Creatives Grab Coffee - Creativity Shifts (ft. Immediate Group) | Creatives Grab Coffee 12

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kyrill Lazarov & Dario Nouri. CGC is a platform where creatives and business professionals discuss industry topics and share experiences.Today we welcome our guest Ryan Bergmann. Ryan runs Immediate Group, a production company for the digital age. Working with agencies, brands and people to develop ideas and concepts that maximize viewer engagement. In addition to their commercial work, they have a mandate to support and collaborate with charities and non-profit organizations whenever possible.Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS - www.lapseproductions.com

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kirill Lazarov and Dario Nuri. CGC is a show where we invite business professionals to discuss industry topics and share experiences. Today we welcome our guest Ryan Bergman. Ryan runs Immediate Group, a production company for the digital age, working with agencies, brands, and people to develop ideas and concepts that maximize viewer engagement. In addition to their commercial work, they have a mandate to support and collaborate with charities and non-profit organizations whenever possible.

We hope you enjoy our discussion, so let us start. Did you get scared when they announced the new modified Stage 2? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I wasn't going to restaurants inside. I didn't go to the gym. I wasn't bummed like from that sense, like being not able to do that stuff anymore. But it's just scary to see the numbers go up. And obviously for production, I'm like terrified that we're going to lock down again and not be able to shoot. So that's like a fear of mine. we're going to lock down again and not be able to shoot. So that's like a fear of mine. But yeah, I mean, I'm keeping safe. My team's keeping safe.

So we're just trying to stay as positive as possible. Yeah. I remember when that happened on Friday, I called Kiro. I'm like, yo, do you think our shoots next week are going to be canceled? He called in a panic. He's like, Kiro, do we have anything next week and i'm like yeah we do don't worry that we have smaller we have small shoots it's not like a crew of 10 20 people that we have to manage so it's all good and it's only like the restaurants and gyms and how did you kind

of feel like when we went from stage two to stage three with each one like what was like some of the big changes that you started noticing for yourself with Immediate Group? I mean, we didn't shoot anything until we were allowed to. We really kind of followed the rules. I was not coming into the office. I was working from home. Partly because I was scared, but also just wanted to follow the rules and be safe and I'm not liable for anything that were to happen um but yeah I mean once stage three hit we were allowed to shoot again which was great but it's not like it just went like go and we

started shooting right away it was like a really slow period um you know continuing conversations with clients starting new conversations with clients working through pre-pro it like it wasn't until end of september mid to end of september that we actually shot anything so um yeah it was slow and like luckily we still did some post train lockdown and we're doing some animated videos some motion graphics stuff so that kind of kept us afloat kept us above water and yeah just I was like dying to get back on set it was it was weird like and then I was like super nervous going back on set because I was like shit do I even like remember how to felt rusty and manage people yeah I like felt so rusty but then once I got there and like felt the energy of the crew and everybody it was like so awesome to

be back at it um obviously different with the masks and the distance and everything like it's so weird it's so hard to to adapt to and like accept as our new normal or whatever you want to call it um but yeah I mean I'm sure you guys felt the same way being back on set and just working again no matter what it is like some of the projects we were we started doing like are not these like breakthrough awesome portfolio pieces but i don't care like i was super passionate and super like committed to whatever we were doing just because it'd been so long so yeah like having been gone for like five six months not having like not being able to to do much like you're grateful you're grateful like the first few projects that come in you're like okay i'm ready to do something but like what was like maybe like the first feeling that you got when you

when you got on set you know like uh you mentioned you were a little bit nervous uh obviously but was there anything else that you were feeling you know as you were kind of getting back into it I was just thinking like this could very well be the last shoot for another five months, you know, like that could happen. And so I need to like make that very best of this time with these people and this opportunity because yeah, who knows when I'll be back on set again. Luckily I have been back on set since then, but kind of approaching each shoot like it could be the last one for a long time again so yeah how big is your uh your your uh your team yeah um so like the salary team like the the

immediate team is three people it's myself uh Marsha who is our producerha, who is our producer, and Yuri, who is our editor and colorist. And so depending on the scale of the project, like it might be just us. The only other team member we would have to bring on is a DOP, obviously, and, you know, camera team. But we've done stuff where it's like just me and adit you're running around shooting like not from like dog style kind of stuff um but we scale up or down so you know we've had crews as big as like 30 40 people um recently it's been like no more than 10 we're trying to keep it less than 10 and clients have been very understanding and kind of supportive of that more nimble approach. And they're actually kind of looking for that more nimble approach for their own sake and safety. So we're actually pretty well positioned for this whole COVID world because we're just used to not necessarily smaller scale,

but just, yeah, more nimble, you know, wearing multiple hats, that kind of thing. How have you seen the creative process get affected with COVID? Obviously, you know, before you would have the freedom to kind of come up with whatever ideas you wanted, but because obviously with COVID now, you know, you're trying to, you're restricted to, you know, like trying to be six feet apart, you know know you're trying not to interact with people how is that affected like maybe the kind of creative choices that you've made in like the in the briefs and the stories and the ideas that you were pitching to be honest i mean it hasn't really affected the creative too much um at least with the opportunities i've seen like we haven't seen any boards or scripts where it's like big crowds and,

you know, on location with tons of people running around. Everything has kind of, when it, when it comes to us in script form or in brief form from the agency, they've already kind of taken into account what's possible right now. So in the creative phase, it hasn't really affected anything for us yet but then obviously on set you know we're hiring covid protocol protocol managers and people just to kind of focus on on just that on set and they might be like, hey, this is what needs to happen for this to be safe, whether it's like lighting crew sets up with the leaves,

you know, hair and makeup is happening outside, bathroom is down the street kind of thing. So there's like logistical precautions that are put in place. But knock on wood, it hasn't really affected the creative yet for us that being said like there hasn't been any big big opportunities where that might be the case right so i i've never heard of these uh covid um protocol people coming on set oh really yeah this is a thing with a lot of

the bigger sets they have people that are just dedicated solely to making sure that everyone adheres to these protocols. It's not necessarily needed as much when it's a small crew of like four people or something like that or five. But then if it's like once it gets to like up to like 10, 15, 20, then it gets a little bit stricter. Have you been on set with the people? No, I've just heard about it. And like as Ryan mentioned, that like they've been doing it a lot. Like how, what is like the lowest crew number that you've had where you've had to bring in

someone like that? Yeah, like around 10 people. Like we keep it under 10 and one of those people would be like the COVID supervisor. So like, it's a totally new role that's kind of just come up and has been created that we add on as like a line item

just for our own safety, but also just for like the client safety, you know, for them to know that there's someone dedicated to that role and just kind of staying on top of everyone. And the good thing about it is when you have someone outside of like the film world doing this kind of thing you know it doesn't matter if it's the director or the client or the producer who's you know being

unsafe doesn't matter who it is this person will tell them what they need to do like put them in their place um you know be safe so it's it's almost like they're at the top of the the hierarchy in terms of roles they have uh you know freedom and um they're encouraged to just stay on top of everybody no matter who it is make sure everyone's being safe um so that we can we can get the job done and it's crazy like we've been talking to people on like bigger sets like netflix shows and whatnot and a lot of these shows are spending like millions of dollars every few weeks to have like a life labs uh thing set up on set so people can get like tested throughout the day. Like it's crazy the amount of money we're putting into this stuff because, you know, you have to, like insurance companies aren't, aren't covering much,

if anything COVID related. And so to, to make sure that the company's covered and everybody's feeling safe, we're having to put lots of money and time into these safety precautions where do you even find a person like that I mean we kind of just asked around for references and you know people have done it but you know there's that that Facebook group like I need a fixer can Canada edition, you'll see a lot of apps on there for COVID people. And then you'll see a ton of responses, people who are doing it.

So you can you can find them there as well. And on the insurance, then do you let your insurance know, okay, I have a shoot coming up on this date, I'm bringing in a COVID person or whatnot. And then like, do you let them know? Or like, how's that work? Not really. I mean, I just renewed our insurance for the year about a month ago and they've basically adjusted all of their fine print and all of their, you know, policy points to say that like, this is not covering COVID. You need to take your own precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. I don't think, to my knowledge, it exists where you can say to

them, we're on set tomorrow. Can we beef it up to make sure if COVID were to happen, we'd be covered? I don't think that exists exists at least with my insurance provider okay so what i guess what happens if you do get covered the thing is like i guess the reason they're doing that is because it's so easy to catch it like insurance providers at the end of the day they want to make money they don't want to they don't want to have to be on the hook for something that is very likely to happen and then you know then they're going to be stuck paying like hundreds of thousands of dollars when only you paid them like what, $5,000? Yeah, that's true. So it's...

I wonder what happens now. Like, okay, so you get... Well, it's like with cars, you know, like when you get into, when you start getting into more accidents, they start to bump up your rate because they know that you're going to be prone. It's just one accident in this case well but i mean there's a lot of expenses when it goes into covid related stuff i can imagine right like it must be a disaster like imagine your it happens like your client would probably be like i wonder i wonder if they would work with you again after that who know i mean who knows i mean i guess but the thing is you cannot also necessarily figure out how you got it like where you got it too accurately that's another thing like it's a lot of hearsay you know it's like

i think we got it from this one because they tested positive but was it really them you can't prove it and i don't know like there's probably so much legal that would go into that right yeah i mean one thing we're doing is like before the shoot, we're asking everyone to do the SafeSets certificate program thing, which is a website. I forget what it's called, SafeSets or something. We get them to fill out a questionnaire, which is like the same thing they ask you if you go into a store.

Like, have you been traveling? Have you been sick have you been around anyone and they sign a form which basically says no to all those questions or you know answers them correctly um so that at least covers us from uh on paper kind of legal perspective and then after the shoot we follow up a few days after and say, how are you feeling? Are you still okay? Is everything okay? And then we end with the client too, like client, crew, everybody.

We follow up and make sure everyone's feeling okay. Luckily, it's been okay for all the shoots we've done. And then we let everyone on the crew client know that everyone's feeling fine. We're good. Moving on kind of thing. thing yeah that's really good yeah we just recently started implementing something similar where we put together our own questionnaire and our own like protocols package of like what everyone on set is expected to do and and abide by that we just send out to the client and the whole crew and everyone needs to fill it out just to make sure that everyone is on the same page because at this point you know like you need to you need to like it also shows everyone on set in the in the clients that you care you know like i'm sure

there's a lot of people out there who do a lot of these run and gun smaller shoots and don't think of this stuff as well and you know it's it's such a stark contrast yeah that's just peace of mind right like of course it just makes everyone feel better more confident um when you have something in place right like it's yeah i mean even just for me like knowing that our crew at least says they're okay i i feel better all right like the unknown is what's scary right if you don't know or someone's been or if they've been affected so ryan why don't you run someone's been or if they've been affected so Ryan why don't you run us through your background like how you got into the industry big question um basically back in like I think it was grade seven or eight my dad

bought a cam for the family like a mini dv uh camera for like family trips and um i just like as soon as i figured out how to use it was like getting so into making like these family movies on vacation and then i know this is cliche but like i was big into skateboarding and started you know shooting these skate videos and i i'm not very good at skateboarding so I was filming more than actually skating just like filming my friends and then like even at school like I wasn't great in school wasn't too stoked on it but I could get really invested in projects if I could like incorporate filming somehow so whether it was like a book report or a science project, I would like figure out a way to make a video of that project.

And then my teachers, for whatever reason were like blown away by the fact that I was doing videos. Little did they know it because I had no interest in the project. Shoot it. So I started like getting, because I had no interest in the project if I could shoot it. So passionate. I started getting good marks with these video project submissions. And so that was kind of my way to get through high school.

And then, you know, my dad is an engineer. My mom was in medicine. So there was definitely some convincing that needed to happen that I could actually make a career in filming and video I think every filmmaker goes through that they have to convince their parents like look I'm not gonna be a bum I swear oh yeah yeah and so yeah so I went to UBC in Vancouver the film program there which was great um and and that was kind of like for my parents as well like they wanted me to get a university degree not just like a one-year college private type thing

um so went to UBC got the degree like the program there was a lot of like theory and like film studies in addition to production so um you know I probably could have learned more going to college or just getting on set but the the degree was important to to my parents and also to me like I just I wanted to go through the whole university experience living in red you know having fun with that did you make good connections through the um the school years yeah so that's what i'm gonna say like the program is one thing you know i learned what i did it probably could have been better it could have been a lot worse um but the people i met in that program i'm still working with a lot of them today um was so inspired by a lot of them some of them

are big names now working around the world and still, still having that connection as like fellow alumni, um, from that school is it's huge. Like my go-to DP is, is from UBC and like, I don't know what I would do if I, if I didn't meet him. Cause I have to call him up on so many projects because I'm so comfortable and I've been through so much with him. So yeah, like going to school just for the connections is worth it 100% in my eyes. How many people would you say from your program actually stuck through with it

like after school ended? That's a good question. I mean, I lost touch with quite a few of them. Good question. I mean, I lost touch with quite a few of them. I would say like, so each year, I think there was only 20 people in the program, which is a pretty small program. I would say 50% stuck with it, maybe more, maybe less, depending on the year, at least in some respect, right? Like are you know working um uh you know in like feature films and tv you know whether it's like the casting agent or you know location scouter like or they're working on you know movies of the week uh the hallmark channel stuff some people are you know directing dop i mean there's there's a lot of different paths people took, but I'd say about 50%, to my knowledge, are still working in the field.

I think it depends also on the programs that you go to, because we've talked to other people who have gone to different film schools, and they would say that only 5%, 10% of the people actually stick with it or actually manage to find work. So it's pretty good that the people actually stick with it or actually were managed to find work it's pretty good that 50 stuck through with it yeah i i do you think that's pretty common that like maybe like it really depends on the program like how invested and how involved people are able to kind of continue or pursue the career yeah i mean i think film school is what you make of it right like if you're super invested in the

craft and like you just know that's what you want to do it doesn't matter what your professors are like or you know what the school is like you're you're you're gonna be in it you're gonna make a career out of it I think some people like go in thinking that it's all just going to be kind of laid out for them. Like, okay, you get your degree. Here's where you get your first job. Here's when you like direct your first spot. Like, you know, it's, it's a really tough industry, right? It's all about who you know, and, you know, and it's a grind, like it's a, it's a super grind. So I think people go in maybe not being as prepared for that and maybe they lose interest and they want something easier or just more consistent, more reliable, right? Like they

want a paycheck, you know, every two weeks as opposed to like hunting for your next gig. So I think maybe that's what discourages people afterwards. It's definitely a tough career path. And a lot of people don't realize it. Like a lot of people always see the end goal. It's like, I'm going to have an Oscar in my hand. You know, it doesn't obviously work like that. You have to have like, I love what you mentioned that you need to have a good attitude about

it. You have to have a good approach to like what you make of the program. Because if you are in that environment and you aren't able to make something of that you're competing with people uh like like people like people like dario and myself who didn't go to film school but made something of it because we had the passion we wanted to pursue this career ourselves so we figured out a way to do it without film school so you really like you said it really doesn't matter what, what program you go to, or what path you take on, as long as you're passionate, and you're willing to hustle, that is the only way you will find success. I wonder how many of them choose to go,

because there's obviously two paths you could do, right, right after you finish, you can either do the union route and try to work within the film industry, or you go our route, which is the video production industry which is basically like gig hunting in a way right like you you make of it what you make of it right it's just freelance and then maybe you get a job at a corporate video production company i wonder what the stats are for that yeah it's a different mindset now it's like a whole different it's a different uh ball game entirely you know totally yeah i also think like my program at ubc was very focused on like feature films um and tv and like government grants

and you know distribution all that kind of stuff which you know is obviously still a big thing but they didn't touch on like advertising and commercials and marketing which is like a great place to go and start your career um after school where you can make a name for yourself where you can build your portfolio and and where there's money like you know it's still hard but there's there's money, like, you know, it's still hard, but there's, there's lots of money in commercials and advertising. So, you know, when I, when I graduated, I, I, I first started just doing like corporate corporate videos. Cause that's where I knew where there was a need and where it was like,

you know, there was money there. And, you know, just doing videos for family, friends who own businesses or friends who worked at companies where there was potentially a need for video. But it took a while to really learn and understand that, you know, commercials is a great place to go and a great place to create. great place to to create so I wish going back like my profs would have had a course for like new media you know web series um getting on Netflix that kind of thing they were very focused on like this is how you get a telefilm grant this is how you um make a film and like raise money and it was almost like um it I wasn't super excited and inspired based on what they were telling me I had to kind of learn outside on my own where I was gonna go what the path was gonna be well one thing I noticed

about any university programs is that or any university program is that the content that is being taught there, a lot of the time becomes really outdated within like a year or two. Like what year did you go to UBC? I graduated in 2013. Okay. So for example, that was a time when Netflix was also still relatively new, right? And a lot of these online digital platforms were still kind of emerging like I remember 2013 was the time when I really decided to start pursuing this industry as well and I just kind of saw the digital side of things grow YouTube was where everything was being focused on because it was YouTube was hot at the time it was very hot and the content was like like people

were on the hunt for new creatives new talent like within that space so it was really hard to kind of predict it maybe now there's probably so many different programs and courses as you mentioned where there is a focus on it because now it's been around for more than half a decade where people can really quantify it and figure out how to teach it like now there's so many tutorials on youtube that teach a lot of things that weren't around like five years ago when i when we when we were all starting out we had to figure a lot of things out ourselves because nothing had been tested everyone was just trial and error trial and error trial and error and now all the trial

and error has kind of been taken out of the content world and there's solutions to everything it's like you need to film something like this for this type of ad here's how here's like 50 videos on how you can do it right i love calling those videos tech support so like camera reviews how to how to let us you know i always call those tech support camera tech yeah no it's true i mean i i wouldn't call myself technically savvy in any sense and pretty much every project like i still edit some stuff um here and there and pretty much every project working in premiere i have to Google something. You too, eh? Everyone does.

How do you add a time code? Yeah, something will cut out or like autosave didn't work or I don't know. I think I'm cursed when it comes to technology. There's always weird shit that happens. But Yuri, who's sitting beside me, I call him my IT because I'm always like, Yuri, what do I do? Google's not him my i.t because i'm always like yuri what do i do like google's not answering my questions like i'll look like in forums and on reddit and like i can't find a solution to the problem i have and it's like oh my god thank god you're here thank god people are posting these videos because otherwise that'd be lost oh my

god one time i had a project just disappear on me when was this uh two years ago oh yeah and then yeah, and then I pan I was panicking. I was literally just shitting my pants I'm like, oh my god, like it was like 99% done I just had to like add one last thing and then just export it and it was just called Adobe I'm like, yo, you got I'd like the guy called the guy answer. I'm like, you gotta help me out I'm I'm in deep shit right now. The whole thing just disappears like I just do this this and that'll pop up again I'm like, oh it worked okay thanks see he he figured out the problem on his own and didn't concern myself or the client because i didn't even know this happened no i told you about it you did yeah i don't remember this i was like yo you have no idea what happened this morning

yeah it's scary like i i try and buy like best drives, the most reliable hard drives. I take DIT and file transfer very seriously. I'm almost anal about it. I'm like, no one go into the room, I'm transferring files. went out and went right back on and I went to open my project and it was like like kind of like what you said Dario it was just like not there and like I had to dig into like the cache and like the auto save whatever like I had to figure it out like the project file which is not there and just like weird stuff like that I'm like like people say it's scary to work with film, right, cause you can like expose it and you lose it and everything. But like, at least film is like a living, breathing thing

that like, as long as you take care of it, you know it's gonna be there. Whereas like digital, like, it can just happen, right? Like you can have like a magnetic pulse on like the jewelry you're wearing and it's fighting the signal of the drive like shit just happens not not to mention adobe was so buggy for the longest time in the past year it's gone really really good it's really good but oh my god it's been a struggle working with that thing it always like i mean the the

stereotype is that it always crashes right like every time it's just like all right well that's adobe but now it's actually pretty decent it's pretty good the best is when you get that that uh notification where it's like a serious error has occurred we are going to try and save your project but no promises don't give me hope don't do that don't give me hope but it's like sometimes like it has also that error where it's like adobe decides to take up too much ram even though you're rocking 32 gigabytes of it you know it's like nope still not enough project crashes sorry deal with it but the one the one thing i found that made made the the programs crash less was using adobe media encoder and ever since we started using that it's so good it's been just the fastest and the most reliable because it doesn't mess up

the the premiere file if something does happen and that has been like a safety net and you can still work in the background like while it's rendering out and everything yeah but editing aside and film school aside I guess okay so continue you finished UBC yeah so I finished UBC like I said I started doing a lot of like corporate videos talking head type stuff and like it was super hard like I I was basically offering services for free just to like build my portfolio and get some projects under my belt did a lot of like just indie stuff like I would do you know a spec ad or I do a little film about my dog or my brother,

just like anything to build a portfolio. And then some bigger opportunities like by luck just kind of came up through people I knew and references, you know, like I, I went all out for every project, even if it was just a talking head video with no budget. Like I still went 110% into it. Cause you never know who that person knows or who's going to see that video.

And it's, you know, a very slow kind of like five-year snowball effect. And then, you know, I started working with bigger agencies and bigger gigs. And I was sick and tired of wearing the producer hat and the director hat because one always kind of suffers either the creative suffers or the budget suffers. Um, and so, you know,

we had enough, uh, work coming down the pipe that I could bring on a full time producer. So brought on Marsha, who's amazing. She came from the not for profit, uh, space event dealing with like big brand partnerships there and we had been in touch for a while um I had done some volunteer

work for some of the charities she worked at and we just had like a great kind of vibe connection going so brought her on full time which has made it so much easier for me to focus on creative focus on directing um and kind of let her handle the you know client communications and business development all that kind of stuff um and then yuri i mean yuri and i so he's our colorist and editor i went to school with him at ubc as well he's been involved since the beginning what other you know shooting stuff for me coloring editing stuff for me but then he kind of became a part of the company full-time and you know we became the three of us and yeah it's been about a year and a half almost two years now with like the full team approach and it's going pretty well we got the office space here in the junction,

which pre-COVID was amazing because we could host supervised color sessions and edit sessions and could prep cameras here, have meetings here. Now it's not being used very much because of COVID and everyone's working from home. We don't do supervised anymore. It's just like Zoom calls

where we bring the clients in on zoom to, to see where the edits that are where the color is at. Um, but yeah, it's, it's been a fun ride and you know, it's, I'm happy with where we're at right now, but there's still so much room to grow and I still have months where it's like, what the fuck am I doing? Am I doing what I want to do? Am I doing the projects I want to work on? And like, it's like what the fuck am I doing like am I doing what I want to do am I doing the projects I want to work on like it's it's constantly kind of up and down in terms of like

confidence and morale um but you just kind of keep on trucking and like really always making time for like projects you're passionate about even if there's no budget at all just making sure you have time for those because that just continuously reminds you of why you're doing what you're doing and why you love what you're doing and um so yeah I mean in in quarantine when we couldn't shoot we worked on a ton of passion projects stuff we were doing work for a bunch of charities just like giving back wherever we could which which charities were you working with or are you still working with? A bunch. So Special Olympics, Rethink Breast Cancer, Ontario Nature, Fred Victor Society, Jack.org, UHN, Hospital Network.

Marsha came from that world. So we really just reached out to everyone and said, hey, do you need help during this time? We would love to support in any video content or even photo needs that you might have. And so that was a way to keep busy, to feel good about the work that we were doing and just like stay creative and keep working

on stuff so and how did you choose those charities well they knew the people oh you knew the people that were working there yeah i mean marcia had some contacts there but we were also just trying to diversify right so like okay nature we'll get back to the environment uh special olympics we'll give back to people with an intellectual disability. UHN Hospital Network, we want to be a part of fighting for the cure for COVID. It was for their campaign to raise money for COVID research. So just trying to cast a wide net on various causes, and like I said, just to feel good about doing something for various causes. And like I said, just to feel good about like doing something for various organizations. Yeah, that's something we started in September as well. So we started this personal

program called, well, we called it Five for Five, where we donate 5% from every project towards five charities. And again, and we did what you did as well. We chose it based on like different factors right so we we have uh canadian blood services youth without shelter nature conservancy canada um uh second harvest and what's what's the other one uh no oh red cross red cross yeah yeah yeah and then for canadian blood services we also went in and we donated blood as well but i was actually planning on getting in touch with them to see if we could do video work for them too. So it's cool to hear that you're doing that. Yeah, no, it's awesome because they all have the need for it.

They don't always have the budget for it. But, you know, that's another thing. We did reach out to charities where we thought they would have existing material whether it's b-roll from past events or photography from past campaigns where there would be some kind of asset existing that we could re-edit repurpose oh i see um for a new campaign and it wasn't always the case like we had to turn to film supply and stock video sites a few times just to, to, you know, have content to work with. But it was a fun exercise. Like, okay, budget is very small, if not like zero budget,

how can we create something for them with text or, or, you know, B-roll found footage, blah, blah, blah. It was really fun. It actually kind of felt like film school again, like working with like minimal resources um to try and create something that would support and help them you know like the one thing i really love about our industry is uh having the limitations uh really kind of helps even spark creativity that you don't even know that you have right like sometimes if you have like a blank check of what you can do you're like oh no we'll just do everything you know let's rent all the cameras all the lenses all the crew all the lights like everything that you need that's a great problem to have it's a good problem to have but what i'm saying is like you know if

like what kind of like how you're talking about is like it takes you back to when you first started it's like you were very limited in your resources so you had to really get creative about creating very interesting content with what little resources you had and sometimes that's also kind of like what made you the filmmaker that you were was being able to solve those problems in your own unique way because sometimes you know like if it's like a talking head video shoot you know in a studio very simple like they're very parallel like in terms of how the product would probably come out like no matter what company or what person does it obviously everyone has their own little spins that makes it creative but you know when it's comes down to those crunch time videos you know with certain budgets and certain uh resources you

know like that's where everyone's like inner creativity i feel comes out you know if you have a blank check you could always hire someone that's really creative you know you know what i mean you know what i mean right it's about your spin what clients give you a blank check because you need to introduce me to those clients i kind of want to know this too i know i'm just i'm just saying is it disney are you talking to disney he's working on an ex-mar marvel project that's why i got secrets yeah i mean i've i've never had that luxury where there wasn't some kind of crunch like you know whether it's we can only have this size crew or we can only use this camera or we only have one day we only have budget for one day or or you know however many days like um and and you're right though like i think it really

forces you to be efficient and kind of maximize what you have the tools you have the knowledge you have and just you know creative is something that can be there regardless of budget right like obviously there's value in the creative and you want to make sure you're being compensated fairly but um you can always be super creative and make up for production value with creative i i think because at the end of the day it's all about the content you know like back back when you know like the digital revolution was coming uh that's when you know like oh you know you started to measure companies you know based on their capabilities you know what gear they had you know 4k 4k 8k now you know whereas but but now there's been because there's such an abundance of production companies

and and creators and and people who can put low barriers to entry, the content and the creative have become a new focus. It's like almost as if it's like switched back. It's like now, if the content isn't good, doesn't matter if you shot it in 8K. If it's garbage, it's still, it doesn't matter if it's 8K, it's still 8K of garbage, you know know like if it's like a really good solid even 720 hd video or 1080p video then there's still more value in that because that's what what people want to share and see and instagram and social media apps like 4k doesn't really translate well any talk even even youtube like you won't get 4k i max it goes to like 2k right so it's no it goes 4k does it oh well i don't know you know what if you're on bandwidth uh

yeah you don't want to go yeah you're absolutely right i mean i i like shooting 4k and 8k and stuff because it gives a lot of room for yuri to work in color like there's just a lot of um information there to push in different directions so if there's budget it is nice to to have that opportunity to to work on the grade like that but we we shot a project a few weeks ago with the c200 which i've had for a while and like it never really got used because we're always just like renting the alexa or whatever um but budget was small on this project, so we were like, okay, we got to use the C200 here. We rented some CFast cards and shot with the raw capability. And honestly, it looks amazing. Yeah.

How does it compare? How does it compare to the Alexa? I mean, like I said, I'm not a big technical guy. I mean, it's 10-bit or 12-bit as opposed to whatever the Alexa is. it's, I mean, it's 10 bit or 12 bit as opposed to whatever the Alexa is. But it's like in post Yuri with color was able to, to do a lot with the, with the raw function. So, I mean, we're going to use that.

We're going to do that again because it saves us a ton of money. Clients super happy. Like they didn't care really what camera we use, as long as it looked good. And so we did some tests and you know some lighting tests and lens tests and like it was a really good camera for the job so yeah yeah no the c200s are great we're shooting we're shooting this with c200 we're shooting right now with c200s as well and even even like uh even the like 8-bit on it like is pretty good is a pretty good quality like uh codec to use because i find like you know at the end of the day like you gotta also nail it in camera if you do that you know you're already going to be coming out with a lot of great footage

in the 4k raw like we've used it a handful of times and i've talked to dps who use it all the time and they they swear by it as well so it just goes to show it doesn't matter if you have a fifty thousand dollar camera hundred thousand dollar camera or you know twelve now this is a five thousand dollar probably camera used oh so it's all a matter of like how you use it the the content and like the quality of the creative you know and then if that is good no one's gonna notice the little pixel difference between the alexa and the C200 if the creative is really good, right? Like people are just going to be like, that was a great video. I was entertained.

Totally. Yeah. And I feel like you get much about like all the gear and then you forget about the creative and the story and like what you're actually doing. And it can take away from it sometimes. Whereas if you go in with like the basic camera, the C200 or even like a DSLR,

and you know that's all you have to work with. And so you're focusing all of your efforts on the creative and the story. And it can sometimes turn out better than if you were to be top of the line, everything. It sets you free in a way, right? When you know that it's like, okay, this is all I have to work with. Great. You know, you don't have to worry about that anymore.

Whereas, you know, it's like, okay, I need to rent the Alexa. I need to do equipment check at the rental house. I have to go pick it up i have to go drop it off that's a whole process right just to secure the equipment needs and then as you mentioned that takes a lot of the time potentially a lot of the time away from the actual creative and the and like other things that you should also focus on right you know what it reminds me of it's kind of like when you watch like new wave films and you see how they're made and they're all like they're not technically well-made films right but they're so crazy and out there and so

interesting because they did focus most of their attention on just creating the story that it makes up for you don't even think about the fact that oh you know like for that shot there's like a little like bump in the shot you're like i don I don't care. Like the story is so engaging. Forget that, right? And it really helps. It really helps with the need for content to be turned out really quickly. There's been like a demand with a lot of clients these days where, you know, once it's shot, you know, they need it right away, you know.

And so sometimes you have to find like a good balance of like, let me get the best possible quality, also the most efficient uh at the same time right that's gonna be a tricky balance going well i mean it's still a tricky balance now like do you find that there's like a lot of quick turnarounds that clients need like with a lot of the projects you do or is it kind of they give you a little bit of flexibility um depends like usually if it's an agency job there's like a very set schedule there's a deadline for when it needs to go to trafficking and whatever so usually with the bigger jobs yeah it's a tight turnaround it's all very well mapped out and we have to fit within that we also do a lot of stuff direct to clients and in those cases

they might have like a website launch or something where they want to premiere this video but in most cases it's just they kind of lean on us like we'd love to have this as soon as possible kind of thing and in those cases we'll put together a work back that basically says, okay, this is what needs to happen to have it done for end of October. A lot of it is relying on your feedback time and, you know, decisions and sign off. So it really depends. But I would say in most cases, it's quick turnaround.

Like there's some kind of pressure deliverable time that that needs to happen uh i don't know do you guys feel the same way with with your stuff or yeah we're going through the exact same stuff like there's some projects where we have the time to do it uh but then there's others where like we have one coming up where um they they used one company and they didn't like they didn't like it so they asked us to take care of it and that deadline is very well the deadline was the deadline was october 4th yeah it's done it's past due so like that was the due date for the project they weren't happy when they like the project deliverable was delivered to them late they weren't happy and the day they got it they just reached out to us it's like we know you guys

can take care of this like take what like take care of it take care of it i know i know i know it's a little last minute we obviously needed asap but let us know how long you think it will take right like obviously in situations like that you want to try to help them as much as you can because you know that's such a tricky situation to be in as well when you know like there's been another factors that weren't your own you're already coming in with like a deadline which which was due a week ago and you're like oh now is really crunch time to figure this out right yeah i actually like the pressure like i'm a huge procrastinator so if i'm dictating the schedule i'll like just keep pushing it off

and whatever but if they're like you need to be done by this date I will just like work to that and and it's just nice to know that you have a deadline and you're working towards that yeah and I mean the same went for like projects and stuff back in school and film school in high school like I was just such a procrastinator so yeah deadlines are a good thing i would say in production uh ryan you mentioned uh actually can you you know what can you describe the point you're at right now with your business because you touched upon it a little bit earlier man that's also a tough question so we're we're we're working with agencies a fair amount probably more than 50 percent uh we're working direct to client as well um on a lot of stuff we're working with a lot of charities which is

great um we're working on a short film passion project which we've raised some money for which we're really excited about um we are working on a series a tv series which we pitched the netflix didn't go through unfortunately but um we're still trucking along with that like i i really want to get into content long-form content because it's just awesome and everyone needs that right now like if we go into lockdown again you know brands might not be putting out as many ads but people will just be craving new content so I think that's like a really good place to be uh from a business perspective is just creating content that you can own right like that that our company can own and we just create value and assets for the company as opposed to just creating something for someone else for a brand or

whatever. And don't get me wrong. I love commercials. I love the challenge of like delivering on a brand ask. And, um, you know, I, I love advertising. I, I've always have, but I just want to try and like diversify as much as possible um in case you know lockdown does happen again we still have multiple avenues to to produce work and then tell me more about the short film what's it about um so the short film so this is kind of a long story but i'll keep it short as possible so I have a brother with an intellectual disability that's why I've been so involved in Special Olympics and supporting those types of charities Marsha Doucette has a sister with intellectual disabilities and so that was

really what bonded us and had us connect so well I've always wanted to create content or a short film or whatever it is about my brother. During lockdown, we had all this time. Marcia was like, just write a script. Let's do something with your brother. And because of COVID, I wasn't comfortable seeing him because he's, you know, high risk shooting anything live action. But then I looked at Marcia's sister, who is an artist, does a lot of drawings and art. That's kind of her way of communicating is she'll draw as opposed to speaking. And so we just started doing interviews with her, chatting with her, learning about her approach.

And I said, why not create an animated film about her and her way of communicating and kind of using it as an outlook on the world and what communication is and how it can be in the form of art or language or whatever. So we brought on Goodform, who is an amazing, super talented animation company, motion graphic company in the city. They were super inspired by the idea, inspired by Rachel. So they came on board. We got a brilliant writer on board to write a script based on the conversations we had with Rachel. And so we got a script lost.

We're now in animation. We're chatting with various people to obviously help fund the film but also help get it out there once it's done um we've got some exciting stuff happening there which i won't say just yet because we want to kind of have it all finalized before we officially launch uh the campaign for the film but uh again like having these passion projects in the works at all times is is super important for me to stay positive and stay motivated to do the work that we do because yeah it's hard sometimes right like you just you need to constantly feel inspired and and uh you need to have that reminder of what you're doing what you're doing so that project for me and our entire team has

really kept the morale high kept us excited about what we're doing um so yeah i don't know if i answered your question but that's kind of where we're no no yeah no yeah yeah you definitely answer that's actually really good like i really like that where can we uh uh where's the uh is it a kickstarter you're doing for it? We haven't done the Kickstarter route. We might do that. We've just kind of turned to private donors and talking to brands that might be interested in being a part of it.

But once the film's done, we're going to do a proper screening once we can at a cool venue, you know, kind of get press and media there and all that. And we're going to have a website for it. And we're also launching a kind of like social enterprise to get people with special needs involved in art, right? Like there's programming for sports, like Special Olympics is a great example of getting people with an intellectual disability involved in sports. We want to create something that gets them involved in art.

So the film is kind of going to be two purpose, multi purpose. It's the film which will kind of exist on its own, but it will also be a launch for this program that will kind of continue on down the road. That's great. Let us know once things start to develop like we definitely want to follow this and just kind of see how it goes you know it's really cool that you brought that up though because i one thing that i've noticed that a lot of creators what differentiates them i find is a lot is incorporating a lot of themselves and their experiences into

their work you know it's it's one thing to pick up a camera and then try to start imitating what other people do. But I feel like to really become a true creative, you have to take from your own experiences and, and, and, and have it flourish in your work. And that's something that Dario and I have been like really trying to sit down and focus on, you know, during this COVID time, it's like, how can we draw from our own lives, you know, and start incorporating it into our work? And, you know, do you feel that there is a huge potential in that, you know, like where you feel like a lot of your personal experiences have really kind of shown into your work, rather than, you know, like versus what you've seen out there? Yeah, I mean, I think you

have to find that personal connection, you have to like for every project, ask yourself, OK, like what am I bringing to the table that others couldn't? Whether it's your experience or people you know or just like something about the project that really inspires you that you can draw from personal experiences. draw from personal experiences I think you really have to have that even if it's a corporate video talking head like it's really hard to fake uh your excitement for a project right like you have to find something that's gonna get you inspired and and help you deliver a good video right um so I mean that's a it's a luxury to only work on stuff that really inspires you and really fulfills you creatively. But I do believe that with every project, you can find something, something about it that you have a personal connection with or something that just really inspires you and will get you excited about the project. about the project even if it's like you know you're maybe not interested in the subject matter but it's an opportunity to use a specific camera or work with a dop that you've been really wanting to work with or just work with people that you really want to meet like we we did the videos

for tedx toronto for four years um which you know it's an event and we had to do live streaming and like all this event stuff which is not my favorite thing to do just because events are super high risk and pressure and all that. But meeting all these incredible speakers and these incredible people who were speaking at this TEDx event was like so inspiring. And that just really kept us coming back each year and donating our time because, uh, I just learned and grew so much as a person each time I met these amazing people. Oh yeah. Like when we, TEDx stuff is always awesome. TEDx projects that there's always opportunities to really get connected with, uh, different

people, especially learn exactly. And, uh, I think 2019 or like, uh, it it late 2018, early 2019, we did the inaugural one for TEDx Don Mills, but we were mostly handling just the creative aspect for it and just meeting and talking to a lot of the people and the speakers that would be there were very inspirational. You know, it kind of like helped set the tone

for the kind of content that we were gonna create for them. And we were set to do it again this year, but obviously it was COVID hit. And so everything just kind of stopped and, you know, got pushed until further notice. So, you know, like I think like, as you mentioned, every project you do, you have to take something away from it or figure out a way to grow from it. However small, even as you said, if it's just a talking head, maybe use that an opportunity to bring on uh like a certain uh creative you know like we have a project next week for example where for the first time we're actually bringing together two other creatives that we've wanted to work with for a while you know we call it like our dream team in a way and you know like we want

to just kind of see like finally how can we uh how will everything turn out you know if we all play our part so like even even if it's just a simple thing you know like uh you have to take something away from it yeah totally yeah what about uh in the future because now we've kind of figured out what point you're at right now where do you see yourself being i want to say five years from now but you know whatever timeline soon that is, right? Future timeline you got going on for you. Where do you want your company to be in the future? I mean, the company, I would like to have a TV series under our belt. I'd like to produce, I try and produce a short film every year. so I want to keep doing that and maybe produce a

feature film I mean that would be awesome um so get some more narrative stuff under our belt um I want to keep you know working with charities and and not just charities but even brands and for ads like working on just really meaningful content um you know whether it's the new like sick kids campaign or cam h or whatever like just meaningful content um that does more than just it's just a cool video to watch um i want it like as a director i want to direct bigger better spots um and not necessarily bigger in, but just like bigger campaigns, right. Be involved in more of that. And I mean, I, I like the fact that we're small and we're nimble. Like I, I,

if I had the opportunity to hire like another 10 people and, and expand, like, I'm not sure I would do it. Cause I really like having this small nimble team. We all know each other so well and people like working with us because they know everyone on the team and they know that, you know, there's not going to be lost information because there's multiple layers of managers and whatever. Right. Like I think we can continue at the size we're at for at least the next five, 10 years and make a great go at it with the stuff I just I just mentioned.

Yeah. Do you feel like there might be some need to bring in maybe like one or two other people to fulfill maybe certain roles and skill sets that you perhaps don't have at the moment? Totally. Yeah. I mean, right now we scale up and down depending on the project. So in most cases we're, we're expanding the team per project, uh, bringing on another producer, bringing on another writer, blah, blah, blah. Um, I would love to have the luxury of bringing on someone else full time to support on multiple projects, but it's just it's tough right when our industry is so up and down to to have big overhead like we have pretty low overhead but when you don't have a shoot in a month like you're shitting your drawers right like it's scary so yeah I mean if Kovac goes away and we continue to grow and the work keeps coming in, absolutely.

Like we would potentially bring on a few more people. But yeah, I find it's always like either you're scared because there's not enough work or you're scared that there's too much work and you can't handle it. You're never just like coasting and like feeling good at least in my case yeah you're always worrying about whether you're not having like you said not enough or it's like too much that is like oh man can i get enough people on board to do this because it's always what those busy busy times when you're trying to find the people that you want to typically work with they're all so busy so you also get that panic at times like damn i can't bring on the people i typically work with sometimes

you know because they're all so busy but i think it is all it it's hard to it's hard to find a balance but i feel like you know as you go on year after year you kind of figure out that kind of like good medium um as as it comes but like you said it it really varies yeah yeah totally well i think um that's the end i think we got covered quite a bit and um i like i like that we kind of uh started uh kind of started focusing a little bit more on like some of the creative uh projects and passion and passion projects and a lot of like charitable organizations that you got involved with you know i feel like a lot of people in our business you know like we're always concerned so

much with you know like making sure that you know we're able to do what we can you know trying to find that next gig but you know sometimes you got to get back to the community you got to give back to the community in some way shape or form whether it's you know donations or you know donating your time to produce some great quality content you know do what you can you know like that's that's basically the moral of it yeah totally and like people will recognize that work that you do right like if they see you're constantly shooting and working on passion projects like it it it shows a lot about your character and your passion for what you do so yeah I would say just like always try and be shooting always try and be working on something that inspires you because you never know

who's going to see it who it's going to really connect with you know it might be the CEO of x agency who's like oh my god like I also support that charity I I really want to connect with you know it might be the ceo of x agency who's like oh my god like i also support that charity i i really want to work with you on the next brand ad like you never know what it's going to lead to and you'll feel super good about it when when you're supporting others so it's kind of win-win all around obviously you still need to pay the bills and um you know stay above water which is which, which is tricky sometimes to have that balance of paid work and unpaid work. But I, like I said, I do think you always need something that you're working on that you're passionate about that isn't about money that will that'll keep you going.

Yeah, I mean, like a lot of people that I've spoken with who do a lot of passion projects, they told me that almost every paid opportunity or new client that they have gotten has come directly from those passion projects that they did because someone saw it or recommended it to someone and they got inspired and they wanted to pick up the phone and call them to bring them on board so like people think you know passion projects there's no money in it you know like maybe you know you're not going to get anything maybe directly from it but there are opportunities that can come from it and it's just a matter of you know how much time and effort you put into it right i might say with the uh what's that rush hour did you hear the rush hour story uh no um who's the who's a black actor in that what's his name uh chris tucker so uh apparently chris tucker had to do some type of video and at the time he didn't have money right so he met up with brett brett ratner and the guy's like fine whatever it doesn't matter i'll just i'll help you out right yeah uh and then when chris tucker then got the role for Rush Hour, the director dropped out. The original director dropped out last minute and he remembered Brett Ratner who helped him out that one time.

So he's like, hold on, I got a guy. And then Brett Ratner directed Rush Hour. Yeah. It's crazy. You never know like where you like when you extend a helping hand, you know, like maybe sometimes people won't remember it. But there's it'll it's worth it enough sometimes that, you know, that one opportunity might come up, you know, where it's like, you know what, I'm glad I've been putting myself out there, you know, whether if it was for money or not, you know, you got to do it. Mm hmm. Yeah.

And that's partially and that's partially why we're also doing this podcast, because we found that, you know, I think this is also people need content, especially now during COVID. And there is these types of conversations you don't really hear too much, you know, between different production companies, you know, like sharing their experiences. And I feel like this is like something that some people need to listen or hear about. I mean, like these conversations, for example, about film school. Right. You know, a lot of people are either you have to do it or you don't you should never do it you know and you just gotta you gotta hear people's backgrounds why there is like everyone's situation is different and you just have to basically take what you can and apply it to you based on what you hear yeah totally ryan thank you so much for joining us on the show.

It's been a great discussion and we really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, thanks guys. And thanks for doing this show. I mean, I think it's really cool. Like you said, it's just nice to chat with other people, hear other people's experiences because it can be lonely sometimes, right? Like when you're running your own company and you're so focused on what you're doing it's

nice to just hear what others are doing and you can kind of pull from those experiences and those ideas and use them in your own so thank you for for producing the show and i look forward to continuing to follow along i've been i've been watching them as you put them up oh yeah that's awesome we're happy that people are enjoying it you know that you must be the sixth subscriber huh you know what i actually might not even subscribe to it so i'll make sure ah okay there we go now he's number seven false idol seven yeah yeah yeah no no we appreciate the support and you know like uh again let us keep us posted with whatever passion projects you have like we would love to check it out as they come out. For sure.

I will do that. Thanks a lot, guys. Have a great day and we'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Ryan. Take care. See ya. Cheers, guys.

Bye. Thank you for tuning in to the Creatives Grab Coffee podcast. You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Let us know if there are any topics you would like for us to cover in future episodes. You can reach out to us at creativesgrabcoffee at gmail.com.