Creatives Grab Coffee - Adapting & Evolving Your Business (ft. Agency NineSix) | Creatives Grab Coffee 33

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production, hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov from Lapse Productions. Our goal is to make the video production industry smaller by creating a sense of community. Whether you are a creative, an entrepreneur, or a professional there is knowledge for you to learn. Join us as we have industry professionals from around the world come on the show and share their insights on the industry and business. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Welcome to Video Production. Today we welcome Agency NineSix onto the show. A production agency that works with brands and organizations from around the world offering services in strategy, branding, creative, production and post production services. To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/lapse-productions-blog/ Subscribe and follow for future episodes! Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140Instagram: @CreativesGrabCoffee https://www.instagram.com/creativesgrabcoffee/ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.com Instagram: @lapseproductions https://www.instagram.com/lapseproductions/

Okay. Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we have Michael and Matt from Agency96. Normally I'd give a intro for our guests, but these guys do so many things. I'm just going to throw the ball in their court. So Michael, welcome to the show and tell us a bit about yourself. Thanks for having us, man. Yeah. So, so our little intro, I guess, about us is we've been in the production scene, I guess you'd say, industry for the last seven years. We started off, I started off as Deep Rock Productions, Matt started off as Matthew Smith Films. And since then, we've built a studio space. We're now, Agency 96 is now a production agency. We also do media buying um so anything and everything pretty

much inside of the uh uh production sphere i guess you could say yeah mike mike is uh mike has been uh in the in the world i think mike give a bit of background on yourself then i'll kind of give a background on me and then we can talk about how we came together to kind of form this this thing that's bigger than than us and how we formed this agency. Sure. Yeah. So like about five years ago, started a deep rock productions with a buddy of mine. And we just started off by doing like little small music videos, progressively started doing more corporate and more commercial work.

And then eventually when COVID hit, we actually decided we were like, well, we've got to start building a studio space here. Because our main client, which is Sleep Country Doremu, they were needing like a lot more photography and more video stuff. And we needed a space to accommodate that. So built a studio and then thought, hey, let's try and rent it out. So one of my obvious thoughts was, hey, let me call Matt and see if he's interested inside the studio space. And before that, we hadn't actually even worked together.

So I said, hey, are you interested in studio space? He said, no, I just built my house actually. And I have an office space inside of my house now. So I don't really need it. But then one thing led to another and we needed each other on different projects here and there. And that's how we kind of met. And now we're starting a whole new agency together.

I don't know if that kind of explains it all. Pretty much. Mike's a great producer. I've known him for quite some time. And I think I needed a lot of help on my projects. I work mainly as a director. And I've worked a lot here in Canada, but as well in the North American market as far as the U.S. so I have a lot of clientele as far as like Formula One and the NBA and stuff like that

that I work with in the States we do a lot of music festivals and stuff like that so I think I've needed support on a lot of productions here in Montreal and Mike's such a great businessman in a sense where he knows how to you know put the pieces pieces together and if you have a budget he'll he'll manage to make everything work and so it just felt like a natural forming relationship after the year of working together on different projects that you know what we had was was something and we wanted to build something different something new so we're not necessarily a creative agency. We are production at heart and production first. So that I think what makes us different because when, you know, these creative agencies come to us, we know how to execute because you can put

anything on paper, but it's down to the bones of how can we actually make this happen and how can we bring this to life? So I think us all having dipped our toes in production in some sort, we bring this to life. So I think us all having dipped our toes in production in some sort, people really like that people like that we, you know, know how to produce something and bring those ideas to life. So it's been a few few months of agency nine, six and full effect. So I think we're on some big things. We recently did a big print campaign for Michael Jordan and his tequila company, a billboard campaign. So that's right now in L.A., Chicago, New York, Miami. So we're on to some things and we're excited for what the future holds, that's for sure.

That's incredible. Like working with Michael, I mean, like it's really up there. And you guys just started this recently, too. So you guys partnered up during the pandemic, like early on later on. Yeah. So we started working together probably over, over a year ago. We've worked together since, and it's been a few months. We've been working behind the scenes, but it's pretty much since I think late 2021 to now 2022 is when we're, we're making a push outwards to, to make the brand aware and go public with it as far as a persona, not as a company. But I think, yeah, it's fairly new, but we're excited for what the future holds and just being able to give clients everything they need in a one stop shop.

And I think that's where the studio comes into effect as well in the office space that we have here in Montreal. And at the end goal, we do have admissions Montreal and at the end goal we do have ambitions to push out to the United States and have a headquarters there so right now we just want to make make our footprint here in Montreal in our home and I think Mike can talk about the studio space because that's been a huge benefit as well. Sure absolutely I mean yeah I think that's kind of one of the big values that we're able to kind of push to a lot of clientele coming in um is being able to uh provide that space that that is kind of just that that that creative like playground where you can kind of come in come up with an idea and a concept and every single time we have some

new client come in the door we tell them that there's no such thing as too big of a project uh because the spaces can accommodate it the studio studio can accommodate it. We get cars in here. We do. We've done some stuff with Lamborghini. We've done some stuff with like McLarens in here. We've done some stuff with Kia did a commercial here, Chevrolet. So anything and everything can really come in here. We even had someone come in with like those big like a skyjack, like, like those really big ones ones you see on the constructions

just inside the studio i didn't even know that that was happening but it was kind of interesting so i mean sky's the limit what we can kind of do uh inside the space it's just that uh that kind of space to to do stuff in jesus what kind of space you guys have you know like a warehouse size the studio yeah pretty much yeah exactly yeah so do that like right over mike's like left shoulder there's that door and then it has like how many square feet got about 6 000 square feet in the back uh with a full psych wall uh we've got full uh lighting grid up top as well so everything's lit with uh aperture novas and i think that was kind of one of the reasons that it's actually still surviving to this day because uh without those guys coming out with such great lights uh we have

a lot of music videos that also come through here because they love the lights they love the setup and they love that it's already set up where a lot of times i don't know if you guys have have had that yourselves but a lot of times you have to go and book a pre-lighting day to come in run your cables put everything over get the sky, get the skyjack, rent the skyjack, put the cables through and then figure out, make sure everything's going to be able to get plugged in properly. Know what your lighting is for us. It's like we needed it. So we said, screw it.

Let's just keep everything as simple as possible for future clients as well. So when people rent out the studio lights are already there. So we already got given that that that ease of um of use um and they can come in shoot their video maybe they're there for two hours maybe they're for 10 hours maybe they're there for five days uh but everything's like super built to be as customer oriented as possible that's amazing how like you guys are basically running an agency and a production studio at the same time obviously you built it as a tool not only for yourselves but you're also managing like it managing it

like it's its own business it's almost as if you guys are also booking your agency time in it within the business as well 100 that kind of how you uh manage those two at the same time because they're two completely not necessarily completely different businesses but they have a lot of different needs compared to the other one right and how do you guys typically go about uh sharing the responsibility or kind of uh managing that aspect so so in terms of responsibility side i'm it's myself and actually my dad who owned the the studio space um so in terms of the responsibility on that end uh the guys who also work with us on our team is kind of, it's kind of like a helping back and forth whenever somebody's possibly renting

something on a day. If we're also, if the other half of the team is all on a shoot, then we'll ask somebody else in the team to kind of cover during then. But yeah, the aspects and like the advertising and the clientele for our two almost completely different worlds but they're also the same world so what we love about having a studio and and having everyone here is that not only are we able to on a on a whim go out and start shooting something but also the people who come through the door, excuse me, when they come to the door, you're also sometimes getting like these big agencies, like, like in Montreal, you got like a cassette or maybe an Ogilvy that's coming through the door. So you're already meeting that manager or that producer right away. And then you make that that relationship with them, make this their

studio of choice, and then come in and say, hey, by the way, we also do production. So it also is kind of that little tool to be able to meet new people, speak with new people, network, and do stuff like this, exactly like this, to just meet new people in the industry. It's just been a huge tool, not only for ourselves to be able to produce our own content, but also for meeting people. That's incredible. Just to kind of use that as an intention as well for networking, because I feel any, any business owner has to find other ways to network that is a little bit

different from how most people would typically do it. Everyone thinks, oh, you need to go to events, you need to cold outreach sometimes, but no, sometimes you need to create a resource or a tool that provides value to people that actually bring them to you in a way. And that is a very, very smart way to go about it. And I'm actually, I've always been curious about how to go about starting up a studio. What is the first thing that you where do you even start when it comes to that well for for us when we started the studio the the biggest thing was we we knew we knew what we wanted we just didn't know how to execute it so for us it was kind of like learning you're going on to youtube you're like literally the same way that we started our

our own ourselves because uh i didn't actually even go to film school i just kind of i was i had an uh i was in economics in uh university and then said i wanted to take my love for video and turn that into a business um but starting the studio was kind of like just trying to figure out exactly what we needed and then how could we also service that and and and sell that to the public kind of idea uh when we're not using it uh so the first thing we had to do was was find a space and that took us about a year and a half to actually find the space that one worked with all of our locations and where we all lived to be as close as possible and then also to be as close as possible to other uh production

companies agencies creative agencies so there's a lot of in i don't know if you guys have been downtown or working downtown montreal um but there's a big sector of it that is uh like all the creative agencies work downtown montreal um but the the problem is that a lot of uh production studios they build themselves close to them as well but there's no parking they're on the eighth floor they're uh really small they have uh like no elevator no elevator exactly my god if there's no elevator then screw it i'm not i'm canceling the shoot i'm going home uh so so for us the biggest the biggest complaint not the complaint, but the biggest thing that I've heard was the parking thing.

Oh, parking is always a nightmare. Bring like a grip truck or like even like cast crew, like everyone just trying to find parking. That's a huge problem. So the fact that we have a parking lot and like loading dock that, that makes and like the same level loading dock, I think that's a huge plus definitely. Absolutely. So it was, it was all about kind of finding that that like sweet spot in between

everything where it's like, you're not too close to there that you can't get parking, but you're also not too far away that no one wants to come to you as well as having a space that's big enough to actually accommodate for the stuff that we need to do. So you find that space. And then once you're given the space and we're not really giving it, you're, you have to pay for it. Uh, you know, you, you know what that that's like, um, when you got to pay for that, then, uh, you start to figure out, okay,

well now how do we like, how do we populate this whole space to make it, uh, look the way we want to do it. So we started with coming up with plans and trying to figure out where to put different pieces. And we really wanted to be, like I said, we're customer oriented. So we want to make sure that there's a space that was big enough for people to be able to either read scripts or go over the storyboards or the ideas, uh the the storyboards or the ideas concepts on the day of excuse me with the actors away from set so that set can be its own thing things can happen over there the crew can just take care of things instead of everybody mingling and walking over each other and um and all kind of stuff so we started with building the the whole um client lounge area so we we have our dressing rooms, makeup area, little kitchenette space,

couch space. So that was a TV that we can also set up a wireless viewing on it so that the client can just sit there and see everything instead of being over the shoulder of the camera operator. And then from there went into, all right, so now we have this nice space. What are we going to film inside of it? Uh, or what are we going to shoot inside of it? So we, we ultimately thought of what are the, the biggest things that normally happen. You normally see big psych wall, uh, with, with a lighting grid and that's pretty much it so then our our first thing was where we put it how do we put it there and we had to hire a whole crew a whole team to come in and actually build the the psych wall because we had no idea how to build it and what to do uh so they built the psych wall

got that done and then once we were done with that we had this big issue which was sound because when you have a 6,000 square foot space and it's just empty uh they're you've got a lot of echoes so then we had to install curtains building the curtains putting those guys in so we have to get those imported from i think actually from toronto uh big sound curtain so that the whole thing is completely insulated we insulated the ceiling so the whole thing is completely insulated. We insulated the ceiling. So the whole thing is completely insulated for sound being able to record audio, no problems. And then from there, it was just kind of the last problem is getting clients.

And then it was just kind of how do we advertise the space and be different from anybody else outside of our own space. And that was just another challenge. It's just, it still is a challenge, but it's still going. It's still been a, about almost a year and a half, I think now of just trying to figure things out and hoping, hoping that something works.

You find it to be a little easier though, because I feel like with when you're running a video production company, you're dealing with a bigger pool where there's more competitors versus when you're dealing with studios, rental spaces. There's not that many compared to how many video production companies there are. And also, a lot of people need to shoot. And oftentimes, a lot of rental spots are booked, right? I think, Matt, you can also attest to this too uh i don't know if you guys have this issue in toronto but there is no lack of of studio spaces

here in montreal there is so many spaces it's it's crazy oh yeah yeah it's like everywhere you look somebody else is creating a new studio and build like literally we built our studio about a year and a half ago and now there's three other ones that are being built up near near us uh and actually we're past clients of ours that that uh said oh screw it well if you guys can do it we can do it too so they're building their own studio inside their own offices so they're not direct competition in that way but you lose use clientele that way where they start to look at it and say okay if this guy can do it then so can we but um there's definitely not a lack of of studio space in montreal there's uh if anything i think it's more competitive in the studio world uh that it is actually in the production world because there's so much to go around production wise and and

creativity and concepts can always change and you can and you can make it so you don't have to work inside a studio or you can work it outside or you can work it in your basement if you have to um whereas if you need the studio space it's it's almost the cheapest and the the one that has the most value that wins uh at the end of the. They're just looking to make sure that they can keep themselves inside a budget. So that's why we tried to kind of make sure knowing that our studio is mainly built for us. And then the other, everything else is kind of added on top.

The pricing on our side was, we know what, what we can charge for it and said, you know what, let's completely like cut that that margin down and and be that space that can add value and also be at a reasonable price so that people do want to actually come into us so it's it's kind of competing that way but it is a very competitive space here in Montreal for sure let's talk about your partnership for a moment like you guys are both solo solopreneurs right how do you go from that to a partner after you know being in the industry for so long like because normally

not a lot of people do that they're very hesitant right so what were some of the what was some of the resistance you were both facing and how did you overcome that I think uh so when when I uh so I went to I didn't want to be in the art field for until I I stopped playing football so when I was young I I was super invested in playing football and long story short got a scholarship to play in the NCAA got hurt came back to film school in Montreal and that's only when I started discovering my love for like film and directing and the creative world and so I worked about for five five six years as kind of a freelance you know run and gun operating guy with a camera and I would just kind of go to my own shoes and like pack my car with lights and like just try to like make it

happen you know and I realized like that's not sustainable from like a business aspect and you know if I wanted to scale and like I did weddings at the beginning so I really wanted to like narrow down my my dream of being kind of this business owner so um and a lot of these brands I was working with and still am um I would go do stuff like say like Formula One like I would do stuff with them or the NBA. But to be able to kind of contribute more, they're less likely to invest in like just one guy, you know. So we put together, you know, this plan that, OK, well, if we're a production company and we have employees and we have an office space and we have the room and scope to grow and support these big media mandates by these big clients, then it's a lot easier to trust people like that. If we build like a sustainable business plan to prove people, Hey, we're growing. I have a partner. Now we have employees that we pay.

And we have things that we're doing. We have big projects that we're working on and we can take on this large workload. So I think I say this all the time, but Mike and I are such a great yin and yang. He's a great people person. He's a great relationship guy. He's an incredible producer. And myself, I believe that I'm really creative. I can edit. I go in there. I'm a director. So that kind of creative world I get in very well. So I think we work that perfectly. And we kind of realized that pretty quickly in our relationship that not only do we get along as people very well, but also in that kind of business world, that yin and yang, I think it works perfectly. So it was kind of a no brainer for me that I

needed an expansion. He had the tools to do that. And I think it was a perfect meshing point at that point. So I thought, yeah, it was a no brainer for me at least to get together and see where we could take this together and how, how large we can scale. So since we've been together, I think it's, it's been pretty great. And just to add to that, I mean, on our side, so, so before actually working with Matt, Deep Rock Productions was myself and two other guys. And we were always coming with our own creative and we're not creative. Like we're, we are the opposite side of creative. We're the

very, I'm more the technical, like you give me the creative and then I will figure out how to get it done. Same thing with my editor, Terrence, and my DP, Eric, they're creative in their own way. They're not creative in terms of coming up with concepts. And I remember us about like two years ago saying, my God, we got to figure out creative or we're just going to sink. And then it just magically out of the dust, Matthew came in and really pulled us out

from that rut of just kind of figuring out like how do we move forward and he was able to come in um and and kind of take those reins from us and kind of figure out all this creative kind of going forward and really uh adding that extra like amazingness I guess I guess you could say to to a lot of the the videos and a lot of work that we've been producing ever since we started working together. So how many partners are there in total four then? So in the agency, it's just Mike and I. Correct. Yeah. And the other two, like I said, Terrence and Eric. So the way we work is a lot of freelance work. So technically,

they're on contract with us. They all work inside of the office here because they're 98% of their, their work comes from both of us. So we invest in buying the desk and buying and building computers for the inside of the studio to allow for them to kind of come in and not have to really worry about where am I going to do this work and how am I going to get this stuff done? So they're kind of like a in-between employee and a freelancer. They come in and they do the work that we have to get done pretty much right next to us. While at the same time, we give the studio space to them to be able to kind of build different projects. And right now, like Terrence, our our editor he's also producing excuse me this series called uh deep rock originals uh which is a uh a music series

where we have artists come in do a couple songs and then we can we create like a uh a video a live session video for them so terence is able to to kind of because of having the space being able to kind of take that creativity and be able to turn it into an actual project that's tangible and actually could possibly lead to something so now that you guys are oh sorry go ahead I was just going to say that the way you guys went about finding yourselves as partners was definitely the right way to go. You guys were looking for, you guys identified problems and challenges that you guys were facing that you knew that would be very difficult to fix yourselves. So you looked elsewhere to see who you could work with that can fill that gap. And that is a sign of a good partnership.

A lot of the time people get into partnerships because, you know, for superficial reasons or things like that. And they don't always, maybe just at the very beginning, probably because of inexperience too, right? Exactly. Exactly. But when people typically get into partnerships later on in their careers, it's because they've obviously matured enough in their careers that they know what they, what skills they lack. And they want to surround themselves with people that not only elevate them, but are also better than them in those in those specific gaps so that everybody can work together and succeed together. So that's great. Absolutely. I, I, I always looked up to actually like,

like I remember we would always be, I treated Matt actually at the beginning as more competition than I did as, because I didn't really never really work together. So I'd always see him doing something. I was like, God damn it. I wish we could do that. Why is he able to do it? We can't. And then it just kind of, like I said, it just kind of worked together that we were able to to come together and make this partnership.

I'm a big believer in like working with people that i enjoy working with um and i think in this space like if you're on set all day and things are going to get tough and it's going to get tight and it's going to get stressful but at the end of the day like if you're with your friends and you're with the people that you care about and you're having a good time like you can stop and say like oh this is incredible like i wouldn't be rather doing anything else like we're lucky enough to be creating you know commercial video content or photos or campaigns for these clients that we love doing what we love all day so the key part of Mike was like getting to know him first as a person and knowing like his core values business aside like am I going to hang

out with this guy on the weekend like the answer was like yes definitely he's a great person so and then on on top of that, just everything from a business aspect, everything he's done with the studio and with his production company and just seeing what we can do together and buying in on that vision and knowing that we can make big waves and not only here in Montreal, but in the US and worldwide as we're doing, I think it's a testament to how well we work together. So it's been exciting. So I guess on the production side of things, you guys found a pretty good way to work with each other.

You guys have a good working relationship. But on the business side of things, like in terms of growing the company, how do you guys go about that? Yeah, so I think we try to do things at a slow rate right now I think the the thing you have to be careful at when growing a company is expanding too quickly um so I'm a big firm believer in having you know Swiss army knives as your initial employees like people who can do a lot of things so the fact that Mike can be on set as a producer but also have that back-end business sense and myself as well like be on set do a producer, but also have that back in business sense and myself as well, like be on set, do the creative, do the pre-production.

And then also at the end of the day, we can, you know, wash our hands and then get into like the growth of the business and how we're going to expand and how we're going to target new clients and how we're going to offer different services. What makes us separate than every other competitor and, you know, what value we're going to bring and how we're going to do it and all those questions and to be able to bounce those off each other so um it's a definitely a 50-50 relationship when it comes to business growth i think we both have a great business sense so being able to bounce ideas off each other and using you know organizational apps like asana is like our go-to for um task delegation and what we have to do. You started using that. Yeah. You started using that the other week. It's amazing. Yeah. It's incredible. Like just the, how in-depth it goes. So we all, you know,

we're always assigning each other tasks on what to do and how we're going to take the next step. And we're just super excited about growing. And we see where we can be and we see what's happening and we just know we can compete with the best. So I think, yeah, it's hard after a long day because you're, we're not so many employees right now. Like we're wearing many hats, but I think as we grow, we'll, we'll, we'll meticulously delegate certain tasks and new employees as they come in and make sure that we, we always kind of have the reins on the direction and where we're going to go for sure. So it's so early days it's only the two of you at the moment right uh yeah i mean we have uh like as ownership or just working in within the company

like right like do you mean like it's just the two of us in ownership or so the two of you as as the core team uh it's because it's the way dario and i for example operate it's the two of us as the core laps team members and then we have a bunch of freelance answers that we hire out depending on the needs of the project so i i guess that's similar to where you guys are since you're just launching the new agency now do you have an idea of probably what the first uh hire will be down the road in terms of helping you guys alleviate a lot of your tasks as well.

Yeah, Mike, do you want to comment? Yeah, so on our side, we are the core, like the two owners would be Matthew and myself. And then, like I was saying there before, DP as well as we have a graph designer and we also have our editor who are also core members of the team, not owners, but core members or guys that I've been working with last five years.

So those guys would be, I guess you could say, once we go into hiring employees, it'd be the first employees. But beyond that, right now, what we're actually looking for and we're trying to find is just more people in general. Like we're just looking for and we're trying to find is just more people in general like we're just looking for more editors we're looking for more graphic designers looking for more crew members like people on set um just because of the fact that in the future we know that that we're going to have overlapping shoots we we have overlapping shoots that are happening this week like like things are happening where i can't be on set matt's gonna have to be on set i have to go to a different project he's gonna be on another one um we want to be able to have those a and b teams those maybe even c teams that can go out and do the smaller projects while the bigger project can

get done so we're not losing out on on those one those clients and two obviously the money uh but uh on those opportunities because sometimes yeah there and two, obviously the money, but on those opportunities. Because sometimes, yeah, there's a small budget, but that opportunity can be super, super big. And it could be a really cool project to work on that could then lead to a whole different world. So we don't, we like to never say no to anything. It's usually just yes, yes, yes. And then figure it out later. So, so for us, it's really finding kind of that just, just continuously looking for different people that, that have the same mindset, same value, same goals, same ideas as we do. And obviously you'll never find, excuse me, somebody who wants to, to work as hard as you

to building your business, but somebody who still has those kinds of values and those ideas and, and that, that, that workability, I guess you would say, is what we're looking for. Just people. You want that, you want that, you want that leadership within the role of that person. We have, you know, a lead graphics designer that is eventually going to have a team under him, we want him to be as independent and be able to do that.

So it's difficult. This is our first time building a company together. So I think there's a lot of trials and tribulations that come with it. And everything is a learning experience. And we'll continue to learn for years to come. So it's a joy when we see things go through. And it's definitely hard work.

But it's constant problem solving, but having like a great guy next to you to be able to do that and grow with makes it a thousand times better. Cause you know, that he's got your back throughout the whole thing. I forgot who said this, but I think it was another guest. They said your first hire is always going to be the hardest one. Yeah. Yeah. It always is. But it sounds like you guys already

have an idea of your first three hires, essentially. It's just a matter of getting enough of that business so that it becomes more of a permanent type role at the end of the day as time goes, right? That's it. Exactly. One thing I like that you guys mentioned was you want to be able to expand your team and the people that you work with so that you can service all types of clients, however big or small, because you're absolutely right. Sometimes those smaller budgets, it's just because that's what the budget is for that client at that moment. There have been times where Dario and I have worked with clients where they've only had budgets of maybe $3,000, $ 4,000, for example,

which wouldn't be considered really big for a, for a big agency or production company. But at that time, they only had very small need and we helped them out. We helped them out with that. And then eventually maybe half a year to a year later, they had more and more projects coming in that were much higher budgets that actually would be the ones that we would be looking for as well and yeah if you guys are working on bigger projects sometimes you need to be able to send off people to help out on those smaller ones because you never know you really

never know what opportunities are going to come your way and from where from whom that's it that's that's why the answer is always yes it's just it's even we we uh matt and matt and i actually didn't work on this but uh at the beginning of the production the deep rock productions uh we had heard on the radio someone was looking for a production company for a tv show and we said oh let's just let's just try let's just see apply to it apply to it no problem come for a meeting go into the meeting uh everything goes well. And then the next day he calls us back. He says, okay, you guys are hired. We're going to start next week. I'm like, all right, sounds good. So like we had no idea. We just were fresh out of,

out of university. I had no idea what we were going to do. Uh, they said, yes, I guess we, we were able to, uh, to persuade them enough. They said yes and then it led to a pretty weird story but maybe that's for a different podcast. I'm curious. I don't even know if I'm allowed to talk about it. That's a problem.

I don't even know if I'm allowed to talk about it. Either way, it went on to CTV. It was an actual real show at the end of the day. We were a bunch of barely 20-year-olds producing a TV show. I think we're still doing that now. Like in some of the projects that we do,

like we meet people or I go somewhere and I meet someone and then we're like all of a sudden in the middle of this thing, like, you know, be able to create a massive billboard campaign for, say, Michael Jordan. That is going to be like, we had never done billboard prints before and Michael Jordan um that is going to be like we we had never done billboard prints before and that was our first big um campaign and to be able to do that and

execute that in the studio and then you're like in it and you're like how did we get in this but let's just do it um and then all of a sudden you're learning a bunch of things and we we learned how to composite and and how do we shoot uh bottle photography? How do we shoot liquid? Like Eric, our DP, like actually putting in the time to learn that and learn how to shoot liquid and executing that on like a super tight timeline and then sending it to print. And then finally like seeing your images, like in like billboards, like on the highways of Miami and like in Los Angeles. And it's like really exciting. And then finally we like,

I'll sit down and go like, wow, that just happened. And so I think if we didn't say yes to that because we were scared of if we could deliver if we could execute then we would have never had that experience so um you know obviously you have to be you can't over promise and under deliver you have to have some confidence in yourself in that sense but um to always you know we always take on projects and just figure it out like that's the main thing we'll just figure it out um and I think we have the core team right now where we can do that and we're at a point now where it's like okay anything is possible we know how to execute it we know how to execute it at a high level so it's just about you know how we're going to do that you have to be a problem solver

not just on the business side of things but also on the technical video production side of things too right because yeah a lot of times we go on shoots, we don't know exactly how that shoot is going to go. We have a rough idea. And then as soon as we get there, we kind of just figure it out. And, you know, if you get this far, you've always been able to figure it out. Yeah.

At least 90% accuracy. Yeah. Yeah. We're at a point now where, you know, we're going through things right now where we have a budget. And since I'm the creative guy, I'll just shoot out all these ideas, VFX, this and that. And then Mike will talk me off the ledge like, okay, we need to kind of be in this world. So maybe if we do this, maybe we can do that.

So it's a constant negotiation between the two of us because I just want to blow the whole budget on VFX. And he's like, well, we can't do that. So we need to dial it down because we have all these other things that we have to do so um yeah it's fun and it's a constant uh you know constant balancing act of of budgets and creative work and how we can do things so right now we're in space where we we I think we the more planning we do pre-production the easier everything goes so there's a very like clear idea on what we're doing and when we're doing it so um but it's fun yeah it's definitely definitely a fun process I'm amazed you guys are able to run not just like a video production

agency but also like a studio rental company at the same time like I was just trying to process that earlier I'm like man that's and it's just you guys as the core team obviously you have other people that are working helping you on the production side of things but to run both companies at the same time like carol and i are struggling to run one i think my studio has become pretty self-sufficient right correct yeah at this point so so we we have obviously like like you know like like facebook like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google search, all that kind of fun stuff. That's, that's really leading our charge in terms of, of letting people know about the studio.

And I think that's something that not too many studios in Montreal are doing, or if they are doing it, they're not doing it very well because I think a lot of the owners of, of studios are older guys who have, who already have these networks of people who aren't who aren't like worried about the future they're just kind of like whatever uh we're gonna get our our clients are gonna come in they're gonna love us they're gonna always be here they're always gonna be there right for us it was like it's like no we we've got to be able to come in here and and try and steal that away advertise more tell more about it. So the more people who know about it, the more frequency, the more times they come in, they then become our, our new clients.

uh, from, uh, the bigger agencies, uh, across Toronto, Montreal, everywhere, and even the U S as well. Uh, once they start to see that there's, there's better value here than there is somewhere else, because they're just not, they're just, they, they know that they can charge certain prices because they'll just, they'll just pay it. Uh, or they'll, they'll just cut corners on certain things because they know that they can uh for us it's coming in kind of being that like i should say disruptor uh and trying to to put ourselves in and just kind of shove ourselves into the the first in line kind of idea that's really interesting it's it's just always the constant back and forth it's not it's there's no plan for it like we said there like you were saying before like like there's no plan it's just kind the constant back and forth. It's not, it's, there's no plan for it. Like we said there, like you were saying before,

like, like there's no plan. It's just kind of as things come and you know how, how crazy this industry is and how much it changes every single, every week, every week there's a new camera that comes out. There's a new light that comes out. There's a new lens that comes out that completely changes a game or revolutionizes.

As soon as that probe lens came out uh from laua i think or yeah every single video you saw after that every commercial was used with that that laua the the lens and there was probe lenses all over the place uh you couldn't i couldn't scroll through my feed without seeing someone doing something with that lens uh so you always have to be kind of just changing with the, with the game and, and kind of just working. Like Mike said, there's no plan, but there's definitely a big plan, but the plan is to be able to adjust, you know, to be, you know, your, your team's a Swiss army knife, but your business plan has to be a Swiss army knife as well.

And I think having, you know, five fingers of touch points through your business, you know, I mean, every company says they offer, you know, creative direction, photography, video production, graphic design, but to be able to actually execute and have that in-house and to be able to offer those services is like huge.

So I think to be able to go different directions and have multiple sources of income to be able to support when the and have multiple sources of income to be able to support when the market goes somewhere, because you know, if the market's not offering 10, 15, 25, a hundred thousand dollars for a video at this moment, then, okay, then that's just not the market and you have to adjust to it and you have to be able to still, still produce, you know? Yeah, exactly. Like you, yeah, sorry, Go ahead. I was just going to say exactly because the reason we have to be so adaptable is because, as you said, the market is is changing constantly. And our clients especially are the ones adapting when they're adapting. We have to adapt with them.

If they realize that they need to change their business model, their marketing goals shift. We can't stay in the exact same way uh that we were working before that and this is why probably also your studio is doing so well compared to some of those other ones because they're really set in their own ways they're not willing to adapt or change and that is why they're set up for failure down the road and it's the adaptability is survivability at this point of the game 100 like i mean uh just seeing even during like the beginning of covid like like i i remember when clients just would like literally call me and be like we're not doing like canceling shoots canceling productions and you have to be able to adapt to that and kind of

be like oh my god okay these guys are like where's my source of income going to come in from right you know and and uh trying to figure that kind of stuff out. And when the market ends, you also have to really look at the economy in general as a whole, because see how things are going. Are people buying things? Are people wanting to buy more expensive things or less expensive things? Are companies willing to start to spend this money on advertising because the economy is super low or we're going into a recession, we're going to uh all these kinds of things it really does affect and comes back to you because then if a company doesn't want to advertise because they got to save money to be able to pay their their actual employees who are working day to day uh you don't get that money you don't get to to

do that job right no matter no matter how much you you uh keep pitching them and trying to sell them if they don't got the money they don't got the money that's pretty much it it doesn't appear out of nowhere yeah what kind of systems are you guys uh setting in place now to ensure like future success um what do you mean like you guys mentioned the sauna right because like one thing carol and i from what we learned from other guests is that you need to have systems in place to be able to scale, to grow and just have like, you know, proper like processes in place. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think, I mean, from a back end standpoint, Asana has been a big help because we have now the productions that we're doing are so involved in pre-production, like pre-production is a production in itself. So we'll have on Asana, we'll have the client and we have a full list of our clients. And then we have within that client, we have different campaigns. So April or May 2022 campaign. uh so april or may 2022 campaign and then within that may campaign we have whether it's a static campaign so photos uh we have our video campaign like so all our video ads that are in that campaign that are being made and then we have within the video campaign we have that specific production and then we have pre-production production post-production so in pre-production we'll have like seven or eight categories of locations scouting shot lists mood boards

art direction you know whether we need props so all the pickups stuff like that and then within like say location scouting we have like all our work back schedules. So when, you know, we need to scale locations, when we need to get them approved, and that goes on to like the production. So making sure we have our pre-production checklists and then post-production, we have all our cuts, revisions, notes that we put on frame.io to get the clients to review them right there.

So I can make those changes. So that's also huge just being as organized as possible i think sets your framework so when you have new people coming in uh to work they can be easily integrated into the program and be able to see their tasks super easily whether it's on a daily schedule or a weekly schedule and they can be able to just take care of that and then they can put updates there and we can be notified when we need to review their work or when things are submitted and just be able to keep track of that because right now there's so many things happening and we don't want to say no so then like we have to be organized to a tee or else things are going

to be missed deadlines aren't going to be made clients aren't going to be happy and we're just going to be like walking in mud going backwards and the last thing we want to do is take on too much and not be able to deliver. So we've been really working hard on being organized and being efficient. You have to be efficient. Yeah. You have to be efficient to the point where you're able to give your clients a good experience because think about, about it when you're hiring a service for whatever you might want, you want is something that is easy to use, simple process, straightforward, people that are very forthcoming. If sometimes, if they though, however, make you jump through so many different hoops to get what you eventually need, then you're thinking

to yourself, what was the point of even hiring you at the end of the day, right? And something as simple as Frame.io, io for example completely shifted the way we were doing all of our post-production uh note revisions and everything like that because we all know those microsoft word documents that we've all had to deal with in the past or the email chains or the email chains from 10 different people from the same client where nothing's consolidated to the point where it was just a complete mess of a nightmare. And so Frame.io made it a lot easier, although we did notice one other challenge that came by really quickly, which allowed us to also adapt and shift, which was that letting them

know that they can comment or whoever has that link can comment, whatever their notes are, can also be a challenge in and of itself. If they have 10 different people commenting and arguing with each other in those comments about what should be done yeah exactly it even needs to be more granular where you have to be like okay there's only we're only going to accept the the comments from these five people nobody else can say this i don't care who they like you almost have to go down to that level even more detail there you go exactly that's it maximum two that's it exactly you have to because uh definitely everyone then and that's what this world is it's it's it's subjective uh and and it's just one person's mind can can think okay

i want to go down i want to go right and the other one's saying no we have to go left uh eventually everyone comes exactly eventually everyone comes back down to the same spot at the end but but the amount of left and right turns that you're doing because somebody else says go this way go that way go this way go that way uh it's just it's it's not an objective world and something you just kind of have to uh understand and and unless you're unless you Unless you're producing funding and directing the work, it's just about making the clients happy and giving them what they want. You don't want to have a relationship

where it's constant pushback. And you just, unless they give you a mandate where it's like, okay, create all this. But even when you do, there's going to be revision. So I think it's about just, you know, taking care of that relationship, providing them what they want and putting your ego at the door and just saying like, okay, this is what you want.

And we're going to give you exactly what you want and delivering on that. And they're, they're paying you at the end of the day, right? There's only so much demanding you can do in terms of the creative for that project that they're the ones footing the bill too, right? 100%. Absolutely. you can do in terms of the creative for that project if they're the ones footing the bill too right 100 absolutely i mean uh yeah if if they're paying for it then uh that's how i think about it at least is is whatever whatever the client says goes at the end of the day i mean if they're not happy with it it doesn't matter it doesn't matter how much you beg scream yell and cry if they don't like it they're not paying you. So

make sure they like it. I mean, at the end of the day, you can still, you still want to work with them and try to help them because sometimes they may not necessarily know what they're asking for as well. So it's also your job to make sure that it doesn't get to that point where they're very set on a certain thing that you know is not going to work. You got to try to help them throughout the whole production process, especially in free, let them know what will work what won't work and then usually that those challenges don't come later on in post and you know you get that with experience it takes it takes years to develop that type of communication skills and working and collaborating with clients and other people and eventually eventually we all figure it out right eventually

and even after eventually you still don't figure it out. Then something else changes and then you got to read it. A new client comes in. That's it. Exactly. With a completely different, completely different industry. I wonder what the next generation will be before, sorry, before we get, like once we get older, if we get into our forties and then we're dealing with clients that are in their twenties, what that's going to be like. I can only imagine people who are in their like fifties, sixties now that were in this space 20, 30 years ago. There's no way that they, they thought that this was going to come up, come around and, and they were going to have the same problems that we're having today. Exactly. It's good that at least we know that this industry changes on a whim so we're we're always uh ready to adapt to the next big thing we grew on adaptability that's essentially

it and you need to do that you need to grow on adaptability 100 i think in every industry honestly not even just this industry uh everything's got to be able to adapt and i think i think covid definitely uh gave everybody a little wake up wake up call that uh they're not even big corporations are not uh invincible that little gut punch that's it exactly yeah okay well we're at the one hour mark so i i think this is a good place to end it off so guys thank you so much for coming actually before we end off yeah uh why don't you tell us how you guys come up with came up with the name agency 96 oh my god that was the worst experience of my life that was that was days and days of sitting

inside of this very office uh with actually like the the guys were talking about there before uh terence mike and eric as well as me and matt sitting in here and just kind of throw a name at the beginning the name was agency x because i was just i would just say oh you know agency x will do like just the unknown it was just a placeholder name and then we were kind of like that's kind of cool maybe we'll do that and then we started noticing that there's like five thousand different agencies i was prepared to spend like i'm a i'm like a very like task guy so i was like i have a like one hour task on this on like a tuesday and let's just do it then and it was like week two and we're still talking about this stupid name and i was like it's it's a thing that matters because it's the first you know first impressions exist and like yeah i mean it it you know eric our

dp said it like it it can't it doesn't have to be great it doesn't have to be incredible it just can't be terrible like so it has to be a name that is like okay no problem um so we tried a bunch of things but at the end of the day um where mike and i are both born in 1996 eric's 96 all of us uh our lead guy is 96 our editor is 96 or like all right we're just the 96 gang so let's just go with that like our core root and so we went with that nice that actually has a nice little story to it there's always little stories that come behind it like for ours uh the the name came from uh a script that we were uh well specifically dario was writing uh titled laps and then when we were when we decided to work together we were trying to think of a name and he said why don't we just do laps and i said

no we're not going with the first option that we that we choose and like that doesn't happen you don't go with the very first one we tried hundreds of names and nothing sounded as good or was available compared to the first one we're like all right that's it that's that's the name there you go is we literally just chose it because it sounded cool and now we actually developed something uh pretty cool whether we turned it into an acronym so it stands for lasting amazing sounds pictures and experiences i was like okay this is like the story we tell our clients yeah there you go that's good awesome yeah actually you you spelt it as last dario just now so oh you did pictures sounds and experiences it's it's nine in the morning okay i i need my second tea before i function

at 100 there you go exactly there we go all right guys well we'll leave it at that but thanks again for joining us on creators grab coffee and uh you know hopefully uh we continue all growing and adapting uh with this crazy market right absolutely hopefully our our paths actually cross in in the production world i mean i don't know about you guys but uh we see the same people over and over again so uh we're always in toronto we're always in montreal we're all over the place so maybe we'll our paths will cross someday yeah absolutely we got a shoot in montreal and we need a studio now we know who to reach out to you know who to call exactly exactly or even if you guys are in,

in town and just want to grab a drink, you know, and just connect in person. We're open to that as well. Love it. Awesome guys. Okay. All right.

Take care guys. Appreciate it. Take care. Have a good one.