#120 Owner-Led and Human-Made in the Age of AI (ft. Blue Barn Creative)
00:00 Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Creators Grab Coffee. This is one of the few shows out there that focuses on the business of video production. So basically, we're just bringing on a bunch of business owners from all the corners of the world, and we're just talking shop with them. Before we get into today's episode, just, you know, please take a moment to like, comment, subscribe to this show. If you guys are listening on the podcast apps, please write us a review. It helps out immensely.
00:27 and yeah, I'll let Carol kick it off for today. So welcome again. And today we are joined by Carlos and Stephen from Blue Barn Creative. Welcome, guys. Hi, thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks. So just before we kind of jump right into the show, why don't you give us a little backstory
00:47 and who you guys are and who Blue Barn is? That could take the whole podcast. There's all kinds of stories about how we came together. I could do part of it, Steve, and then you want to jump on anything I miss. So we're a San Diego-based production company. We actually came together working in television. That's where myself, Stephen, and our third founding partner, Vic, who we talked more about later, all came together working in TV.
01:15 We all had different roles, but we all knew that we didn't want to stay there. That wasn't a forever place for us. And San Diego always seemed like just this amazing. city that it only had big studios at the time and a couple shops, but like the boutique production company movement was only getting started at that time. So we saw that as kind of an opportunity for us. And yeah, Steve, you can take it from there. Yeah, that's pretty much how we got started. We were, you know, we had a variety of experiences, you know, from corporate marketing to Carlos went to film school. I was from New York. We all kind of met out here
01:55 in San Diego. He was from Northern California. And we were all just transplants, found ourselves working at a TV station. And we're just not really satisfied. We loved it for like learning and just doing like high volume work and just being under the gun, like a lot of pressure. But it was more of a quantity over quality mindset. And we were always sort of driven just like, you know, we're trying to make a mark. We're trying to do films that actually mean something. We're trying to be proud of our work. And it just drove us to look outside and go, you know what? San Diego is like this. like the little cousin of LA, right? And it's, or, you know, it's just this place where there wasn't a lot of video production going on. There was a few notable things. But in terms of, you know,
02:38 business, like commercial video, 2012 was sort of that like the birth of brand films, like really becoming a thing. And brands getting the idea that like, wow, we can use filmmaking to like drive our business forward, share our messages better, you know, connect with people better. And it was sort of a new idea and we just kind of saw it as an opportunity where like well we have all this experience in producing videos and films but how do we now take that into the commercial realm and working for ourselves was just really attractive so we partnered up with our buddy Vic and we rented this little office we've been here since 2012 and just cranking away on working with private clients and trying to just get repeat business we're word or mouth for the first 10 or 12 years never even
03:21 did a Google ad until a couple years ago. Just because we were sort of, you know, the, we saw the writing on the wall. We're like, let's do this. And San Diego was a beautiful place. We're never leaving, you know. We are glad to be here. And we've been at it for a long time now. Congrats on 14 years.
03:40 That's amazing. Thank you. So how did you guys go about doing that? Because back in 2012, 2013, 2014, it was really, it was so new to start your own production company. It was not like how it is today where you know, you just buy a camera and go and start shooting, right? Like back then it was a lot, it was a lot harder to kind of jump into it. And it was a very new model for people to start their own smaller production company. So what were some of the first steps that you guys did, you know, aside from getting the office?
04:11 Because that's also a big step. But, yeah. Hmm. Well, let's see. There's a few. Yeah. Go ahead, Carlos. Yeah. Sure. Well, we were, we were fortunate in that Stephen was the first one to leave the television station. And, you know, he was going to do his own thing. He had like a wedding business on the side and photography and videography. And so he found the office. And so just one at a time, we left the company that we were working at and just started growing into this space. but getting it going was really a lot of trial and error. You know, Steve and I are about the same age, but our partner, Vic, he had like about 20-something years on us. So he had some business experience and he would gently, you know, give us some tips, but he would also let us, you know, figure things out on our own.
05:08 For better or worse, there were a lot of his businesses that he did were totally different from video. So there was a lot of learning involved, a lot of doing something, and then learning like, gosh, we should have filled out that form or filed that thing. Like the super technical, unglamorous stuff that people never talk about when they start a business, regardless of what industry they're in. But like Steve said, a lot of it was word of mouth at first. Mutual contacts that we had, we even would bring in a lot of people from the television station that we worked with because we had now. three years worth of working with like some of the best videographers and editors in town and they were all in that place and all of them wanted to do stuff outside of that. So slowly as they left, they would come over and work with us or do freelance stuff on the
05:58 side. And I would say it was kind of like a glorified freelance outfit at first because we just didn't really know like what's the real way to start a business like this that's sustainable. So a lot of it just came down from us, like, being extremely hard workers and just like almost willing it to work. Now, Steve and I have like more of an operation down. We're always working on it and refining it. But those first few years were like, really, I think we were scrambling, right?
06:33 Like just to figure out, like, can we even live off of what we're doing? Is this going to work? And thankfully, I think that our work ethic and just, the natural talent of the people that we brought in, like, kept it going. And a lot of the clients, Sarah, go ahead, Steve. No, no, no, please. And I was just wondering, like, at the beginning, like, were you bringing on, like, the clients you were getting because he said you were doing, you got, you lasted on referrals
07:03 for, like, a good 10 years or so. Was it people you met through the TV station or, um. Man, how do, some of the first clients were, I mean, we had to. some really interesting ones. But I would say, Carlos, I mean, name a couple of our early,
07:24 early clients other than like the bigger ones. Well, some of them we would just like call people old fashion. You know, like a dental agency. I can't, you know,
07:38 I remember them in Sorrento Valley. That's a little zone in San Diego that were like, do you need video? It looks like you do. And they're like, sure. That's kind of how those would go. Which wouldn't work today.
07:53 It wouldn't work. You can't do that anymore. Everyone's flooded with cold emails. And it's interesting because there was a certain amount of like, you know, old school technique you could do back then because people would give you the time of day. But now everybody's so flooded cold emails and phone calls. It's just like you can't get through. So there's different techniques right nowadays.
08:13 And I think we had an interesting mix, right? He mentioned there was a wedding videography business that that sort of like kept the lights on for a while. And it's something I had done since 2009, which is a very similar story to like a lot of the production companies that are in business for like 10 to 15 years. There's always this like, we started as wedding videographers, right? And it tends to be this like, there's not much of a barrier to entry there. Like you can just go buy a camera and just call yourself a wedding videographer. And then get people to let you try it out and see if you can pull something together, you know. then develop your product from there and go.
08:49 But with commercial, it's a little harder, right? Because you're dealing with brands who have marketing departments. They're savvy and they're like, you can't just pick up a camera and pretend like, oh, I'm a production company. And they can be like, okay, great,
09:01 what have you done? Let me see your stuff. Like, do you even know what you're talking about? Like, can we even, do you even understand the jargon I'm throwing at you? You know what I mean? So I think it's an interesting beginning because it was a different time,
09:13 different circumstances. We funded a lot of it with little jobs, you know, like weddings and stuff. And then we started getting business clients because we could just approach them and be like, hey, you know, do you need a new video for your website or whatever you're trying to do? And you just go from there. And then word of mouth, there was a lot of like events that we did that were doorways. Like we worked with like AIG at the Torrey Pines golf course doing a small town hall. And that turned into, I'm sorry, the, we worked with Marshall McLennan.
09:42 That was AIG was later. But Marsh McClendon was like a really big insurance company. We worked on a small town hall with them, which turned into doing a bunch of brand work with them later. So a small like two or three thousand dollar job in 2012 having lunch with the head of media for the company. And it's like a there's tens of thousands of employees at this company. They're like, we like working with you guys. Like can you do some more video for us? And that's essentially what happened many times over.
10:11 just being in people's presence, doing quality work, they can see that you're really dedicated to getting the shot, to, you know, figuring out what kind of video is going to really serve them. And then they kind of, they read like, oh, these guys are committed. These guys are quality. And then that just turns into more things. And I love that. I love that about how business really does work. And a lot of our early opportunities, we've worked with brands like Victorinox, Swiss Army,
10:36 which started as a result of a girl I knew in high school. and she ended up in the marketing department in Connecticut and was like, I've been loving all your wedding films and like your TV stuff. Like, do you want to do something for us? We have a trade show coming up. And that was like the beginning of a great relationship. We were doing like national TV ads with them eventually.
10:57 Fantastic. And then another one was I used to work and live in New York City at a beauty brand called Bumble and Bumble. The creative vice president was a huge film fanatic and just, you know, total creative. And we used to go out shooting like, you know, New York Fashion Week and doing hair documentaries and doing all those cool and fun creative stuff. He ended up starting a brand in L.A.
11:21 And between L.A. and Miami, after he left Bumble called Arenko, and that was like an amazing phone call to get because he was like, hey, Steve, it's been a couple years. I'm launching a new brand. I need you. And it was like, let's go. And it's like we never left, you know. And it was just an old relationship that kind of came back around and it's started a whole new chapter. So I think there's this cool dynamic of like, you know, the old
11:44 school business practices really do matter, right? Like being a good person, looking people in the eye, doing quality work, showing up for them, being the hero is their job and being the helper is our job, right? Like the Donald Miller stuff, story brand. Like you're really not the superstar here. Like you're here to really help somebody get to another level. And if that imbues your work and abuse your relationships, then you're going to be all right. And that's the story of how we got to where we are. We just tried our best and try to just be good people and run calm, cool sets where people can be creative and nobody's shouting at each other. And so I don't know, like, that's probably a long-winded way to describe how we got to where we are. But it's pretty
12:25 essential. And now we're just trying to figure out how to play the game of like, oh, now we got to have a podcast. And now we got to like do social media. And we got to like comment on people's LinkedIn and do all that stuff too. Like, because, that's the language of business today. But we really enjoy actually talking to people and doing good films. Yeah, and what you described, like, that's the baseline of what you should be doing. You should be providing great quality service that yields, you know, people recommending you, wanting to work with you, because it's always a great feeling when you get callbacks with
12:56 people that you've done work for already. And then you can kind of expand that and grow. But obviously, as you guys know, sorry, it's hard to do that long. term and build an entire business on just relying on only that. And you mentioned that you did that for a while until you started trying some new things, right? So what was, what was like, what was like the moment where you realized, oh, you guys need to evolve and kind of expand and find new ways of generating business? I don't know, I don't know if there's like a specific point in our timeline that I could, I could recall. But I do know that, you know, over the years, we just got tired of,
13:35 the major fluctuations that like any freelancer would face. And like I said, those early days, we were kind of like a collective of freelancers, the three of us. Then we'd bring in people, but we were the partners. And we would just be so subject to those ebbs and flows that naturally happen annually doing this kind of work. And, you know, it just would like affect our livelihoods. And or like, man, like, how are we going to keep the rent, you know, paid in this place or that camera we want is now out of reach. So we said, we got to find a way to make this more sustainable. I mean, no matter what, this type of business has those ebbs and flows, but we knew that we needed to go outside of the circle of clients that we had if we were going to
14:26 get the kind of business that would, you know, just sustain it. And so I think that's, it just came around that way naturally. It was more of like a numbers thing that, like, The three of us all knew that this wasn't like a side job for any of us. We wanted this to be our main thing. Steve wanted to move away from the wedding films and maybe only do like a handful a year rather than having to do it to, you know, keep his lights on. And like I myself, I'm like, this is the job I want. You know, I don't want to have to do anything else but this.
14:59 So it kind of came more just naturally from having those conversations. like how much more business do we need to get to that point where it's just moving on its own without us relying on, you know, the people we already know. And that pushed us to explore other avenues. And we can get into that in a bit of, you know, bringing in business to Blue Barn. But you think that's right, Steve? Like, to me, that's how I felt was like it was like a necessity. Like, if we're going to make this grow, like, it's got to go beyond the circle of people we know.
15:33 Yeah, and it did. I think there was a lot of like, there was compounding of like relationships and relationships and like, oh, those people really liked what we did. So they called us again. And then those kind of added up over the years. But I think after 2018, 2019, San Diego started becoming a more like this secret is out. Like this place really is beautiful and lots of people want to be here. And then couple that with the realization that most businesses had is that wow, video is really powerful. And if I'm using it for my business, I can. can really grow. And that just became more of a, I remember thinking that along the way, like, when are people going to realize, like, how powerful this is? Like, we should be telling your story, you know, whether it's your origin story or the customer testimonials or whatever kind of corporate videos, like, that might help you achieve your goals. Like, people started getting it. And social media also, like, becoming even more just everywhere, everything all at once, right? So competition. Yeah. And it was like kind of leading. up to the pandemic, it was like, we were actually like on a high note. We were like, man, this is
16:37 great. Business is strong. And Vic was still with us. We didn't mention Vic is no longer with us. He passed away last year, which is why we mentioned him a few times. But yeah, no, it was unexpected. He was a little, he was older than us. But, you know, we're keeping the whole operation going and everything, just me and Carlos. But a great guy, amazing, amazing person. And aside from that, So up to 2018, 2019, 2020, like, we're coming along really good. We didn't even start advertising back then, right? Like, we weren't even doing much. The only platform we were using, which may age us, is Yelp.
17:16 We were, like, invested in Yelp. Yeah, that definitely ages. We were putting money into Yelp. Like, not the first couple years, but we were like, oh, man, these guys keep calling us. When Yelp used to call you. Yeah. Yeah, and so. You would actually get work from Yelp, though, in the beginning in the old days.
17:34 Yes. But then it turned into this like, whoa. Yeah, it actually worked. It did help us, yeah, because people would use Yelp back then. Like, they didn't trust Google search results as much as Yelp results, which now we've all learned that Yelp is an absolutely terrible corporation and just extracting money from the businesses on there. But back then, like, there was some truth to it.
17:59 And so we worked really hard with like these clients like, hey, please, please, please write us a Yelp review. And people would be like, hey, when I look for video company, like you come up first on Yelp. And so we were investing money there. And then over time, organically, our search results on Google started going up. And then eventually everyone kind of had that come to light moment when they're like, oh, Google, I trust that more than anything else. And luckily by then, we had already been around long enough and established and had good word of mouth that the switch was easy to make. And I don't think we've gotten anyone from Yelp in, I mean, we stopped putting money into it a long time ago. But yeah, that, so that's
18:41 been around so long. Yelp is still around nowadays? Or I think it's still around. It's still there. It's like an archive, I think. I don't think it's actually like, it's a way back machine now. And the point I was going to make earlier was that like now you have all these directories, right? Yelp is a directory. Right. There's a ton. There's a ton. of directories that you need to be on. And now there's like all the LLM searching and answer engine optimization. Like that you have to consider on top of your search engine optimization. Yeah.
19:09 And it's real. Like we are hearing people tell us on the phone. Oh, chat GPT told me to call you. Like I was looking for the best video production company in town. And like, we're like, oh, thank God it's working. You know, like because we are trying to, you know, format and organize our website. So it is found not only by the search engines, but by the answer engine optimization. And so it's like, it's a whole different game.
19:32 And I think the point I was going to get to earlier was that the landscape has changed. And, you know, pandemic happened. And that was just like shocked everyone's system. But the trajectory continued and the town got more saturated, right? San Diego's like a big town. It's kind of us, it's almost a city. But it's like, it's just a big, it's a big town. And it's really spread out.
19:54 But it's more saturated now. And there's a lot of people who love doing films and a lot of people who are We're trying to make money doing films for businesses. And so it's a little bit different landscape. So we started doing like Google ads and things like that a couple years ago after the pandemic. So that's sort of our trajectory. We do have the benefit of having been around. We've survived a lot of our early competitors.
20:17 We're one of the only ones that have been around since 2012. There's a few. And so that helps us get found. But essentially like we were talking, it's a different game now. And, you know, what AI is doing to business is both exciting and terrifying. And, you know, we're still here. So we're still learning the game and learning how to play it. So it's been fun.
20:41 I would add to that that part of our, I think, success formula has been the return clients. It's actually huge for us. We're really good at retaining clients. And I don't mean necessarily getting them into a retainer. we actually don't use those, but they just come back naturally. A lot of our clients, almost like clockwork, we know at this point in the year, they're doing their next product launch, so they're going to need us, you know, between these months and they do.
21:11 Or this event that we shoot always this time of year. I think we did some rundowns of our business not too long ago where it was like 70% of our business is return clients. So it's like it's a really big base, you know, to work from. It's very high. So it's a good spot to be in where we're not so reliant on like we need, need, need, you know, new ones. Like we still do need new clients just to sustain a certain level of business.
21:37 But it's nice to know like, hey, the people are coming back. They're very happy. And we can count on that, you know, as we as we continue to grow. The key is to find more of those clients that like, it's not just clients that return, but clients that need more work need need uh need videos more frequently to keep returning because that's that's usually the the main key because like we have a lot of clients that come back for example for an event that they do every single year but they otherwise don't necessarily need video content throughout the whole year but um but it's good to hear that
22:16 essentially you're able to keep retaining clients because it's a lot easier to retain current clients than to find new ones as we all know So, yeah. But now you're mentioning, though, with all the, with all the competition and everything that's now happening and all these changes that you've enacted, like, what are you doing to kind of continue to differentiate yourselves from everyone else in the San Diego market right now? Well, actually, we had the conversation not too long ago just about, Steve's been just by coincidence, reworking our website. but we've been leaning more into what we think makes Blue Barns special, which to us is the relationships that we create with our clients. Because we believe that anyone can buy the same equipment,
23:07 you know, have the same camera, do the editing style that's like trending on Instagram or wherever, you know. And it's like that's not really the reason we think that our clients continue to back to us and and actually I shouldn't say we think we know because we survey them quite often just like to keep the relationships strong and it's really at the end of the day they said like oh you know hey we booked this this event is Stephen going to be there again and is he bringing so-and-so or Carlos are you going to be the one interviewing that you know like they just get get into this groove where they're like they get to know us and we're super friendly on sets and we're friendly
23:48 even off the set with them. And it just like, it just keeps, you know, like, I think that more than anything else is like what's been keeping us going. Like there's the talent part of it, but there's the relationship side of it. And I don't think that side gets talked enough. Like when we're talking to up-and-comers who are maybe just hungry for like, I just need a gig, I need a gig, you know, is this gig going to get me what I need for my reel? And it's like, man, you know, like, your client wants someone they can depend on and trust more than anything else. And like just you showing up on time and doing what you said you're going to do like means a lot. Because we do we do have clients that have maybe like learned their lesson in a way. Like Kirol, you were talking about the one that
24:36 hires you every year, right? Well, we had a client early on that came to San Diego and we shot an event for them. That's how we met. The next event was out of state. and they hired someone. Sure enough, a few weeks later, they called us and they're like, you know, we're gonna be in wherever, Louisiana, I can't remember where it was, another state, and we are willing to fly you guys out there because this experience we had was just like roll of the dice.
25:06 And every city we go to, we're like, I don't know if we're measuring them against Blue Barn, the experience we had with Blue Barn. Some of these guys were showing up for these simple corporate interviews with like freaking, Helium, red helium cameras, if you remember those, these 8K things, and you're like, and charging them for it, you know, and like, we're like, no, we're just going to do the service to the best
25:28 of our ability and get you what you actually need, you know, and depend on us for that. And it's been now 11 years, we're working with this client, and they hire us on the dot every year for these events, but it's expanded into so much more. Now we have their complete trust. We're doing their promos, animations, leaders. leadership videos. So it's like, it can start, you know, anywhere, but grow. But we think it's our personality. And Steve's been great about putting that forth more in our materials that we put out there. Yeah. And I can add to that. It's sort of a, we had a moment this year, right, where we
26:05 were like, we had to get a creative website that really reflects who we are. I'm sure you guys deal with this too, right? There's a lot of ways to compete, right? But we're not out there to lie. We want to be as authentic as possible. It's the advice that we give everyone. Like, this is why you should do films because you want to be authentic. You want to put your real voice on camera, your real stories, your real people. So a website really is kind of like, it's a reflection. And one of the things we came up with was that were owner-led. You know, we're not like the type of producers that would just go and hire a bunch of random freelancers that were begging for work and farm it out to them and then charge a premium and deliver it. And who cares? Like, no, we're actually, we're on
26:44 the calls strategizing and doing, you know, the initial, like, fact find with people. And then we pulled together the proposal that should be like, it should fit like a glove, but we can't do that unless you listen really well to like what people's objectives are. You know what I mean? And like what they're really trying to get through doing video content. And then into the shoot, Carlos is a director, I'm a DP. We all wear many hats. We have all worn many hats since the beginning. It's just the nature of filmmaking in the 2010s and 2020s. I know how to run sound. I know how to run sound.
27:20 I know how to frame a shot. So does Carlos. He hates picking up a camera, but he's a really good shooter. You know what I mean? We can do it. But it's really like, you know, Carlos was saying, it's more important to like the soft skills, the people stuff. We can do all the things.
27:36 But I forgot where I was going with that. Well, adding on to what I said, yeah, yeah. To be a, the owner led, the owner led. I get those rabbit holes. It's the owner led thing. That's what I was trying to add on to Carlos' thing. We did this deep dive into our brand. What is it about us that we should tell people?
27:56 Like, is the reason why you should hire us? We're there. We're there on the shoots doing all the things. And we have great crew. Some of guys and girls have been with us years on our team. And there's a lot of loyalty. There's a lot of like repeat people. So I think that would be part of.
28:12 what in a nutshell we try to, you know, promote about ourselves. But one thing I wanted to ask was, Steve, you mentioned that when you guys first started out, like, well, I guess right now looking back, a lot of people that started out with you guys, other competitors, a bunch of them aren't around anymore. Do you happen to know why that would be, like, the reasons why some of them didn't make it this far? Well, we know for a couple of them, they were just too. large. Like it's a model that really took a hit when COVID came around. Like these, they were more like
28:51 studios. They had like a huge space, you know, with a staff that they had to just, you know, sustain. And when COVID hit, they just simply could not. I mean, we took big hits ourselves, but luckily we had enough clients that just either made. work for us where we found ways to do it virtually and got through it because we've always been flexible with Blue Barn and thankfully we have you know a low overhead where you know if you're renting a huge studio space it's the size of a hanger like something like the pandemic hits you definitely like you're not going to be around but as to some of the other boutiques they just had to change their models we knew another one that had a studio that was a
29:41 a modest size we would shoot in it sometimes and they had to give that up. And the guy just, you know, works out of his house now. A lot of them do. We're very lucky that we have, you know, an actual office we come to and work out of every day. Like, do we absolutely need it? No, but Steve and I like having it. It's great for collaborating and bringing our clients here, keeping our gear safe. But yeah, I think it was more of a size thing and kind of just true with where
30:11 the industry has been going just naturally. Yeah, you need to be adaptable. You need to be nimble. Like, it's just you two guys, right? As full-time? Yes, yeah. That's the main thing. And like, we saw that with a lot of people as well before the pandemic.
30:30 Actually, we saw it in a lot of like marketing companies, especially where they were like, like you said, either they presented too big. They expanded and relied on like really big clients, like or like one or two clients. once those are gone, like the whole business model falls apart. And the key is to just be as adaptable as possible. And I think more and more companies know that now versus back then. And it's funny hearing like your guy's story, there's a lot of similarities in, in your story to like how Dario and I also started and how we grew and how we had to adapt and change. And it's an interesting kind of parallel progression that that I see from that.
31:10 Yeah. Tell us about yours. I mean, you guys were. starting what 10 or so years ago, 12 years ago? Yeah, it was around 2014 when we started. And like you guys, it was like we were a bunch of freelancers working together under the same name essentially up until COVID. And then COVID made us realize that, okay, we weren't really a business, time to change. And so we did that. We made the switch.
31:35 And then with more of a system and that kind of mindset, it's really helped us kind of adapt. And honestly, this podcast also helped a lot. because we've learned a lot from a lot of other production companies, like what works for them, what doesn't, and then trying to see what we can apply that works for us, right? And that's essentially what it is with everyone in this industry, right? And, and yeah. Yeah, how's it been you guys are Toronto, right?
32:00 So what's the landscape like up there? Do you feel like the things that you find are working for you now are what I've always, you know, kind of always been working for you? Or how have you evolved? Like, what's been your transformation? Darya, do you want to take it away from here? Sure. I mean, for us, we're still figuring it out.
32:23 Like, it's, I don't think we have, like, the formula locked in just yet. But we've got through different changes. But everybody on Instagram wants to sell you the formula. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get those ads too, right? Dude, all those guys kill me. Like, I've been doing this for, you. Yeah.
32:41 And it's like, I've been doing this for three years, and I can sell you. how to be a million dollar agency. I'll sell you this system that'll get you 30,000 a month and sales and whatever. And I'm like, so why isn't you doing that? Why don't you just grow your business to the point where you're bringing in like 30 million a month? Like, why would you sell this if it's such a good piece of knowledge? Exactly. Now, for us, it's been, like, again, I don't even know how to answer that question.
33:05 I'd be honest. Basically, we were just freelancing to, like, working together, we're freelancing until 2020. pandemic hits. And then I would say 2021, we kind of applied all the lessons we learned from the podcast to the business. And then it started becoming a business. And then every year since then has just been about like optimizing and fine tuning. And we go through different like periods where we're optimizing different things that help out with different parts of the business. This year, I would say the theme, or since three months ago, I would say the theme has been very AI focused with Claude. like we've been making a lot of improvements of the business
33:43 from anywhere from accounting like I mentioned last episode to just redoing the websites and yeah it's uh I feel like right now with with Claude it's like we have like a little advisor slash assistant that really helps out with with everything that we're deficient in it's a lot of the back end you know like the admin and yeah the The boring stuff, as you guys like to say, it's helped kind of make things a lot smoother and more efficient. It hasn't like AI has kind of helped in some aspects of like the actual deliverables here and there.
34:23 But it's not like we're creating a lot of content from scratch using AI for our clients. Like we're not focusing on that as much. Whereas now Claude is helping just kind of make things a lot more efficient. That's what this year has been about, as Dario mentioned. But for one thing that we've always done, and I think like you guys, focus on the work, focus on making it a great experience with the clients. And that's what's helped a lot of clients come back to us over time with our, like, not retainers, but like the clients that we've retained over the years. And, and then as Daria mentioned, also like
34:54 focusing a bit more on Google, SEO and things like that. It's really helped kind of get our name out there. And so that's how we've been able to drum up a lot more, a lot more work, like in an inbound market. kind of way, like an inbound lead generation way. Yeah, definitely on a parallel journey, I think, with the AIs, just definitely all back of house stuff. Like, we're just, we're getting hours back, you know, from everything from, you know, the website work to the proposals to the, you know, researching clients, all that stuff.
35:29 Like, it's, it's, it's everyone everywhere, right? Tuning us or relocating hours, you know, more like. Relocating hours. Yeah, exactly. It's really great, though. And honestly, like, we actually have more time to edit, have more time to talk to clients and you have more time to be a human. And I think it's been great.
35:46 And for us, we're also not really doing a lot of generative AI. Like, I think it's great for certain things, you know, like if you need to change your background or add some people to something or get this impossible shot that would cost too much money to produce. Like, cool, but it's an asset. Just like stock B-roll is an asset. Just like a drone shot's an asset. And whatever specialty, you know, BFX.
36:09 you might insert into a piece for a certain reason. Like, those are all assets, you know, but it's not the whole thing. We're not at that place where we can just like one shot this amazing video into existence and it's going to do an amazing thing for some company. And the day that we are there, they don't need us because they can just one shot at themselves. You know, and I don't think that that day's coming soon. I think like there's a lot of people realizing, especially this year from when I listen to other people talk, that, you know, the human touch really is critical.
36:37 and whether it's in the creative work or in the process of getting the creative out. You know, because how many times have you sat with a customer and they just like, they come in thinking they know what they want or they come in a little confused or they come in, you know, and they really need that conversation with you to go, here's what we're thinking. And then you have to really creatively strategize with them. Like, how is video going to help you achieve your business goals? Like that is the first intention that has to be clearly laid out because everything is downstream from that. You know, like what kinds of videos you can create.
37:07 like timelines, deliverables, crew sizes, budgets, right? Like, everything's downstream from like, what are you trying to accomplish? You know, and why? Yeah. And for us, we, you know, sorry. Yeah, I'll leave you with that. Sorry, I was just going to say, I like the little irony you kind of just mentioned right there where you're using AI to be more human in a way.
37:29 Yeah, it's allowing us the time. Exactly. I like that. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. stuff like that with the clients also like needing all that information that they might get from AI. I find some of our clients this year have been coming to us with like scripts written with AI or
37:47 details about the shoot that we would normally figure out. They're figuring it out with AI. But the issue I'm seeing with what they're doing is that all these AIs are trained on like how production they go. All that information is from blog posts online that are probably written. by guys that are definitely written by guys like us that probably had to quickly write something for SEO, and it probably isn't the most detailed piece of stuff. It's probably very outdated. So then the AI's training on very outdated. Sometimes it's some informed information, right? So we still need to be there to kind of tell them, you know, in theory, yes, but in practice now.
38:26 Well, you know, we had a quick story. We had a client that we've worked with before, and we shot a series of interviews that, you know, we're all going to be crafted together to make their brand narrative. And, you know, like, sent them the rough cuts and, you know, they're like, yeah, this is cool, but like, give us a little time to, like, show it to the stakeholders and like, okay, fine. So a week later, they come back and they say, okay, we have a new assembly edit we'd like you to create. And we think that we have found even better sound bites than that. And so they sent it.
39:04 And, you know, I did the interview. So immediately I'm like, no one said that. Like, this is not what anyone said. It just hallucinated it. So I went back to him and I said, this is, no, this is, where are these sound bites, first of all? And they're like, oh, we put in the transcripts and the AI sent us, you know, like, here's an assembly edit that matches your goals. And I said, no, no, no, but like, where? Where's the time code?
39:29 Have it send you the time code. And then when it did that, that's when they realized, oh, it made it. it all up and they're like, okay, let's go with your rough cut. And like, cool, glad we all spent a week for you to learn the shortcomings of what AI can do. But, yeah, we see it a lot more and more. But I think for Steve and I, we feel like maybe I'm being naive, but I feel like we're a little protected from it just because of the type of work that Blue Barn is known for and what we do is the type of work that requires the most human touch, you know, like, most of our films are interview driven or filming real people in,
40:08 in like situations that would be like, why would you AI that at all, you know, like an event. Like, sure, you can create it. I saw someone put a post saying,
40:18 uh, events are dead. Like, yeah, but that's not the point of why you make an event film. You make it to be like, this is what it was like to be there. Not like this is an approximation of what it would be like to be there.
40:31 You know, like, your CEO could make an avatar, but, and, but like, how would that land if they found out the new HR video, he didn't even bother the sit down and talk to you, you know, like those moments, I think they're starting to realize like, oh, man, there's a whole wealth of content that really should always be humans, human led, human made, you know, people driven is what we like to say. And just, we just kind of naturally went into that and have always done that. I mean, we'll dabble in all kinds of genres of filmmaking.
41:05 But at the end of it, Steve and I realize, like, it's really, like, the stuff that requires the human touch is where we specialize. Like, other production companies, you know, do animations. They do, like, products only, like, e-commerce video. Those ones, I would say, like, I don't know what's going to happen as AI gets more prevalent. Like, but the stuff where you're really, like, trying to get a story out of someone and you need it to be authentic. I don't see like where AI adds to that, you know, at least in the, in that process of
41:38 capture. I have a friend who I was telling me that you should, we should take advantage of all these AI programs now because eventually it's going to get to a point where they're too expensive to run or they're going to cap usage. So not everyone has access to it. So he's like milk, Claude or chat GPT's Astra as much. as you can because eventually it's just going to be gate kept, right? So that's probably going to be very helpful for us in the future, right?
42:07 Because it's like great. They do got to come to us. That's great advice. However, you know, like what have you made recently that you could say like, oh, this will be useful in five years? Like I haven't made anything with AI that I'm like, oh, this is amazing. Like I'm always like, this is weird. Like, that's a little off.
42:24 Like I can't see using that, you know. But you're right. Like I think the business model. Yeah, the content side. Yeah. Yeah, on the content side, I agree that that area, it's still, like, it can only keep getting better. Like, I remember the first time I did the extension AI tool on Premiere, it kind of like blew my mind a little bit, how, like, it was able to work on certain things. But only on inanimate objects.
42:48 The second I started doing it with people, I got the weirdest limbs moving. And the, yeah, and the demo that they send you is like this guy, like walking out of a car and you're like, How did they make that work? Like, because, yeah, you can barely make an orange, you know, roll on a table with the tool. So I don't know. There's a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Well, unless they show the, yeah, I feel like unless they show like an actual clip of them creating it, I got to call into doubt. Because some of it are like, okay, but I can't get anywhere close to this.
43:21 Yeah, exactly. Not just the prompt. There's something here you guys did. Yeah, and that's it. To be fair, like any of the like deep dives I've seen on something. truly impressive made with generative AI. The amount of skill and time and tokens that went into making it was just like, this took longer than an actual production.
43:42 It was more expensive than the end. I'm like, so we're not in a place where it's an actual like viable option for lots of kinds of filmmaking. But like Carlo said, things like product videos, e-commerce, like flashy visuals. Sure, of course. And it's making its way into Hollywood. And it's making its way into all kinds of things. And it's going to continue to do that.
44:03 But I think in our little niche in our corner of the universe where we're doing story-driven films, people-driven films and videos for businesses, like we do think the human experience, not only the experience of us producing content for them and the way we talk to them, the way we show up, the way we film, but also like the end result, like the film that comes out, like the whole purpose is to to lift the veil on the brand and on the people and the perspectives that drive that brand and that's what people believe in that's what people want to connect with you're not connecting with you know fantastical AI driven stuff you're you're just impressed by it i think it's just going to help us in the future anyways like i mean we've we've gone through
44:48 so many different periods like in our 10 to 15 years operating right like this will just be another arc essentially, right? And I can only, I see it just like helping long term anyways. Like I get ready thinking now. It's like I think about like, for example, with Claude, the context folder has so many different files related to the businesses that like it just knows so much that any time I'm doing something, it'll already like use that input. Right. So I can see that also being useful for like, let's say a client project. We just give it as much information as possible and then as we're crafting the story for it it'll say hey you're going down this road but really this was your original vision and this is how we can tie back to it can work out in in that type
45:33 of way like it does it does even with the gen a i stuff like yeah yeah yeah exactly you got to treat it and even with the gen a i stuff like it'll probably just help with like cleaning up stuff right like let's say during a pivotal moment in the uh interview the guy looks away or the girl looks away we can just fix it back and now we can use that shot, right? Great, got it. You know, it's interesting about that is that with the generative AI becoming more and more prevalent, it's actually had forced Stephen and I to rethink some of the classic film making techniques that we would use and any editor would use.
46:12 For example, one of our clients, all we do is customer testimonials. We only shoot customer testimonials for them. They send us all over the country to film their clients and get, their authentic stories. So like a definite use of a people driven production, not AI, right? You want to see the real person say, these guys helped me. My business is flourishing thanks to them. So early on in that relationship, we film our first interview. We're like out in Salt Lake City, come back, put the edit together. Guy was really nice on camera, but, you know, he like, he was very nervous so he would stumble sometimes in his interview. But as we all know, like, oh, we got B-roll.
46:49 We can cut that out. No one needs to see him. make that mistake. Or if I put this line here, it's going to say it better. So we show that first cut to the client and they go, no, no, no, we want to see like the mistakes because our potential clients are savvy enough to know that you can craft whatever you want in film. And like, if he's saying something under B-roll, they're going to be like, nah, that's a Frankenstein sound bite. Like, I'm not buying it. And Steve and I were like, holy, like, wow, they're right. even before AI, where now you can just like type something into 11 labs, you know, train it on the voice and have them say whatever you want.
47:29 We were already doing that with filmmaking. So it kind of forced us to tackle it more authentically. And now when I'm sitting in the interview chair, I used to like just be doing math in my head. Like if I move that sound bite to hear, that one to hear, perfect soundbite. Now I'm like, no, that's going to, I got to show them on camera saying this. It's got to it's got to come out of their mouth. someone's got to see it or they won't believe it because everyone's learning, you know, these tricks. So we're like going, we're actually like moving away from like the AI correcting, you know,
48:00 like that moment you said moving the head. But maybe he said the best sound bite ever and he just happened to do it. Like too bad, man. Everyone's going to believe that more than, you know, us fixing it in some way. Or if they find out, they're like, now Dario's head was here, but I saw the raw footage, you know. And then they're like, I don't believe it. maybe the whole thing is fake. So it's just kind of funny that like, we've had to roll it back.
48:24 It's funny how that's becoming a thing now. Yeah. Because it's like, I mean, even back when they started photography like over 100 years ago, they would actually like fix. They would do like, I know this because my great aunt or whatever, I had like a photography studio. After they would take your picture, they would like paint on it just to like clear up imperfections, like OG Photoshop.
48:44 So ever since like humans have been like capturing stuff has been fake. that thing's been on that day. It's only now becoming a big deal. Yeah, now that you know, like, that it happens, uh-huh. On the plus side, if clients are going to, I mean, if clients are going to start going with those testimonials where it's the more real answer, showing all the stumbles and everything, and they're happy with that. You know, on the plus side, editing is going to be a lot easier, you know, you don't have
49:12 to be chopping as much. Well, yeah, the edits for these videos now have probably 40 to 50% less B-roll than we normally would, you know, like, and it's just, and Stephen and I advertise it. This is a different product, you know, your brand film is your brand film. And maybe you want that to be the most polished representation of you, of you. But this testimonial, I think people want to see, like, I want to see that this person just sat down in a chair and started saying how great you were. I don't need to see anything else. I just want the trust to be built, you know, and conveyed in some way. And so Steve and I are, we said we're all our our own worst enemy in a way where we're or our harshest critic as we're
49:57 trying to get ourselves in front of the camera more we're learning like oh man maybe we maybe it should just be a camera pointing at the two of us talking about you know like what do we do maybe it doesn't need to be as flashy and so we're constantly like striking that balance because we also know well some clients want it to look that way other clients don't and like how do we appeal to both camps. So it's just an endless riddle, you know. Yeah. And I think on the theme of authenticity, right, there is this push, especially now, like, it's like the anti-movement to polished video is like, well, if it's polished, it's bullshit. It's like, okay, oh, am I allowed to say that? Are we, you bleep me out? I don't know. Yeah, you're fine. No, we're not monetized. I wish, I wish we were
50:41 a quote. I wish we got into trouble for that. That means we had big sponsors. I just sorry. I didn't know for our audience, who our audience, go for it. But you know what I mean? Like there's like this push to be like as authentic as possible, right? Which is why UGC, user generated content is so like been the thing for a few years now. Because they're like, oh, it's just, I believe it more. It gets more views if it's like a guy on his phone like showing me how great the car wash polishes up his car versus like a fancy commercial with beautiful shots and like, you know,
51:12 all this amazing visual stuff to sell it to me. Like, you know, and I get it. And with us too. like the authenticity is really key. And it was funny because we did get an education from our own client. Like they didn't want the B-roll. They're like, no, we just want to see them talk and like say it. But I think what it does for us is that actually reinforces what we've known all along
51:34 is that coaching interviews is like a really big skill. And Carlos as a director has really puts a lot of energy into like walking people through an interview start to finish, getting them comfortable, getting them to open. up like about the things we need them to be honest and vulnerable about like that's a real soft skill and you know there's no robot that's going to sit in that chair and do that well and we even have clients that don't know that Carlos does that and they'll be like oh we'll do the interview and Carlos is like are you sure like it's kind of like what you brought us in to do is like get a really great interview and there's somebody at the marketing team at the in-house you know
52:13 department of the client that's like no I'm going to do the interview and like a lot of times we're cringing because it's terrible. And there's a real difference between someone who knows how to do an interview on camera and someone who doesn't. And back to what I think over our trajectory of the last 15 years, we've definitely put a lot of emphasis on that, not only polished visuals, but like the experience of making the film, the experience of the interview. Like it just yields different results that you then get to craft with in post, you know.
52:45 And I think there's a lot of subtlety to this art, as you guys know. And we've evolved from being filmmakers first and only filmmakers, right, like content creators or video producers, whatever you want to call us. But over the years, we've sort of seen that we've had to kind of become marketers. And some of our overlap is like, we've had they really get into branding and marketing with people at a deeper level because the conversations go there. You know, what we're making for them really touches on like the sole of a company or the story behind it or the how the brand is to be presented. These are not little decisions.
53:21 And so when you're engaging a production company like ours, over time, we just have gotten used to having those conversations. And I personally enjoy those conversations. I really like talking to people about like, you know, how do we want to present this? Because there's a million different ways. But I think the soft skills theme and the authenticity theme, like that doesn't just come about easily. It's like it's a skill. You have to learn over time. Like I don't know.
53:47 How do you guys feel about like that being a, an important aspect of the video production process? Yeah. I mean, it is. You're absolutely right. The skill set is so important, especially for interviews. But I think also what people sometimes forget is also,
54:03 it's not just being able to ask client, uh, the interviewer certain questions. It's also connecting with them like you said, but it's like your personality. Everyone has a different way of, also doing things that is different. Like the way Dario interviews someone on camera is going to be different from how Carlos does it
54:20 or from how I do it or from how you do it. And that becomes an integral part of the skill set. And because like you see it with clients sometimes when they want to be the ones to, you know, ask their clients questions. You know, that does happen a lot of the time as well. And you can see how it's, it sometimes can be a little bit rigid. But also sometimes it makes sense because they also. know the person. So there's that personality aspect that also kind of works in at play there.
54:49 So that is just to be to be fair. Sometimes it's great. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it does work out. I'm not saying all clients are terrible at it. I don't mean to say that. Yeah, yeah. But please continue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's what I'm saying. Like with some it doesn't work because they want it to be the ones to do it. But some, it really works because they have the personality and they know the, they know their clients a lot more, a lot better directly. Right. So they're going to be able to get. Yeah. They have that relationship and they're going to be able to get better sound bites from it. So sometimes it's also a matter of finding the right people for it. And that's another skill to know who should also be interviewing as well.
55:25 It's funny. We actually have a policy where if we are editing the video, creating the brand film, we're like we're doing the interview. Like that's it. Because like when they do bring in other people, it's like, yeah, maybe you know each other other, but you don't know how to make a story. So, like, you might get these sound bites that sound cool in the moment, but, like, where does that connect to anything else that was said in this whole interview? And so if they're, like, insistent on it, Steve and I know sometimes
55:56 they are for those same reasons. Like, I work with this guy all the time. Like, we're best friends. It's going to be natural. Like, okay, cool. We'll let you do it. But I'm going to be in the room and I'm going to, like, have my list of questions, like, that you can ask him if you feel it's better coming through you. But like, if my editor doesn't have this, you don't have a film. And then they usually understand that. They're like, there are certain building blocks that are not part of a normal conversation, but create your story or craft the message you want. And just because, like, you're having a great time talking to each other doesn't always yield a great interview. We've had those where they're like laughing through the whole thing and then we get it back and we're like,
56:36 you didn't even talk about like pillars one through and three. And like, what do we do? So yeah, it's just, but like you said, there can be interesting results and we're not opposed to it, but we're always like, here's the hard line. We need these elements because you need us to have those elements, right? So there's always a little bit of education. That's something that we notice to go back to the business side of it with some of these like are up-and-comers when they do their interviews or have an interview-led film that they're almost like too, what's the word, like permissive with the client? They're like, well, this person's paying me money. And, you know, but they really want your expertise.
57:14 And that's something that, like Steve said, we're owner-led. So we try to have that expertise come through in every conversation. And it's like, yeah, you hired us, right? Not just to point the camera. You want us to make something that's special and unique. And so we try to lead with that rather than, yeah, we'll be there. We'll capture it. Whatever happens happens.
57:34 Like, no, we know what we need to deliver, you know, the video that's going to work for you. And so sometimes when people are starting out, I mean, I was certainly was guilty of it, where I'd be just like, yeah, cool, great idea, but not thinking like, actually, that's a terrible idea. I got to say something. So over time, we've gained the confidence to just be like, we know what you need, you know, don't worry. Like, let's work together, but we're the ones that are going to steer the ship.
58:02 And that's something you just learn over time, how to handle that with care, with the right gloves, as we say. No, I couldn't agree more. I think we could probably end it off here. We're just at the one hour mark. Well, already an hour. Yeah. Sorry, we're long-winded sometimes.
58:26 There was one thing, Dario, only if you want to get it, because when we spoke to you at the pre-interview, it was more of a nuts and bolts conversation about business. Did you want to talk about the partnership? Because you said we were the only people you had met with one of the partners actually passed away. I don't know if that's important to you or not. I was going to bring it up, but I was like,
58:47 as the conversation started going, I was like, do we end on that note or we leave it on a more upbeat thing? I didn't know if you wanted to put it in somewhere else, but it's up to you. I mean, we could bring it up just because I thought it was interesting. Like, I've never run into like a company. I mean, we've done over 100 and I think this will be 120. So we've done almost 120 episodes of guess. And that was the first time I heard one of the partners passing away.
59:16 So I guess two things that might be interesting for our guests to listen to is how important is it to have like a partnership agreement? And then I guess we can kind of go into like what happened when like your partner passed. Now his responsibilities and duties got passed on to you guys, right? And then also I guess also the fork in the road that you guys were at. Like, do you start something new or do you just, do you know what I mean? If you guys want to take it off from there? Yeah. And the only thing, Steve and I mentioned it that we can't go too deep into is like the
59:53 partnership shares just because his surviving family, his kids are still working out, like their probate and estate. So like we don't want to muddy any waters there. But we're happy to talk about like how we worked together and then like what the fallout was and the restructuring of Blue Barn, although that's fine. Yes, and actually, before you get into it, I'll let you take it off from there.
01:00:15 But for those listening, I found this out last week as I was doing the accounting sheets with Claude and everything. But when you start the corporation, you also have to buy shares from the corporation. I didn't know this. I found out recently.
01:00:32 So we had to create a whole, like, a whole, like, certificate with Claude and everything, because it only figured it out because it was saying, oh, based on your T5 or whatever document, it's like, oh, it says you haven't bought any shares. This is not something they teach you in school, all right? This is stuff you find out with an assistant. It's like, oh, yeah, by the way,
01:00:51 you got to buy shares of your corporations. Of course, I was listening. If you haven't done it, schedule it in sometimes. All you've got to do is send some money to your corporate bank account and then just ask Claude or Chad GPT to create the certificate thing that says you own so-and-so shares. So like for Kural and I, we now each own 100 shares. That way if something happens to one of us,
01:01:10 like we didn't want to get out of the company or like the estate gets it, at least you have that thing that says you have that amount of shares. Because otherwise it becomes a big issue because then Cloud is telling me, if you don't do that, then let's say you pass away or whatever, then you have to figure out what those shares were worth or something and they could become like a really, really big headache. If they existed. Yeah.
01:01:33 But again, I found this like, again, we'd be. been incorporated for over three years now. I just found this out last week. This is not something to tell you when you go on corporations Canada and you're like incorporating the business. They should, but they don't say. Yeah. And I think it may be a little different in, in California, but you definitely do need, here we have a certificate from the Secretary of State showing like your ownership, you know, shares how that pie is divvied up. So we have that, you know, locked away in a safe signed by the Secretary of State just showing like Blue Barn is 33 and a third percent, me, Steve, and then our partner Vic. So I think that's where we could jump into it if you
01:02:17 wanted unless there was anything else. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So like we mentioned, our team was, Blue Barn was founded with the three of us, but we all met in television. And, but we're coming up in March of next year of two years that Vic, our partner, passed away. So it was unexpected. He was a bit older than us, but, you know, still a shock to the system. We, we had always had talks about what Blue Barn would look like without him, just because he was older, and he was nearing retirement. And so there was always the vision of, at some point, the company is Stephen and myself. And Vick's, you know, going to retire, maybe stay on as a consultant and just kind of like gradually just do less and less until he's like fully retired.
01:03:09 But his death, you know, accelerated all of that. And Steve and I, I mean, like we were on a shoot when we found out. I mean, Stephen actually, Steve was deathly ill. I was on a production. I got the news and had to call him and tell him this awful thing that happened. And we just had to figure it out that week. Like, all right. one's coming to relieve us. I'm going to stay on the shoot. Steve's too sick to come here.
01:03:35 Luckily, our team who are just amazing guys and women, like, they're like, we got your back, you know, and like helped us out, like, with even just transporting gear, you know. And so we made it through that week, like one of the worst weeks, darkest weeks in Blue Barnes history. And it just, it took us a while. We had all this stuff lined up. So there was. time before Steve and I could even breathe to like really process that our partner was now gone. And the way we had the company divided was I was always client facing after they had been brought in contract signed. They're now working with me. I guide them through the process. I'm usually on the set. Stephen handles the capture, making sure everyone's in line there. And then the post-production.
01:04:27 he touches every project that goes out the door. But Thick was the front-facing person, the very first person you would meet when you would call or message Blue Barn. So that was a huge hole that, you know, we had to now fill. Like that was the guy that was shaken hands and winning people over and he was amazing at it. That's all he did his whole life was win people over and make them his friend. And so Steve and I are like, well, now we got to do that. You know, like we got to find a way to, you know, not only process this, but like the business doesn't stop running. So we had to learn like to do it our own way.
01:05:09 How much can we take on? And those first six to nine months, we were just spending money just to like make sure the projects would keep going. It's like hiring our guys to step into roles they hadn't maybe been in, you know. And thankfully, everyone stepped up. up and Steve and I were like, damn, we could have done this years ago. Like, everyone's amazing. They're helping us out so much. But it took us a while to like get the headspace to realize, one, this had actually
01:05:39 happened because that's just the way grief works. And two, like, what do we want to do? We thought we had three more years of planning and then starting to execute this retirement, but it's got to happen now. And that was, to be totally vulnerable, super. super scary. You know, like we've been in business 12 years at that point going on 13. And we're like, we got to figure out what the new Blue Barn is going to be like now, you know, and that was terrifying, even for two people who had known each other a long time and worked together really
01:06:15 closely. Like, what's the new dynamic going to be like? And yeah, so I think Steve, you could take it from there. But that's kind of the, that moment that we were in. you know. Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about before being like flexible and adaptive, you know, to whatever the conditions are as like a business model for like a really good production company doing good work on a regular basis. There's a certain amount of adaptability, you know, that we have to have. And we've always operated as founders.
01:06:48 And then we contract our crews for the projects. Our contractors enjoy being freelance. and we enjoy being able to call in talented folks at any given notice. So, you know, luckily we had 15 years of working together. And I read a book probably 10 years ago that was really awesome. It's called Rocket Fuel. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's essentially like a breakdown of like really successful brands.
01:07:20 There's two types of personalities that really work well together. and it's the visionaries and the integrators. And most people are visionaries. Like they can see the future. They love to have a million ideas a day. And, you know, and then there's the other type of person who is the integrator. It's like keeping everybody roan in the same direction. The person who's like the platoon leader can keep everybody glued together as a team, you know,
01:07:42 and doing more logistical stuff and is not really like, what are really concerned about like, what's next? And like, how can we do it this way? And so visionaries and integrators essentially are, it's kind of like what Carlos and I are. He tend to be a visionary. He tends to be an integrator. And there's a certain balance that's really innate to that, you know, mixture that we've already worked together for so long as a trio. We're very much a democracy.
01:08:09 You know, if we wanted to go one way, two out of three votes gets the win. You know, like if two people decide they want to do something, the third guy has to go along with it. We've always respected each other, even if we disagreed. So it worked for a very long time. But now that's just 50-50. It's like, oh, business entity-wise, that's a little scarier because there's no tie-breaking boat, right? It's like, no, we have to figure out, are we a good partnership? Luckily, we are.
01:08:33 But I could see, like, if we were too similar or, and I see this with other people that want to start, you know, companies and partnering up with people, like, you got to be careful. Like, it's if you have dissimilar core. values or if you're both too much of the same kind of person, you know, there's, then there's too much overlap. Like, he and I overlap in a lot of great ways creatively, but he really loves the client stuff and the logistics. And like, he's handling, you know, financial things that I just don't want to even want to touch with a 10-foot pole. I'm just like, just let me know if something needs my attention. But, like, otherwise, I want to stay over here in the edit. Like, I want to be color grading. I want to do sound mixing and design and, like, I'm out there filming. Like, I love it.
01:09:16 I just want to be working with colors and light and then business-wise. I really love building websites. I really love the whole branding and storytelling that goes along with digital presence. And he doesn't do anything on the website. So it's like there's all these little niches that we find, hey, you love doing that, you do that. Hey, I love doing this. I'll do this. And then we have our overlap, right?
01:09:39 We can both go and DP, direct, produce, light, sound, operate, whatever we need to do. Like, we've done it, we can do it. And let's just find the lane where we thrive. Let's be a balance to each other. And let's always respect each other, even if we disagree on, like, a certain way to go. And I think that, so for me in my mind, I don't think it's been, it hasn't been challenging.
01:10:05 It was scary, like Carlis said, because we're like, well, we've never done this as two people, you know. But it's been great. And I think the 15 years of experience, you know, respectfully working together and realizing that he's like this integrator type person and I'm more of this visionary type person it actually has a really natural fit so it works for us but you know we're two you know unique guys in a unique spot in the world and it's not the same you know could be you know the chemistry has to matter you know and that's what I think is keeping everything going
01:10:40 the key is to trust each other and like you said you have to be able to define roles, especially in a 50-50 type split. That's one of the biggest things to know what each person is responsible for. Yes, it's good that everyone can do a bit of everything because you never know when that adaptability aspect is needed. You know, like that's how it is with Dario and I, like very, very similar to you guys. But I think ultimately what also happens is because of also the experience that you would have, the important thing is always to make sure you can trust the other person that you know that you guys are both trying to make the best decisions, not only for the business, but for each other as well. And that's ultimately what everyone needs to
01:11:21 remember, especially in these types of partnerships where it's just two people, right? You know, and that's the only way you can amicably move forward. You know, that doesn't mean that you're not going to have this, you're not going to have disagreements or arguments on some things every now and then. That's normal. That's how it should be. There should be some friction to kind of help push things forward. But the key is you got to be able to also convince each other, right? And that's a lot of what the back and forth is between a, uh, a part. partnership. Definitely. Yeah. And I think just having it put in such sharp relief so fast is what like made it scary that we're like, oh man, we got to do this. And our clients and the business and
01:12:00 the bills are not going to say you can have your moment of grieving. You know, like that doesn't happen in the real world. So we had to grieve our friend and partner who passed away while also, you know, figuring it out, you know, like, and things that you would never think about, like, like, because all three of our faces are on the website, like, what's the respectful amount of time to leave that up there? Because now clients are coming back and asking, like, hey, how's Vic doing? And by the 20th time, you explain what happened, you're just getting numb, you know? It's like stuff you never would think about because it's just like, like Dario said, there's so much they don't teach you in business school. But it also,
01:12:41 I think in some ways Steve and I like leveled up the business and in like, boy, there's real like vulnerabilities that we need to close, you know, like, or real places where like, why were we putting our time into that? Why don't we hire someone? Like we have someone that helps. Like I used to do all the like the payroll. Now we have someone that helps with that. Because it's like those are just numbers.
01:13:09 It's not something that two creative minds need to like. invest time in, things like that, or like, we should have an actual business attorney, because, like, rather than Googling, you know, these questions, like, let's have someone we can call and have a relationship with who knows us and be like, hey, like, this forum, blah, blah, like, we want to create a new agreement, like, what do we got to do? Just like things like that that you would never really think about, because, like, when things are humming along, you don't have to think about them. But as now Steve and I have learned in like the harshest lesson, you know, losing someone that was important to us and to the business that
01:13:51 were like, man, there are a lot of things we really need to iron out if this is truly going to work. And it also, I think, made, not to speak for you, Steve, but like, I think it just like reaffirmed the commitment that we had to Blue Barn. Like, not that we ever felt like either of us we're leaving, but just going through something as traumatic as at that and our attorney saying, like, okay, legally you have this window where it's now or never. You can say, like, we're going to dissolve Blue Barn and it's done. And you can walk away and do something else at no penalty. And, you know, you're just like, have that moment. I'm like, do we go through that door or this door? But both Steve and I saying, like, no, we're going to make this.
01:14:39 work. We've invested the time, the money, the countless nights, like, and Blue Barnes are our future. And I think that just made the partnership even stronger, knowing that both of us were like, no, we're willing to walk through this door and we're going to keep it going. So hopefully, no one has to go through an experience like that to get that level of commitment from your partner. But as Steve said, the partnership is everything. Like, who are you partnered with should be like top of your mind and trusts, as you said, Kirol and not only trusting that person, but like feeling like it's a safe place to have those disagreements that eventually lead to agreements.
01:15:25 So, yeah, I would say more than anything else when I see people form partnerships and like, well, who's that person? Do they compliment you? Do you compliment them? Does the work feel balanced? you know, it's so much to consider. But I think that's like been the key to our success. I can't imagine Blue Varn handling the amount of clients and work that we do without
01:15:49 actually having a functioning partnership. Yeah, there's a reason that you guys are there together, you know, and I completely agree. Like hopefully no one has to go through something like that to figure things out for themselves. you know, our condolences again to you guys and to Blue Barn for for Vicks passing. And, but I'm very happy with Dari and I are both very happy to see how you guys have been able to bounce back from something like that and even like figure out a way to to grow, not only the business, but also yourselves. Yeah, definitely.
01:16:24 And I think and seeing our crew, how they stepped up through that whole time, like just really reaffirmed to us that, boy, we really do have. the right people under the Blue Barn tent, you know, working with us. And everyone's always been close, but I think it, you know, just, like I said, reaffirmed those relationships. And not that we ever took it for granted, but we're just like, wow, we really did create something special that we're really proud of. I mean, just this weekend, we took one of our editors who's been with us 10 years out to dinner.
01:17:00 He and his wife to celebrate, like, hey, you've been with us. a decade, a decade of making videos and loyalty and we're friends, you know. And on the way home, I was telling my wife, I'm like, God, that felt like such a grown-up moment, like taking our person out to dinner for like 10 years. Like, but, you know, it's, I think those are, those moments where you have to step back and reflect and be like, I think we are on the right path and it's not just a like a revenue thing you know those it's those relationships you're creating as well nice okay let's end it on a positive note yeah um tell us a joke no i'm just joking that that would go so you don't want to end on that uh no no let's let's do uh let's do the name
01:17:54 how did you guys come up with the blue barn creative i'll let Steve take that one because he was there Yeah, it was early days. We were all working at a television station, and I had identified not only Vic as a really great potential partner, but another guy, Chris and another guy, Al, who another editor and another producer at the station. And that was like sort of like at a time, we would all go to lunch together every day and have daydreams about like starting our own company and like, oh, we got to do this. And they were sort of on the fence about being original founders alongside us. Eventually they didn't take the opportunity. It was a little too scary or something. I don't know, but they're great guys.
01:18:39 We still know them today. They just went a different route. But we were having a barbecue in Al, Alan, he had a beautiful home in a backyard area with a little blue shed with a big barn door on it. And we're sitting around at this barbecue. guys we need a name we need a name for our new company and blue barn creative came out um just because i'm looking at this beautiful shed which is full of drum set video editing workstation it's like it was owl's escape you know what i mean to just do his creative stuff and it was sort of this little
01:19:21 metaphor for what we were going through at the tv station like we just want to get out of here and do what we really want to do and this This little Blue Barn was this perfect example of like, this is all the fun stuff you could do in a shed. And it was while we were having this naming conversation. And Blue Barn Creative just kind of came out of that moment where like that shed really represents like everything we want, which is to live a good life, do the things that we love and help people and get paid for it. So Blue Barn Creative was born in that moment pretty much. And then Carlos and myself and Vic were the ones that really took it on and said like, all right, quit our day jobs. go 100% into this thing that we we see as an opportunity.
01:20:02 It would probably scare a lot of people at the time that we started it because it was like, can you even get work doing this kind of thing like around here? Like everyone always thought all the good productions in L.A., all the good productions in L.A. And we're like, well, let's make some good production in San Diego. Why do we have to, you know, travel for it? And now obviously the reality is great production is everywhere all across the world. And everyone's got amazing tools from cameras and lenses to. AI and all the, all the things, all the tools that are disposable. It's in a huge industry.
01:20:33 And it's a beautiful life. If you can, you know, find some clients and make some good videos for people, like we love it. We're not, we're not changing. We're probably just going to keep evolving in our little office here as long as we can and go from there. Yeah. Well, you know, what's funny is, what's funny is now that it's, you know, 14 years, almost 15 years later. And Steve and I are, are in our 40s, you know, so we're not the 20-year-olds that started this thing anymore. But now we go to like these networking events or just hanging with other filmmakers. And we'll meet these younger ones that are starting out. And they're like, oh, Blue Barn.
01:21:13 Like, I used to watch your videos when I got my DSLR camera and study, like, how they were framing things or telling their story. And yeah, I mean, like, it really ages us. But we're also like, you know what? That's great. We're glad people were watching it back then, not just our clients. You got fans out there. You got some fans. I love that.
01:21:39 I love the origin story. Well, thank you guys for joining us on the show and sharing your story. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. That's how you're going to end at here. You've got to do their website, where to find them on social. I know. I leave that to you, Dario. I knew you were going to pick that out.
01:21:58 He was bugging me. He's like, I got to start this combo. You did the last two. And then he's like, he ends it on a note like that. All right, guys, let me find your website here. Okay, so today was listening. It's blue barn creative.com. And are you guys active on social?
01:22:15 We have at Blue Barn Creative on Instagram. And you can also find us on LinkedIn where we connect with a lot of people. Nice. Yeah, you guys got good. pictures on your on your Instagram yeah this looks pretty good I got a I got to update our socials we've been meaning to do that for a while we'll get there yeah it's a whole other conversation that's a beast yeah well if only Claude could take over my Instagram account that would be a much appreciated well the internet's just becoming bots talking to bots right so
01:22:49 thanks for the human thanks for this podcast because it was a human talking to human moment so we appreciate you guys allegedly This could also be created on... Yeah, we could be AI people. We'll set. We'll take the avatars. Yeah, call us next year and my avatar. We'll talk to your avatar.
01:23:05 It'll be a whole thing. It'll be great. We have 120 episodes. I can just easily train these LLNs to create an avatar of me and Kirol. On that, on that dystopian note, we'll have a conversation. We'll end the combo right there. Yeah. See you next time, maybe.
01:23:22 See you next time, maybe. All right. Thank you guys. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app. Creatives Grab Coffee is created by LAPS Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creatives Grab Coffee is also sponsored by... My name is Maran. Welcome to Canada Film Equipment.
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