Creatives Grab Coffee - #110 New Years Goals, Growth, & Gen AI (ft. Signature Video Group)

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Welcome to Season 6 of Creators Grab Coffee! To kick off 2026, we’re joined by one of our OG guests—Chris Stasiuk from Signature Video Group. Chris is celebrating 16 years in business, and in this episode, we go deep into what it actually takes to survive and thrive for nearly two decades in the creative industry.Chapters00:00 Celebrating Six Years of Podcasting02:58 Reflecting on Business Growth and Goals06:07 Maintaining Momentum in Business09:02 The Importance of Marketing and Content Creation11:59 Navigating Business Challenges and Scaling15:10 The Role of Freelancers and Partnerships17:53 The Impact of Goal Setting and Manifestation33:32 Trusting the Process36:56 Navigating Client Loss and Diversification39:27 Maintaining Client Relationships42:36 Maximizing Content Value43:39 The Impact of Generative AI on Content Creation49:35 AI as a Tool for Creatives52:11 The Future of AI in Creative Industries🎙️ About Our GuestChris StasiukFounder & Creative Director — Signature Video Group🎧 Hosts:Dario Nouri & Kyrill Lazarov — Lapse Productions, Torontohttps://www.lapseproductions.com🎙️ About Creatives Grab Coffee:Creatives Grab Coffee explores the business of video production, featuring candid conversations with studio owners and filmmakers around the world on scaling, creativity, and industry evolution.👇 Follow & Subscribe:Website – https://creativesgrabcoffee.comInstagram – https://instagram.com/creativesgrabcoffeeLinkedIn – https://linkedin.com/company/lapseproductionsSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca#CreativesGrabCoffee #videographyhacks #videography #videographer #videoproduction #businesspodcast #videoproductionpodcast #lapseproductions #videomarketing #videoproductioncompany #videoproductionservices

All right, guys, welcome to season six of Creatives Grab Coffee. We've made it six years with this podcast. Six years. Congratulations. We've been recurring. And you've been recurring for, this is what, your third, fourth time maybe? I think it's fourth. I think it's four, yeah.

Six years, though. That's amazing. Most people can't stick to anything for more than a few months. So, kudos. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think we hit six months within the first year because there wasn't, as we mentioned before, not that much work happening in that time. So we kind of were obliged to those few months. I remember those days for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In 2020, we skipped the year. But it kind of works out nicely because then otherwise this would have been, it kind of matches the year we're in, right? 2026. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Because otherwise it would have been. seventh season in 2026. So kind of a little bit of... It's easier to keep track, you know, as time goes, you know, the mind starts to forget. And this is an easy way for us to keep track, you know?

Just that five. That's all I ever do. Just that five. And carry the one. And carry the one. Yeah. It's crazy because after six years, it makes you think about, you know, like what has happened over that, over the course of those six years and then it makes you start to think about what are we going to be doing now at the start of a new year. It's that classic thing. Like, what is... the what is everyone's resolution? What are everyone's goals for the new year? Especially from a business standpoint. Do you find that January is a time of big reflection for you in your business,

Chris? Or do you find that? Should we introduce them first though, Carol? We haven't, people might not know who this guy is. Yeah, I guess, you know, he's been on so much. You know, I figured the few audience members we have might already know him at this point. You got to recognize his face by now, right? All right, Daria, you want to do the honors? I mean, what more can I say about this guy? He's a nice guy. He's a nice guy. Now, for our new listeners, this is Chris from a signature video group here in Toronto.

He's one of the top production companies here. Like, I don't know what else to say. Check out his website. Like, they do fantastic work. You know what, Chris, I guess you give yourself an opener because I don't know what else to say. No, I mean, you know, I appreciate the kind words. Yeah, Chris from founder, creative director of Sing's Video Group. We are, yeah, one of the, you know, one of the respected, you know, creative and video agencies here in Toronto.

And we celebrated 16 years in business last year in October. So what a ride is then. Bravo. Bravo, man. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. It's like just, it's funny.

about like reflecting. So I, I tend to do like a lot of reflecting usually at the end of each year. So like December, I don't know if it's like I don't set a schedule or anything. It's just like my brain automatically turns to, okay, you know, we've got that year turning over what's next. What's going well? What could we be doing better? Like what kind of tools? What kind of trends? Yeah. And it's, you know, it's crazy talking about six years. Like, I cannot think of more changing in a six-year period than at any other point in my life, you know, both family, business, the world technology itself. I definitely want to talk generative AI a little bit with you guys today because I've been going deep, very deep on that. But yeah, what about you guys? Do you do reflecting at the start of the year, end of

year and what does that look like? We do it at the, we do it at the start of the year. Yeah, because I feel like we're just mentally tapped out. Well, not only that, not only that, everyone's trying to kind of wrap up their projects before they go away on Christmas holidays. There's two types of clients in December. The ones that are going to try to get everything done to the last minute before the holidays go, or they just ghost everyone two weeks before the holidays and then you see them in January. And this year was one of the years where everybody decided to try to get as much stuff done as possible. I remember it was literally the day before I flew off to the UK for vacation. People were like, okay, we need to get all these deliverables

done. And I'm at home editing. And then they're like, where's the videos? I'm like, I'm getting them. Don't worry. It's like, send me the files in case I need them. Yeah, those projects you've had like on ice or on hold or you're just waiting for something and then everything comes to that bottleneck in December and no I know exactly what you mean which of those clients do you prefer go the ones I just pay us yeah I prefer the ones if they're paying us I prefer them as a client yeah like table stakes yeah I don't mind finishing stuff before the holidays because that because it's so easy to start thinking um the days leading up to the Christmas break. Oh, you know what? Yeah, let's just move it into next year. It's next year's

problem, you know, but then next year is going to come within two weeks before you know it. It's a lot of stuff they're going to have to end up doing. And when I got back, when we got back from our break, there's a lot of the stuff that needed to be wrapped up. We actually ended up wrapping up sooner than we were expecting because things were a little bit smoother in the post side of things. Okay. And we were able to wrap up more projects before we went on break, which now, you know, coming into January, we have a little bit more time. to reflect. Like yesterday, Dar and I, we were talking for several hours about some things that we want to do in like the next couple months, how we're going to start prepping a little bit. And don't get me wrong, there's still work. There's still a lot of work to do, you know, coming back into everything. But, you know, it's, it's good. That's awesome. So what, what is on the plan for 2026 for you, Jen's? you know what it's it's not as much stuff compared to previous years and i don't know if

this is something you like you're you're obviously way farther ahead of us and more advanced as a company i don't know if you've been running into this but for us it's more so keeping the same flow as the previous year or two uh and then maybe just doing yeah same momentum and then maybe just doing some slight additional things like for us like if If we keep the same momentum as last year, that's pretty much good. The only thing I, like me personally, the one thing I want us to do more of is just more marketing. So like focusing more on creating content for our socials and the website.

And that's really it. Those are like the big things that are on like our horizon for the year. It's not like in the early years where it's like, oh, you know, we need to start focusing on like collecting more more data on our company. in terms of like margins, for example, or things of that nature. It's like I feel like we've reached a point where it's more like maintenance and just slight adjustments, adding in a couple more things. And that's basically it.

Yeah, you already know what works, right? Yeah. And one mistake a lot of companies make, which is some mistakes we've done in the past, you know, you start the New Year, it's almost like the personal New Year's resolutions. Yeah, I want to do a lot more of these types of projects. I want to do this, this and this. You start to put all these unrealistic expectations. yourself that set you up for failure in a way where it's sometimes not exactly realistic

in that sense. Last year, the biggest thing that we focused on was a lot of our internal processes because, you know, last year was tricky for a lot of different businesses and we started off the year with, well, basically, I was basically down and out. I had a, I had surgery in November on my knee, which basically sideline me for many shoots until about March, April time. But the unexpected benefit from that was that it allowed me to really focus on the post-production side of the business a lot more closely than I had the chance to do before. And that streamlined our post process amazingly. It allowed us to be a lot more efficient, figure out what we can delegate, what we didn't have to delegate, how we can speed up certain things, but still maintain

the quality that we need. And that allowed us to really kind of dial that in a little bit more. So that's kind of and Dario was focusing a little bit more on the business development and the outreach and the process of doing that with not only laps but also the wedding business that we started right ago so that's that was our big focus from last year and Dario's absolutely right this year now now that we have a lot of that more dialed in let's keep the same energy and momentum going just start with that and then just try to figure out different ways to to market things. Let's not do anything big or crazy at the start. Let's just start small. And I think that's what a lot of people forget to do is to start small rather than just trying to go for the big whale right

away, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Like figuring out the post production, you know, process, that was a huge unlock a few years ago for us where, you know, we have post in house, but we were always hitting a bottleneck. And so, you know, we went out to use freelance. answers and then we would lose a little bit of quality or lose a little bit of, you know, inside knowledge on that client or project. But we, we built a roster of a few really, really solid folks. And that's been a big bandwidth unlock. I imagine you guys feel the same, like most people who, you know, run creative businesses. There's only so much, I would call, like, what, mental bandwidth or mental load where you've got to be creative for the people paying you

to be creative. And then you've got to be creative for your own business. And then you've got to run a business, which takes a lot. So. Yeah. But what about yourself? What is on the horizon for 2026? You said you already started thinking about this in December.

So I think you're already at that point now, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a lot like you guys, which is nothing crazy, just sort of refining who we are, the story we tell, what, you know, what makes us different or, or special. I mean, I think we've talked about this many, many times. I remember even like, you know, the first time we chatted, like just how much more competition there is at every turn. There's way more, you know, small production companies. Lots of brands are taking content in house or they're using freelancers paired with AI or agencies. And so, yeah, like, how do you be different? How do you,

how do you prove your value? How do you make your value undeniable? That's really our focus this year. So that's what we say to our clients. We can help make your value undeniable. So now we're going to focus on ourselves a little bit. I think, what's that phrase? The cobbler's kids have no shoes. And so, you know, we haven't made content for ourselves in a very long time, you know, updated our website, our portfolio. So, you know, just those type of maintenance things and just showing the world like, hey, yeah, we have been working for the last two years. Yeah, we're in the same boat. That's the exact same boat we're in. Yeah.

Because you also want to be like authentic in a way, you know, and not do anything too forced because we've all done those types of personal content. where it seems a little bit forced, you know, put yourself, I mean, it's important to put yourself out of your comfort zone, but, you know, figure out what your marketing language is for your business, right? It's almost like what you do with clients. You know, I always, I always say, we have to remember to treat ourselves as a client as well, you know. Absolutely. And actually set aside time for that. Yeah, you have to or else you'll lose momentum at some point. Like, if you take your foot off the gas, and I've done that, I've made. that mistake, you know, a few times in the run of the business. And every time I've taken my foot

off, that gas pedal, because we have enough clients or we're too busy or, you know, we've got a big pipeline. Every single time I've stepped off, things tend to really slow down six months later. And so I'm not going to make that mistake again. Actually, it's a good thing to kind of reflect on that you mentioned about taking your foot off the gas pedal. But essentially when you take off, when you take your foot off the gas pedal, you get caught up in your own business. So what would you say was like the first sign that you've noticed in the past where, you know, you weren't focusing on the business as much as you should have? Because you kind of get caught up into the day to day. You get caught up with the client work or with the sales or whatever it might

be. What is the first kind of thing you noticed that you've done that? I mean, I remember the first summit really, really faced it. This would have been probably 2015, 2016, something like that, where we had for the first time like a nice sort of stable, of repeat, reliable clients, like a good pipeline. We just wanted a really a big project. And all of these new RFPs were coming in or leads or, you know, older clients that wanted to do something. And I remember just feeling really overwhelmed. And at that point, we said no to some of those new projects. And we didn't put our full effort into some of those RFPs. And of course, when you do that, you don't win those projects. And yeah, we ended up with, you know, really slow period. And so,

you know, because these things are cyclical. And, you know, not all of our projects are retainer. And so, yeah, I remember, I remember feeling like really panicked at that point when I had all of this overhead and not enough cash flow. And so luckily, you know, we made it, we made it through that. But, yeah, I said to myself, we'll not be making that mistake again. And it's not about like hammering the gas, but I think it's just about being consistent and, you know, doing the things that you know work. If you do good things for your business every single day that compound, that's how you win the long game. Do you think that's kind of inevitable? Because, like, you know, at the time we were like, I don't have the bandwidth or the capacity to really focus on doing these proposals.

Like, do you think that's just something that happens? Because, like, it's not like you have other, it's not like it's easy for us to scale up as easy as it is to scale. down, right? So do you think that's just like a natural roadblock you're going to hit as a business owner? Yeah. So I mean, as a business owner, you definitely need to make sure you have a strong pipeline. So not only are you handling, you know, what's here today, but knowing that you've got, you know, a level of certainty in the future. And so, you know, in some cases, maybe it's adding somebody to the team to help with XYZ or, I mean, honestly now with like agentic AI platforms, even like this one, for example, like using Riverside for podcasts, I imagine when you first started this podcast, it would take you hours to edit.

I would think this thing is going to be pretty much auto edited for the most part in, you know, in a few minutes and it can be put out tomorrow. So we can find the tools that really speed up our process. actually going to be posting this one tomorrow so yeah it's definitely set up our our workflow quite a bit it's incredible right and as long as it doesn't get in the way of doing good work then why not and everybody else is also using those tools so you kind of have to uh to stay competitive yeah so i guess the point i was getting to i guess would be then that you know no matter what even if you're overburdened or at capacity with a lot of the projects and whatever,

you should still always prioritize the leads coming in, no matter what. And then I guess you'll just figure it out when it comes down to that. I mean, I think as a general rule, like you want to make sure that you keep that pipeline full. But what's that saying like one in the hands worth more than two in the bush? So you certainly would never want to sacrifice your existing work. to bid on something bigger, better, shinier, whatever. I think there's just like a level of nuance. But you guys know when like a good lead comes in,

something that you know that you would be really good at doing and a great fit and they're a good fit. It's never a good idea to not try to win that business because that is actually how you scale. And that's why you need to have resources and manpower at your disposal for those types of situations. You know, it goes back to that classic saying, you can't do everything yourself. You need to have a reliable group of people around you where you can scale up.

And if, for example, even if you're completely busy and it's a little bit harder to kind of take things on, maybe consider hiring some of the people that you've worked with in the past who can basically handle that, manage that, or at least execute on the work. and then you can just kind of coordinate and produce the con produce that from that point. Whatever you can do to kind of keep the business, you'll have to figure it out. And you figure that out with every type of situation. You know, first, if you're handling two projects and then a third one and you think you're too busy, then a third one comes in, you figure out how to make it work, then now that's your new standard.

And then you can handle up to three projects at a time. But then in the future, then a fourth one might come up. And then you have to figure out how to do that. So that's, I mean, that's the classic way of also skill. scaling up, right? But as Dario mentioned before, in our line of business, it is a little tricky to scale, especially with quality. So it's kind of like finding, experimenting to find that sweet spot essentially, right? For sure. It makes me think so much back to, like, I worked in restaurants and bars, like my whole life through school, even the first five years of running this

company. I did nights and weekends at the, at the keg. And it's, it reminds me a lot of when you have like a really busy restaurant section, you know, just I think a lot of the time, if you acknowledge folks and let them know, saying, hey, like, we are a little busy, right? This is in regards to new leads. We're a little swamp right now, or we'd love to talk about your project, but, you know, just to be transparent, we won't be able to get at that for four weeks, six weeks, March, whatever it is, unless they're on some sort of deadline, I find that's actually a really strong signal to them that, you know, hey, you're busy.

Folks want to work with you. And more often than not, they will wait to work with you in that case. Nice. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Carol. Yeah, that was just an interesting point you mentioned that sometimes they will tend to wait for you before you're available. have we had a situation like that where elite has waited for us to complete our workload

because I feel like that's more rare than I mean we haven't really had situations where aside from just like I mean it hasn't we haven't had situations where it's like oh you know we won't be free until like a month from now and then they were willing to wait for that at most has just been like

they specifically wanted to shoot on a certain day no no we haven't really had those situations Carol. So that's why I'm curious. If we're not available for a shoot day, like, I might tell them I can put a different team on it. But we haven't really had situations where it's like, no, we won't be available all month.

Yeah. It depends on the type of shoot too, right? So if they have a hard date that they need to shoot something on, then that is the date, especially if stakeholders, executives, if C-suite's involved, it's happening. they will move heaven and earth to get that 30 minutes of that executive captured, for example.

Yeah, I'm always, I'm always curious how they figure out these sweet spot dates sometimes for all these C-suite executives. You know, just sometimes finding out a day to hang out with two friends can take a little bit of time, you know? It's like, when can the, when can the boys get together, you know? It's like, oh, maybe on this day, you know, whereas you're dealing with huge companies with people. Like, do they basically do a search on everyone's calendar? It's like, here's a 30 minute potential window where everyone is in. I guess, I guess. But, you know, it's still crazy to think.

I mean, we had a situation in December where we've got a great client. We do a lot of work with and they wanted to do a partnership video with OpenTable. And so we talked about it for months and it was kind of like a, like a partnership. pretty good green light, but it all came down to the access of that open table executive. So there we are in December, or I guess it would have been late November at that point. And yeah, they got they got confirmation that this guy was available for 90 minutes on X date. And it was an NYC. So we had to basically, you know, move a bunch of things around to make it work so that we could go down.

because this was the window. And we could have said, oh, well, can you try to reschedule? But we're not the ones dealing with that side of things. And so if you try to get them to reschedule a major partner, it's not a good look. So, final way. This was in November, you said. I think, I think we shot this in December. Yeah.

So we, but we only had like a five day, almost like a five or six day window. to put it all together, get down to New York, you know, figure it all out. So, yeah, but it worked out great. And so, you know, mission accomplished. We also had a shoot in New York in November. So I thought we just barely missed each other. That would have been funny. No, it was at the beginning of November.

Yeah. What a wild city, eh? I love it. It's so nice there. Yeah. Daryl loves New York. That's like, that's his favorite, that's his favorite city. I would say.

Oh my God, it's like, I don't even need coffee with it. It's just such an energy around. You're like, oh, okay, I like this.

Totally. 24-7, right? Is that, is New York the city that never sleeps or is that Vegas? I guess, I guess,

depends on who you ask, I guess, right? I feel like Vegas is the city you never wake up from. And New York is the one that never sleeps. Yeah,

until you're broke. That's right. Yeah. Then you got to go back, make some more money, and try again. Chris, I remember when we met at your Christmas party, you brought up something interesting about how you had a really good year,

I'm 2025, but that was because of a certain. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? I thought it was an interesting thing. Yeah, I mean, I guess last year was a little bit of an outlier. You know, we've had good, steady, somewhat predictable growth for pretty much 15 years in a row. But last year was an outlier year in terms of on the upside. We had some pretty big one-off projects, and we had some big projects that got bigger.

And then we had a couple of new clients that really pushed the pace with us. And so, yeah, you know, it was, that was a challenge in itself. Like we talked about working on the business. We really took a backseat to working on our own business, telling our own story last year, just because we were, I don't want to say it was like survival mode scramble, but it was very, very heavy workloads and some major sprints. There were, you know, there were situations where in, you know, over two weeks, we would shoot like four or five projects.

just because of how, you know, how the schedules fell and aligned. And so, I mean, I don't need to tell you guys that that is, that is very challenging. It's exhausting, too, because, you know, long, long days and lots of physical work and mental work. And then, you know, I've got two little little girls at home as well. And so they don't take days off ever. And so, yeah, it was a, it was a really, really crazy year. I would say a little, look, I'm not looking a gift horse in the most at all, but it was tough to manage.

Yeah, the thing I thought would be interesting to kind of explore a little bit was the fact that like, you know, we've spoken about predictable grove and what you can expect in a given year. But to have like a year where like it goes way above what you were expecting, like you kind of need to scale up your processes, your team. potentially and then to kind of know that okay next year is probably not going to be like that to then scale back down but I guess some people might also fall into the trap of thinking oh well if this year I doubled then next year I'll double as well or all maintain this right but then totally yeah I mean you make a great point which is like okay I had a great year I better scale up so I can manage this but you know then there's also the other mindset which is which is knowing or having an understanding of how likely is this to repeat.

We had some like some really, really big one-off projects, you know, kind of happen. And I've also seen this in the past where we have had banner years. And I think what you do in those years is, you know, make haywell to sun shines and also then save away for a rainy day. I tend to not, you know, hire a new person or, you know, make a big investment unless it's, at least in my mind, almost a certainty that it is fully covered because when you scale down, that's, that's massively disruptive to you, your team, potentially your clients.

And it's an emotional, it's emotional challenge, right? scaling down is brutal. And so you want to try to avoid that whenever possible. Yeah, because you hit the nail right on the head where people make the mistake of overscaling when a lot

of work comes in because they panic that they may not be able to do the same next year if they don't scale, right? And we've heard time and time again from guests on the show that that's one of the biggest mistakes they've encountered in the past was when they would hire too many people

for the next year because based on what they did that year, because they got caught up in it. They got, yeah, they may have looked at the numbers and saw that everything doubled, but where were those sources coming from? As you mentioned, you had a lot of one-off projects this year, which doesn't constitute the need to hire someone full time. Because at the same time, even people that you know have been coming to every year for a certain project isn't also necessarily always certain at the same time. Like just recently, for example, there was this one conference that we've been doing a project for at the start of the year, every year, for the last five years, which is great consistency, right?

But this is the first year where this client decided to not actually do this conference for the first time in that time. So it's like, oh, okay, well, now this is the first year where we have that kind of small gap in terms of a project that would have been there, right? we had a dedicated animator that was always doing the same project. We kept the same team together, you know, so we can execute exactly what they want, because they had a very specific vision in mind. But if, say, for example, we went from the mindset of, oh, they come every year. Let's just hire this, let's just hire our editor or animator on a full-time basis, knowing that he's going to be doing this constantly, and then also this project that's going

to be coming up and this project, again, we never know. and especially in this industry, we just never know. And we have to keep talking about that because people may forget. You know, like the greatest, I think, not deterrent, but I guess the greatest tool to combat, those ebbs and flows is building that really strong, you know, freelancer roster or partner roster. Or, you know, for example, like guys like yourself, like when we're too busy, we send work right to you guys. because I know you're going to do a good job, and the client's going to get a great thing.

And so, yeah, if I didn't know you guys, then maybe we would just say no, and who knows where that goes. So try to keep it in the family as much as possible. Like one of those, well, the big, big project that I referenced, which I can't really say too much about, we were able to pull that off because of a very, very strong, you know,

rolodex of like super seasoned folks that could step up to the plate when they needed to. So it was, it was quite an achievement. It was a small piece of a really big movie,

which was a new thing for us as well. So lots of, lots of lessons on that project. Nice. Nice. Yeah, I guess that kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier,

about how like, you know, during slow times, just work on your business, right? Because that's part of the ebbs and the flows, right? So if things slow down, that big project that's not here right now in January. But to be honestly, that one got replaced by another one. So one closes, another one opens, right?

Yeah. Don't you find that to often be the case when you're doing all of the right things and a door closes and then like 15 minutes later or three days later or whatever? But it's like it's almost replaced by something equal or better, you know, the universe doing it's very, I don't want to sound like, you know, those people that are believe in like woo-woo magic or whatever, but like, but sometimes I find

that like if I write something down and I just like, if I'm working towards a goal and I know I'm just being honest and I'm just trying to like just be a good business person, like, things just come, you know, like that's why I don't really get to. like stressed about like stuff that might not be coming in during a slow season or whatever because I know it's like okay well as long as I'm working on this and whatever like something will come it's it sounds crazy but as long as I write something down like a goal because I check at the end of the actually at the end of each year I usually I have like a Google Keep note with like a bunch of goals and I usually check it at the end of the year and I'm like oh wow like most of them

actually I accomplished that literally just all I did was just just write it down and it just visualized it or whatever and it kind of happens, you know? It's crazy. It works. Goal setting, manifestation, like quantum entanglement, whatever you want to call it. I mean, look, that's way above my pay grade, but I feel the same way that you do, which is when you put good energy out, like focused, positive energy, it tends to come back down the road. And it's also trusting the work you've done and your processes.

Once you're able to do that, that gives you the confidence to also be able to think like that. Because as Dario mentioned, when I found that out yesterday that this project, for example, wasn't happening. You know, it wasn't the end of the world because, yeah, something else already had replaced it at that point. And the one exciting thing is also now I also think to myself, okay, now this gives us time. to do something different and something new that we haven't been able to do around this time last year. And yeah, you know, you can really look forward to kind of what else is going to come through the front door. And you know, you know, as long as you keep trusting the process that you've put in place with your team, you know that something else is going to pop up eventually. I mean, we've been doing this for, you've been doing this for 16 plus years.

You know, I think that's a proven enough track record to know that there will be work coming in. at some point. So yeah. And you know, and also too, like one of the one of the big advantages of like time in game is your work and your relationships and all of the good things you do tend to compound. Right. So that entire portfolio is now in play. Now you may have a great apples to apples comparison piece of work that you can show this new prospect. Whereas two years ago, maybe you show them something that was awesome. didn't quite get it. So maybe it's an apples to apples thing. But I do think it's an interesting thing, an important thing for us to talk about, which is like what happens when a small

business loses a big client or a big piece of certainty. I know if you've ever seen the show Mad Men, there's like a famous story arc there where their biggest client is called Lucky Strike. They're like a cigarette and tobacco company. And I can't remember which season it is, but I think this makes up like more than half of this agency's billings. It's significant. They've had this client for decades. And of course, inevitably at some point, that client just leaves. And so it becomes a whole storyline of how do we survive?

How do we make it through this? What do we do? And years ago, I had a lucky strike moment. where, you know, we were a lot smaller, but we had a big client. And it's not even like, it's not like they let us go or they moved on kind of exactly what you just said. The thing that we were doing for them just, it didn't exist anymore. And that was, that was tough. That was, those were some, some scary moments, but, you know, we, we learned quite a bit from that. And I think the lesson,

From that is don't put all your eggs in too large of one basket. You really want to make sure that you know, you've got some, you've got to spread it out and have diversity. And it's it's a glittering lure taking on those mega, mega projects with like lots of upside. But you have to think, what if you don't pull that off? That's a big risk to your business. So what would be kind of like, you know, for a lot of people who are also. starting in this industry, what would you say is the first step to diversifying yourself as a business or even just in terms of the work you do? What is one of the first things, you know,

now that you've been in this for so long that you need to do that? I mean, the biggest thing, I think, and I think as creators, we don't do a good job of this is maintaining good relationships with good existing clients. You know, we'll finish a project. It'll be awesome. They love it, maybe they're even using it properly, but time goes by. You don't keep in touch. You don't let them know what you're up to. And when you do that time and time again, eventually you wonder like, I haven't heard from these folks in a while. And so I think just maintaining relationships with good existing clients or previous clients, letting them know, you know, what you're up to or what you're working on or, hey, we just did this thing.

that's really cool that might be interesting, you know, for your business and just always, always providing value with, with those engagements. So it's not just, you know, hey, here is what we're up to. It's like asking them, giving them a little bit of value. Yeah, like, I think that's, that's how you win the long game. It's relationships and, you know, slow and steady wins the race. Yeah, and I think you really need to think about how. you're going to do that as well because I don't think it's as simple as oh we're just going to do a quarterly newsletter because you know because of this podcast I get added to those to people's newsletters so I kind of see like the campaigns they sent to their clients and I'm just like most of the time I'm like

I mean like it gets lost it gets lost in your emails too not just that it's like you look at it and you're like is would I be interested in it because I was trying to think about things from like the client's perspective and if I got something like that it's like it feels low effort you know like I feel like in today's world that's really changed like the way you communicate and you market to your clients really has changed and you need to think about how do you how to do that in like the modern world so that's kind of why my focus for this year for our company is like really try to figure out like our marketing approach because yeah we have the SEO that's fine Google as that's fine but like that's that's back that's that's back that's more so for for

leads at the end of the day, right? It's not for existing clients. And like in today's world, it's funny, we preach about this all the time about how video is the future and, but we don't do it for ourselves. So I was thinking like, how do we mark it? And you really need to put your face out there, put some video content out there, and then just put it out into your organic circles, right? Newsletters, I don't know, because like I get a lot of emails. I get added to newsletters as well, like from my clients too. And I look at it. I'm like, I don't know what the point of this is. Like it's just next, you know, like maybe we got to do the old school Michael Scott approach. You know, we got to go with the gift basket with the gift basket of turtles, chocolates and just drop it off at our clients.

Handcake luncheon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're going to be doing. You know, another, another way to combat, you know, that issue that we were just talking about is the way you approach your business with your existing clients. So almost never are we talking about just one-off projects or even if it is a one-off project, we're capturing it and organizing it and segmenting it in a way that we can come back to that and we can use that footage. We can mix and match footage from multiple shoots.

We've got one client, awesome, a luxury real estate brand we've been working with for, I guess, five years now. And something last year really cool happened where we've shot all of this beautiful cinematic footage, each for their own specific individual project. But they wanted to make a national TV commercial with stuff we'd already shot. They didn't want to shoot one single frame. And so we were able to make a series of really strong spots that hit the mark. They weren't just repurpose content. it was just their base layer of content completely reimagined. And that's a massive value unlock for them because it is way more inexpensive to reimagine

what they already have than go and shoot new stuff. And it's also a huge unlock for you because, you know, the most time intensive, labor intensive, cost intensive thing we do is going and shooting new content. So that just creates, you know, good, strong. It's a great value play for everybody. Did they approach you to do that? Or was this an idea you pitched them?

So this is an idea that we pitch most of our clients, which is we don't really tend to do one-off projects unless it's something really special. Just because of the effort it takes to get started up and briefed and really understand their brand, because we're making content at like the brand level. so it'll be seen by a lot of really important people. And so we tend to approach most projects with,

hey, this is how you're going to get more mileage out of this footage. And in fact, even how we capture the footage itself. We've gotten really good. I just mentioned the open table thing in New York, when you only have 90 minutes, like from in the door, out the door, how do you squeeze every, single ounce, every frame out of that opportunity. And so we've we've come up with like lots of tips and tricks on exactly how to do that. And you know, they leave with lots of stuff and they

feel feeling really excited about what they just participated in as well. And that's, that's the battle as well. Making sure you're everybody on set is having an awesome time. For us, it's every day. But for them, it's a really, really cool day. And make sure you capture those moments and remind them how fun that was. And just, you know, that you're just thinking of them. Yeah. Sorry, let's go into Gen. AI.

And then I think we'll wrap it up after that. Because I know you wanted to touch on that. Yeah, you were excited. Yeah. I really want to get into that. Yeah. Well, so, I mean, there's, it's like, it's overwhelming to look at. There's so many models and there's a new model.

it seems like every couple of days. And so over the holidays, I think I saw an ad for one of the AI platforms. This one is called Higgsfield AI. And I was seeing a bunch of like really amazing, cohesive. I wouldn't say ads, but like mini films that people have been making are sequences. And so I checked it out. I got a really, really good deal on credits.

and I've been spending most of my nights just going deep into the night, playing with all of the different tools. What's cool about this one is it has its own generative model, but it also has basically a front end for a bunch of the other models. So depending on the best use case, it picks the best model for you. So maybe it's nanobanana for a photo and then for a video, maybe it's like Sauru or Seed Dance or maybe it's the Higgsfield model or VO3.1. It just knows which model is best at that thing. But the real unlock came with this thing they have called, I think it's called Cinema Studio or Studio Cinema. And what's really cool about this, it uses their model, but it lets you pre-select the camera lens, aperture, all of the camera control so that across all of your generations, you get a completely

consistent look and feel. And it's been blowing my mind what's possible. The very first one I did, I remember it was like over the holidays. I just took a little cell phone photo of one of my little girls like Barbie dolls. And I brought it into, you know, into this to this platform. And I just said, hey, like animate her to come to life and she's on a beautiful beach and shut on, you know. I think it was like a, what did I use? Like an Alexa 35 Panavision C series 50 millimeter animorphic lens.

Anyways, there's the photo, there's the photo of that Barbie. And then she just, she stands up and now the beach folds down. And there's beautiful like sun hitting behind her and flaring just like anamorphic lens would. And that was from, you know, a two, you know, a two sentence prompt. And that just blew my mind. And then I showed, I showed the girls, you know, this video. And so then we spent, they were blown away. they wanted to watch it on loops.

We spent the next two days bringing their toys to life. So I've got like, you know, I took a photo of Gabby's dollhouse with my, my bigger, my bigger five-year-old. And all of a sudden I could bring Gabby to life and make a whole animated sequence by myself in a few minutes, something that would have taken an animator. Who knows? And it's, it's hard to. wrap your head around that level of power and I don't know it's I don't know what to make of it

yet but I I do feel deep in my gut that it's a tool I really really really need to learn and understand just for my own piece of mind but it's such a powerful tool we use we do a lot of dockwork and I think tools like this are really cool where you can take Take a, get a, you know, like, you know what they say like when you're shooting like a doc or a corporate? When in doubt, shoot signage on the wall or little photos or just coverage. Yeah, shoot coverage. Now you can bring that coverage really to life in an amazing way. So you can really enhance transitions or chapter titles or setups.

It's, it's mind boggling, how powerful it is. I feel like it's going to become the new stock footage. standard eventually. I think that's kind of where it'll be the first big disruptor for the industry because a lot of the time right now we still have to shoot content with people

and I found there were a few things that the way you were describing it that kind of drew me to something. We had a project at the end of last year one where I unfortunately wasn't able to be there. I think we had two shoot scheduled

for that day and I was on another one and for this other one we were able to shoot a bunch of things, but we had a very limited time with subjects that we couldn't really do a lot of direction with. We won't go into the details of why, but as a result, we couldn't get as much coverage as we probably would have liked. And when I was putting the video together,

I went to some stock footage sites and I was able to find some stuff that was somewhat, we were lucky that it was relevant to the content that we were there, kind of matched. But I was thinking about if it was a situation where I couldn't do that, this is where something like this model might actually come into play. So I think that's probably the next big disruptor where these generative AI models are going to really help content creators and people, right? And the other way that you were describing it also got me thinking about how, for example, what it might do for video is kind of like what Unreal Engine 4 did for the gaming industry, right?

The way you were describing it, immediately made me think of that. It's like, oh, it's almost going to be like a blank slate for people to create games. You know, this is probably what it'll be like for video as well. Absolutely. And, you know, I think the, I think the key here is to use these tools if they enhance the story, if they make it better. Like, I always think back to the original Matrix, the Matrix, right? And so I think the reason that movie was.

such like a mind explosion because of like the bullet time. It made the story better. It wasn't just a cool effect. It was such a great way to tell a story of how it exactly. It fit. And I think that's that's the key here. But I think what's exciting for creators like us who understand the language of film and cameras and telling a story,

we have a head start on how to properly use these tools to create a cinematic image or sequence or whatever we can think of in our mind. Now we can actually make it if I wanted to do like a drill blowing apart so that I can see all of the inner workings of that thing, like a commercial type thing. that would have taken, who knows how much time, previously time, money, effort, back and forth, sign-offs. Now I can rapid prototype that thing, and it may not be exactly what we need, but I can show somebody what I'm thinking now very quickly. It's amazing for storyboards and mood boards and things like that. I'm not suggesting we use it to replace shoots.

I think actually certain types of projects are more important and valuable than ever, especially for companies that have real world assets, people, places, and things. I think they need to lean into telling those stories more because real world, I think, is going to have a little bit more value going forward. If you can prove that you're a real company, a real place, real things, real people, real clients, happy clients, you absolutely should be telling those stories. I mean, I just think it's just going to be another tool in our arsenal. I don't think it's going to, like the fear last year, especially beginning of last year.

I think we had you on and we were talking. Sorrow was just coming out. We were talking about that. And like there was like fear what people were talking about about how this could potentially replace us. But you look at it now and it's like, it's just going to be an additional tool that we use. So like the way I see us using it is like Carol mentioned, if we need additional B-roll that we weren't able to get, we could maybe feed it some images and then it just creates like a video

version of that. And especially if it's going to be like a one to three second shot, you can kind of get away with it. Maybe like, you know, you're doing an interview and the subject looked away and you need to use that specific moment and you need, you just adjust the eyes to look at that. the camera or they fumbled a specific word and you didn't realize at the moment so you just get it you already have enough data from them talking so you just have the have the AI just fix the word up that's how I see it being used I think that probably the best uh use case for this tech is is you like the viewer not even noticing that it's being used like for example uh some movies that incorporates CGI where you would like you need to be shown where it was used and like the

behind the scenes like footage. It's like, oh, they used it in that context, right? I think poor uses of it are going to be painfully obvious. It's almost like CGI in movies or it's like the human eye still is able to tell it's fake, right? No matter how many millions Lucasfilm uses what I'll you can still tell it's, it's CGI and it doesn't look. I don't think it'll ever pass that uncanny Valley effect anyways. So for us, it's just going to be something we incorporate in our workflow. Sure, some things we won't need to go all out on anymore. Like, for example, audio ops, I think, are that's going to be like a little risque going forward in the future, unfortunately,

just because, you know, it just is what it is. Makeup as well. Like, that's the one thing I see kind of like going out. Crew sizes will definitely shrink a little bit. That's probably more so due to budgeting, if anything. But, yeah, it's just going to be an additional too. I don't think that whole fear of like, oh, we're just going to get completely replaced. I don't think it's there.

Once it gets to that point, to be honest to you, I think a lot of other jobs are in trouble, too. So, I mean, well, it's a massive product. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. I was just going to say, like, it's essentially going to really help out the most in parts of our business where people won't know. Like, as I already said, people don't notice it. Like, the work that doesn't get noticed is oftentimes some of the best work. And that's what people have usually said about audio.

And that's why that is one of the first places where it's already starting to disrupt a lot of things. It's already helped us a lot out in our workflows, especially when there are tighter deadlines. And, you know, a lot of the time clients don't notice, you know, if you're going to put a huge amount of work behind certain, like, audio editing and things like that, right? And then sometimes something simple is all that's needed based on, it all depends obviously on the kind of work that you're produced. but that's one aspect of it. Another one funny use I found in the past was there was one project where a client needed to create like a short ad, but the only asset I was given from this client was an old ad that was used before and they didn't have any raw footage.

So I had to take two second frames from that. It was like a tourism type video, right? Two second videos, clips from it. And then I was able to do the AI extend tool. And that thing is amazing to give time. But that's like one of those small aspects where it's used as a tool. It's not used to replace anything. Because you already, that footage is already shot.

It's literally just extending existing footage. So it's kind of like. And it's helping out. Yeah, exactly. What needs to another, like I think another big unlock for for small creative firms. I actually think this is like the holy grail tool for. for small creative firms because, you know, in the old world, it's the big agencies that when the big brand work and it's, you know, you can never get an opportunity to pitch anything

to anyone. But now you can make that spec ad exactly the way you want it to look. In some ways, you can deliver something that is as good of a finished product that they're already creating. and get it in front of the folks. You can say, well, you don't have to imagine this. Look with your own eyes. You can really, you know, bring ideas to life by yourself at night, at a computer, all of those things swimming around your head. I'm sure, like, I have books and books and books of just, like, ideas that I write down all

the time, little mole skins. And so one of the things I'm going to do this year is I'm going to go through those. and maybe make a few spec ads just for fun where there's no actual client saying, this is the ad I always wanted to see for this brand. And now I can make that thing and then say, hey, what do you, what do you think? Do you like this? You know, not even hoping that it leads to business. It's just that's something I always, I was like, oh, that would be a funny commercial

if XYZ. And now I can take it from a page on a book to something you can actually see. You know what it makes me think of? There's your marketing content right there. You know what it makes me think of as well is that like when, like we're looking at all these video AI tools with the same kind of enthusiasm we had when like the early iterations of chat GPT were out. We're like, oh, look, I can just ask it this and it does that. But you look back on it now and you're like, wow, that was horrible. Like you can't even use it.

And I mean, even now, like, when you use a lot of these AI programs, like, maybe it's just me. I don't know, but you kind of see the limitations. And you're like, wow, I really got to prompt the hell out of this thing to get something that looks decent. But you read and you're like, I can tell this is written by AI, right? So probably six months to like two years from now. We're going to look at all these AI tools for video and go like, it's okay. Like, it kind of gets a job done. Like, but it's not there yet.

you know, so we'll see where it goes. I mean, like, they were pushing the, the whole AGI thing last year. They said, oh, it's right around the corner, right around the corner. And now it's like, you don't even hear a mouse fart about it. Like, they've just gone completely quiet on that front. They'll probably go completely silent once they IPO. And that's it. You won't hear about AGI ever again, you know?

Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of the, as we see some of the big brands, you know, fully leaning in. Like, I know everybody saw and talked about the. infamous Coca-Cola Christmas AI ad that, you know, was infamous for a good reason. It wasn't a very good ad. Like to your point, the Uncanny Valley, it was, it was just not human at all in any way, shape, or form. It was, you know, there was a bunch of like AI slop in it that folks didn't see,

but it just, it didn't feel human because they leaned too much into the tool. And it was cool that they made the whole thing. thing with AI and it was you know it's impressive but um it if it there was a huge backlash uh you know it it doesn't work that's why i think we see a lot of big brands like netflix even did this a little while ago they put out a making of their i think it's like their logo their animated logo you know with like the strings um so that's all done practically and you're seeing lots of big brands lean into heavy heavy practical sets and effects and effect and then documenting the process because what I hear in 2026 is that process is art.

And so if you have a really unique process and how you do things, document that. And you could even then use that to, you know, if a client's like, oh, I don't want AI. You can say, well, that's great. Like we are very skilled at the old school way of doing things. You don't need to worry about that. So I do think it's a tool we really should all. all learn to use, just especially as creatives or filmmakers, we can make, you know, you can make that short film you've had in your head, um, you know, for a decade. Now you can make it in a

weekend with, you know, $50 worth of credits. And it's, it's, people still won't. That's right. Yeah. It's, it's hard to start, but I'll tell you, once, once I made that first generation and I saw what it could do, um, once, a lot of credits. Yeah. But yeah, no, I guess, I guess, yeah, like, it's, this year, I think people have calmed down or cooled down on the idea of it, like, replacing us. It's just going to be another tool.

It's because people want to see real things, too, right? You don't want to be seeing AI slop or fake stuff all the time. That's why there's also CGI fatigue, you know, that they've mentioned in the past because a lot of it looks, as Dario mentioned, looks very fake. and people aren't enjoying it as much as before. Like if you look back, as you mentioned, the best CGI is the ones you don't notice, right? You know, you want to feel like you're watching something that is real at this point.

Let's watch Predator, right? Like, I'll watch Predator a thousand more times. It just works, right? Alien, like the original body suits. Yeah. I recently bought the thing in 4K, and I was watching it. And at a curiosity, I watched some scenes from the follow-up that they did. It was terrible.

It was so bad. You can't, like, there's just something about real that it's still, like, it holds up. Like, I was watching the original and I'm like, wow, this thing still holds up. It's been, how many years is it? It's from the 80s, right? It's like 84 or 85. It's like almost 40 years ago, and it still holds up. But the remake, the follow-up one.

it looks like garbage by comparison right there's one scene for that yeah yeah there was one scene from that like on the helicopter where the guys like face splits apart and it just it just looks so bad the cg i from that it just takes you out of the movie you know that's that's the problem and that's what ai essentially is doing when people are watching content online they're doing it to escape reality in a way right but they also want to see something that draws them in and something that's super fake is not, like, people are going to realize it's like, oh, wait, that's AI. And immediately, the illusion is gone. You've already been taken out of it, whether you want it to or not.

Well, if you use social media, like, if I'm on TikTok and I notice it's AI, the thing I do, I swipe so much faster. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm like, that algorithm will keep it there for you otherwise. Not just that. It's like, ah, it's fake. And I know it's probably something bullshit, you know, like. But I don't know.

We'll see how it goes. But, yeah, I think. we're at the one hour mark i think this is a good uh yeah spot to end it i think we touched on all the topics anything else you want to go over chris no i i i don't think so um you know i think we've covered a lot um yeah you know just always nice to to hang out with you guys for for an hour and you know we should get together you know i rl at some point soon and have a not a i have a Have a beverage, hot or powerful beverage. Exactly.

But yeah, no, like, yeah, I just wish you guys like an unbelievably successful year. It's, you know, it's such a pleasure to see you guys grow the way you have and you guys are doing all the things the right way. And yeah, appreciate you guys. You too. Like, I mean, like, you're one of the people that like we look up to. Like, every time I see what you're doing, I'm like, man, we should, this is who we should aim to be. Yeah. Hey guys, you know, I'm always just a phone call away.

And yeah, it would be cool if we even collaborated on something this year, like some sort of, you know, copro or, you know, I haven't actually got to work directly with you guys. So we should talk about something like that. But yeah, I think that's one thing we have yet to do actually, you know, like on a very specific creative. It doesn't even have to be a client project, you know, like you mentioned, you have those books of all those ideas. You know, maybe we should all just get together and do something. for fun. That's that's what recharges my battery the very, very most. You know, we worked, we've worked on a, we've worked on a project for the last two years. And it was completely comped

or pro bono. And it was for, you know, a hospital charity foundation. And because there was no client, we were donating this. We were our own client put so many resources and time and effort into this thing. but, you know, it played at a gala. And one of the most satisfying things I've ever gotten to do was be in the room when that very specific video played for that very specific audience. And it was to raise money right here right now. And two years in a row, they've dramatically, you know, beat their fundraising expectations and were able to buy, you know, some pretty important medical equipment for Georgetown Hospital. That's one of the most satisfying things is when you get to just make the thing that you wanted to make with no outside influence or a client getting in the way. Yeah, I think you know, you got to work on those passion projects and work on the creative things.

That's what makes us who we are, I think. Great. Okay. So I think let's end it off there. So guys and girls, follow Chris on his socials, which is at the Signature Video Group, correct? Yeah, at Signature Video Group across all of the channels.

And yeah, we're going to be doing some pretty interesting things on social, you know, in a couple of months. So stay tuned. Yeah, and check out his website too. Check out his website to Signature Video Group.com. It's great. Like every time I see your website, I'm like, man, I don't know how to change our WordPress to look like this. It looks so awesome. It's so funny because every time I look at it, I'm like, how do I make this like newer and better? And there's, you know what? We can take that offline, but I can give you guys some tips and tricks on.

Yeah, okay. I actually have an issue. I got to ask you about. Okay. So anyways, I guess we'll end it off there. Yeah. Everyone listening. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Happy New Year to Chris, obviously. our listeners. Yeah, and I'll try to be posting these episodes a lot more frequently after we record them. So I'm going to aim to get this one out tomorrow, which is middle of January. Love it. Awesome. All right.

Thanks, guys. Have a good one. See you soon. Thanks. Thank you, Chris. 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. Creatives Grab Coffee is created by Last.

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