Creatives Grab Coffee - #103 Evolving Your Video Business – Balancing Creativity, Business & AI (ft. Mi Media Production)

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

In this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee, we sit down with Manuel Izquierdo, founder of Mi Media Production, a Miami-based video production company specializing in corporate and commercial work. We unpack the evolution of small production companies — from solo freelancers to fully fledged creative studios — and dive deep into how modern filmmakers are balancing business growth, creative integrity, and emerging AI tools in their workflow.Topics Covered:00:00 – Intro & on-set culture08:00 – The evolution of video businesses16:00 – Freelance to founder: building Mi Media Production22:00 – Balancing business and creativity 39:00 – How AI is changing storyboarding & pre-production46:00 – The Miami production market56:00 – Future of corporate & commercial videoKey Takeaways:• Why steady growth builds character, not ego• How to manage creative standards while scaling operations• Practical AI tools for storyboarding, previs, and voiceovers• The shift toward localized production support networks• Navigating today’s changing corporate video landscape 🎥Guest: Manuel Izquierdo – Founder, Mi Media Production 📍 Based in Miami, FloridaSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/#CreativesGrabCoffee #videographyhacks #videography #videographer #videoproduction #businesspodcast #videoproductionpodcast #lapseproductions #videomarketing #videoproductioncompany #videoproductionservices

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creatives Grab Coffee is hosted by Daria Nuri and Carol Lazaroff 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 LAPS Productions.com to learn more. My name is Maran. 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 band packages You can see our contact information in the link below. You're more than happy to help you guys out Make sure you follow and subscribe to creatives scrapcoffee.com. Thank you 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, fully. We service equipment.

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Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Creators Grab Coffee. Today we got Manuel from Me Media Production. Manuel, welcome to the show. Hi, guys. How are you doing? Very excited to be here today. I know it's going to be a lot of great things that we're going to talk about,

especially in the world of filmmaking. And I'm so excited that the brothers from Canada are coming. I know you guys, not brothers, but you guys feel like one. Yeah, exactly. I'm excited for today. Basically at this point, yeah. First of all, I want to say he's got, for those of you listening and not watching, he's got the best shirt I've ever seen yeah definitely it's a it's a Pixar inspired shirt so

you have like Monsters Inc you have a toy story you have us all different types of like Pixar memorabilia all throughout the shirt it's fun and colorful and it says it's creative actually I went to a networking event and I wore this short and somebody said um you look like you think too much about what you wear and it like hit me too like it's dark wow yeah I was just like I I just put it on, I thought it was going to be fun. Who says this? I don't know. It was like this lady.

She just said it to me and I was literally like frozen. I didn't, I didn't know what to like what to say afterwards. That's a compliment though. That's almost a compliment. I don't know. She said it like. It's like a backhanded compliment. Yeah.

It's like you look good, but it looks like you tried too hard. That's what I'm saying. And I was just like, oh, okay. And I literally like, I think I like talked to somebody else and I left and that's all I thought about on the way home. And she was like, I'll show you what I wear. I don't know. It's like that scene from Seinfeld or George is driving back. And he thinks of the counter insult.

Yeah. Should have just been like, do you think I just wake up looking this good? That would have been the response. Meanwhile, by contrast, Carol and I are just wearing all black as if we were heading off to a shoot right after this color. With a work hat, yeah. I feel that. Yeah, I always just wear all black for production. I try to wear like a collar because I feel like it's cool to have like a little black shirt.

but every now and then it drives me crazy how like itchy it can get or like just like in the way I kind of I need to start working more like cool shirts or just like black shirts that have like because they have a lot of cool production shirts that have like a camera being like a zombie or something like that that I think would be kind of cool to have that says like your crew but this podcast like I tried wearing different things but I'm like man we're almost at episode 100 I don't have a hundred different outfits to wear I mean it also depends on the on the type of shoot you're doing like if you're at an event having like a zombie camera t-shirt right right right that's actually a good conversation starter you know right you gotta have it

on a dress shirt and have it on the back you know then it's like professional but you know when cool when you follow up with them in an email it's like I'm the guy with the zombie camera shirt there are some people that will show up to set with like the most destroyed shirt I've ever seen in my entire life and it's like man do you have anything else that you could wear is the grip it's always the grip it's the grip or sometimes sometimes like the DP will like show up in like a crazy shirt and I'm like what's going on with you today and I'm like he but they always do great work I feel like if your shirt's like destroyed your work's going to be good but it's like because they're working too much they don't

have time to you know watch their clothes yeah his laundry day is not every day right I have a friend of ours remember the guy who's shooting for us today he he had like 10 shoot days in a row and he told Carol at one point is like I haven't showered him four days. Was Carol the client? Well, he was shooting for us, so I guess. It was me. And I remember also, there was one other situation where we had like a two-day shoot

where our audio guy showed up for the first one. Everybody was like dressed really nice with dress shirts and like black pants and then our audio guy showed up with like a Coors Light t-shirt. Nobody said anything. It was like, it was fine. But at the end of it, I were like, hey, like for the next one, you just got to wear a dress shirt. And he came with like a, dude, he was wearing these jeans. I remember at one point he bent over to get something.

And I don't think, I think he needed a belt. There's a lot of crew like that. I'll leave the rest of your imagination. Yeah, I mean, the grip butt or the plumber's butt, man, that's like a real thing that, like, drives me crazy. And any time, like, I feel like a draft, they always get so subconscious. Like, I'll immediately, like, turn around and just, like, make sure it's not showing. People like that, you got to do the old high school trick. If you catch that, you drop a pen.

are you talking about like that'll teach them yeah i remember like in high school like trying to like go to the board to like just remember like copying notes or something and i would like i don't know why i was just nervous to like get up to go get a closer look but i would always like fake throw my pen or fake drop my pen to then try to go up to to write on the board and someone's like you know you can just get up there i guess but it's a social anxiety of it of trying to drop the pen to like go up to i had an excuse you know to go up to the board yeah to go up to the board to like write the note up because I couldn't see too well from the back. So I'd always like drop my pen, but I had a special pen that like I broke the clip out of. So it would just roll. I like over-engineered

this. This is so over the top. To think about this way, that happens now a lot too with production. Like sometimes I'll be thinking about a camera build and I'll like go like over the top and trying to make it work. And someone's always just like, why don't you just do it this way? And I was like, yeah, I wish I thought of that too, but I couldn't. You're an overthinker. I guess that lady was She read you perfectly. I think that's why it stung. It stung because I think she was right, you know? Oh my God.

That's pretty funny. But yeah, anyways, this is not a comedy show, so we should probably start talking about business. Otherwise, our listeners are going to start tuning out. I mean, technically, we deal with pretty pictures all day. What to wear on set. I mean, our business is dealing with pretty pictures all day. It's not too serious.

I mean. Like we're not doing heart surgery. We're not like saving lives. We're really trying to make pretty pictures and be funny half the time, especially with some of the stuff that we make. True. You never know that one corporate video just might save a life, you know. It could be the dramatic. Might save someone's job. You know what? Carol, when we do those internal videos like employee training stuff, one of those might be teaching a doctor at some point. We're teaching safety. Technically. Safety videos. We're saving lives, guys. Saving hands, saving feet, saving body parts. Oh my God, yeah.

Especially when you're doing manufacturing type content and stuff like that. There's so much that goes into it. Like if you'd be walking in a certain area, the client would be saying, no, you got to make sure you do this, this, and this before you even enter that vicinity. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you worked on a lot of manufacturing type videos? I have not, and I've been wanting to.

The only thing that I've done close was a construction job video. And they were doing, like, I guess, like, my dogs are working real quick. There's a squirrel outside. No, they're, I think they're chipping away at something outside. But, okay, so what happened was, I was doing, we're doing this construction style video, and they were repelling down this apartment building. They had these, like, ropes that, like, would be, like, a windshield washer, but, like, for construction.

And they're like, just get on it and we'll strap you down. And I did not feel safe and secure on that thing. And we're going up, like, multiple floors. And it was, like, it was, I was feeling it. And I was, like, shitting my pants. And they're like, just get over the edge. Like, unclip yourself. And I was like, no, no, I'm just going to stay right here.

And I was like, I kept framing them in a certain way. So it would look cool, like, while I'm still strapped in. And I was like, that was the closest I've done to, like, a cool video, like, like, an actual, like, manufacturing thing. Have you seen that photo of the construction guys on top of the, what's the tallest building in New York City, that tall one? Empire State Building? Yeah. Well, it's not the tallest now, but it used to be the tallest. where they're all sitting on the beam.

There's the one where they're sitting on the beam. And then just recently I saw the picture of the photographer that took it while he was taking that picture. Yeah. It was like, they had no harnesses. They're just like standing in the air, basically. They did not care back in the day. They were just like, let's just smoke some cigarettes and get it over with. What did they put in those cigarettes?

Yeah, let me grab my dog real quick so he could stop barking. Sorry about that. It's all good. It's the second episode where we've had. the dog parking in the background yeah that is true but you know the funny thing with that photo that you're that you were mentioning it the thing that makes me laugh is like it's also such a massive camera that they had right so it wasn't like you were hauling like a small cannon or or sony a seven uh body up there so you're like trying to hold on with your legs onto the beef and then like

have this huge camera that you're trying to get look at these guys so cute No, no, put it on the dog So he knows what we're saying Yeah, yeah, no, we got to communicate The headphones on the dog Yeah, this one This one is Benny He is my equipment manager

He has to put his nose Into every single piece of equipment that I have Quality control Chief sniffing officer Yeah, he was going across there It's quality control You know that if the dog doesn't make sure That the equipment is safe to go

You can't go production. The other one's head of craft. Yeah, exactly. Anytime I have like a case and I open it, his head goes immediately in there. And he loves the foam from like the microphone and he'll take it out and try to destroy it. And I have to fight him every time. Oh, geez.

You know, it always makes me laugh also as seeing whenever you go to an ad agency's website and they go to the team photos, there's always a dog that's like chief park. There's always a dog. It was cool in 2014. and then they see let me check your website do you have your dog in that there was a really big agency

down here in Miami that they actually did this really cool thing where they did all their group photos on paddle boards while wearing suits on an island I thought that was like so cool and creative but then one of the like for the dog one they also had him on a paddle board

to take the photo with like a fake suit and I thought that was so cool but then again too like every agency has that one dog photo and I feel like it's the owner like that says a dog that he just like puts on there just to seem cool and collective it's like look at last productions keryl has a dog and we uh we do not have that well if we put our dog if we put a dog on our team photo website they're a third of the employees at that it's it's a little more significant at that point you know you think the dog would be running the show you that's true right when there's like

20 employees what's an extra you know dog or fake employee on it when it's two of us what type of dog do you have so it's um it's an evil rat it's a it's a jack russell chihuahua yeah i don't want to call it a rat but it's it sounds like it i can't i can't complain too much i have i have a yorky and behind me so um they're very like they they go after it they're just anxieties a lot of anxiety i feel like in uh ours not so much like it just mostly sleeps now because it's gotten a lot older like she's 10 years old now so she just sleeps all day pretty much so low maintenance which isn't too bad but uh but yeah anyways we obviously got into like a more long-winded intro but uh manio just give us a little intro that was

like the most uh casual intro that's for sure but uh manio give us a little bit of a backstory into into who you are and uh in your business as well yeah so um me media media productions is a video production company based here in miami florida um we focus a lot on corporate and commercial work more so on the commercial side of things and when we are doing corporate work it typically is revolving around production support so I know you guys are talking about that when people come over to Toronto or to Canada you'll help them out with production we do that a lot here too as well but that's mainly so on the on the corporate side of things so we'll have a

couple jobs coming up now where we're just being either the DP or crewing or even just gear rentals for corporate our main breaded butter is commercial work. Even if it's just like a corporate documentary about like an individual, what have you. That's kind of been our bread and butter here at Me Media Productions. Nice. Yeah, we do the same as well. And here's a production, like for production support, we're not helping on like TV shows or movies. We're doing the same thing, just focusing on corporate. Yeah, because a lot of the time, there's like a growing trend where like people need content from different offices around the world. And because budgets are getting tighter with clients as well, you know, it's not like everyone has the funds to fly out.

Yeah, and travel getting harder, especially, you know, with how things are with the U.S. now. Like, it's, it's a lot harder for people to just easily move around, especially with how expensive it can be. Just flying, Dario and myself from Toronto to Montreal could be up to like $1,000 in expenses when you account for flights, car rentals and hotel. And hotel, it's crazy. And sometimes clients would rather have that money work for that, would rather have work for them and just hire local people. Sometimes it's a lot easier like that. And that's why Dario and I have like kind of like,

that's kind of what we've done with the show is networking with other people in different parts of the world to kind of help facilitate that too, right? And everyone wins at the end of the day. Oh, 100%. And like you were saying, like travel is getting so much more difficult. I remember back in the early 2000s, but 2008, you would take a, a whole crew with you anywhere you need to go, right? Like, you would take your DP, a cam-up, maybe two assistants, an audio guy.

Like, you'll travel with a pretty size, nice crew to a project, right? Now it's like you just travel yourself and a DP, maybe someone else, and have everything kind of there waiting for you, whether that's like a grip truck and all the different types of monitors and stuff like that that that you need for production, you'll have there waiting for you. what I typically do is that like just like that just two people and a camera package and for the most part it's probably just the A camera and then the B camera or anything out out there so we have another operator there it's becoming so much more logistically challenging too when did you

when did you start like where you're so I officially started me media productions back in 2019 but I've been in production for a little over 10 years now actually 11 years. That's like us, basically. So right when I graduated college, or high school, I started working for a production company down here in Miami and

was working with them until probably around 2018, 2019, and then that's kind of when I started off in my own, and then I didn't make media productions until probably like a year after kind of being on my own as a freelancer. Man, I wish if I could go back in time,

I would just go into this straight out of high school. just skip university yeah did you guys did that he wouldn't have met me though at that point he wouldn't have even thought of it i think that's i think that's why he's saying it to be honest i could i could see it in his eyes he's like ah if i could never meet him no it would have been so much better it would have been so much better right did you guys go to film school no i went to ryerson for business we went to like for those i don't know it's a business school so we went i went for business in lock girl went for marketing and and we met and it was love at first night who was like the one that was like I want to do video production as a business or was it both for you guys so it was first me who went into it yeah I started it in 20 mid 2013 I decided to just go into video and I found marketing I liked it but I didn't want to do it as a career and I thought I would just take the risk and do video production so I did it for about a year freelance on my own a bit and then halfway through that Dario started to show interest as well like we were already

already friends at the time and he wanted to kind of see what that would be like but we got into the well you got into video like you started playing around with cameras way early on but we started doing work for a YouTube channel at the at at the school back then uh not it wasn't part of school it was part of this it was like a fun fun thing that's one guy we knew had a YouTube channel so we started shooting his videos right that's how I got into I didn't even remember how I got roped into that one. Oh, yeah. It got roped into it.

Well, it was like, it was like we were, everyone knew each other in our university in terms of like the, the main people that were involved in all the different school programs. So I was working on that. Dario decided to, to work with it as well. And then I left to do my own stuff as freelancing for a while. And then Dario showed interest later on. And then essentially we decided, okay, you know what?

Let's work together and let's work under, under like a company name, just to kind of see what type of longevity we might be able to have. And lo and behold, what, 10, 11 years later, here we are, still going strong. September will be 11 years, I think. Oh, wow, nice. So, Dario, are you the business-minded one? And then, Kyle, you're the more creative side of things. He gave you your Starbucks name, by the way.

Yeah, he gave you my Starbucks name there. Did I really? Sorry, sorry, sorry. How do you pronounce? It's, how do you say it? It's Kirill. I was curious to see if you got it, but yeah, Kirill, yeah. I am terrible with names, especially pronouncing them.

So please forgive me. As a matter of fact, actually, this was brought up, like, not too long ago again, and I was like, oh, I hope you forgot. So my cousin was, my cousin's been dating for the longest times, really tall, like, military-billed guys that are blonde, and they always had an M to their name. And her last two boyfriends were named Matt, or was named Mark. and for the longest time she got married and I kept calling her husband

who was named Matt Mark and he was like I hate that you do this to me man like it is driving me crazy and I'm sorry I'm trying not to but it is just like ingrained with me now and I thought he forgot about it and I was literally telling somebody the other day of this story because I was on set and I kept calling him by the wrong name and I gave him that little spule and he went to me

he's like do remember calling me Mark and I was like I do remember calling you Mark. He was probably overthinking it every time he was he was like I thought you were just being like like an a hole about it and I was like no I'm just that bad of names but Cheryl's blonde hair

so how can you then call him Mark? I don't know I think it's the I think it's the beard the beer he didn't have a beard yeah they're always like clean-shaven guys like if I put a lineup of her past boyfriends all together they were like twins of each other so she has a type

Yeah, she does have a type. That's hilarious. So it's like, what was different with this one from the last one? He actually looks a little different now. Right, right. Mark, I know you're not, I mean, Matt, I know you're not going to hear this. But if you do, I did, I did, I did. I know you're not going to hear this.

But if you do, I'm so sorry. That's hilarious. But yeah, no, I do a lot of the business development and whatnot. And then Carol will handle like creative direction. and that's that's kind of like the split we have going on nice we used to try to do a little bit of everything i mean granted we were still learning things so it was kind of helpful to be able to do a little bit of everything but um as we mentioned before like after the pandemic we had we started to define our roles a little bit more and structure the business more as a business so that we can kind

of be a little bit more efficient and because of that we feel like things have gotten a lot smoother now and like look with any business it's it's a constant it's constant development you're still learning you're still trying to figure out things to be more efficient you know but as long as you feel like you're on the right track and you're doing some a little steady growth it's it's not bad right i mean i steady growth is the name of the game right like i feel like if you i mean i remember being you know going back to when we first started i remember being in high school and having these dreams of you know being this like crazy director by the time i'm like 21 right um but i think I think we all have that, right?

Like, if you're in film, like, that's what you aspire to be. But then, like, you know, seeing how the growth is throughout the years just really makes you stronger and builds more character. Because I think fast growth builds ego and steady growth builds character. That's a quote from somewhere. And I don't know who said it, but it just came to mindset. It's pretty good. If whoever made the quote, please don't sue the podcast. It definitely reminds me of also that classic saying where it's like you'll go faster.

by yourself, but you'll go further with others, you know, and the more we've, we've gone, we've been working together, it, I've started to kind of like believe that even more, right? Because, like, you can only do so much by yourself for so long, right? And I, like, you can see sometimes, like, people who are working just on their own, like, they get burnt out very easily, you know, and if something happens, you know, then they're not working for a little while. But if you have, like, a good, solid team of people around you that you can rely on, you know, you know, It's, growth is the name of the game, essentially, right? Yeah.

I mean, I can be a protest to that. Like, I, like, me media itself is basically, uh, myself, right? We, I do have some family managers that I work with a lot. Like, at this point, I, if I look, if I go back to the statements, they're basically full-time employees, but, um, they are people that I trust them rely on and really do help make the team bet. Like, they do push me forward in a really good way. Um, there's one guy I work with a lot and I, and I love them, uh, to,

death and someone's like yeah he's someone was talking about like he's always so cranky and I go he's not cranky he has high standards and he's pushing us all to that higher standard and I and I appreciate that because as somebody that's like has to split their head up both in the creative and business side of things sometimes the the budget just comes first right versus the creative which is not a great thing in this business so the fact that he's able to be like hey you know let's just let's push for this let's actually try to make this work I think um is a very like general asset because i feel like one or the other is going to take hold and you need to have that like fine balance um and and and i agree like it takes the team to

to make something pop yeah that's what i mean like that on your team yeah you need people like that they'll just push the the creative end because if you're running the business like sometimes you're just like look you get like swamped with things and you just can't focus on like oh let's make this as creative as possible. You're just probably just looking at the overall picture and going like, all right, we need to just check this off so we can move to the next step and do the next thing, right? There's a Cuban hand gesture. It's just like, we go like that where it's like just forget about it. Just keep moving forward, right? And every time I do that, he always goes, no. Like, he'll come out and be like, like, like, let's let's like, let's try to like actually,

you know, get it in. But having that like, that open line of communication of like, hey, look, that's, and it's not like to ever pigeonholed things. Like, let's say like there are moments, but we have to keep moving forward and we have to work on it. But if there's a moment that we could take a breath and actually figure out like another creative solution or something, then that's valuable. And sometimes, you know, when you're working with freelancers or day players, they're also on the mindset of let's just get it done, right? Or they try not to care more than the producer does. So having people that actually want to elevate the set is always a benefit. You know what I like?

to do is like always ask them like at least with our DPs it's like try to get feedback from them because if you're like okay we need to move on but then I always go like what do you think should we get another thing and then I kind of value that because sometimes in my head I'm like we're done we got everything right but what do you think should we get another thing and then as soon as I see like an inkling of yes we might or should get something else I'm like okay let's just do it yeah like that's kind of like a lot of the conversations that we have because like when we're on set if both Dario and I are on set he takes more of like like the producing role and then I take more of like the DP role when we're actually on set

together and there is a lot of that like you know like pushing back and forth you know that that way we can always try to elevate things like Dario would be like if it's Carol and I shooting then I know for a fact we're overshooting so I always try to tell him let's move on yeah I do that too I loves doing so many takes I'm like bro we got it let's move on please yeah but look a lot of the time it works for us all right so he's he likes to complain a little bit but uh you know it's 50 takes let's go 50 takes i think the overshooting is the the business side of things because i do that too and i think it's trauma because there are times where like you think you have a really good take and you want to move on but you know that the client is going to say something about you don't even know

what it is yet right um maybe that was like the way they paused or the way they said this and you're like okay let's get a different variation so that way i have enough room to play with, with all the different variations. But I started to realize that sometimes you can just push back and be like, hey, we don't have that take. I think this is a great, it's going to, you know, look like being open and honest with the client too and be like, hey, you know, we moved on. We got this is a really solid take.

But we also have all these great deliverables, I think kind of helps with it. And sometimes they don't even know why they're asking. They're just saying it to say it, not to undermine them, but he's also not editing it. He's also not editing it. So I know how the things are going to play in the edit. And I'm like, no, no, no, it's not going to work. I need to get it right. I play devil's advocate in this conversation, just so it's not one-sided.

Awesome. I was doing a commercial with this guy, and I was just helping as AD that day. And I actually did a couple with that particular director, and I liked how he, like, when he knew he had the take, he would move on. So, like, I noticed he would do not more than, like, four takes usually on average. But, like, when he knew he had it and he had the backup, he would just move on. And I was like, oh, okay, interesting. And I guess he comes from that world where, like, they do have, like, a set schedule and they got to get through it. Otherwise, they'll just be there all day.

And it's like, you can't. Like, when you have a crew of, like, 30 people, you can't extend past, like, you can't really go into overtime easily because that's going to cost you. It's not just like, you know, when you're working with like two or three freelancers, it's like, yeah, like 30 minutes. There's always like a grace period where they don't get, like, upset about it, you know, because the nature of the beast, right? but when you're working on those types of sets where there's like 30 plus people, it's like one hour overtime can cost you quite a bit. Yeah, because it's time and a half, and that goes for everybody, right? And that's, and, you know, a lot of people go by the 15 minute rule.

So the moment you hit 15 minutes over 10, you're going into everybody's overtime. So I always respect that too. But, and that's why it's sometimes difficult working with kids. Because, like, you'll have like a set thing. And if the kid doesn't want to participate that day for some reason, Yeah, it's hard to get the take that you need to get it, especially if it's like a very complex idea or something like that. A kid or a very old lady, right? Or dog. Or dogs. Dogs are also especially, Dario, like that's another story for another day.

But look, I'm just prefacing all this that like when we do these extra takes, we're also doing it without aiming to eat into obviously other time. If we obviously have like a very strict schedule, then we'll try to maximize the time as much as we can. But if we have the time to do a couple of extra takes, then that's what we aim to do. Because, like, I agree. Like, once there is, if you have such a huge schedule of things that you need to get done, you have to stick to it. Because otherwise, like you said, like, you won't be able to get it. And yeah, that's why, though, as we mentioned.

It's interesting with corporate, though, because with corporate, sometimes when you're dealing with the employees, it's fine. But when you're dealing with, like, the executives or hire-ups, like, you kind of have to, like, get your takes quickly because I notice, like, they're- Once they're kind of done, they're kind of done. Yeah, like two or three takes. Like if you're dealing with like a CEO, you have two takes, maybe a third, you know. Depends on the CEO, but like on average, sometimes I notice like, if they're like, what, you didn't get it right?

It's like, eh, you know, if you try not to fumble your way through it. Yeah, it's like, what do you mean? I didn't get it. I didn't give it. You didn't give it. You didn't give it. They do that a lot. Yeah, they'll like completely like, oh, la, la, la, a word.

and you're just like, okay, we need to, we just say that one sentence again, and then you, like, go back to that one sentence, and then they'd be like, and then I was like, you got to, you got to say it. You got to say it right. Like, you got to, you got to, like, coach them into it. And it just sometimes just doesn't click for that. And it's just like, okay, we're going to move on. Are you like, like, pull aside the marketing director and you'd be like, hey, is that,

is this okay that he says that? He goes, it's fine. And they always say, is that okay. Was that okay? And they always say, yeah, yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine Yeah, it's like You just gotta like talk to them

Be like hey like this is uh I think we gotta move on you know You know it'd be really cool in the next coming months Or maybe even years is like With the way the AI is improving With regards to like Voices and whatnot You could probably just feed it

That current dialogue that you got from the interview And maybe like recover those words right Like they fumbled the word Have you seen the Spanish? Yeah but like Carol a lot of times You won't notice like if it's like they you know like the instead of saying like I don't know whatever word like a word like maybe they they mispronounce that a little bit like you can't

really tell unless there's a lip reader that's watching the video right have you seen the Spanish versions of that like so you'll input a video like let's say like you put like a video someone talking and then you be like recognize their voice forget the name of this program you recognize their voice and they'll change it to Spanish and move their lips I saw it on Instagram yeah might oh they move the lips too it moves the lips it's not perfect like some like I know Spanish pretty well and the first time I saw it I didn't catch it right but then on the second review I was like oh okay I could see it now where it's like messing up but like if you're going into like quick little shots you're not going to even notice like you know what yeah I think I think I think I saw this on a red letter media episode but they were talking about a show where they read it they or I don't know if it was on RLM but one of those YouTubers they were talking about how well with a specific show they use that tech and they they they they they translated or you know redid it in different languages so it's like they they shot it's all

english and then there's like the spanish versions and the characters are speaking spanish and everything and i think they also fixed the lips or something i'm not sure about the lip thing that's crazy gone are the dub the people who do dubs all those jobs are gone yeah like you know there was um i don't know if you heard about this but uh you know mr beast one thing he did with his youtube channel is that they basically hired all these like famous uh dub artists in different parts of the world that are known for dubbing like Brad Pitt and all these like special actors, uh, or not special actors, all these, like, um, uh, all these famous actors, right? So in those parts of the world, they will know those famous celebrities by that

dubbed voice. So they would basically have him be dubbed by that same person. And that's how they, that's how he was able to expand to like so many different markets in, uh, with YouTube, right? Like that guy's a, uh, marketing genius. Like, or his team is a marketing. genius because I'm sure he has a really good team that like um facilitates that but that is smart it's it's it's a very clever little uh little trick right so it's like he likes the joker it's like yeah so i technically in uh in china and in spain and in mexico i have the the voice of brad pitt technically so there's that yeah i met the guy who does the spas he's like one of the biggest Spanish voice actor dubbed artist right like he does like South Park he does

family guy the guy was like eccentric and we're doing a catheter commercial and he was like at the on-screen talent for it and I remember like micing him up and he went to bite me and I was like like he went to bite you like I was like micing him up and I guess like I annoyed him or something and he like like snapped at me and I was like that guy was eccentric and I was like I have no idea and he like looked at me and then last So it was like, I don't know if he's just like a crazy person or what, but I think you need to stay behind. Like, I think you need to stay behind a mic and not be in front of the camera, like around people. Yeah, this is why dub artists are in the dungeons, you know?

Right. They're not the in person. That's so funny, though. I never heard of that. I mean, that's the person that's ever happened to me. And I wonder, like, how are all these like Mr. Beast, like voice actors? How strange are they? especially in all these different places from the world.

I'm sure there's a couple of them that are, like, in their personal life, just kind of crazy. Yeah, I honestly don't know. But if you look at any, like, dubbed shows or anything like that from other parts of the world, the dub always does not match the movie or the show I found. And I noticed this specifically when I was younger and I was visiting my home country, Bulgaria. And I was watching Indiana Jones, but with Bulgarian dub. and the guy

like it was a very serious scene in like with the snakes you know when they were looking into the snake pit so we pulled us up on YouTube I don't know if you can even find this but it was essentially like you know like in the English one he's like oh snakes why did it have to be snakes it's like

oh yeah they're very very poisonous this is bad where it's like the Bulgarian tone was like oh my God why was it snakes and the guy's like I don't know they're kind of poisonous it was like a complete tone shift and I'm like six years old noticing this I'm like that's so bizarre

say it in Bulgarian let's hear what it sounds like oh it's like ah zmi what's what behezmi and then the other guy comes and says Uttrovnaisa does not sound serious at all but do you think that's like a cultural thing

like I always think about that it's like is that how like technically like cultural wise they would say it like no Oh, okay. It's called not reading the script properly or understanding what the actual... They probably don't watch the movie beforehand, that's why. It's probably like I have four hours in this vocal booth and I just got to read a couple of lines that I have no idea what it's about.

Some unpaid, like guy that's like low, like super low paid voice acting got paid, yeah, like for four hours of record time to do an entire feature film without watching the movie. They just had to read lines and record it. I remember last time I was in Italy. like I was over at my my uncle's place and they had dark night. So this must have been like 2010? 2010, yeah. And I started watching a little bit of it and the voice was so strange. Like, I was like, who did they hire for this?

Like, the guys are missing out the real experience. So it's a new world now with this AI. If it's going to be able to actually start mimicking your voice to actually speak a different language, it's pretty crazy. Yeah, maybe we can get this, this podcast. Podcasts, oh my God, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that'd be awesome. I mean, if we can get it in Bulgarian and that way you could spell check or like you can make sure it's like it all like lines up, I think that'd be awesome.

That would be interesting to see. Yeah, or if we get like Italian, Spanish, you know, open up to different markets, you know, like this is on to something. Yeah, yeah. It's also going to be weird too. Like, how does the, uh, the talent release look like that? It's like, now you have to like write an AI writer to it or like an AI like section or like, we will use, you. use your, like we will repurpose your voice or what have you for these

productions. Yeah, that's going to be interesting. That's going to be a new clause in every contract. Wasn't there? I got to add that to our podcast release form. I had to deal with like a voice actor that was like union and she was like very like particular about like okay you can't use my voice for AI or something like that and I was like I

wasn't even planning on it and it was so hard to like. But now we're thinking about it. Right. Yeah. She was right. She was ahead of the game. Yeah. job is on the way out man like voice acting well some of them are like some of the voice actors like the digital ones like the AI ones sound super cool and they get it on the money but every now and then they like fix it on the word that you can never get them to fix I don't know what it is

but sometimes they'll be like a couple months from now in a year or two like that's not going to be an issue so it's going to be tricky to navigate are you using uh how are you using AI in your business am using AI my business through a couple different ways. And it's all through pre-production, right? Or like pre-visuals. So I'll use it a lot. I'm terrible with spelling, right? So that's like the number one thing I use it for, probably like 75%, 65% of the time is spell checking. Then the second is I've been using it a lot more for storyboarding. Just because you could put the photos of the actors you're planning on using. You could put input the locations that you want to use and be like hey with this look part of me this location this actor could you do a shot of them

holding up this product and you can send them the product too and doing this at the same time or like you could really fine tune the way you want your storyboard sometimes it's weird and sometimes it's hard to like get it to work but i've been using a lot for storyboarding and i think it's great because sometimes they'll see the previsuals and they just doesn't click for some people so having this little more detail a little more realistic is great before i was using storyboarding I was using Cinema 4D or that program that was built by a YouTuber where, and that's a cinema 4D, Cynetracer is what I was using. Oh, yeah, I was going to say Cinema 4D.

I'm like, that's hardcore for. Right, no, no, no, no. I don't know why I thought about that. Yeah, Cynetracer. I was using that for storyboarding, but it's so, like, robotic and, like, hard to maintain. So I would really like using AI for storyboarding. What do you use? Like, which platform?

I was first using, I'm now only using chat GPD. Before I was using mid-Journey, but Chat-T-B-T has gotten pretty good now. Well, they just integrated Mid-Journey into it. Isn't that what they did? Oh, is that why it's because I was like, I got rid of my mid-journey like a month or two ago. Because they own, they're both owned by the same company. Oh, I didn't know that. I honestly don't know the politics too much.

I might be wrong, but I thought they were owned by the same company. Let me check. Could you have chat, check it real quick? Chad, who are you owned by? Who owns you? Um, yeah, no, so I've been using AI for that. And then I'll use AI for voice acting, but for the previsual. So sometimes like, if I'm like, um, if they're not super sold on a voice actor yet or they're not super sold on the scripts, mainly on the script, instead of us doing like a million and one, um, alternate versions, I'll do the offense, like I'll do like a voiceover, have that be the one that changes and then go to the voiceover artist and have them do the new script. maybe with some couple changes here and there to help with that because as recently I do a lot of stuff with financial institutions so they're constantly changing the copy

so being able to do that really does help me be more flexible I don't have to wait 24 hours 48 hours for a voiceover artist to get back to me I'm able just to do it quickly and then be able to go into the voiceover artists and polish it yeah also just to confirm guys they're not owned by the same company they're two separate companies oh really Yeah. That's actually a very smart thing to do when you're dealing in the post process to kind of like make things a little bit more efficient and also on budget because yeah, if you're making a voiceover artist or any talent do multiple things like that after the fact. It one, the price can go up. Two, time is delayed like you said because it takes sometimes 24 hours to get a recording. And I mean, who knows? Maybe they'll like your voice too. I mean, we had, there was one project we did for a client about, about two years ago where

they needed to get a video done where we just all post stuff and they needed someone to do the voice acting for it for it as well. And I told them how much it would be for a voice actor. And they were like, oh my God, that's way too much. We can't, we can't incorporate that in the budget. And I'm like, you want me to just record it myself? And then they're like, yeah, yeah, let's hear it. And it should be fine. And then I did it. Submitted it. They were like, okay, great, video's done. I'm like, all right, there you go. I did that not too long. Like last year, I did a project where, like, I was the voiceover artist, and I hated it.

I just don't like hearing my voice too much. So it's just like one of those things where it's just like, and it's funny because we had, we had actually, our talent was the initial voiceover art. Like, they would basically be like being doing internal dialogue, but they had to do such a big copy change. So when they were seeing it in the wild, they like all said back to me as like, is that you doing the voiceover? I was like, yeah, it was. but I thought it was funny that that happens I mean and there's like even in time where I'll like be in the video as like a talent of some sort

and I got recognized a couple times we've all done that there are so many times where we're in the background for a shot or something you know just to make it a little bit more visually interesting I think there was one we did in North Carolina where it was a we were shooting at a dealership there and it was looking a little empty so I'm like

Like, all right, you know what? I'll just walk by in the shot in the background, and I think we should be fine. Did you do the Bigfoot walk where you turn and look at the camera at one point? It was funny. I saw a feature film, like a local feature film. And I knew all the crew that was like part of the shoot. And they were all the extras. And it was just so funny to see everyone being an extra multiple times too.

Like it was just funny to see it like your buddies being extras and things when they're like actually working it too. it's the nature of the beast you know like once you're hired his crew be prepared to be asked to be an extra in that one corporate video you know when you think about the easter eggs of like how many videos we've produced over the years it's like how many of them are we all in it in some point i feel like a lot of times too the sound guy is going to get roped into b-roll because he's done technically after we do all the interviews or he's just going to be on standby so he's going to be the client he's going to be a client he's going to be a handshake he's going to be someone just filling out the background and every now and then that's a good way to use them actually because yeah like a lot of the times they are only needed for a half day and then like a guy I don't I don't need you here anymore except except it's a good way to use them as as background except for corporate clients because they're not going to be showing up in a full suit to do the right sound you know or if they have an extra suit laying around you just put a blazer over that and and uh how to do it yeah just you just need an over-the-shoulder type thing, you know, and then they're like the person someone's

talking to, you could do like a nice cool pan. What's the, what's the market like in Miami? What do you mean by market? Like, what types of like industries are pretty active there in terms of like types of clients you can get? Oh, okay. So Miami is very interesting. There is a very big, there's a very big music industry scene here, both for Latin America

and for the U.S. I typically stay away from those because there's a lot of there's a lot of drama that's involved with them and the rates are usually not great. Yeah, the rates are not great. There's a lot of like weird characters that's on set. Like the director always has a story

that you're always like unwinding, right? Like it's always like something weird. I remember like the weirdest one and this was like the one that was like, I'm done with this, was that like there was a shoot that we did where the guy um

so the the okay so the guy was um the guy was dating the main artist who was a um who was another uh male right so he he was he was um they were both homosexuals and the he has a daughter and his daughter was the main love interest

and he was trying to get his boyfriend who is the recording artist to make out with his daughter on camera and it was the weirdest environment that you can be in because everyone knew this situation and the way he was doing it was like like creepy yes like he was like you got to get into like you need a like you need to sell this and we're all just like you need to stick your tongue down to her daughter's throat that's right while we have a red monster filming this in 8k and like getting all close up so i was that was like my catalyst like i'm i'm done with music videos for a while um just because like there's always there's always something like there's always a story happening um so i don't do that uh too much um

there is a really big scene for reality tv here um that one i typically stay away from two just because of uh rates and they're really long days um but for the most part there is a lot of commercial work that's down here we have a lot of agencies um so there's a lot of work to be had there and there's all types of commercials whether that's for latin america or that's just a general u.s one uh we have a lot conferences that happen here i'll do that every now and then i don't promote that i do that but i do do it um just because you don't like uh you don't like event shoots it's not that i don't like it's just not as sexy um so i feel like uh like we take the jobs down a lot um like i was just last week i was on a on a four-day um corporate shoot that was at an event where we're doing

interviews and stuff like that. They're great because they help pay the bills and they keep things consistent. We just find them not to be the sexiest, especially here too, when we have so much commercial work that you're trying to keep your, like, you're trying to promote, you're trying to keep like an aesthetic online. So we just want to always kind of like feel that we do that type of work for them. And there's also a lot of work to be done in. like non-profit or health care.

That's kind of like our, there's a lot of that type of work down here. If that kind of like fulfills your need, there is a lot of work to be done in construction. But you don't, those are typically are now getting more filled in-house than anything else. But before that used to be a pretty big constant ask.

Do you find it very competitive with, I mean, it sounds like there's, a lot of different industries and there might be a lot of work to go around, but do you find that it's gotten very competitive in Miami for different slices of the pie? I would say the commercial side of things is really competitive. And I think that's probably why we're, like, I'm fighting for like image there. It's because you don't want anyone to like lose that like status of you of doing commercial work. Oh, this guy's now just focusing on this, right? Because there are guys

that have been kind of like pigeonhole to that. And I don't want to like ever kind of like fall into that world. But there are, it could be competitive, but it cannot be competitive too at the same time. Like I feel like there's enough work to go around where everyone is able to get their slice. And Miami's not the, it's a nice, it's a nice scene, but it's not the biggest scene in the world, right? I'm like everyone pretty much knows each other or knows of each other. And there's obviously tears, right? there's different tiers of levels of production, but at least, like, you're pretty familiar

with, like, who's who, and if you need something from somebody, they'll always there to help scratch each other's back or what have you. It sounds like it's a, it's a, I mean, not small, but like, somewhat small, Nick community because, like, here in Toronto, at least, like, there's a lot of companies. Like, you'll probably know the top ones just because you go on Google and see, but, like, there are so many companies that you'll just find randomly, and you're like, oh, this guy's doing pretty well it's like I've never even heard of this guy like we're really everyone's yeah like how do they

where do they exist like yeah like it's like but they're out there you know I'm sure there's a lot of smaller like videographers that I'm not aware of but like for say like the mid range style production you're pretty much aware of who's who and then the larger style productions you're pretty much aware of who's who and who

who are the crews that work in those fields you know because there's dedicated crews for each of those sections no here there'll be like medium sized ones that you're like I had no clue you even exist like where you've been like you're nowhere online a lot of them don't a lot of them don't focus on promoting themselves online if you like if you look at any kind of independence even you know they just put their portfolio on a website and then

they just do all of their business through word of mouth or in-person connections and that's it like they're like we over the years we've worked with many different production companies where they basically you know just have their own ecosystem of of clients and and and projects that they work on and otherwise you wouldn't have found them online if you were looking if you were looking for them so it's you'll notice it if you go on like the i new producer facebook group you'll see a bunch of people and you're like okay these guys are and then you'll find their website from the handle and you're like oh okay like these guys are around or um if you go on

those aggregate sites or those directory sites like clutch or whatever i think i think for Toronto especially there's like a lot of company listings on that site like a crazy amount compared to like other cities in Canada or elsewhere do you use clutch or do you guys own a clutch account we have an account I mean we have like a profile we were paying for it for about a year but I just didn't see any I didn't see any clients any leads come through it so I just canceled it I was like what are we paying for I and plus you're helping them go up the ranking yes yeah you are paying for their SEO which is like the biggest thing It's so ironic.

Such a scam. Made an account with them and they were like, oh, get reviews or what have you. So I sent out like probably like five or six reviews and supposedly the review process is a pain in the ass. Yeah, it's like complicated. All the clients I sent to were like annoyed with me for asking. I asked like, hey, can you send me a review? And then they're like, yeah, that was like a hassle. And I was like, I'm sorry.

I think only one of them got posted on my clutch profile. And I wasn't paying for it. And then they were like, oh, do you want to show all the different reviews you have to get to pay for it? And I was like, now I'm okay. um i'm fine like i i didn't want to deal with it for reviews i just focus on our our google account and like yeah i send them like a like i have an email i'll send out right after we finish the show like after we deliver the video and everything maybe a week or so after and it's just like hey it's it's really i basically brave it as like i need a favor yeah and uh and then i also like try to

like give them something for their time because i was running into an issue where like Sometimes they wouldn't do it or they would add it to their to-do list. And then, you know, it kept getting pushed down their to-do list. So now it's like, hey, you can do it for us. I can either donate somebody to a charity of your choice or give you a gift card. That's a good one. Because it's like, because otherwise, like, they'll just add it to their list, but it's not a priority. But if you give them an incentive, at least, it kind of pushes it up up their list, right?

And that actually has turned out to be a pretty good incentive. I know Google. Do you guys rely on Google my business a lot? or is it like something like new you're working on? No, no, it's been really good for us. We get a lot of our leads coming in through there. AdWords as well, and then obviously referrals. Nice.

I guess like 80% of our referrals now come through Google, no? Or how many would you say, Darien? Good chunk. I mean, that's basically one of the main ways you can get to us, right? Because that's how else are you going to find us? It's either word of mouth referrals or... I don't want to like unveil the curtain too much, but do you guys actually use an address that you guys have

access to, or do you have one of those, I think they're called digital addresses or, like, address like to a P-O box? Yeah, type of thing. So we have like a work, we have a shared working space at, that's basically what we do. You know, like those places where a lot of companies basically sign up and they go and they work out of there, not only for a business address, but you know, if they also want to have meetings and stuff like that. So we actually have a membership there because we found that that was the most flexible for us at this point. You know, and you know the nature of the beast. Like, with how everything is like fluctuating constantly,

it's better to not have something that you're paying like three to $5,000 a month. Right. For three years, five years, or however long they make you, they force you to sign these leases. We tried the PO box. We went from that shared workspace because I wanted to get a spot closer to downtown. Just for SEO purposes. So then when you go on the map,

can see us right in the center but the problem was that we weren't able to verify the address so we had to switch back to the shared workspace location and and yeah I had a pain I had an issue with my shared with my address on Google Maps now it's just it's it's a service area thing I wanted to be like a specific address like that have in the heart of Miami but I what happened was I had two accounts made by accident for me media and one was the address that I wanted. One's my actual address that I live in now currently. And so when I canceled the other one, it was my original one that had all the reviews with the address I'm in right now. And then I switched it to the other one.

It thought I was trying to like make a loophole scam or something like that. So it took me like over a month. Yeah, you got flagged. Yeah. essentially so they're making it a lot more difficult and i they were giving us a hard time google as well because they were making mistakes with not sending us the verification code back in the day that was that was that was our mistake because i forgot to put uh east so it was going to the west that what i thought it was no no no so it was uh whatever atlington street but i forgot to put east

east instead of so it was going to the west location so ever since then they basically were making us do a video recording. You should switch it. You should switch out of the service area, though. That's not good because I noticed actually a lot of people find us on Google Maps because we pop up around like we're in the top 10, I would say, probably top seven for Google Maps. But if you're doing service area, then they won't see you in the map pack. Yeah.

So I just got that like to the surface area where it's like back up to being shown. But now I'm in the process of moving. so I am waiting for the move to be finished before I do that again because what I'm going to do is I'm going to get myself on the map pack and then I'm going to have to change addresses again and that's going to be a whole other cycle but supposedly there is a help center that you can actually like spend a day talking to and doing it that they said they can help you out with Google with Google yeah I don't know I don't know the whole story but there was basically like a phone number they gave me to call so I don't know How long is it? How long ago was this? This was like probably a month ago or so ago. Let's see what happens. Maybe I called them and I get scammed. Are you sure it's legit?

I think so. It's from Google itself. Let me see, Google. Yeah, double check because Google switched over to just being AI now. They fired all the Indian staff that was answering the calls and whatever. I'm pretty sure it was Indian. Let me see, Google representative. Is this for AdWords? It's for AdWords, but they said they will help you for...

Oh, they're not going to help you. Oh, really? They're not going to help you. They just want you to spend more money in AdWords. Yeah, I stopped doing Google AdWords. It was working pretty well for a while. Like, I saw some pretty good growth, some pretty good leads. And it looks like in our pre-call, where basically what happened was it came to a point where it was just constant spam.

It seemed like there was nothing we can do to get constant spam. Got all the IP addresses, and I was able to get a list of the things that, like, showed pretty consistent spam to Google, and it just seemed like they kept getting a workaround. So I felt like maybe I was either getting targeted for something. Are your campaigns, like, were you doing your campaigns yourself, or did you hire someone? I had somebody do it for me. I would say if you kept getting a lot of spam, it was probably the guy doing it for you wasn't setting up your campaign properly. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I get spam. as well, but I do get leads in there as well. Yeah, because it was really good for like the first couple months. Like I thought like those were really solid leads. Like I thought it was working well. And then out of nowhere, like almost overnight, just complete shift. Unless you're checking to see what your AdWords guy was doing,

I would probably put the blame on them. Yeah. Because if you keep constantly getting like garbage leads or like just spam, maybe the settings were done in a way. where you're just targeting like the cheapest type of person, like the cheapest type of click or whatever. So AdWords is like one of those things where like you should learn a little bit about it just to get an understanding of it. And then, you know, like we set it up ourselves. Like it wasn't that difficult to do, especially with like chat GPT nowadays because you can kind of like have it

explain things to you like like dumb it down to your level almost. Like explain it like on five. type of stuff um and um you can kind of understand and see how the platform works and then you can start to see like what type of agency can help you and then you can kind of figure out like play stupid and see if they're trying to take advantage of you right so what do you guys do and like let me see the keywords you're if they and then by then you should know a little bit so you can kind of like vet them out that way i think i'm going to get back into it one day like fairly soon i just want to um focus on some SEO stuff and then like focus on those like move and some other new production things that I want to focus on and then I'll kind of get back into it I think you got to like do

everything to be honestly it's not just about focusing on one like you got to do like a land see and air type of approach like you do adwords you do SEO you do marketing and then and together they need to work like you know they can work well together right because you're getting you'll get more consistency from having different sources essentially It's like the classic saying where you have to have multiple sources of income. You've got to have multiple sources of leads, you know, to really get some kind of consistency going at the very least, right? Because if you put all your eggs in one basket and if that basket dries up, you know, like you said, all of a sudden, those leads just became terrible overnight. But if you have leads coming from other sources, you're going to be fine as a business, right?

Oh, 100%. And I agree with that. Like, I call it the octopus method where you have like your tentacles and all the different revenue. So something's dried up. Something will always come through, right? And I think that's like kind of like the beauty of like, as we were talking about earlier, doing production support and also doing other projects too. Because I don't really specialize.

I feel like I don't like really have a niche. But that has helped me to be like, okay, like this month is slow for this type of project. I'm able to pick up a project here on this side of things. So that's always been like very helpful in that regard. And I definitely want to get back into doing the Google AdWords. How long have you guys been doing the adlets for? Honestly, if you have like three hours. you can set it up and just want it or like I'm telling you like three hours set of the campaign

do the ad groups that's all you need and like at least get it to the point where it's like up and running yeah and then you can always just leave it there like it'll it'll still drive traffic to your website so even if you're not getting high quality leads like at least you're getting traffic so that should help you get a little bit of like an SEO boost you up a little bit yeah because people are visiting your website we've been we've been running it since uh I restarted at end of March Nice. And I actually noticed it really helped with our SEO because something happened near the end of 2023 where we took like a nosedive in the rankings.

And I couldn't figure out what happened. I don't know if it was like because at that time I was doing a lot of AI generated copy on our website. Could have been that. Could have been something else. I have no idea what it was. But I spoke to some other people and they went through the same thing. It was been some algorithm update. and it kept going until I restarted the AdWords end of March

and we recovered from being on like page five or six for video production Toronto to like page two again and you just basically redid the copy yourself for the website I'm in the process of I've been going slowly through the pages and updating the copy my goal is by the end of the year to have like the website fully like updated because I was looking at it too and I'm like yeah this copy's kind of shit like it wasn't the best to be honest of you but i i'm slowly i'm trying to do like once every

couple days i'll pick a web page and i'll just fix it up and make sure like the internal linking is good and all that stuff um but yeah we're we're back up in the rankings i think it might be due to google adwords and then we also were able to verify our address again because for a period of like i think how long cure like six or so months like we weren't able to verify the address at the PO box location because we went for sure it works full year almost it was really full year yeah yeah because we tried to go to a PO box and then like they were they wouldn't like let us verify the address had to do the video recording so we got in touch with the shirt with that place was a PO box location but it was also like a shared workspace

but the problem with that location was one it was a lot more generic and they have lots of companies lots of companies imagine having hundreds of companies trying to list the same exact address for Google. I think Google is like, all right, what the hell is going on here probably, right? But the video, like, it wouldn't upload. You have to do like a video verification and it wouldn't, it wouldn't freaking upload.

Like, you have to keep trying it. Like, you can go on your phone. You'll see other people. No, we were doing it on our phone. Oh, really? Yeah. I had to do that video and it was like, so I have my things on a second floor.

So my outside is to a parking lot. And then the other side is just the hallway to get to the other things so I would do the video and it would be like oh you show a street sign but that means I would have to like go downstairs walk outside the park and it's like only you only get a minute so I was like there was like no way unless I'm like the fastest no no it's it's more than a minute they said they said no they said try to keep it within one to two minutes oh okay it could be longer but the problem is like with that location it was on the fourth floor

yeah I would have to go in an elevator and go up So I think it was losing connection It was the 14th floor It was the 14th floor So it would lose connection But the thing is like We tried it like 10 times Finally it went through

But then they're like Oh no you missed this and that Imagine the guy who's seeing you Go up the elevator 14 times And like Security was looking at me Because I was like I was holding it out

Here is my address Here is my thing And oh my God But you know the worst thing about Google now Is that it's all AI so you can't talk to anyone. You can't get in touch with anyone. There's not even like a service email you can get in touch with. Like there's no humans there. Like they direct you to like this form to fill out and it goes nowhere. It just leads you to like an article to read. It's so bizarre. They got rid of every single human there. They're so tough to work with. I hope I wonder how Bing is like if you're able to do Bing and could be somewhat beneficial because technically like most offices have Microsoft right and they typically have Bing or. edge is their main one. Yeah, but I think it comes down to also the...

The search results are weird as fuck on Bing. Like, if you actually go and, like, search stuff, like, type in the same keywords you normally would, like video production Toronto for us, and you're like, whoa, this is so random. I don't even come through this. Do you guys find it to be interesting, like, one's harder than the other for, like, let's say like video production Toronto or Toronto video production? Yeah, we rank a little lower on Toronto video production, which is weird because technically it should be very similar. I think it's maybe like the order in which you write those words and your copy.

That's probably it. Yeah. I find it. Right now we're second page, like middle of second page on Google. And if I do, let me see, Toronto video video production. It puts us at. Oh, look. I'm on Bing right now, and I typed in video production Toronto, and LAPS production is the number one thing. Is that the ad? Is that an ad? It's not even an ad. No, I'm not even...

Really? I don't know how to share my screen, but... Oh, wow. Here, share screen. Yeah. Here, Windows. Dario, on Toronto video production, we're on the first page. Yeah, you see, look. No way.

No, wait. Second page, second page. Oh, that's... That's wild, actually. It's not an ad, right? I can't see because it's on my teleprompter. right now i don't want to click it but um oh nice it's definitely not an app because it doesn't say sponsor anything like that oh okay that's good to know all right and then here you are in the bottom too yeah yeah you're you're on the bottom one should be the ad i think and then this is you don't click it this looks like an ad i don't want to click it you're going to cost me two bucks my my uh

i i i love my mom my mother but uh she when i was doing the paid ads she would always click on it she would always have done the thing and i was like and i was like please stop you're you're killing me here um there goes the whole marketing budget for the one right she kept because proud mom is she would send it to her to because she works in um she sells junk mail um but she would send it to some of her clients and she would send the the link of google where it's like the the search result and it would be like the one or two and then they would click on the thing and i would like 50 bucks yeah and i was like you have to stop you have to stop doing that she was like oh i didn't know oh my god that's the thing that really

annoys me about like the like these uh these botted um uh submission submissions that i get because it's like man every time we get one it's like oh there goes a dollar 50 there goes probably two bucks and it's like it's the most random stuff too it's like who is out there actually like sending these out because i've been getting i don't know if you've been getting this lately but I've been getting who's the oh hit men for hire ads lately

like like like legitimate hitman for hire yeah not like legit it's fake it's fake ones but it's like and I it was I got a one in Spanish one in Italian like three in Chinese I would watch you back if I was like hire a hitman

basically like hire a hitman I'm like what the fuck like who is actually going through this stuff I've been getting a lot of like leads or like people feeling out to submission but they're clearly bots asking if I want to sell my my business and I'll sell the business I've been getting ones where it's like there's opportunities for collaboration ones as well yeah it's very like broad yeah it's always like I love your business I think there's great room for us to collaborate

and it's like what do you do and why does you have the craziest URL at the end of it or the best ones are also it's like I got a lead that wants to talk to you message this what's app number. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the other one. Those scare me. I delete those so fast because I'm like, I don't want to get scammed. The other day, like, you know those like, oh, you have a package at UPS, like it's

missing or whatever you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the time. I get that all the time. But the other day, I was doing a lens pro rental that was delayed. And I always am good of like getting it a few days before just so that way I have it, right? And it was delayed and I got one of them.

And I almost clicked on it. And I was like, oh, no. is that was a spam and it got me it almost got me and i was like i'm so glad i didn't you know there was one going around and this is related to our industry actually um i won't mention who it was but it was a podcast guess so i thought it was a legit one i got an email from them and it was like um to do like for an rfp i clicked on it and i'm looking at it i'm like this is a little weird you know like why would they forward me this i almost clicked on the other button on the site which would have like infected my uh my account and i email them i'm like yo i just got this thing for me

is this legit and emails me back as like no i got my account got hacked i was like oh my god i almost got hacked too yeah that's been going around a lot so like like maybe two or three years ago i got an email from what seemed like a pretty reputable production company asking for production support and they just wanted a PA and i was like i i don't do that but let me recommend you a PA that i really like working with you know throw him a bone turns out he got scammed like it was actually a scam where he had to pay them like $3,000, like wire them $3,000 for the production and he basically lost the $3,000 and I felt so bad, but I'm not going to do anything because you fell for a scam, bud.

If you're a PA, why would someone ask you to like wire them $3,000? And he's not a dumb guy. Like, I don't know why he was like, oh, man, I wanted to help. And I was like, you know better, dude. You know how that works. And he was just like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what happened. And then I remember emailing the guy like that owned the production company.

And he goes, yeah, my, not that he was hacked, but that they've been making, it's a different URL, but slightly, right? Like, let's say, like, laps production. They were, like, laps, days production. Like, something similar, like, when you Google, when you search Google, it goes to his website or, like, goes to his thing, but it wasn't that one. And now this one of my buddies, he owns a marketing company, and his website is now, they're doing the same thing.

His name is Fortune Marketing. I think they were called Fortune, like, marketing. or something like that and they're sending out scams like trying to get people to work with them like oh I want to work with you and then they're doing that same thing and it's like that's such a bad like social hack type of scam

there's one that like whoever's listening be careful for this one it comes from kitchen aid okay I think I saved it if I saved it I'll maybe let me see if I did save it because this was pretty interesting because you can

you can easily get hooked into it. Okay, so here it is. Oh, I deleted it. Shit. Okay, but the email handle was Ashley at KitchenAid-EU.com. Oh. This is a scam, okay?

I thought it was from KitchenAid. And the way they wrote the email, I thought it was from the company, right? It's not. It's not. It's totally a scam. They'll make you go through a couple of loops, and then it'll get weird. but like they even reply to your email so it seems almost legitimate yeah like i i wish i didn't delete it i should have saved it you let me see if i can they know how to social engineer it like oh

this seems like a pretty good oh they can use chat to be team like what would a marketing marketers say to a video product company to get this work and they'll copy and paste it there's that and they might also even like make the the changes even more superficial and minor like instead of like lapsed productions It's like laps production, you know? Or if it's me video pro, it's like me video pro with a D at the end of it, like, and then just kind of leave it like that. Like, it's getting like to the point where it's like if you glance over it, it looks the same and you wouldn't think twice of it, right?

So that's the main thing. You know, the interesting thing now is relating back to what we're talking about voiceover, like they could probably create the script, create the voice, or even like the scammer could probably in real time probably like change their voice call you up like try to trick you into you know sending them money like that PA fell for yeah jeez hon if you guys don't mind i need to use the restroom real quick yeah go for it we already did that once yeah the the the kitchen aid one was um and it comes like once a year it's this this is the second year in a row that i've gotten it um it's strange because

it it's asking for production work do you have have it on your end girl well maybe i saw it like you like in ashley at kitchen aid okay see if you have it it's uh just type in kitchen aid ashley no no just type in kitchen aid kitchen aid you should be able to find it no i don't have anything i don't have it but if anyone's listening like be careful with that one because that one was like it almost it almost tricked me but something wasn't right like they were asking for us to hire the talent and then like it was just very weird very very weird yeah anything like that i think i just i don't know it's that's weird that's weird that's weird that uh hopefully glad that you

didn't fall for it though like because yeah these they're getting i replied and i'm like i'm like something's off here i'm like yeah something's not right and i actually googled it and there's a lot of a lot of people reporting that one but it was for different things so it's weird that they're specifically targeting production companies that was a little weird but production companies are profitable for a lot of these scammers and thieves and everything right like remember what is probably more profitable based on what well yeah like I mean they're they're they're more impressionable too think about it like a lot of PAs especially ones who are probably getting into it you know they're more impressionable they're trying to impress these production companies you know

yeah but they don't have three thousand wasn't to send usually. I don't know. Maybe like a hundred bucks a day. I don't know that. Sorry about that. I have a notoriously small bladder. It's all good.

In matter of fact, I have a trailer that I would tow for projects. And anytime I have a long drive, I'll like pull off to the side of road, go into the bathroom, like have a little like specific like cup that I use for it and leak myself and get out. And then recently my mom was like, you know, what you need a bucket so she bought me a bucket with trash bags in it for like if some things are a little more emergency yeah oh my god the fact that your mom got that for you it tells us that uh like you had an interesting childhood that's for sure yeah there's been a lot of times we would have family road trips and they didn't want to stop so she would just like go to the trunk of the car like the

minivan and like just like use like whatever like giant cup we had and then like do it that way you do this now. You grew up you grew up not taking the time to pull over. Speaking of cups, I see the Stanley Cup coming up. Yeah, yeah. Every time we have a shoot, every time we have a shoot, first thing he does is like, where's the bathroom? I'm like, bro, we just got here.

Honestly, it helps. Like, that's like the first thing I always do. I'm always like, hey, where's the restaurant, real correct? I'll, like, run to it. So I take a lot of water in the morning. That's why, like, I want to make sure I'm hydrated. And then, lo and behold, as soon as you arrive on set, it's like, all right, where is it? Same thing. One time I was stuck in bad traffic. And I don't know what happened, but my GPS took me by my friend's house.

And it was like early in the morning. And I remember like, I was like, I can't anymore. I was like, I was seeing yellow. I like went on his door. I knocked on his door. And he's like, what the fuck are you doing here? And he's like, I got to use your bathroom. And I just ran in, went out and I was like, bye, Michael.

I love you. And then I just left. And he was like, I texted him. I was like, dude, I had to go so bad. I'm so sorry. I hope you close the seat after. Yeah. I just, I did it, I made a trail on the way out there and everything.

Oh, my God. No, yeah, I'm like really bad with it. But luckily there's always, there's always ways around it. You got to have friends in small places or in high places. That's for sure. At least in, at least though when you're stuck in traffic, you know, somewhere where you can pull off over too quickly, right? But anyways, kind of getting back to the conversation a little bit more. What are like kind of some of the next steps for you and your business in terms of

what you want to do. I mean, I guess Google and Google AdWords is now a part of it, but what are some other aspects or things you want to kind of focus on? Yeah. So I have been wanting to do a few different things, right? I think one of the biggest things I want to get into is more so kind of taking that next step in terms of certain things for production that I'm able to provide, meaning that I want to kind of make the jump into being able to do a little more rentals or working on the rental space a little more. So I do want to get a nice set of glass that we can rent out to productions and that, because we do a lot of rentals, and we're constantly sub-renting through a lot of people. So being able to have that glass, not only for our projects, but to be

able to provide it to them and we get a little more commission out of it. And then also getting a little bit of a big boy camera, whether that's a Venice or an R.A., just to be able to, A, provide that for rentals so we don't have to keep sub-renting it. And also to be able to have for our own projects. Aren't you worried about the renting, like that they'll damage your gear? I am and I'm not. So, like, as I've done it more and more, I feel a little more comfortable. They always have to provide you insurance. There's any issues. We have that like rental agreement where they have to do the repairs. Every now and then, a cable will break. So I literally had one come back last week that like I was laid Sunday where the cable was

damaged. It's an $80 cable. You have the credit card on file. You let them know about the cable that was damaged. Then it gets taken care of. So there's always that element of things. I don't fear it too much just because it's another business asset, right? I'm not buying it for myself. I'm buying it as another asset class to be able for the production. And I think when you lose that bit of a mindset, when you have that little mind shift, it helps out a lot. I'd be like, oh, I'll get damage or what have you.

I always try to have enough cameras on me. I don't have a lot, but I have enough cameras where, like, let's say, like, my C-500 goes out for rental. I at least have the C-70, right? and vice versa. So that's another aspect that I want to kind of get a little more into. And also those productions feels a little more well-maintained just because they're used to the structure.

You have the prep days and stuff of that nature. Another thing I want to get into is more of the bigger commercial space. Really focus on larger-scale commercial projects. That's more than just one day and really make that sell and pop. And the way to do that is just getting a little more friendlier with, with some agencies and some side there. So that's kind of like what my next steps are is, that was kind of a long-witted question.

Basically, expanding our rental market and then also being able to expand our commercial side of things. Are you handling everything? It's like, because you're basically the owner operator. ADHD. No, I think I don't find it too hard to manage. some like long nights there are some like you know working over the weekend but you know a lot of times too like when we are getting into a commercial project we typically will have like an ad that helps out a lot

with scheduling and planning that takes a lot of time off my back and there's usually like a budget for it there's also sometimes like for some projects we'll have a producer role a line producer that also takes off the producing side of things and i'm more so on directing when it comes to the gear side of things luckily there are some like PAs or ACs that I will kind of like

like let's say like we're doing production support right and we're able to hire out an AC for them they can come over here prep the gear as needed and take the gear out so I'm not really handling it too much and if it is if they're just picking it up I just have everything already encased so once they email me about something I can just send it out

through the case so I try to be really organized in that regard where like anything comes back it has its own case dedicated for it so that way it just goes out um for that the one thing that's i've always found interesting about the rental world is just the sheer volume of uh of bookings you would need to kind of pay over some of this equipment because when right when you're talking about rental equipment you're not talking about just like a four thousand dollar camera or a five thousand dollar camera always yeah that is part of it um but like if you're say buying a set of lenses that are like $50,000 and you rent them out for $500 a day,

you essentially need 100 bookings just to break even right on the on the equipment not not including all the labor and hours that it takes you know to like get it together send it off receive it make sure it's all fine you know like like since you said you're already kind of doing rentals like how have you found kind of that turnover in terms of like how did you yeah like in what way have you seen it and also become profitable for you that makes you want to expand it. So the reason why I want to expand it is that usually like if they're coming for you, like let's say like for a set of like Vista primes, right?

Or they're coming for you for like CP3s. They're usually asking for more than just that stuff, right? Sometimes they're asking for a camera package or they're asking, sorry, my dogs are going crazy, but usually they're usually coming for you for just more than just like how we were talking about earlier with like the traveling, right? We're traveling with like the basic necessities and then everything else is there waiting for them right um and a lot of times too like they're multi-day productions um so the way i like to look at it is that if i have at least if i let's say like if you were to let's say like

you were to finance it right so you're not putting that giant capital all up front in the beginning if you get one rental a day typically that tends to uh pay for your monthly of the of whatever the lease is um until a month you mean yeah like one one one day of production could, or two days of production, pays for your monthly. So as long as you're getting that rented at least once a month or at least 12 times a month or 12 times a year, it makes up for it. And then now you also own that set of glass or that set of items for your productions to make it pop more. So I don't try to, I don't want to buy equipment that I have to make the price up really fast. So like a red camera, those drop in

value like crazy. So that's like you have to go quickly. But if you buy a nice set of lenses that have been proven to always be kind of coming out, you'll see the consistency of it getting rented. And plus on top of all the other things that are needed, sometimes they need a DP too. So you're able to add that on too. So it does become an additional thing. It is a little extra stress in the beginning.

But once you start to see the movement there, it has definitely been a worthwhile thing. something I want to expand more to. And I haven't done the big purchase yet or like a pull the trigger on something crazy, but I am seeing the consistency of that market to be able to be like, this seems like a good idea to do. That makes sense. Yeah. You watch video of people talking about like, oh, buy an Alexa 35, right?

It's going to make total sense. And you think about it and you're like, I don't, I don't know if that can't happen. once you start seeing um like doing some of the other stuff and you see that kind of working for you um you could see why it makes sense um and if it doesn't work out you you're not buying something that's going to lose its value you try to buy something that's not going to lose your value so when you do sell it you're kind of at a at a small net loss or just a just a net um like you just break even from it yeah and you broke it down perfectly and um which i completely forgot about the whole leasing approach as well with a lot of equipment where it's like you're going to have

like a consistent monthly fee like say 500 bucks or something like that and yeah if you get at least one booking but the rates are high now the rates are pretty high yeah well yeah if you if you have to do like six seven percent but but again at the end of the day he's saying that if you're able to at least make up one or two bookings a month that pays for itself and then maybe a little bit on top of that so from a business standpoint it makes sense because you're You're not, you're basically needing to make a certain amount of sales every month to actually justify it. So what if, what if you rent it out and then the guy damages it and then the credit card can't cover that amount? Well, what do you do in that situation?

Never rent out unless they give you the proper insurance. So one thing that we're really big on, or actually a buddy of mine taught me this because he learned the hard way is so when they send you out the COI, like the, the system of insurance, they obviously have to have the amount of the items that they need covered for it. Right? And in your contract, they're covering any, any, what's it called when you have to pay a certain amount out of pocket? A deductible. They have to pay the deductible. Yeah. So they're in charge of doing deductible.

And that credit card really is just for that deductible if something were to happen. So like the other day, my buddy, he went to out pair of lenses. They set it out straight into the sun. damage the iris on it so you can't the iris is uncontrollable so message the production let them know about it they pay the deductible and the insurance cover the rest and it's their insurance that's covering the uh the repairs for it wait the sun does that to the yeah so okay these are these are not uh these are are our series prime so they're not the highest end lenses they're kind of on the more affordable side of things um so the iris is made out of plastic um oh it melted the

plastic yeah so so so the actual iris is like if it's like you're going like it's kind of hard to explain but it's like if you're going like this one of them got stuck into it oh so really yeah and i was i've never seen that before and the and the the lens technician was like showing us through the thing and i was like damn that's that's that's wild um but also too like i try to when doing stuff like that i always try to figure out what they're going to shoot it for and maybe i'll throw in a map box or an ND filter so that way they don't destroy it you know what I mean like so that way they take a little more care of it

so I'll typically like throw in one or two things to help maintain the product but in that case you have the they have to provide you the insurance so you provide them the insurance they provide you the insurance they cover you as a namey and you always call the insurance to ensure that their policy is active and this is just their business insurance or like do they need

to get special insurance it's a separate insurance it's a separate insurance through Athos or There's a lot of companies that do it, but there's a rental insurance. And so let's say, like, you have your camera insurance. You typically pay a little more a month or extra a month for a certain threshold, right? And you can do it per project. So let's say, like, if you have a project that, like, I need to rent out a 35, I need to increase my rental amount to cover that camera. And you can do that too, and you pay an additional fee for it.

So that's typically how it's done. By the way, for those, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, as you're saying. for those listening if you are renting out here make sure you take pictures and photos of the equipment before and after yes 100% we had a we had a close call recently where we didn't even use the item in question but for some reason it was damaged but luckily we had bt s photos to show that it wasn't being used at all but really just one of those things how to get damaged it must have damaged prior i think it was damage prior and we it wasn't us it was one of our shooters

that picked it up for the shoot because we were just sending a solo guy that day and um when it like the next day i get an email it's like hey the part is damaged and the guy's like we didn't use it at all and uh we just made a mental note after that to take pictures and photos uh when you grab it and then when you return it it was just a stand it wasn't yeah it was like a piece you connect to like the stand or something but even but we even asked them it's like this is the light we would have put on it that that type of light wouldn't have bent it so But I guess the benefit of that is also checking so that if we were to use it on set, you don't want to find out on set that something's broken, right?

So that's the other key thing. It's always good to have that like prep day before. I feel like doing that now more and more of like having a prep day, anytime you're renting gear, just to be able to make sure everything. Because when it's your stuff, you know it's confident that you can just show up and it's good because you take care of it or you have the guys that you work with take care of it. But, you know, having that prep day when you get new pieces of equipment, just make sure everything's working and fine.

helps because you just never know if you pick up something and then you're going to turn on and it's busted or like fried or what have you yeah but a stand is like one of those things where was it a C stand you know I was like this thing that attached to a C stand it was like a special piece we needed it's like a light boom basically that you put it on like stands I can find I can find the name for let me see doesn't really matter but the rental house had it broken yeah they're try to pot it off and get uh yeah i don't know it's odd because a lot of rental houses are pretty good of like double checking their stuff before sending it out or like letting you know into cracks yeah i wonder if it happened after we gave it yeah who knows though oh maybe yeah it could

have been that where like lunch it was dropped off someone might have accidentally some pa i don't know oh it was uh it was a matthews junior 2k boom Oh, like a boom stand? Like a boom arm? Yeah, like a boom arm, kind of, but for lights, essentially. No, it was, he had the C-stand. He needed to connect the thing so that he could put the backdrop on it. Oh, okay, so it was one of those.

Like, he needed the backdrop to hang off like this Matthews Jr. Jr. thing. But it got resolved, but it's just like a tip for. Where it's like a boom arm that goes on the... Kind of like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Similar. Something was just bent. You'll just put this on like a baby, like a, like a combo stand or a C-stand.

I can't believe you had it like just in the background. Yeah, I hate using these for C-stands, but I like to put them on combo stands better and just like be able to boom it out and stuff like that. They're great. We got to get one of those, actually. Yeah, what we were doing was we were having like a backdrop on that piece, so you know, to be able to handle that. Pro tip, and it's kind of hard to tell. But get one that has the baby pin attachment to it.

So right here, I'm going to take this out. What's it called again? This is a boom arm. This one is from impact. So right here, this little spigot, right? As you can see, hold on. There's, where the screw gets screwed in, right, there are some that have a lip that comes out of here

that means that you can't put it into a baby pin. So you need to get the one that. that's flushed so you can put that in a baby pin or because I I don't like putting this on a combo stand and using the automatic pin that it comes with I would I would want to use a a butt plug for that instead did you just say what did you just say right now a butt plug it's that's the the pin that goes on top like the baby pin attachment for a combo stand sure you don't know what a butt plug is a lot of terminology oh I know what it is a lot of interesting terminology I don't know I just don't know how to call it um I just like know how to call i mean just the how grips like to talk the rear plug maybe is the more professional way is it the rear plug i don't know i'm just i'm just i'm just making up it's probably just like a baby pen adapter or something like that behind plug baby yeah the behind plug do i do i get bleeped uh on these podcasts yeah it okay cool it would have been worse if we bleeped it yeah exactly we go we go we go raw with this leap plug okay a junior to baby pen adapter there you go that's the name of it

aka the butt plug which I recently lost one of mine but it's okay I barely use those things did you check behind no I didn't I haven't coughed yet so I might still be up there anyways

on that amazing note I think we're pretty much around the end point for the podcast but Manuel thank you again for joining us on the show and sharing a lot of interesting insights to the Miami scene and your

scene as well. Yeah, no, thank you guys. I really do appreciate you having me. I know this is probably like a big hoshposh a little different than what you guys are used to, but I'm glad. I like it. I like it. It's more casual. Yeah. I want to do more of the episodes like this a little bit, just to touch more casual so it's not as structured, you know. Do you want to co-host with us?

Yeah, bring me on every now and then. I'll throw like a bunch in the thing. We got to do a panel one of these days, you know. Oh, a panel will be fun. There's also a lot of guys that are just like fully like to mess around stuff like that. Not the mess around but like you know it's

again again we're not we're not saving lives here I mean you guys might be with our we were you forget yeah yeah yeah the safety videos are saving lives we dealing with pretty pictures all day and sometimes we forget that and it's just like

we can't like take ourselves too see I mean there's a lot of budget involved there's a lot of things involved but we had to you know just remember what we're doing and we're here to have fun play pretend one guy he's an engineer that I work with He goes, you're just playing pretend all day. And I'm like, I mean, kind of, right?

A little bit. Wow. People just say things to you, huh? I know, right? I've never had anyone be that blunt. He's got the mustache that twirls, so people can't take them too seriously. Right, exactly. Yeah.

They automatically assume I could take it. It's true, though, like half the time when you're doing a commercial, you're just playing pretend, right? So, you know, try to always remember that and just try to, I always try to keep things light, but also serious and professional at the same time. It's like, they say that, they say that, and then you just start it like this, then you just like wipe your tears with a little bit of money, you know? You know, like that you had just a bunch of tens just right there ready to go. It's only 10.

It's Canadian tens, okay? That's about American ones over here. It's a monopoly money. Does it, does it the equivalent of, does it the equivalent of American ones, people? Yeah. I love the Canadian dollars. They're, what are they called? They're called the Luni?

It's just the one dollar coin. It's just the coin. It's not, it's not referred to one dollar. Looney and Tune is literally just the names for the coins. It's like, it's like having, give me one of those George Washington's or. Oh, okay. Then Benjamins. I've been to Canada twice.

Benjamin's. Benjamin's. I don't think anyone's ever said, give me a George Washington. It's one dollar. Washington's. Give me a link in, which is going to be a penny. Oh, my God. That's funny.

Hold on. Wait, before we end off, where can people find you? Oh, so they can find me at, great question. So let me pull up my Instagram before I re-say that, if you don't mind doing a little cut. I mentioned your website as well, so they get that. And your rental company, too. Oh, it's just the same thing.

It's all under one house. I'm actually in the process of revamping the rental side of thing, so it's a little more structured like you could provide it okay so uh you could find me at uh me media productions which is going to be m i media pro on instagram or on my website which is going to be m i media pro dot com amazing anything else are you on tic talk or anything like no i'm not on i mean i have a tic talk from my like personal stuff but that's more so like my sci-fi like weird story thing so i don't need to promote that because i'm going to delete those videos but um i don't have like one from my business right now i want to check them out no no there so i uh did this thing while i was using

omni clip so like i would make these like youtube videos where they're like 20 minute long and then i would just cut them up but i decided to like not really watch them so i just started uploading them to ticot and they have they make no they're just all out of context and i was like maybe i should have like really reviewed it because i i understood it like if you watch it in order it's just the order of the video but the way that ticot does its algorithm is that it's just random so you're just randomly watching um a clip because i think like with youtube Shorts, it'll give it to you in the order because you can put part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

TikTok doesn't do that. No, it's random on YouTube shorts, too. Oh, is it really? Yeah. Well, just based on your algorithm, right? Damn, I got to fix that. Well, that's like a little passion project that I was doing for a bit, but I might get back into it or not, but you don't have to find me there. Just find me at memediapro.

com or anything at mymediapro.com. Awesome. Add him on LinkedIn. If you need to work, if you need help in Miami, he's the go-to guy. Right. And my LinkedIn's just got lenses and people. Yeah, lenses and people.

I think that's like one of my things. I know a lot of really well connected down here in Miami. So if you ever need any help or just need recommendations, I'm always happy to do it or chat about it. I know a lot of guys that can just send you away. Perfect. Well, thanks, Manuel. We appreciate it. No, thank you guys.

I really do appreciate it. And enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app. Creators Grab Coffee is created by LAPS Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creators Grab Coffee is also sponsored by... My name is Maran. 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 band packages. You can see our contact information in the link below. You're more than happy to help you guys out. Make sure you follow and subscribe to creatives scrapcoffee.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, fully, we service equipment, we do all your audio needs here in Toronto. We got you covered. Come on down, audio process.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe,

and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you. And we're all going to have a real good time. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next one. Thank you.