. Capture the Moment Media is a full service video production company proudly headquartered in Vancouver and Victoria, BC. They collaborate with brands to distill the essence of their story, and communicate it in a way that honours their uniqueness and inspires the viewer to learn more.To view the post for this episode, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/results-videos-passion-projects-creatives-grab-coffee-22/To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/creatives-grab-coffee/Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 Instagram: @CreativesGrabCoffee https://www.instagram.com/creativesgrabcoffee/Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comInstagram: @lapseproductions https://www.instagram.com/lapseproductions/

Welcome, everybody, again to Creators Grab Coffee. Today, we're joined by Matthew from Capture the Moment Media, a company that partners with brands to create video content and strategies that drive real results. Matthew, welcome. Hey, what's up, guys? How's it going? It's going pretty good, Matthew. How's everything with you over in Vancouver?

It's great. We have had some rare sunny weather this time of year. So it's been good, busy. Things are getting back to normal. Clients are getting antsy. They want to get some videos cooking. So we've been busy. It's been a super busy start to the year. Everybody's been in hibernation. March is usually the time where everybody just kind of comes out of where they've been hiding, you know? The quarterlies are ending. where they've been hiding, you know, quarterly.

Yeah, totally. I've had a lot of that where it's like, we're not quite ready to get everything done, but can we pay you by the end of March? And I'm always like, yep, that's pretty easy. Just you can pay me anytime. So if it's green, I'll take it. Yeah, exactly. Before we dive a little bit further in Matthew just give it give our audience a little bit of a quick summary of like who you are and who is capture the moment media

yeah yeah so I run capture the moment media with my partner John so we've been doing this for god like just just over 12 years now but well the beginning's kind of foggy where we're a business where we're just some dudes with some cameras who knows we had that same thing happen with us like we we i think we actually spoke about it on the show how like we didn't really we we feel like last year was like our first official year as like a fully fledged business versus everything before that it just felt like we were two freelancers just trying trying to find our way in the film in the video production industry working together i still i still feel that way pretty much every day but um yeah when you as soon as you get the ink at the

end i guess that's official but um but yeah so uh so we started this business back around 2010 um right when the dslrs were coming out and uh and getting pretty big and realizing man we can make some amazing films and you know just pop down to london drugs and buy one of these cameras and get cooking so uh we had a friend that was getting married and we were like let's try our hand at that and we really got into weddings and it was a great way for us to kind of um you know collaborate uh feel the pressure of trying to deliver for somebody on a really important event so you kind of learn a lot that way um but just kind of working with people and and and having the freedom to be creative on weddings i think couples like to try to give you

that as well so we learned a lot and then we sort of transitioned around 2013, 14, we transitioned into more commercial work. And that's pretty much been our main business for the last, you know, four years or so. So we do everything from, you know, animated projects to, you know, narrative based stuff, we do interviews and voiceovers and drone stuff and the whole thing so we kind of do uh we kind of do whatever our clients are looking for um but for us i think um i think that we try to do to separate ourselves from other video companies that might come along because we really try to figure out what our clients goals are what their pain points are and how the videos that we're making are actually helping them because i know know when we first started making videos in the commercial world, because you do a

wedding film and the couple loves it. And maybe you get another booking from that. And you think you've done a great job. In the commercial world, you make a great video, you have a great experience with the client, you're really proud of it. But if you don't have, if there's not a real purpose behind it, it doesn't do much for the client and then down the road they don't hire you again and you go why they loved everything it was because we didn't really explore why we were making this video it had like five likes on youtube and my mom she likes everything uh and a comment from mom uh and john's mom but uh you know so it was like that was the big moment for us to realize if we can do a great job for our

clients, make great videos, but also make videos that are actually helping them and are worth the money. Then we're going to be able to continue those relationships. So that's the kind of thing we stress all the time when we meet our clients. Is that enough? Yeah. Hey, that's, that's, that covers a lot of that. There's like so much to unpack there i mean like from the beginning it sounds like you kind of went through the same journey we did but then

you guys also started yeah like what do we go down the list how many of us have all started in weddings you know like yeah oh yeah only one or two haven't that we've interviewed so far but it's just really funny to just see that like that's always like kind of like the first steps and I even remember when I first picked up the camera I was thinking to myself yeah maybe weddings you know that's a good place to start oh really you thought that from the beginning I didn't even cross my mind well I thought of it earlier on because uh before Dario and I started working together I was kind of working on my own for about a year year and a half or so.

And I thought, I mean, I was curious about weddings, you know, cause I, you know, I've heard that a lot of people do it and I just wanted to kind of see what was,

what it was all about. And then it just kind of came by later, but yeah, no, it's just, it's just funny to hear that. It's a lot of similarities in that. I remember Carol just,

I remember Carol just called me one day he's like hey i got in with this wedding company they need another guy like let's come on so we can do some of these shoots again i was like okay sure let's do it well it's it's amazing how i mean there's so much there's so much work involved and there's so much like you know you have to know about sound you have to know about you have to know how about where to go and to get the best lighting really quickly. But you also know how to have to compose shots really fast and, and know what the right moments are and know what to look for and think

about your edit at the same time. There's so much that just one filmmaker is doing. It's a great way to sort of learn. So I'm super grateful for being able to start in weddings and learn all that, and then sort of bring it to our commercial clients. So we can, you know, not let people down when we're doing big $50,000 $100,000 projects, because I think a lot of those lessons from the weddings have sort of come over, over here. But yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting. You mentioned that because like, one thing that we noticed early, was that we wanted to kind of focus a little bit more on the commercial side,

like weddings was never like a type of direction that we took, you know, as a business more so freelancing, uh, because we always thought that, you know, like if you start in weddings and people are going to only see you as that wedding company. And that's why, uh, we always focused, uh, made laps, uh, focus on commercial and corporate type projects. So I'm just curious, how did you transition from like the weddings to the commercial? Did it, was it almost like as if you completely went to a, like find a completely new set of clients or did you find people through weddings that kind of helped you transition through it? Like what was the, what was the story behind that yeah I mean I don't know I think um

uh I don't know we we honestly when we first got started a lot of people probably are familiar with like still motion and and those guys and now their muse storytelling and Patrick and uh all those great guys and we we got so much inspiration from them early on because they made amazing wedding films and we were like we want to make films like that. And then they started transitioning into commercial work and they were offering education and we kind of got involved in that and started going, yeah, like maybe we could make commercial films as well. And we were always kind of outside the box thinkers. I think as much as I love telling wedding stories,

I loved making a personal film about a couple, but you know, you're still kind of in that box of like, these are the things that have to happen on a wedding day, generally speaking. And you're trying to find a story within that. I think it was exciting for my partner and I to be able to think about doing totally different stuff and getting inspired by other, starting to just get inspired by other videos that were weddings, getting inspired by all sorts of other filmmakers.

And also learning that a lot of those guys like we said also came from weddings and and then you'd start reading and hear their stories on why they transitioned and it just got to a point for us where we were like creatively we're a little stale i feel like um financially i think there's more opportunity in the commercial world uh and just like quality of life i think sustainable i think you can create a more sustainable business um we felt doing this so and we wanted to yeah we wanted to branch out a little bit so that's kind of why we did it and then i think the how the transition took place was it was just we still it's funny you mentioned like people just think of you as a wedding filmmaker um if you're not careful. Or because we our website, we updated our website, but we had weddings and commercials on there thinking some of our best videos are weddings.

So that'll help us get commercial clients. But the truth was, most of the time, people, as soon as they saw a wedding video, they went, well, they don't do what I need. Even though it was like, oh, we definitely could do what you need. And then I found wedding couples would come and see a commercial film and go, Oh, they're not really like the wedding people. And we were, and so we were kind of like in no man's land. So yeah. So it wasn't the best. And there was a, I had talks with clients who were like,

we were so close to not booking you guys because we saw weddings and thankfully we talked to you and realized you were cool and so anyway um so we split up our websites and then eventually just decided let's just stop doing weddings completely just kind of phase that out and then just fully focused on the commercial side of the business and um yeah i mean i do enjoy i still enjoy doing the weddings but i haven't done you know since we had a couple books in 2020 and those are going to be the last ones and then covet hit and i didn't do a wedding for a couple years um but i think you know just the commercial workers just provided so much more

opportunity so much more uh chance to be creative and to work with other creatives and contractors and it's been uh it's been a great move so yeah you get your weekends back too isn't that a nice benefit yeah yeah well you guys i have some kids in a way for you guys have kids wives any uh we have girlfriends not we're not there yet nice well that's that that's funny like because i because I when I used to work in the film industry when I first started out and I didn't have a girlfriend, I was just kind of like working those 17 hours a day and just kind of run around. And then once I met a girl I wanted to hang out with more, I thought I love filmmaking and all that. But how do I find a job where I'm not gone, you know, every single hour for an entire week, you know? So, uh, that was kind of, I think why I got into doing the wedding stuff. And then like you say, I want the weekends to spend with the family and, um, and that commercial work I can work

during the week. And it's great. What was like one of the first, uh, like major challenges that you found? I mean, well, you, I guess you kind of already explained that briefly of, you know, like you were trying to do weddings and commercials under the same brand. But like once you started focusing and diving more into the commercial side of things, what was something that you learned very quickly that you didn't expect? I think kind of maybe I think a little bit of like, so I guess, how do I articulate this? Sort of kind of what I was touching on earlier,

maybe in the sense that I think when you do a wedding film, you're not thinking about marketing it. You're not thinking about how it's actually solving problems or selling a product or making people money. You're thinking about just making a great video for a couple people who are going to watch it till they get super old and uh well as long as we still that was funny we we we rebranded and we made all these dvds and blu-rays and we were super excited they printed on them they looked amazing all these cases and then our buddy came over and was like um isn't that like a dead technology now yeah yeah so at weddings i was like you know however they watch them hopefully

they can still watch them down the road but that's that's kind of where your mindset was and you were just trying to make the best video you could um and then on the commercial side i found it wasn't as much about um this sounds a little bad to say but it wasn't as much about um this sounds a little bad to say but it wasn't so much about the quality of the video and um and all that it was a little bit more about the results and that's a little bit more what i found uh our clients were into that was a bit of a transition for us so it was just figuring out we want to do great work we want to attract those clients that appreciate that um but yeah we need to make sure these videos are actually working for them um so yeah that does that kind of make sense yeah yeah you talk a lot about results but

like that really depends on how the client is marketing the videos right because you are providing like the product it's up to them to kind of push it on their end. So how do you kind of decide, like, like if you're saying like, yeah, how do you communicate it to the client to say like, okay, like I'm going to give you this product and it's going to do well, but only if you market it. Right. So like, how does that work? Great question, Daryl.

Okay. So it all kind of starts for us, like with a discovery call, which is where we hop on zoom with our clients. And we really, cause a lot of times people do, I just need an estimate, just send me an estimate. And that's our first opportunity to really be able to connect with them, but also be able to really detail what it is they need. And sometimes people don't always really know what they need, and they just know they need a video, but they don't know why. So I think when we have this, we have this discovery call, we're really able to figure out the why and create the parameters so we

can create an estimate or we can bring them into our our blueprint workshop where we're able to actually like have them pay us for our ideas so we do that um so we figure out where they are and if they don't have a strategy we talk about that and we go well do you have a strategy for um why you're making this video and if they go not really then we can guide them there to our strategy workshop where we can actually bring strategy in early and figure out, okay, so if you're going to make these videos, what are your big goals? And then what kind of a video do we need to make? Is it a video that's going to be 30 seconds, 15 seconds? Is it a long form video? Is it going on YouTube?

What are the metrics we need to pay attention to? So these are all things that we can sort of get in that strategy workshop. If the client already has marketing team and all of this, it's amazing how often people still don't give that stuff enough thought. So for us jumping in and saying, these are all the things that sounds like you need. So if we make this kind of video, it should solve your problems based on what I'm hearing. And it just puts you in a way better spot in terms of being able to actually like create a video that's going to work for them. If they decide not to market the video or if they drop the ball down the road

and we're not marketing it for them, there's, you know, there's really not much, you know, there's really not much we can do. But if we're bringing these things up early and we're creating a video that's going to work for them, there's a much better chance it will be successful. What would you say your success rate is with that? Because we often run into this issue where they reach out to us, like a lead might reach out to us, and they're just like, look, we're just collecting estimates, this or that. We obviously try to get them on a a discovery call as well try to see what their overarching goals are and how we can kind of help them with video but oftentimes I feel like

the amount of people that are willing to kind of go through that process to then go through like the right way to solve their problem is a lot smaller than the people that just want to want something quick like i don't know something came up on their end they just need to get this type of video out there they don't care whatever like this is what client that is right like it's a client that's not willing to put in the work in the pre-production i think we've talked about this before where like if they don't want to even be willing to hop on a call promptly with you to kind of explain their issue. It's like, what other issues are going to come down the line? You never know, right? No, like they'll explain their issue and everything. But at the end of the day,

they don't have either like the budget or the time to be able to properly market it. It doesn't come out of a place of like, they are just not going to do it because whatever it just, that's what you meant. It mostly comes from a place of constraints. So that's kind of what we're dealing with a lot of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

And I think, I think, you know, even just getting a chance to bring that up to them, like again, usually like, I won't say no, if you don't have a marketing plan,

I won't work with you. We don't, we don't do that. But it's good in that discovery call to get a chance to bring it up. Right. And to be able to go, I won't say, no, if you don't have a marketing plan, I won't work with you. We don't do that. But it's good in that discovery call to get a chance to bring it up, right? And to be able to go, what is your plan for this video? If they go, well, we don't really have much marketing. Our goal is kind of just to, I don't know, just throw it up on the website.

And it's like, okay, well, if it's going to go on the website, what's going to be its purpose there? And just always getting behind that. And, um, and again, just kind of coming at it from a place of like, why are we making this video? How is it going to help? And just sort of really hammering that home. And then you become a little bit more of just a yes man, you become a little bit more of a partner. And if you show that those things are important um i think people notice that so yeah i mean if they're not going to market it um you can talk about that in the call and see where we go from there and you can bring up concerns and be honest and and usually it helps

build that relationship because you know in the weddings unless one of the couple one of the people gets divorced you're probably not working with those people again, right? So- One-time client, right? Yeah. The commercial world, I think, like if you can build relationships with people, it's just so much easier in terms of sales

because you don't have to do as much marketing. You don't have to spend as much money on that because you've built that relationship. You've built that trust. They know that you care about the result and they trust you more. And so just kind of setting that groundwork up early. I think people appreciate that. But as asking why is so important. And then you can even keep re asking it on the same question till you break it down to like, such a basic answer. Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. And that's it. I think like, you know, it comes to

like, and we've watched a million, you know, podcasts, we still do on trying to get people's budgets and trying to like, how do you go about that? And then the whole sales approach and, and there's all these tactics that you want to bring in and these things you want to check off in the call so that you can create clear expectations. If the client has a hundred thousand dollar budget, but you don't get their budget. And then you pitch them something that's like $10,000 and they go, well, are we going to be able to make the Nike level video that we're looking for? And you're like, I didn't think to include that much.

Or, you know, or, or if the opposite is true where they go, you know, I, you pitch them on something that's a hundred thousand dollars and they go, why are you sending me this? I could never look at this. So it's about just getting communication clear in that meeting. And that's kind of a big way to sort of build trust. And then it's just about being honest, like just going like, I'm just trying to ask honest questions that are going to help me out, too. Because if I don't know this stuff, this whole experience can be painful for you and for me. So let me just be honest and tell you what I think.

So I don't have to, you know, lie later, get in trouble. You know, a good example of that actually is something that happened recently where one lead reached out to reach out to us about potentially creating 12 animation videos and they wanted to do it all by april and so for context it's march 10th right now and they wanted 12 animations done by early april let's say let's give them april 7th even in your professional opinion is that doable yeah no it's tough yeah that's like not but like with character animations not easy ones like character animation yeah and all that kind of stuff yeah and that's the thing like i guess

we need to look at there i mean it could be maybe for some studios but like i know for for us like time is always a thing and that's a huge one clients are because that's part of we have a bunch of things we'll ask in the call we'll try in the call. We'll try to get their budget. We'll try to get the scope of the work, goals, all that. But we'll also talk about timeline. And almost always people go, well, I'd like to have it, you know, sooner than later. And that's like, it's pretty rare that people go like, I have this marketing plan for it to deliver on this exact date and that can't move. And you're like, that's pretty rare i find usually people sort of want it soon so that's my opportunity to go if you want

this level of quality um it's not smart for us to like do it on this timeline because we're all going to be rushed and we're all going to be stressed wouldn't it be better to wouldn't it be better to like take a few extra weeks even even an extra month. I know that sounds like a long time, but there, but it's just going to make the entire experience so much better. And we're going to get to what we need as opposed to doing it a month early for really no reason. And it not being something that we're all super happy with. And it was stressful to get there. So, so I'll ask those questions. And if people come back and go, no, no, it has to be on this date. And then I'll go, okay, well, let me think on it. Let me look at our schedule. And then I'll assess like, is this going to be the worst experience? Or is there

a way I can maybe find a way to get there and still make it and then you kind of make that judgment call. But yeah, yeah, that you pretty much nailed it on the head. That's exactly kind of how it went with uh with me and and this lead i was trying to explain to them about like you know you want to do all this stuff it's very specific you know long videos with character animations and you want it all done by april and it's it's fine if it's maybe one or two but they wanted 12 and they're all different topics and things like that like usually pre-production alone for something like that could take could even take up to a month depending you know the

back and forth you know getting approvals this and that getting the animators the illustrators everyone all together and then i told them like this is what's realistic for you guys is to maybe go with this approach of like if you did one a month and you guys can do something really great with it, and this is roughly what it will cost. And, uh, uh, I told them if, even if you're looking at other companies, you know, just letting you know, that's probably what you should expect if you want a good, a good product. Like we don't do animations that often, uh, as a company where we're dipping into it a little bit more and we work with a few different animators. So we already had like a few people we wanted to recommend to them but i think they found someone already to kind of go with so i don't know what that ended oh they found someone they did well they said that they chose they chose

actually got the email this morning where they're like uh like we've decided to go another way you know that typical email from a client and it's like okay i mean i hope it works out for you if you've got someone yeah well for cut was it uh? There's one podcast I listen to. It's called, it used to be called Studio Sherpas, but like in that situation, right? You, you've met the client, you've, you were honest with them about what you think this requires someone else. Some other company came along and just was hungry and they wanted the job and they probably didn't think about the expectations of it all. And they probably got in over their heads. That's a good chance. That's what happened. And they said them,

they told them everything they wanted to hear. then that client was like okay great we'll hire them um it's really good to be able to have a system where you can follow up with that client in a few like when you know that and when usually what we do is we'll go okay so you know when that project is due so you told me you needed it in a month or whatever right um so we have a platform we've used called pipe drive where we can keep track of all of our clients as they come in and then we can um i can send you guys a link to it later but uh and then you can schedule follow-ups and tasks just in there so you keep it away from your other um your other sort of uh you know platforms that you're using to schedule projects you keep it as its own thing and then you go in and, in one month, I'm going to follow up with these people. And you have like a

canned response. And then you customize it. And you go, well, how did that project go? I'm just curious, like, did it all get done on time? Or were you super happy with how it looked? And almost always in those situations, people go, Oh, you know, we decided to hold off on it and not do it. Or, you know know and the best scenario for your business sad for the other guys is for them to have a bad experience and go yeah it was just really rushed and it you know it just didn't really work out very well and then you can go okay well if you're still interested in that guide them somewhere else and then like to your bring them back into your pipe drive pipeline and um so you know just if they're not gonna do

what you think is gonna work find a way to sort of prove them that you were right later saying i told you so right yeah and then those guys can go oh man like um like we're trying to do more webinars now we're just going to start to get into that but like guide people to that kind of stuff and go this client should have had a strategy and they didn't. Um, let's have them come join our free webinar where we can talk more about that and build that trust. And then maybe one day that client will go, I really want to book a strategy with you guys. And now they become a great client. So it just takes time. You just need to have a lot of, you know, a lot of, I don't know, there needs to be a lot of fish in the pond, I guess. And, uh,

yeah. The webinar idea is pretty genius actually. Cause it is better than just saying like, I told you so type of, uh, email response. It's kind of like, Hey, like I kind of mentioned that might go this way, but luckily we do these like webinar events and I'd love for you to join. That's, that's actually really, that's really smart. I like webinar events. And I'd love for you to join. That's that's actually really that's really smart. I like that idea. When did you guys start that? Well, we've just started to do it now. Like we're actually prepping for our first one in April.

So, you know, my mom might be on it and a couple other people. But you're going to get at least one like everyone, right? Is she going to see this? Is she going gonna be the first one to comment on this uh podcast video share it as well yeah totally um i was on the tiktoks um but uh yeah but no i i think uh it's something like you know we we're like so many other we're like every other business like you you're so busy working in your business and right now is like the busiest start of the year that we've ever had and and but we're still trying to like reach those

business goals so we always try to make sure we're creating time for that um and the webinar was one of those things solving that problem like instead of being kind of douchey and going like how did it work out and they go not well and well you should have listened to us peace it's like instead of doing that you can be like oh man that's too bad um you know like i think we talked a bit about strategy we actually have a webinar coming up in a month like here's a link you can join it's like a half hour it's free you get a few things out of it and you know i don't know that might help and boom and then it's like you're giving a service and you're not coming across as douchey and maybe one of those people does actually join the webinar because they've already met you and

and they still realize they need video and blah blah blah so i'd rather be the one like i'm gonna work with a client and make a few bucks but then it's going to be a terrible experience and they're never going to want to work with me again i'd rather be the guy that doesn't make that money now but long term develops into a good relationship. Right. So you're using you're using a strategy. It's a smart approach. Yeah. And I like also what you mentioned about, you know, like sometimes we tend to focus a lot more like a lot on the client projects. But, you know, it's sometimes difficult to also focus on the biz on working on the business itself. One thing that I do as a mindset is like treat the business as

your most demanding client. That's a good way. And when you start to do that, then it's like, okay, what does laps need for me today? Laps is calling again. This is annoying. Creatives grab coffee, another sub client that we got to work on and it's like oh my god well is that like yeah what do you guys do to kind of stay on top of the business side i'm curious like because it is it's funny we're doing a couple projects for some clients right now that are for their um they're not videos um they're more like internal videos where they they're making them like a promo video for them. But they often do like other kinds of videos with us that are more time

sensitive. And the videos that we're doing with them, I feel like the schedules have just gotten like totally out of hand because they're just like, I can just tell they're busy. And they're just like, that's our project. There's no timeline, whatever. And I know what that's like. Cause when we have something that we're working on for ourselves, we often push it to the back burner because we're super busy with our own clients. What do you guys do to sort of stay on top of that? We're in the same boat.

Yeah. Well, one thing, one thing, for example, with the, for example, with this podcast that we're doing is we know we want to keep to a consistent schedule of one episode released every week. So that's at least our, our goal to keep going. So we noticed that February, March, it's like, not that it was downtime, but we had a little bit more, uh, open days where we can start scheduling more and more, um, guests. So like, for example, we had like three or four in February, in March, we have like about six to eight different guests as well. That we're including yourself, that we're interviewing. And

that way, you know, like, no, no, no, March, March, we have nine guests total. Okay, tomato, tomato. But the point is, we've done more than say four for that month, right? So like if ever we need, like we'll always have enough content ready to go. If say there's like a very busy week where we can't schedule an interview, then we can still have enough content to kind of put it there. So we're trying to kind of maximize out our time when there's like a little bit of a break between major client projects. Because January we were busy. We didn't have time to work on anything for the business. And so now we realize, okay, in case a project like that comes around, what can we do so that the business can kind of

keep, you know, moving forward a little bit more without us needing to be like fully dived into it at that moment. That's like one example of how we're kind of trying to do that. You're always painting a very flowery picture, but the honest truth is that we're trying to find our grounding. Cause especially with the, the, the relaunch of this show, I think this month has just been a process of trying to see how we can fit it into our schedules where it's like, it doesn't get pushed off as soon as something else comes in. So yeah, we are kind of trying to do a lot of guest episodes now,

at least the shooting aspect, since we have a bit more downtime. I know it's going to get busier in the coming months. So there's that. And then we have to like edit one once a week. So we're trying to, we're still trying to find our footing, but so far it's smooth sailing. Like the way we're kind of dividing it up is we are focusing a lot on this show. And then for our own content, we have a series of vlogs that are planned.

And we're trying to kind of do more, like shoot several of those in one day, just so we don't have to worry about scheduling those in and whatnot. But it's a struggle man like anyone that says like oh yeah i have it down to a t i think is lying there's so much that comes up like last like like this morning we were just going back and forth on like trying to figure out these like small little things for this show like um the thumbnail covers and that took a little bit of time too and that was like two hours. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's two hours wasted, but you know,

I think once like, for example, once the show is like, after this month, I think we'll have everything kind of like what do you call it? Carol? Like we'll have everything kind of automated, but it's kind of, it's kind of like ready to go. We got a system in place, like a structure for it. A system. Yeah. Yeah.

System in place. But I think it's I think it's a matter of just finding a system for each task that you have to do. And I mean, with each episode that we do, there's one extra thing that gets added to the list of things you need to do for the business. Like I remember when we had Judo from black, white media, he was talking about proposals and that was like the big, the big, the big takeaway from that.

So we were trying to work on improving our portfolio, our, uh, proposal game. And then now you're mentioning webinars. Now you're mentioning webinars and. Well, you hit on a good point. Cause it's like, I think some people might think, well, hit on a good point because it's like i think some people might think well if you're busy because it's like i'm so busy i can't work on my business um people might go well why who cares you're busy you're making money but it's like you have a busy i've always sort of thought busy isn't good if it's not like if it if it if there's um if there's

no structure to it and i and it's chaos and I'm just so busy just bicycling around to get stuff done and I don't have any systems and I'm an everyman and I'm doing everything. I'm emailing everybody. I'm exporting this video and I'm just cleaning my camera lenses because I'm going to go out and shoot this thing and I'm like doing everything and then I have no life and I'm grumpy and it's like, well, you're busy. You're making money. Aren't you happy? It's like, no, I'm not. Cause I don't, I don't,

the business isn't where I want it to be. And the only way I can get it to where I want it to be is if I spend time on the business. Um, how do I do that? Right. So busy is like a relative term, right? Like busy is good. And people always say that busy is good. It's like, it's, it's good. And it also is terrible. It depends on your point of of view I guess right um and that's always been my big thing yeah I thought of another analogy you know it's like it's like when you're working you know and you and you haven't worked on the business it's like neglecting your kid you know it's like you come home it's like I haven't seen your kid in weeks it's like oh when did you lose a tooth oh my god what's happening yeah exactly and that's when that when you have kids and you're working like crazy that's what happens you know but it's like uh like actually is what happens

because you're like i'm too busy i i got i've only made all these promises to people and then who gets who gets the short end of the stick it's your family right so which is totally not fair so that's always kind of been my thing is how can I create a good balance in the business and how can we be making projects that we're proud of um being profitable and working on the business and having systems where we're actually like getting closer to being able to step away more and not be so tied to it and slowly, but surely it's getting better. I think the last few months of crazy busyness has been a good example of that where I've still been able to, you know, I know my kid's name still.

And so I always think about that, that scene in home alone when they're in the bus and he's like, Eddie, he doesn't even know, he doesn't even know he doesn't know who his kid is it's like all of us as filmmakers are like that traveling polka band and uh in that Home Alone movie where you're just like it's like man like we don't see our families at all we're just on the road all the time and I think you can get caught in that as an entrepreneur if you're not careful and balance for most people is pretty key, right? So you need you need to start delegating stuff. I think that's the only way to do it, because if you're running your own business, you're

never going to have like a period of time where you're like, oh, I can get everything that I need to get done for this business done today. Like it's just a never ending stream of things you need to do. And I think, yeah, like if you try to do it yourself, good luck because you're going to sacrifice time in other places. So I think, yeah, being able to delegate tasks to other people is the only way to really get on top of those things, but there's always going to be something else that you need to do that you just don't have time for. And because, and because of that, and because of that, you have to learn to delegate, as you mentioned,

because before we, when we were freelancing basically together, we were basically working all the time, weekends as well, you know, odd hours as well. And it was just kind of tough to get that balance. As you were mentioning, there was no system in place to kind of separate the work from the personal. And once we started delegating more, especially like giving a lot of the editing work to other people to do that opened up so much more time. And that's why we're now have the energy to be working on content for ourselves. And for like, for example, this podcast show, because if we were also editing the whole time, when are we going to have the time to do anything else? And like, I feel like one thing we noticed with your business is you guys have really grown

a huge team do you feel like that's really helped kind of take a lot of the pressure off of you now yeah i think so um and yeah and i'm just having trying to have and continuously working on systems so that like yeah it's great to have somebody help you out but if they're not doing the job right um then what's the you know it's like what's the point you're just paying them for something that that's all you know that you always have that feeling but you know can you do this and then you look at it like yeah i'll just i'll just do it and it's like you need to take time to build systems out and go you know i have an entire workflow from you know discovery call all the way to the very,

very last thing that we do that every single task is detailed out with why we're doing this, who does this, you know, links to different apps, we need, you know, canned emails, so that we're just trying to like, refine it as best we can. So systems are huge and then yeah having and then once you can create those systems and your business is doing okay you can bring some people in and drop them into those systems and so that's been helpful for us and it's totally an ongoing process to try to make it work um but spending time on those systems has helped for sure so um because we when we were first um kind of in like 2013 14 we got an office wedding business was going amazing we were uh and we just finished we just we just went full-time we quit our other jobs and then we got an office we hired

like four people five people um and we just were like, yeah, let's do this. We're like a big, big time video business. And we're and it was like totally not the right thing to do. Like, you know, we had we'd have a meeting in our coffee shop being like, oh, man, I don't know how we're going to pay all these people. And like we just got way in over our heads. Right. And it was just like totally just vulnerable being honest. And I and we realized, realized like we're not ready for that yet we might be really busy but we're not structured to be able to do it properly um

we need to revamp things so my partner took on the that's why it's great to have a partner and we're kind of wired differently um so he took on the business side, figured out all of our financial stuff so that we're actually being profitable and doing all the right things. And tax season wasn't a pain in the butt anymore. Worked on systems. And I just took over and led all the projects that we had going on and started hiring contractors and bringing people in and working with them, you know, really closely to get everything done. And so that's kind of how we divided and conquered. And so we kind of started to create a business that was more profitable and functional, and then started contracting people out. So we weren't worried

about paying everybody every single paycheck if we had a slow month or whatever the case is. And that was a great way to go and then slowly building up to where we can start to then hire people in roles. But yeah, I mean, I love contractors, though. It's great. Like if you can work with people regularly and if they're good at what they do and they can fall into your structure, but also bring their own thing into it, you can pay them well, but you don't have to pay them for the entire year. So we love using contractors.

Yeah. It's good to feel them out too and get a sense of working with people because there's nothing worse than hiring someone, you know, because you thought that they'd be a good fit. And then when you actually start working with them, it's like, oh my God, they're a nightmare. Whereas with contracting, you find people that you like, oh, like this guy, I think we could actually do something really good together. And then, you know, work a little more consistently after that. But how big now is your team kind

of gotten? You said you started off with mostly contractors and now is it, is it like, what's the core team? Yeah. I mean, we have a, we have an editor, we have a marketing, uh, manager, we have an assistant marketing manager. We have studio manager uh who's also like a producer on sets a lot and then myself and john and then we actually don't have a dp or uh like on staff because we'd love to at some point but i think what we what we've done is we built all these great relationships with different uh cinematographers that have different gear and different styles and i think for us it's been nice to be able to go um we got a project coming up and as soon as it's booked I'll message the person I think is best for it that I work with all the

time and we have a good shorthand with the team and and that's how it works so that's been great um so not like a massive team but definitely like you know we and we have our regular contractors like we have a assistant slash behind the scenes guy who comes to all of our shoots we have makeup people and other producers we work with and other editors we work with so um but our core team is we're trying to prioritize what are the daily jobs that it's hard to contract somebody out so like nico, our studio manager is huge because she's, she's the one sending out all the invoices. She's the one scheduling things. She's the one touching base with clients as the project's moving along, sending all the emails out.

It's difficult to contract someone like that up because she's so involved in everything. And then me, like I I'm the creative director. so I oversee all the projects and make sure that creatively they're all up to par and that we're meeting the client's goals and that I'm the touch point for the client on the creative side. So those are also like it's hard to contract someone out for that. You know, down the road, we'll figure out ways to do that. But I'd love to be able to replace my job and hire someone to do my job at some point. That's kind of the big goal, right? But yeah, so that's kind of how we have it structured at the moment. So what are you going to do when you're able to finally replace yourself? Would you just take a step back and just go on a beach or? Yeah, totally. I'll change this backdrop to the Hawaiian

Beach backdrop. And I'm already there. yeah, no, I mean, I love what I do. Um, I guess for me, like I'm always just looking for more time. Like that's just always been my big thing. And, um, so if I had someone doing what I do daily and an open time up for myself, um, I could just spend more time working on the business. Um, but I could also, uh, take on more passion projects, I think, as a director. Because that's one thing that I do like being on set, but I want to be doing the kinds of projects that I'm really passionate about. We've, in that kind of getting back to that conversation of working on the business, you know, we're always talking about passion projects. And we've done a handful over our time, but every year we're like, all right, this year, big goal, a passion project. And then we never do it. Right. So, uh,

How familiar does that sound? Yeah. So, uh, so this year we, we were like, well, let's, let's try and approach where we can create some accountability for ourselves. And so we, um, my partner and I are sort of dividing and conquering. So he's doing a passion project in the first quarter. I'm doing one in the second quarter. Um, we've given ourselves a budget. We've, we've really like made ourselves feel like if you don't get this done, um, you're a terrible person. So I think we put the work in to really um add accountability between the two of us and

we're working on one right now for a company in bc here where we're going to tofino um you know where that is like on the end of the island and we're doing a it's like sort of a beach town and the on the most west side of vancouver island so we're doing a shoot there and I'm directing it and he's sort of taking the lead on the creative and uh yeah so we're getting going um and I think I would just spend more time doing that I think just if I could think about it right now um and I really want to tell this story okay let's let's just go do it the team's doing this and then hopefully the story that I make will help us make more videos like that down the road and I can actually maybe get paid to direct a big project. So that is exactly the kind of thing I want to do.

So, yeah. Carol and I are in the same boat all the time. Like, I think at least once a week we always go like, oh, yeah, so we got to do this this week and that next week. And then one of us always ends up saying, yeah, but when are we going to find time to do our passion projects? Because one of the challenges is also being able to take the time to figure out what that passion project is, because not so much doing it is the issue, because it would be very easy to just schedule the day, get the editing done and all that stuff.

But it's a matter of being able to take the time to do the research, to figure out what kind of topics you want to like kind of explore things like that. Cause one thing that we want to do is also short documentary work. So, and that is more like that's, that needs a little bit more research than simply coming up with just a simple creative idea, you know, and just running with it. Right. So there's like a mix of things, but you got to find the time. Yeah. I did a passion project that was like our biggest viewed video, but it was like, I just, I didn't give it really any other thought than just, that's cool. I'll go do that. And it was for, it was like a friend of mine who makes these incredible like cakes that look like real things, but they're cake.

And, uh, and we, and so we did a little passion project for her and just kind of did exactly what I wanted to do. I'm not super proud, like I'm proud of it, but like, it's not the kind of video would be on our website now because we did it a long time ago. But like, as soon as I didn't give it much thought in terms of like, Oh, what market am I making this for? Or what, you know, like, how can I try and use this video to attract other business? Like, all good questions, but I was just passionate. I just did it. And, and then it turned into like,

we got a bunch of solid work with a bunch of different food based companies in Vancouver based on that video. But my approach right now is I kind of have three months before my passion project. So my prep is just giving those things you say, like I've created tasks for myself to try to think about those things. So what kind of videos do I love making? Think about that more, make a task, grab some inspiration, just go remember you love making these kinds of videos. And then what kind of industries would, would work for these kinds of things. And, um, just kind of having tasks to sort of help your brain wrap around what kind of passion project you would make. Um, so that you're kind of getting that part of it done. And then, and then you get to the idea.

And then like you say, you just kind of make it so um so trying it's uh we'll come back to me in a year and see how this went it'll be like oh we did the one but then yeah i'm busy it's also it's hard to switch mindsets too right because like you know when you are running a business you're in the business mode mindset right but then if you want to do like a passion project you got to switch to creative mindset and it's so difficult to do like we we we have trouble doing that for like our work on on the business and sometimes we got to do creative stuff and it's like but i've been working on all this other admin stuff i can't switch right away i like you got to like dedicate like the day for that and it's and i think it's like tenfold uh difficult when you're uh doing it for something

that is like a passion project where it is just like it's legit just an extra thing that you probably have a lot more important stuff you got to do but they're also equally as important because they do allow you to again be more imaginative and you can probably well like in your case you were able to get more you were able to get work that you probably wouldn't have gotten through that thing and you know there's opportunities that arise from those ventures as well yeah i mean ultimately you do it because you just you want to you're passionate about filmmaking but and so that's the number one thing but i guess the reason that you do it is to try to get you work in that.

Like, hey, I made this video that I'm so proud of. It's my favorite thing ever. Pay me to make this for you. And that's why you do it. But yeah, it's a good point you bring up, I guess, about that balance. And I'm more in that mindset of like, because I was doing that for a while where I was filming everything, directing everything but also running the business doing all the sales calls and and switching back and forth and I think I kind of like being like 70 to 80 percent business sales that kind of thing working with the

team and then if I can do like 20 percent of my year where I'm going on being creative and focusing on that and creating time for that then wow that be amazing. I think that would be a good balance for me, but you have to do the work and figure out what works for you. Right? So maybe you hate the business and realize I'm just a great cameraman. Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I should just contract myself out because that's what I'm happiest doing. I don't like emailing. I'm not good at it. I don't like sales. I just want someone to bring me cool projects that I can just DP and I'd be happy. So I guess it's about figuring those things out. Right. Yeah. Cause you want to look back and

be proud of like some of the work that you've done. And, you know, every time like we look back at some of the projects we've done, it's like, it's not that we're not happy with the work that we've created, but it's like, you're not going to be super passionate about a financial company giving their like quarterly, um, uh, review project, you know, versus say a short documentary about wingsuit skydivers. You know, that's such a huge contrast, right? Sounds like a good one. I don't want to see that. Yeah. Or you can, we did it. Yeah.

Oh, nice nice is that on the website uh yeah okay no it's not it's not on the website right now okay okay we'll send you a link so we'll send we'll send you the vimeo link for it we redid our whole website so it just didn't fit any like any like particular spot that a client would be interested in clicking on so we kind of just removed that from there. Sometimes you have to do that because it's like, you got to look at your website through the eyes of a client. I feel like a lot of people don't do that. Like it's,

you'll just see a bunch of stuff and you're like, you're like, clients don't know what that means and they don't care. Like you just need to give them the information that they, they can understand. That's important to them, especially. And, you know, one thing that you mentioned about like making the time for the creative, you know, I'm just even thinking to myself right now, like Dara and I have talked about like picking out like days or like times within the weeks where we just simply don't focus

on anything business related, just kind of like watch some like creative projects, you know, like critique, you know, learn and like brainstorm ideas which is which is good to have we do that let's say we do that for like two three hours then all of a sudden client a is calling with a crisis then client b is calling the other one for another crisis like oh no you have to put out these fires and boom there goes the creative time i know well i think it's um do you guys use um today do we i don't know maybe do you guys use calendly do you use that like as a as a meeting set up i've been thinking about that no i know we've been we're a little more old school with all that stuff like we don't use a crm or

we should i know there's a bunch of stuff there's like trello and everything like i think we just use slack to communicate with each other and just everything else is like pretty yeah i mean i'll say though just to kind of like because yeah i mean i'm not super uh technologically sound it's more my partner um and those kinds of tools but um you know i feel like you spend you waste so much time uh if you're not if you're not disciplined but if you're not if you're not organized and um if you can go into your calendar and block out time and go you know what every thursday we're gonna get together we're gonna have give ourselves three hours where we have a coffee and we come to the meeting with some things in mind to create that accountability and then we just get into it and just forget about everything else and make it sacred. Like unless one of the cameras is on fire and it's set the building on fire, one of the shoots we have going on, we're not going to take any other calls because this is important.

It's so hard to do that. But if you use it, like how Calendly can help. Calendly, sponsored. Brought to you by Calendly. Use code Matt for 10 off but but the great thing about a tool like that in terms of being efficient is you can go in and create those blocks in your calendar and go like clients are going to try to book calls with me and i'm only going to show them times i'm free um and and when we first started using it we were

like i think we stopped using it because we found it was too complicated. But then we realized we just weren't organized well enough in our actual calendar. So by being more organized in it, it actually then really worked well. We were also thinking like, oh, we're sending people a link. And then if there's no times available, they're going to be like, well, these guys are too busy to take a meeting with me or whatever. If you give yourself, but that actually turns out to be a good thing I find because clients go, wow, these guys are busy. There's only a few slots that I can book.

And it's almost like more desirable in a way. So I'll block out time if I'm just like too busy. And then I'll go like, don't bug me. And unless something's burning down, I'm here doing this. And, but, you know, I still get pulled a thousand different directions too, but you just got to figure out ways to kind of make that time important. So, you know, we're going to do, we're going to add that to the ever-growing list of things we need to do.

Another thing to do, get a calendar organizer, to organize, organize, to get a calendar organizer. Well, if you're looking for an affordable and efficient calendar app may I suggest Calendly I need another camera here where I can turn to and go Calendly oh there's my check okay good

but yeah I mean that's kind of where my partner like I said earlier that's where my partner came in and was like, where are we at Efficient? He's like, Matt, can you just like take care of all of our clients and projects? And I don't I'm not even going to look at anything. Give me like three months. And I was like, all right. So and I kind of love that because I like just being involved in the projects and working with the clients. And then he did things like that, like, man, this counter thing is a problem. Like wasting all this time, what can we use?

And he just like figured all that stuff out. And then we were able to sort of build off of that over the long haul. And so those little things definitely save time. And then every revisiting every so often and going, no, we're really inefficient here. I waste so much time with this. Like how can I implement a system where this is going to save me time because yeah that's the worst yeah i think uh we've been meaning to do calumny for a while

and uh definitely this is a little bit of a of the universe reminding us that it's like let's kind of nudge into you know getting a little more organized like this so that's but yeah you got to commit all these things i think can work if you're committed to making them work if you're just kind of like half half assing it it's often these tools don't work and then you hate the tool but you realize i've actually i probably didn't do it properly you know so i didn't give it a fair shake but um but yeah um yeah cool okay uh i i can't believe we're already at the one hour mark yeah that did not feel like But yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. I can't believe we're already at the one hour mark.

Yeah. That did not feel like it was one hour. Before we kind of like start to wrap things up, one thing we like to ask all of our guests is like, how did you guys come up with the name? Oh, man. Well, I think we both have different stories, but it's so long ago. And it was kind of like, we've, you know, we've been sort of toying with changing the name, but I think it's one of those things where so many people know us as that we've

had a hard time, um, rebranding, but, um, we were basically, I think we were just starting out and we had maybe just filmed one wedding or something and we didn't know what we were really doing. And then we were looking at the footage all excited. Cause like we did, we, you know, actually filmed something. And I think John was like, wow, we really captured the moment. And then we both looked at each other and we're like, really goofy, corny moment, but then I'll just,

it just stuck. And then we just started calling ourselves that. I think it does kind of represent who we are in the sense that we try to do stuff that's, I mean, we abbreviate, we kind of call ourselves CTM, I think more often to kind of keep it more casual and fun. But I think we try to create an authenticity in everything we do. And we try to make it um feel honest even in our commercial work we don't want to have work that's super um you know corporatey and really like uh you know we want to we want things to feel a little bit more like in the moment and a little bit more candid and um but like also you know really thought out and well planned out so um i guess that's kind of why we have our name that's what we have it but uh yeah nice it's like a lot of the it's always nice to hear these stories of

like how it's sometimes it's always like a simple thing in passing where people came up with the name sometimes it surprises us how simple it is or how complex it can be you know yeah i mean i wish we had like a proper marketing person to guide us when we first started up we were just a couple dudes uh you know just being like i, I don't know, go with this. And then it kind of stuck. But same exact story. A couple of dudes were like, we got to come up with a name. We got to get it started because it's funny you mentioned you thought about rebranding

because we've thought about it many times before. And then it's like, do we really also want to add a lot more work to redoing everything that we've done everyone knows by this name and especially you guys you've been around for like 12 years like if you were to change your name like how confused are people are going to be that have worked with you in the past bro not just not just people but google google where you is like, who are you guys? What the hell? That's it. I mean, so often, usually I ask clients and they'll call. I'm like, how did you guys find us?

Yeah, usually it's Google. I mean, you know, we get a lot of referrals too and things like that. But if it's a brand new client, it's often like, oh, I searched you. And, you know, we pop up pretty fast. And if you change your name and you got into all that. Don't make Google Maps. It'll take you years to get back. Don't even try it. Don't even think about it. Google will get upset if you make it mad with this. It's like, come on, come on, throw you at the bottom of the Google search results and they'll do it. That's not a

threat. Awesome. Well, this is fun guys. Thanks for having a threat. Tony Soprano. Yeah, totally. Awesome. Well, this is fun, guys. Thanks for having me on. It was really great to talk to you guys. Likewise. Thank you for joining us. You know, like, honestly, like, thank you for sharing your story. And, you know, like, it's crazy to hear, like, all these, like, interesting backgrounds of how everyone kind of got started. And as we mentioned before in previous episodes, you know,

it's like we've all had similar struggles. And it's funny to just you know geek out about it even at times right yeah well that's the thing i mean my my uh um especially when covet hit you're not out as much it's like my poor wife uh she's the only person i can vent to or talk to i've heard all these things a thousand times and i'm not like yes that's what they say they always go like i know you told me already told me this story three times already in the last three months come on totally well when you're i mean i used to work on a tv show and we had like our you know like it was people would have like smoke breaks or they'd go outside and they'd talk and because we were still kind of in a space but but like this kind of works especially too like if you're an editor or if you're like spend a lot of your time you know away from the

office like there's nobody to vent to nobody to talk to nobody to share stories with and um so it's great to be able to talk to other guys that have been in similar situations it makes you feel like you know whatever i'm doing i other people been through and uh you know i can get some tips or i can get some i can just relate to somebody and it kind of just makes it easier to keep trucking through all of it so yeah we're not alone like we all go through like i feel like all production companies go through like 90 90 to 95 percent of the same issues and challenges you know if everyone thinks it's unique to them it's like it is nope to them but it's not a unique issue you know like pain and suffering is common we've all gone well yeah and you sort of get to

a point with some things where you try a bunch of stuff and you go like there's just no solution like this is just the way it is and then you kind of have to stop yourself and go, there's gotta be a solution. And thankfully, like with things like this with podcasts, hopefully somebody throws this podcast and they go Calendly. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. So there's little things that, uh, you know, there's so much information there. Yeah. I'm convinced you work for calendly

because you keep mentioning it after every like 10 minutes oh man yeah yeah i need to have like i need to have like their sticker on my uh on my coffee and i'm just discreetly drinking up but uh i feel like i feel like we actually have to mention in this on YouTube. It's like, this episode is not sponsored, but we can, we're accepting proposals. Calendly. Yeah, totally. But no, I mean, that's, that's, that's why it's great.

And thanks again for doing this guys. Cause I think these are the kinds of things that build a community but also just like it just gives people resources to like be more successful and if other filmmakers can get tips from other people's experiences and and help grow their business it only sort of helps us all right so um so yeah thanks guys this is awesome awesome yeah yeah no. Thank you again for coming on. Thanks again. And, uh, we'll, we'll be in touch, you know, we'll, we'll check in again in a year and see where that creative project is at. Right. Awesome. Yes, exactly. I'll, uh, I'll make something good up to make it sound like we did it, but holding you accountable. So now you have to do it awesome thanks guys okay thank you