Creatives Grab Coffee - The Growth Stages of a Creative Business | Creatives Grab Coffee 61

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

This week we welcome Bear Prandelli from Wolfunbear Media. A production company with a name inspired by their father's experience with Native American culture. Bear and his brother Wolf have a close relationship and a shared passion for the arts. They started their company without much experience or knowledge, but their determination and willingness to learn have led to their success. The conversation revolves around the different stages of growth in a creative business and the challenges and shifts that come with each stage.They also explore the idea of transitioning from freelancing to becoming a business with employees, and the potential benefits and drawbacks of different team sizes. The conversation delves into the idea of an annual budget and how it can provide financial security and flexibility for both the client and the production company. They discuss the benefits of having ongoing conversations with clients and the ability to say no or take on creative projects without worrying about financial constraints.SPONSORS: Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.com Audio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca 🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9 🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.com To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/ #videographer #videoproduction #podcast

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

Do you need crew or a strong production partner to help you with your project? Laps Productions is one of the top production companies in Toronto and your go-to video partner. With our strong creative skills and extensive network, we can help you achieve your goal. Laps Productions is able to offer you production services, white label services, or finder fees for project handoffs.

Reach out to us on our website at LAPSProductions.com to learn more. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you're a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera packages or lighting and group plan packages. You can see our contact information in the link below. We are more than happy to help you guys out.

Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativescrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. Welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto. We got you covered.

Come on down. AudioProcess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you, I'll be waiting for you, and we're all gonna have a real good time. And now, let's begin the show.

All right guys, welcome to another episode, and today we got Bear Prandelli from Wolf and Bear Productions. Or what do you guys, it's just Wolf and Bear Media. Media. Media. I've been screwing up the names of all the production companies lately. I gotta stop you this friend. Axe Dario on that. But I like I like your website it says where classical meets metal which is something you would expect from a name like wolf and bear. Yeah, I was not expecting your name to actually be bear. I wasn't expecting it either when I reached out to him.

Yeah, it's for real. His brother's name is wolf too. Like, I don't know if I told you this. I was like, there's no way, but I I mean it's kind of on trend with this now Yeah, we have some pretty interesting parents so it you know definitely makes for a good icebreaker Well, you're gonna be bad. I did now well no no girl I want to hear the story like you can't just say my name's bear and leave it at that How did you get into video? There was an Italian with a name like bear and wolf come about that's what I want to know

Yeah, so yeah, there is a story to that. So our um Back in the 80s before I was born, uh, former brothers born our dad hitchhiked across america, um ended up staying with some natives in washington who let him like hang out with them for a week or so, did a mushroom ceremony with them, spent like a week with them in some sort of sweat lodge, kind of fell in love with a lot of the cultures and tradition, just all of that. So we both got totem names essentially.

Oh, that's cool. He's like in love with like anything having to do with Native American history and stuff like that Which is funny because we grew up in Italy. He's like half Italian half German. Yeah, so very very separate cultures But that's where it came from Yeah, I just want to know how hard it was to convince your mom to go along with that because I can understand the guy saying I'm it's like in it's like in Seinfeld when George wanted to name his kid seven and his and his wife Don't have that much info on that I know my mom didn't fight too hard though, so It's like it's almost like like when a kid says he wants to be dragon, you know and be called dragon

It's almost like when a kid says he wants to be dragon, you know, and be called dragon almost sometimes. And it's like, no, no, no, that's, obviously dragon's like a little crazy, but yeah. But bear and wolf are very, you don't see that too often, people being named that. So it just seemed like a no brainer for your company name, I guess. Both of them there.

Yeah, we didn't give it that much thought. You know, we started putting stuff down on a list and it was like, ah, this one's kind of right here. Might as well just roll with it. Yeah, there weren't that many options on the list when we were coming up with names and when we threw that one out there. Well, I can imagine like bear wolf media, doesn't have the same buzz. Wolf in the, yeah, that kind of flows a bit.

It flows well. You know, usually when you're starting a business, a lot of people say don't name it after yourself because then it's kind of limiting. You know, it's like, oh, they're always gonna want that person's name doing the video or the photography for their client. But Wolf and Bear, it's like, it's kind of like a power name, you know?

It's like, it is your names, but it can also be an umbrella name as well. So it's kind of like a This it's unique. It's unique. Yeah, given the story. I remember seeing it for the first time and going like, okay These guys probably love metal that was like my Russian like Well, it's kind of funny, you know, you brought up the word classical meets metal and that's the, my brother came up with that, that little slogan and it really is partially because I'm like the metalhead. I love going out to shows, I play in a band, I go to as many like, you know, local or like big concerts as I can. And then Wolf is very like, he's into

jazz and blues and you know, he brought a typewriter to college instead of using a computer. Yeah, yeah. And it kind of translates, you know, there's like a lot of- Can you imagine in class, like you just hear, tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch

tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch t Yeah, that's the lecture class. How could you focus? But like, you know, he showed me some of his old essays and all the stuff that he would hand in was written on a typewriter. Even now we have, oh, it's not in here, but it's in the other room. We have the typewriter. He still loves to write on it. You know, anytime he does treatments for, you know, little stories or essays or short stories ideas that we have to film, that's usually all done on a typewriter.

I know I heard Christopher Nolan and Tarantino still do that but I guess it makes sense because they're so into like the old school of filmmaking that that's cool. It kind of forces you you know I think one of the things that we try to apply in a lot of the ways that we work too is you know you got to be in touch with what all the new stuff is, all the gear, all the new whatever. But at the same time, like if you're forced to sit there and physically type everything out and you know that any mistake you make is time spent erasing it or that's money, just like shooting film, then you think a little bit harder about what

you put on the paper. It's also less distracting too, right? You're not going to get Instagram notifications coming up on the typewriter. Oh, absolutely. It's very accurate. Yeah, no distractions. It just leaves you in the moment, like laser focused on the task at hand, which it really is an art.

When you think about the old school style of doing things. That's why a lot of people like to go back to it because of how undistracting it can be to really focus in on what you're doing. Absolutely. Undistracting is not a word. You know, I noticed it as soon as I said it, but I'm gonna make it a word.

Less distracting. My parents had a... It's's not a port is not meant to be portable So I don't know how your brother took that to class all the time Alone were heavy yeah, right. It's pain in the ass. There's security at the airports, too There's no way there's no way he brings it cuz that thing must weigh already 50 pounds. You can imagine, you're already over the limit. Over the limit for the baggage fees? The baggage fee is like 100 bucks for just that alone. Try busting that out on Southwest Airlines while you're sitting there next to everybody

else. To make everyone real happy. That's cool. Okay, so it's you and your brother. Yeah. How you guys must have a really good relationship. No, I mean, we've we do we do we've been pretty close ever since he was in high school, you know, I think we both shared a lot of common interests in film and photography. And, you know, even though we have different musical tastes there's also a lot of crossover so just anything that has to do with like the arts and kind of creative stuff

there's a I think we just have a lot of appreciation for the same stuff and so you know what he went to school a little bit more on the kind of writing and history of cinema track. I was more in broadcasting, but then when we started the company, it was a really good marriage of like skills, interests, kind of goals with what we want to do with the company. And you know, like anything, I mean, we fight like brothers every now and then, you know, something goes wrong, we just got to yell at each other a little bit, but we've gotten really good at kind of figuring out how to do that in a way where it's, you know, we're A, we're not staying mad at each other and B, it's not affecting the business in a negative way, because at the end of the day, it's like.

We're spending so much time together, you got to learn how to get along. You know, I totally agree. You're just you're describing a lot of the stuff with just Daria and myself even. Like, we've been doing this for so long to the point where it is very similar to that type of relationship as well. Yeah. It's like yesterday we were on a shoot

and we were in the midst of filming on like two ends of the room. And I look over and he's like switching over a battery and he did it in a way that I didn't like. I'm just like strap that battery but I'm like saying it quietly. You know what I knew what he was saying but I just didn't like how he was saying it so I still didn't do it properly. I knew it I knew that's why I knew that's why he did it.

It's just to irritate him more I played stupid like what are you talking about? And it's just little things like that, right? It's like, it doesn't affect anything. I was like, pretended I was like, the photographer was closer. I told them like, Vincent, go see what's wrong with Kero. What's he talking about? Dude, so we'll be on shoot sometimes. And, you know, the way our dynamics are, you know, depending on who's hiring us, if it's a shoot where

we're just both cam-opping, we're both shooting, then usually it doesn't come up. But if it's something where we're kind of producing it as well, I'll typically take more of the director role at that point. And shoots like that will just, anytime I like go near the camera, he'll just slap my hand and say, get out of here. It's not your job. Go. Get out of here. Like, I don't want to deal with you. Yeah, I feel like you have to get used to having those dynamics though and like you know, the longer

you're working with someone the more you kind of just have that telekinetic back and forth where you can read each other. So we've definitely gotten there. I mean, we started 2017, so we're going on eight years now. And it's gotten easier as time's gone on. We've really figured out how to communicate properly to each other and kind of know what the other one is needing in most situations so that we're not stepping on each other's toes or making it difficult for the other one to do their job.

Did you guys know right off the like what your positions were going to be when you started the company or were you guys like doing everything? Uh, like you guys were both wearing the same hats until you guys naturally fell into your own positions. Oh yeah, man. Um, well, so I had been freelancing in the creative space for about two years prior to Wolf moving out to Arizona. So for, so I've been in Arizona nine years.

We started the company just over seven years ago now. He followed me out here when I moved to Phoenix after having lived in Northern Arizona for two years. So when he moved out here I already had a small client base but it was completely spread out over all mediums. So I was like doing a little bit of graphic design for one person and doing some web design for somebody else and helping someone else write blogs and do a little bit of copy for their website and then one client would be like hey we need headshots done can you also do some like little videos for social media so before we figured

out how exactly we were gonna build the company like yeah we were doing everything and he was having to learn how to do stuff that he never learned how to do I was having to learn how to think a little bit differently on how to approach projects on shoots we also were kind of just like, you know, when you're first starting out you don't understand really how to network right or build a crew properly or really understand what every role on set is supposed to do. I mean we were doing everything, you know, it's like, okay cool we got a two-man team and

I'm the director but I'm also monitoring audio and I have some gaffing experience. I'll set up the lights, you set up both cameras and monitor both of them. There was a lot of that for the first year, year and a half and then I think we kind of naturally started to fall into the roles that I think suit us best. I've always been a little bit more of the networker,

the people person. I spend a lot of time at events and going out to public stuff to promote us or to just make more connections. I do a lot of client outreach, Wolf tackles, kind of all the backend stuff. So getting stuff prepped for a CPA, taking care

of equipment, making sure that everything is clean, making sure the batteries are charged, making sure cables are organized. I can't take credit for that stuff. Like if it weren't for him, it'd be a mess, you know, and everything would be off the shelves all the time and in different places. And, you know, so he really keeps the back of house super neat and organized so that we're never you know missing something or you know finding ourselves without something on a shoot and I make sure that you know the client side that all that communication is being done effectively promptly projects are being produced on stemmed on that line. You know, so. We definitely have a similar dynamic

where like wood equipment, Karel's on top of that. If I'm in charge of it, it's a mess. But then on the other side, it's like our Google drives a mess if Karel's in charge of it. So I don't let him hear that stuff. The thing that irritates me the most

is like I'll go into a folder and I'll see like the duplicate folder just like worded differently. I'm like what the hell is this thing? That might be a backup one. That's all that it is. Oh my god. That was more so like back in the day but like it's interesting hearing your story and your dynamic because it's there's a lot of similarities with Dario and I

cause and also that you guys pretty much learned the, the industry and the craft just by doing it, you know, yourselves, right? A lot of people that we've talked to, they've either worked at other companies, they've worked in the industry, freelancing for many years before jumping into it. Like a lot of like really big companies

are because they have like people who worked somewhere else for like maybe 10 years, then jumped into it and then had like a good foundation, good connections and solid backing to get started. When you're starting this in this industry from scratch, you're learning how to do it, but also you're trying to run a business at the same time. So it's kind of like, when you think about it,

it really is the wrong way to start a business like this in this industry. Like typically the best way is go out, freelance for a bit, learn by yourself, maybe go work at another company for a few years, figure out if you even want to start your own business from doing it, right? Because I feel like a lot of people might do it and then think I don't

I don't want to actually run a video production company this is a little bit too crazy but when we started we didn't know we didn't know what we were getting into. That's like so many businesses though Kiro like think about how many like if you're like an entrepreneur for example I know like a tech tech entrepreneur you're not gonna go work at Facebook for a bit you'll just go to like an incubator and just kind of get you. Yeah that's true that's for a bit. You'll just go to like an incubator and just kind of get your Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. So it's like it's an interesting career path That's all I'm saying that you don't see it too too often at least in our space

No, and you know you you said You know kind of that's the wrong way to do. I mean we did everything the wrong way, you know, yeah like everything I way to do it. I mean, we did everything the wrong way. You know? Yeah. Like everything. I think part of it was a mix of like cockiness and arrogance and sheer stupidity and willpower, you know? And it's funny because like I look at how we started and I look at where we're at now and where we're at now came from like, you know, a couple of years ago looking back and being like, okay, maybe you should humble myself and realize I don't know fuck all about anything. And but when we got started, it was just like, I just know I want to do this. We want to make films, we want to tell stories, we want

to just like, and we don't, both of us were kind of at a point in our lives where we didn't want to be working directly for someone else. I had just spent not enough time directly in the video production industry, but adjacent and creative where it was like, okay, I'm doing this job for someone else. I'm making labels for your company. I'm doing posters or I'm taking pictures and you're paying me 15 bucks an hour. I'm just kind of, I'm not really getting what I want out of this. AC You're not vested enough. You have no stake in the matter. STS- Yeah. And I had a really, one of my closest friends who, you know, is one of the reasons I moved

out to Arizona in the first place. He just kept pushing me. He's like a very entrepreneurial type. He's like, just get your LLC, just get your LLC, just get set up as an entity, just figure that part out and then figure the rest out later. And that was kind of the start of it. You know, I, yeah, when I look back, it's like we were definitely a lot cockier when we started and we knew so much less.

But I think that that journey has been, A, humbling. B, I think this is just how I learn, you know? So like just kind of having to dive in and figure it out is always a really exciting challenge for me. And I don't know if I could have done it the other way because I'm just too impatient. We had a similar thing with this podcast. Like when we started and we started talking

to actual companies, like people that knew what they were doing, I think Carol and I have to reach up and go, wow, we are really far behind in this race. Like, we learned so much in that one hour. We thought we knew something, but Jesus, wow, we weren't doing anything beforehand. Like, what were we doing?

Yeah, it's like, it was that realization that we were, man, we've talked about this so many times, but it's like, yeah, like that realization that we were just two freelancers basically working together for many years. It wasn't really a business. And we talking to other people on the show made us realize like, wow,

so this, that is what a business is like. That is how you do it. And then, yeah, just a thing. And then 2021 was just focused on converting it into an actual business at that point. You know, it's funny, our timeline was kind of similar because it was like 2017 through like 2019, beginning of 2020, felt almost like

just how you described it. It's like, we're just two guys who are kind of, we're a company, but we're really just showing up and freelancing and we shoot. And then for me, I think the big shift came when I like started to wrap my head around Like it was it was kind of hard to get a solid idea of how do we price ourselves? How do we charge for these services? How do we? How do we make sure that we have a really solid workflow all the way from concept to

creation and final delivery rather than just going in blind and being like, oh yeah, I know that we're going to go shoot this thing and we need these shots and really figuring out how to do proper pre-production. Those are like the big shifts for us. Once we started to get that stuff dialed in and grow our network of people that we could rely on, I think it incredibly raised our value and what we were able to provide. I look at the clients that we're working with now, the projects that we're working on now, it's completely different. I think that only came from having to stumble and stumble and stumble until it's like, oh now, it's completely different. Like it's, and I think that only came from, you know, having to stumble and stumble and stumble until it's like,

oh, now it played. I feel like there's like different shifts you go through because the first shift might be where you're, where you realize you're just a freelancer, right? But you want to become a business. Then the part of the stage after that, it's like, okay, you are a business, but because like for us, for example, I feel like we're in that stage.

We're a business, like it's me and Curel, but it feels like it's still... Still two guys. On the cusp of going back into freelancing, I feel like the next stage would be like, okay, we're a business that has employees and you know, to have employees, you need to have like some type of consistent recurring income so that means that you kind of have Your grasp in the industry right and then there's probably gonna be another shift after that where it's like, okay We're just a small business. We should go to Becoming like a bigger, but I feel like there's always like stages you want to move on to after you, you know, accomplish one, right?

It's like a game. It's like leveling up. Yeah. Yeah. Leveling up the character. I think it also depends on your goals because you guys are in Canada, right? Yeah. I don't know how different it is structured there, at least for us over here. We've kind of opted to stay as a two man team in terms of how the company's organized

as an LLC, but we just crew out depending on what. That's what we do too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for me, at least I found that unless we were at a point where it was like, okay, we're making X amount in revenue a year and now it makes sense. It almost gets so expensive to have employee employees and as nice as that would be to have that, then you guys know how the video industry is. Unless you're

just busy all year round, you're going to have times where it's like this and like this and like if I'm employing, I'm paying them to sit around and do what? You know? I think the good, like the, I think traditional, like a company with traditional type of employees where it's like, you know, whatever, like for our industry kind of doesn't work. I think the skeletal approach to that definitely does work because we've seen and heard from a lot of companies that do have like a small team. So like we're of the same mindset as you, to be honest with you, like two people, but I feel like lately I've been thinking about a bit more

and it's like, we should try to grow it at least so that we get not like 10 employees, but like a couple people. Yeah, just so there's some type of like, because I'm thinking about it more so in terms of like, okay, we get some projects and then we do have our freelancers, but what if that guy becomes unavailable or what if we have to do just like a lot of minor stuff that, you know, it doesn't make sense to kind of hire a freelancer for would just be nice to have

someone that's internal to help us out with that. So the other thing is like bringing in other people, they're gonna be invested in the business more so than if you're just hiring a freelancer and they can bring something to the table that maybe you didn't even think about, right? I mean, look at how it is with you and your brother. You each bring something to the table that really helps add to the business.

Like when we're talking about employees in our industry, we're not like, as Dario said, we're not looking to just hire just a shooter, just an editor. We're looking for people who have like a willingness to even like kind of grow beyond that and just kind of contribute more to the business, whether it be ideas, organization, help. Like I've always envisioned the perfect size business for us was like five people, like max five people. And that could be something like someone who's like head of post, head of production,

head of project management, client outreach and stuff like that. Those are a lot of the most key roles, but they also kind of spill over into other aspects of the business that really can kind of help grow. So it's like, you're kind of getting good value with the people that you're bringing in. You don't like don't get me wrong. We all need editors.

So like that's kind of like a given. You know, an editor is going to be really focused and dialed in on doing post production. Who's the who's the fifth person? I'm thinking about right now it would be me, you, I would think a project coordinator and an editor like who would you want on top of that? And then like some other kind of hybrid person that kind of just- Wouldn't that be like kind of like the,

cause the project coordinator I would kind of see as like a producer in training, no? I would say maybe not just a producer, maybe if not a third producer, like maybe like a- Like we eventually want them to grow with- A shooter that wants to produce. a shooter that is looking to get into producing maybe or something like that. I felt like that the fifth role is a little bit more flexible.

But anyway, like it's not so much like the specific roles. It's just I felt like in terms of a size of a business, no more than five. I think it's kind of good. It's like a good solid base in terms of like a core team. And then you just expand out depending on what you need. That's what I've always felt is like ideal. That's a good number. It's funny, we kind of similar to you guys,

we've stayed away from bringing on an employee simply because of the sheer cost of what we have to match versus being able to work with contractors obviously keeps our costs low, which means we can reinvest in the business and the gear and all that stuff. We just got really lucky too though. We had two different editors that are their best friends and they both work in post-production. They both kind of went from just freelancing to starting their own post-production house, and now they've been kind of doing that almost

full-time. We just got really lucky. The moment that our business started kind of taking off about two years ago, they were like, hey, we're looking to start doing this. We lucked out in that even though they're technically a separate company, we kind of have this post-production house that handles 90% of our edits. We've been working them for four years. So it's almost like having an employee without some of the tax obligations. Like a synergy, right? We have a similar thing with Indigo Events.

They handle all of our photography work. And then with Audio Process, who also is a sponsor of the show, anytime we need audio people, I always ask them. And then even for like grips, gaffers, and PAs or equipment, like there's a Canada Film Equipment.

We just use them exclusively for that really so I get what you mean like there's synergies you build with different businesses that you're kind of it's almost like a plug-in You're like dipping your toes into it. You're you're developing key partnerships that help fill those gaps or those needs that an employee typically would which is The smart way to go about it right now because because they also wanna work with other companies as well, develop their portfolios. And it's just funny that you mentioned that it's another team of two.

Like, are you guys gonna next find a team of two cinematographers that always work together, or a team of two? I don't know. Yeah, well, it's a lot of that, because I noticed that same type of energy between a lot of the other businesses that we work with. You know, we're lucky enough that Phoenix is a, I would say right now, it's a very collaborative

market, you know, where it's a small enough market where everyone kind of knows each other. It's a big enough market where, enough market where everyone tends to be staying working around the same time. So it's pretty rare that I see that there's some of us that'll be just dead on work while the other ones are riding on a wave. There's times where the market seems to line up for everyone and if it's slow for one person, it's slow for everyone. But I've noticed that with a lot one person, it's slow for everyone.

But I've noticed that with a lot of them, there's a lot of guys out here where it would be one or two guys or, you know, core team of two, possibly three. And then, you know, we all kind of hire each other out from the different, you know, jobs that come to town or different projects with clients. So yeah, there's something about that number, that like two to three where it's kind of perfect for like your core team on the production side.

I would say too, like I've heard from other people who have had businesses where there were three partners where it's a lot more unstable than two because a lot of the time sometimes two of them would be making most of the decisions and they would always overrule the third one that will cause like some problems in the business. In terms of like people that are actually like running the business itself, I've heard that it's always good to have a good even number like either two or four.

And then maybe after that you can have odd numbers. But if it's like three, it doesn't sound like a very favorable dynamic because it could be a lot of Overruling and a lot of resentment that could come from it. I mean I guess like I guess it depends We have seen the partnership. Yeah, like even one of it all depends Yeah, like was a captive creative is three partners and I like how like with three, you can also kind of just focus. You can cover more ground more easily because everyone has a domain to focus on. You could have, let's say for ours,

it could be person focusing on the creative side of the production, person focusing on the marketing, and person focusing on the sales and other business aspects. That's a really good way to break that, like break rules down if you have three partners now. Yeah, like I think that definitely is like one aspect to it. And like I said, it really depends on what kind of partnerships you have.

I mean, don't get me wrong, even the partners of two can also fail very easily. We've seen that happen before. So it's all about being with the right people and everybody knowing what their roles are and then being very open and having that kind of relationship with your partners. I'm curious to ask too, so with you guys,

how is it that your guys' roles end up breaking down? Because I know with, you know, we talked a little bit about myself and Wolf and you know, our secret weapon too is that we have, you know, Chris, who is our like creative producer slash script writer slash producer. Like she's amazing. And, you know, having brought her on, even though she's still just a contractor, kind of takes care of what you're talking about right now, which is like, she's focused on a lot of the creative and the writing. I'm focused on the client relations and managing the business side of things. Wolf is focused

on day of, making sure that the crew and the shoot and all that is organized, gear is good. How do the roles fall on your guys' end? Is it, you know, does one of you do the writing? Does one of you do all the client stuff? Is it, how has that broken down? It's kind of like, it's kind of like how you described it where like Dario handles a lot of like the client relations and the outreach and a lot of business development aspect. Sales, sales. Yeah, mainly sales.

Dario handles mainly the sales aspect, whereas I handle a little bit more of the creative. And like you said, also like the production aspect to make sure that we're executing the projects. Like basically he's bringing in the projects and overseeing and then execute them based on what the briefs are. So that's kind of like the main aspect. And then obviously, like probably as it is with you guys

There's gonna be a little bit of spillover and other aspects where we're one thing we get feedback from the other There's a lot of feedback going from back and forth between us It's it's not like we we try to leave ourselves like we leave ourselves to do the tasks initially But we always look look at each other for feedback that kind of help improve things Actually feel like especially for like development of the project itself. Let's say it's something where like there's like it's not just hired gun type of work like we're creating an actual story for it. I'll often be like the client's eyes when we're doing the creative.

So like Kyril might develop like the creative angles but I'll go like no no no I just know they're not going to like this so I'll kind of like guide it into a Direction where the client will approve it And then when it comes to the actual productions basically what we'll do is If it's Kyril and I on a shoot like I'll take on more like the producing side Directing and then Kyril can just focus on like the cinematography and everything else Yeah We kind of like code we kind of co-directed a little bit like but Dario kind of just handles

more of that aspect a bit more because he's handling more of like the producing aspect with the client relations but like a lot of the time when him and I tackle a project together, we're both like discussing like how we need to do it and things like that. We have like, we've started to develop this thing where like, it's basically like, I'll be like more involved on like, you know, obviously the onboarding of like, bringing the client in the pre-production, but then like the torch kind of gets passed to Kerala, especially like from like pre-production to post. So like during pre-production, I'll get passed on to Kerala.

And then like we're both collaborating on the production. And then during post, I usually let Kierle handle that. And then I'll, again, be the client's eyes when the drafts come in. So I try not to look at the post too much until it's almost right just into the client, just so we have a fresh set of eyes on it, right? Yeah.

Yeah, it's very similar with us. It's definitely similar dynamics, because once we get the post, that's almost's very similar with us. It's definitely similar dynamics because Once we get to post that's almost entirely myself and Chris and then wolf just get eyes on it when it's like, okay It's almost there. Is it ready to get color graded? Okay, cool You know Yeah, what's the what's the market in Arizona like Shifting Let's say slowly shifting. So for the past decade or so it's been it's kind of become a very very commercial market out here which has been I think good for work

like and good for where we've been at where we you know like we were talking about when we started this company we were so inexperienced from a business owner standpoint and from a, like we kind of had to build our entire network from scratch. So for that reason, being at a very commercial market, I think was helpful because it kind of allowed us to make the mistakes we needed to make without, it was just easier because it was like, okay, there's always going to be more businesses. We can just keep kind of going down this path for now. Two years ago, what was it, a year ago?

Two years ago? Anyhow, the law just kicked into effect. I think it was signed like two years ago, but it just started as of this January. Arizona reinstated its film tax credit program. And it's a little bit different than it used to be, but now we have, you know, for the past 10 years where this had gone away, we became just, this wasn't a place to come do movies anymore.

And so we've just become a flyover state where people from California would be like, well, we'll just go film in New Mexico. We'll just go film in, you know in other states nearby that have better tax incentives. Now that we reinstate to that, we're starting to see, I've noticed substantially more Netflix shows and documentaries and just episodic stuff that is now coming out to Arizona because it's so damn expensive to film in California. And so it feels as though we're on the cusp of like the industry taking a direction back towards

narrative and episodic. And I'm super excited about that. Because at the end of the day, we want to be working kind of on both ends of the spectrum. I think we like to be working on both ends of the spectrum. I think we like the opportunity to write and do our own commercials and ads and work with clients on campaigns. But we've really shifted from doing as much of the hired gun work and working more on being a more active, creative part of that process with our clients. So we love doing that work. We want it to be story driven. We don't want to just be showing up and just shooting. We really like to

have a little bit of the reigns and guiding where the campaign goes alongside the client. Looks at that is like I'd love to, you know, get on a movie shoot and be able to go spend 30 days on set filming narrative stuff. That's kind of where the market's been headed. It's been really cool to see. We just had a, not too long ago, we had the first movie this year that used that tax incentive program open to a sold out audience. It, you know, it's slow to the taking

but it's starting to happen. You know, you mentioned you would love to go and film like a narrative for like a month or something. We actually had a guest come on recently and he mentioned that like, it was great for him to go and do all these TV shows, but he noticed that his corporate business suffered a lot because of that, right?

Because again, if you're out and you're unavailable to your clients for six months months well what are they gonna do they're just gonna move on right and you can't really get those clients back once they've signed with another agency right like they're just you know the clients want consistency right it's kind of like a double-edged sword in a way it's like you get to cross you know cross something off your checklist oh i did this but then it's like oh my business is really gonna suffer well i think it depends what your long-term goals are right so for us i think that we always viewed the the the the end goal is to make movies The end goal is to make movies. The end goal is to produce our own stuff.

Five years down the line for me, I wanna be producing my own documentaries. Hopefully, have one of the two of us have sold a script or something like that. I think there's just an inevitable point where like, you know, we do this work because it sustains and it helps us grow business and it teaches us and we learn a lot from it. Everyone might be different in this regard. For me, I want to make movies in the long run. And I think once we get to the point where we turn that stone, like there's probably no turning back, you know, there might be. Get to the point where we turn that stone like there's probably no turning back, you know, there might be

It's just gonna mean you're doing less and less commercial work and more and more movie work and I'm okay with that I Think long-term wise I'd rather be Telling stories that impact and and that really really fuel that that creative need I have to self-express and There are limitations on that when you're working on commercial work. So I don't think it's wrong to like one or the other. I just think for me personally, that's kind of the track that I like to go.

There's the reality of what we were talking about before though, which was when we started the company, we didn't know what the hell we were going to do. It was like, we got to start somewhere and we need to make money right now because we're both broke and we just dropped out of college. So, uh, let's go. You know, and, uh, but the more I get into it, it's like, we never really have lost sight of the goal and we do talk about the stuff a lot, like we're, we're self producing a short film and a little bit to kind of start to dip our

feet in that water and have more stuff that is just completely made by us, but that kind of fits in line with the direction we want to go, you know, years from now. Yeah, and in the meantime, it's fun to get on, you know, even if it's just like I did a week shooting for a TV show out in LA not too long ago, that was a hell of a lot of fun. But you're right. It's like you get to a point where it's like I was getting client phone calls and I'm having

to be like, okay, half an hour on lunch. I got to reply to all these emails back in there. You know, and you're doing when you're pulling like a 14 hour day, that's exhausting, you know, and it's easy to lose track of stuff. So your long term plan is just to go into producing documentaries, like directing, shooting, all that stuff right for. Yeah. I mean, I think being I think being a good

business owner and kind of being entrepreneurial is a very good quality because it's shown me how to balance a budget and manage a crew and like like have my head not just thinking about oh I'm the director I need to direct this thing but not having any context as to what all the other roles on the set are actually doing to support your role. How to make sure that you're staying on time and listening to your first AD. How to make sure that like, just all the kind of things around that.

So like, I'm grateful that I've had that experience coming from this side of the industry that I think will make me better at that role when we take that leap. But yeah, long-term, if I'm still doing commercials 20 years from now, I want it to be because someone's giving us an opportunity to write the whole damn thing ourselves and just take, get weird with it.

But yeah, documentaries and narrative would be the more so the path that I'd like to take. It's just that kind of like I was saying about Arizona the market has not been for narrative out here. It's starting to kind of pick up that way because it's been so commercial there really wasn't much option to do it unless you were just self-funding everything yourself. Do you work with a lot of agencies or you direct the client a lot of the time? I'd say it's about 50-50 both. So we get about trying to probably about 60% direct to client and then 40% agencies and And we've kind of, we've started to pivot more towards working when we're doing direct to client stuff,

we prefer to work with clients who have an annual budget. So that makes it a lot easier for us to kind of go into the relationship knowing, hey, from January to December, we don't do retainers because that might work for some people for us, it does not make sense because the scope of each production varies so much that it's like not, I'm not, I will, it's just not for us. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we have enough. Yeah, yeah. On the same page on that one. Which is funny because I see so many of these like ads for guys on social media is like guaranteed $3,500 monthly retainers. I'm like, you're going to go fucking crazy, man. You're going to hate that. I don't know how many, listen, it's 3,500, but they're not telling you that it's like, you have to work for that company every single day.

You know, it's, we had a whole episode. I forget which episode it was with one guest where we were all going over, like we broke down the retainer model to kind of see like why it might work and why it probably won't work for most people. And a lot of the time is what's the incentive for a client to do a retainer, which is to get a discount on all the services, right?

So right there, you're gonna be working- No, no, no, it wasn't discount. That's a part, that's a part of it. Part of it. I'm getting to it. You're getting to it, okay, okay. I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. So firstly, they're looking for a discount in their eyes.

That's what they're looking for, right? And so you're gonna provide say 10% discount as an example on like say 100 grand budget, right? So you're gonna lose 10 grand right there, but yeah, it's nice to have 90 grand in work that goes forward. But the other costs that you don't realize is the inflation that you're gonna get hit with as well.

At the end of that, that 10% really becomes like 20% at the end of the day. And you have a young call. That wasn't what they were talking. Okay, so the benefit to the client. No, what you're saying, Kiel, is what the production company talking okay so the benefit to the client no what what you're saying is what the production company would pitch as the benefit to the client yeah the other company we were talking to that does retain as they mentioned that what they're providing really is a bill

ability to that client yeah cuz like let's say that client wants to work with you but you might get busy then you know he kind of it's peck it's a order of who comes in first right yeah that was a benefit but yeah you brought up good points with the the inflation that wasn't mentioned when you do these pitches and also the the discount you're right away you're losing money you do get consistent income for the year but at what cost right it's it's not worth it to me to end up presenting the client because the one month where they inevitably ask me for like 20, 30% more, but then you've got this relationship where you're relying on them for your monthly security, I'd rather take the risk and not have that security because I don't want to resent my clients, you know, and I don't want to create an opportunity

in the relationship where I can start to resent them over something financial when it's like the easy solution for that is just pay me my rate and we will provide the services at the top level of quality as you expect them. And that's it. So you know, it's different for everybody. I, you know, I, like I said, this is what works for us. I can't speak for other people. I don't want to like totally go shit on a model because that's not what we do.

I just found that for us, that's what ends up happening with me is I end up just kind of being like, oh, I'm now I'm like upset that I'm doing the work and I shouldn't feel this way. Um, so yeah, we've brought- You brought up an interesting point there. Sorry, sorry to chime in, but I like what you pointed out there that a lot of people also don't talk about

is what is your relationship with that client gonna be when you do jump into the retainer model? Nobody really talks about that. What you described is a really good ideal situation in our industry where a client comes to you and consistently comes to you to hire you for your services because they genuinely wanna work with you. That's a good dynamic right there.

They see the value and they wanna continue to work with you. So like any clients that you've been working with for three years straight, to have them keep coming back on that project, the project basis shows a very good sense of like Value that they see in you Whereas if you jump into a retainer model and then after like a month you guys realize that it's not the right fit You guys are gonna be forced to work together on

projects you don't want to be working on together and then yeah like that that's a very good point is that there can be a resentment that comes from that later and then it's like you're kind of stuck. You know, you know like very you might not know this but We've all we've only found out of the guests that have come here on the show only a couple have gotten working Retainer models with clients and the ones that do have a working one. It's basically It's so specific to that particular client. Like again, they've already been working with them for years, so they already know roughly what they're spending on a yearly basis and how much it works. They got to do with them to the point where it just made sense for both parties.

It's like a given. Yeah. It's like a given type relationship. Yeah. So like these ones that people pitch where it's like, oh, you know, for like 3,500, like again, we don't see that working at all. But like, it's so case specific to get a retainer model working. So there's so many different variables involved, right?

And again, there's so many different ways you can go about it as well. Like I remember someone mentioning that they basically have like a bucket. Yeah, it's a bucket system and basically out of each quarter they would just pull money out of that bucket, right? So if they ran out within the first month, because that's a busy quarter, then it is what it is and then the client can either decide to pull money from another pocket, put it in there to continue doing work or because over the course of the year there's like different periods where the client would be busy right they can like relocate

reallocate funds to that specific corridor that's another option we heard which is interesting and it kind of makes sense so there's no need to go like every month we have to create this much now it's basically dependent on whatever right and then I think they also had it at this level where it's like, if they don't use up the whole thing, then the client gets that money back, which is another thing that does make sense. And it's like, if we need to use it, it's there.

If we don't, you get it back, right? It's like buying a $100,000 gift card at the beginning of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically what it was. It's a gift card model. It's the gift card model approach. Yeah, that's what it is.

We've, you know, Like I said, I'll never fault anyone for finding a model that works for them. For us, that just doesn't make sense. So the direct to client clients that we work with are pretty much all on either... If they just find us in their first time, then obviously it's just a project per project. We tend to prefer working with clients where we're sitting down, you know, October, November, talking through the whole budget for the year

and being like, what are we doing in January? What are we doing? You know, what's Q1 look like? What's Q2 look like? What's Q3 look like? Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. You said clients with an annual budget. Yeah.

Okay, are you? Hold on one second. I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, go ahead. 30 seconds. I just gotta grab a charger for some reason. This one isn't working. I have two chargers for a laptop. So I apologize guys.

No worries. No worries. Just a second. We'll be back right after these messages. Darius, that's essentially it. It's not the retainer model people want. They want the gift card model. Gift card. That's what it is. We not the retainer model people want. They want the gift card. That's what it is.

We got a name for it finally. We got to like trademark the... We should patent that. Yeah. It's like, oh my God. As soon as that takes off, all those like sales gurus are going to be like, like, yo, you want them to pre-buy. You want them to pre-buy.

That'll be the next big thing. You guys heard it here first, okay? We came up with it. The gift card approach to video production. Should we actually go and get real gift cards? Just like get them out to the client. And you know, we gotta bring the square machine, you know, the thing, you just tap it

every time we go to a shoot, they just tap the card. We just give people 25 laps dollars, you know, instead of a Starbucks gift card You know like we just do it The shoe box the shoe box exactly We give clients like here here's a thousand laps bucks that you can use towards your next project. Oh my god I'm next April fools. We're doing that. That's that's what we're doing. Oh my god. Next April Fool's we're doing that. That's what we're doing.

Oh my god. But yeah, Dario, sorry, you were going to ask a question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned you like working with clients that have an annual budget for, I'm assuming just video creation, right? Video content, not marketing. Yeah. But- typically we're

working with the marketing department kind of hand-in-hand. Yeah. But, right. You know, I like to say like... That's not first-timers, right? It's like clients that you've already established a relationship with, right? It depends. So actually both of the... Well, so the one, the two that we have right now that we have that, that kind of relationship with, one of them was completely, we actually got cold reached out to by someone who followed our Instagram page, loved what we did, reached out to us and was like, Hey, I'm the brand manager for this big company. Can we, can we have a conversation? And through talking to her, I realized she had been following us for a while.

She had had a negative experience with another company in town, kind of hired them to do one shoot, didn't exactly go as they had planned, and then reached out to us. And we just started talking about doing this campaign with them throughout the year. Once we did one video for them, one department of the company reached out to her and was like, hey, who did that? And so all of a sudden, we now have this, you know, big Arizona company that has locations

in Tucson and Phoenix and 1300 employees that has a pretty sizable marketing budget for the year. And so we became not just the video team for her department but then another department and then another department and then they need some internal videos for how they sell to their corporate clients. And so, you know, the bulk of the work is like this campaign that we're doing for them that's like an outward facing campaign. But then that also came with a whole bunch of other having to figure

out like oh well we're also doing your end of year video which is like an hour long presentation that has so many moving pieces to it that's a whole separate budget you know so I like working with clients like that because I know that there's there's kind of some, that there's like lateral mobility, you know. You get one person in one department who likes it and all of a sudden you're part of their budget for the whole year. The other client that we have that with is a museum and that would be an example of we

met the marketing director there at his previous job where he was creative director at an agency He left the agency went to the museum brought us with him basically and So so I think it's 50-50. We've had a couple of these relationships like this We had a similar relationship with a substance abuse center. It's a treatment center Where they kind of had like a, it wasn't a retainer, but they had kind of a monthly maximum that they could spend on video production, interviews, testimonials. And so we kind of knew like, okay, throughout the whole year, we're gonna, you know, kind of have a rough number

of everything we're gonna do, and you just give us your goals every month and we'll tell you if we can fit that into the budget and make it realistic. So it's nice for us because that way I can look a year ahead and say, oh, okay, so I know that whatever $300,000 of our revenue is locked in no matter what, you know? And that might vary a little bit, but I don't have to stress month to month. And I also don't have the same checklist of like, we're talking about retainers.

Like we tried that in the beginning. And that's what I ended up finding with us was that some clients, when you're doing a good job for them, they don't complain and just like, oh, it doesn't matter that this one month we weren't able to get that 10th video, you know, we ended up with nine. But then you get some clients where it's like, if they don't count 10, it doesn't matter

the quality of the other nine. They're asking for a discount, they're asking for money back, they're asking you to show up for another day to shoot, you know? And I just don't like running into that. You know, whereas if I look at, you know, client A and they're like, hey, my budget for the year is $160,000. And I'm like, cool. I know that roughly for what you're trying to accomplish, we can get X amount of shoots

out of this. And let's leave a little bit of wiggle room for the unknown, for the one project that's going to need a more thorough audio mix, the one project where we're going to send it off and get six different versions of it at different lengths cut together. So the post-production is going to be higher on it. So that's kind of the way that we've gone. And we fell into that a little bit. And once we started working with clients in that manner more, I was like, oh, I got to do this more. Because it is, it ends up being that same, like you're, you end up having the same result as, but the retainer model promises, I think, which is consistent monthly recurring revenue.

It's not as guaranteed for us, but it is, it's big enough projects and it's more room to play around, I feel. It's an understanding between you and the client. It's kind of projects and it's more room to play around, I feel. It's an understanding between you and the client. It's kind of like a promise to work with you type approach that you've kind of taken care of. Like, it's almost like basically making the order at the beginning of the year and then just kind of like, here's our intention of what we're gonna work

with you this year. Like we've kind of done that with one client except the difference is that we actually have budgeted in like just one simple contract. It's like, here's the five videos that we're gonna do for you throughout the year. We know exactly what it's gonna be like. Let's lock that in.

And then if there's additional work that comes up, which often there is, then we do that as well. So it's kind of like, I mean, the way you could probably even like guarantee it for yourself a little bit more as a suggestion would be like maybe if you know you're gonna do 10, lock in like three, you know? Lock in like three in a contract. It's pretty understandable that you'll likely do that, right?

And then the other ones can kind of come in. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like getting them to just like put their skin in the game just a little bit. That's maybe one suggestion I would have on that approach rather than just a conversation. Are you signing them on for the whole year? Or is it just like, for this month we'll do a contract on a monthly basis and it'll incorporate all the... Yeah, I'm just trying to think on the contract side of things. Sure, sure.

On the contract side of things, basically we scope out what this campaign was going to be. And then there's a list or a section where we talk about all the deliverables that they can expect. And it is very clearly specified in the section above that that it's like this is an Estimation based on the schedule that you gave me based on all the meetings we've had based on all the info It's like this can fluctuate You know which in our case it has like there's been

So this one this one client this is an HVAC client. So they run a plumbing company They do like HVAC and plumbing So they run a plumbing company. They do HVAC and plumbing, electrical, all the home services, right? We scoped out this campaign for them throughout the year. It came out to be roughly, basically we're going to be shooting between 20 and 27 kind of mini doc style videos to support this campaign. When we started working on some of them,

we had quoted out a little bit lower cost per shoot because of how they had explained the shoots. Okay, we just locked in a basic budget range and they're with us throughout the campaign. That's kind of what the contract stipulates. What ended up happening is like, we started getting through some of the shoots and realizing, okay, I don't think you guys are going to because of your internal the way you guys work, I don't think we're going to be able to schedule this number of them.

It's probably going to be less per month. But that now means that we still have the same budget because they approved the budget so we can just spend more on making each shoot a little bit more. So are they like, so they signing with you from the beginning? Like the thing that we're just trying to understand is like, obviously, like that's how it works from the project to project side of things, which is normal for every business, but it's like, because you're having these conversations with them at the beginning where they're saying, here's a hundred grand for the

earth, like we have a hundred grand to spend with you for the year. Is it like a, a contract that you sign saying like, we have a hundred grand to spend with you for the year. Is it like a contract that you sign saying like, we're gonna spend this much money with you this year? They're not giving it to you right away, but they're going to or something. Also you are doing a contract. So it is kind of like, you are kind of doing the gift card approach.

Like you are doing it. Look, it's the acknowledgement that everything that they've scoped out should cost about that much. It doesn't mean they have to spend all of it. They're also not getting any of it back, right? They're not giving us any of it upfront. It's just like we've scoped it out and this is what we think it's gonna cost.

It could be more, it could be less, depending on all these factors. And it's not like they can't leave. Our contract- So it's not locked in. Yeah, okay. No, because for each of these shoots, like I said, there might be some months where we're doing three shoots for the client,

there might be some months where it's just one big one. Right, it's more just about, you've acknowledged that this is what it should cost. If it goes over that, we're gonna have conversations about it ahead of time. If it stays under that, then there's no conversation needed to be had. How are you invoicing for that? Sorry, before you ask that question, I just want to make a note. It's almost like you're

doing it the approach of like how the Sopranos do business, you know, there's nothing written, but you know, there's like a good understanding that you guys are going to do a lot of work together. I was born in Italy. That makes sense, that makes sense. Oh my god, so yeah, you're essentially going with that approach. We can do business with a handshake here, you know? I can imagine him showing up like, FURIO, give me $1,000. Okay, lucky fly.

Give me one video project. I mean, we are, you know, the enforceability side, so you asked about that. So the way that, the way that that's done is we're very strict in what, basically if they, we have all this stuff scheduled out ahead of time, right? So we kind of know when all these sheets are going to happen well in advance. Since they've kind of committed to this, they can cancel us on us at any time, right? So we kind of know when all these sheets are going to happen well in advance. Since they've kind of committed to this, they can cancel us on a certain time, but they owe us a minimum of 50% of what the possible remainder would be if they terminate with us within that contract term. So wait, wait, wait. So it's a, it's basically like a 50%

deposit essentially, is that what you're saying? Or? Kind of, because if we scheduled stuff out and it's already on the calendar and then all of a sudden I got to cancel a whole bunch of shoots, you know, whereas I could have been guaranteed X amount, let's say it's $50,000 worth of work over, you know, the remaining three, four months in that contract. If they cancel on it, they're allowed to terminate. They don't have to stay with us, but because they've agreed to that budget number, because they've agreed to work with us for the year, we got all those dates on the calendar, they cancel on us, they owe us half of the remaining

balance we're adding to budget. So you're booking it in that initial, like at the beginning of the year, you're booking off all these rough dates and then you're getting them to agree to pay a deposit kind of thing. Kind of, yeah, we're having very, very, I mean, it's a different way of working with a client because I'm having constant conversations with them. And in a sense, you know, we're talking about like doing this because we don't want to be W-2 employees.

In a sense, you do kind of become kind of like an extension of their company as well. You're doing so much more about them. You're on more meetings with them, more calls with them. I'm constantly involved with these clients on I think a deeper level than we are with clients who will just like maybe reach out to us for a one-off project. The flip side is you get a lot more buying on the creative side. who will just like maybe reach out to us for a one-off project. The flip side is you get a lot more buying on the creative side. And like I said, it solves for us the problem of like worrying about financial security

throughout the year. While still if we need to being able to walk away and still being able to be a little bit more flexible with, I don't know, with other projects that come in. You know, because if we got a couple clients like that, then I think it does buy us the opportunity to A, say no to more stuff, B, say yes to stuff even when it's not financially feasible because we want to help a homey out or because we just have a really creative idea and we're like, screw it, I don't care if we make no money on it like we don't have to worry about that right now like just go do the

creative thing you know. Oh okay a lot a lot to unpack but uh yeah honestly like thanks Bear for jumping on the show like we already hit like the one hour mark and uh and we have to record another podcast in like 20 minutes so we have to cut, I gotta go to the bathroom, we gotta make another tea. Yeah. Well I'm gonna go make more coffee because it's, what time is it about you guys? 10.30 there?

10, 10.40. I haven't had any coffee yet. I basically like woke up maybe like 15 minutes before the episode. 9.15, what are you doing man? I had a late soccer game yesterday so like when I have that I'm really tired the next morning. So blame it on the soccer Yeah, yeah, you gotta do it. Just trying to relate to you cuz you're Italian Shake we'll talk again

Okay, let's just cut this recording and then and then so everyone bye we'll see you on the next one I love that outro it's so natural don't forget to like comment and subscribe there we go now it's an official ending there we go Hey, okay. All right. All right. Hey, oh Thanks for listening to this episode of creatives grab coffee Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram tick-tock linkedin YouTube and your favorite podcast app Creatives grab coffee is created by laps productions a video production company based in Toronto, Canada Creatives grab coffee is also sponsored by. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment.

We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you are a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera packages, or lighting and group plan packages. You can see our contact information in the link below. We are more than happy to help you guys out.

Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativesgrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. Welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto. We got you covered.

Come on down. AudioProcess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you, I'll be waiting for you, and we're all gonna have a real good time. ["Dreams of a New World"] Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next one. ["Dreams of a New World"]