Creatives Grab Coffee - Lessons in Leadership & Creativity (ft. Motion Source) | Creatives Grab Coffee 67
Episode Date: July 29, 2024Craig Bass, from Motion Source in Chicago, shares his journey in the video production industry and the decision to focus on corporate, commercial, and nonprofit projects. He discusses the challenges o...f growing a business and the importance of finding the right balance between growth and personal ambitions. Creatives Grab Coffee is produced by Lapse Productions, a video production company based out of Toronto, Canada. Reach out to them for your video production needs. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and Background 15:47 The Impact of COVID-19 on the Business 32:36 The Fulfillment of Working with Nonprofits 09:16 Taking Over the Business and Balancing Responsibilities 37:31 The Financial Realities of Nonprofit Projects 43:49 Passion Projects and Making Movies 48:05 The Healthcare System and Accessible Healthcare 57:24 Finding Work-Life Balance SPONSORS: Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.com Audio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca 🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9 🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.com To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/
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Hi everyone, welcome to another episode.
Today we got Craig Bass from Motion Source,
they're based out of Chicago.
Craig, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
And I guess let's just start with a little bit of an intro.
Just tell us a little bit about you,
how you got into the industry.
Sure.
Well, we're a video production company,
Motion Sources, out of Chicago,
and our main focus is corporate commercial
and non-profit video production.
How did I get into it?
I think that that now was probably about 15 years ago, if not a little bit longer.
I was a aspiring filmmaker and, you know, that meant that I was actually a waiter and sort of in and out of
school at different times trying to figure my life out you know I was in my mid-20s and
didn't have any connections in the film world but had always had a desire since I was a
child to make movies so started to kind of attempt to craft my own destiny, bought a camera,
you know, a DV camera at the time. Got a computer, got a microphone, and started to dabble in
like documentary production and trying to put together something that was executable at my
level. And at the same time met a gentleman named John Scaletta who
Bit older than me. He already had a mark a small marketing agency like a boutique marketing agency
He was running and he had hired me on as a freelancer for a couple of projects. We got along really well
That was kind of the period of time when online video really took off or was starting to take off and the idea of video advertising online was becoming viable and a big phenomenon.
So was there like 2005, 2010?
I don't even know.
I think I was like 25.
I'm 42 now.
So whatever that the math is, but 2007.
There you go. So it was pretty early
on with internet video, like YouTube was, you know, fairly new and people were just
starting to experiment with like commercials for local businesses and stuff like that.
So he, him and I hit it off, even though we're very different people, we get along very,
very well.
And very quickly after freelancing for him for a while, he said, well, what if we just
start a video production company?
Sort of separate from his marketing company.
And I said, wow, that's an amazing opportunity.
Thank you.
Let's do it.
So we started Motion Source and I think he closed the door
on his marketing agency, I couldn't remember,
but maybe six months to a year after that
and we just focused full time on video production.
So about a year and a half ago, him and I parted ways,
totally amicably, we're still one of my best friends,
but he was pursuing different interests
and I just
took motion source over as a whole but really got into it with a desire to make
film which I think is true at least most of the people I've met maybe not as much
the business owners but most of the people I've met that work in commercial
corporate video production are people that are
Really trying to evolve into the film world and make a future out of that
So I would say I have more in common with them. It seems than most
video production business owners
but yes, so when
when
So you're a business partner left, are you guys part of ways?
Did you end up like buying out his portion or how did you guys handle that that part
of the business?
It's interesting.
He was he was never super interested in film.
So I think what he saw, it was interesting for him, but I don't think he was ever super
interested in learning it and applying himself to it deeply.
So he kind of worked more of the business angle, you know, and I think it got to a point
where he was realizing he didn't have as much to contribute.
And we actually had a period of time where he had developed some other businesses
that he was also cultivating.
He had developed some products that he was selling
and were selling well on Amazon.
He had developed a deadbolt system for box trucks
with a friend of his who worked
in the automotive upfitting business
and started a business in that. And he would always,
I would own a portion of these businesses. It was sort of an agreement with us.
I'm going to keep the studio running and as you explore these other
opportunities. So really when we parted ways,
it just made sense. He was interested in other things.
I was interested in this and there was no buyout
it was just I'm gonna take your interest in motion source and
my interests in these other
Ventures that you have going on you're going to take that over and it was very simple
Like I was the best man in this wedding. Like he's's one of my best friends. So, it's always difficult.
Yeah, I used to have a business partner
and we parted ways and generally that feels very negative
but there's nobody else I would have wanted to have
as a partner.
We never had any issues of trust.
I love the guy to death.
And I can't even imagine partnering with anybody else at this point.
So it was all good.
So you were you guys did handling more like the business side before, right?
Initially, yeah.
But I think I I learned a lot.
But of necessity, I didn't have any interest in business
and interest in making things and being creative and telling stories.
And but. interest in making things and being creative and telling stories. And, um, but as I co-owned a business and started to get more involved in that aspect
of things, I learned a lot more about business.
I don't know that he ever learned much more about films.
Well, he was a serial entrepreneur from what it sounded like.
He had a, he had an interest in exploring different types of ventures.
And what he loved more was the different kinds
of businesses that he could probably be involved in
and how that would translate into making money
potentially down the road, right?
Whereas you are more so focused on the craft and the film
based on what you're mentioning, right?
So like, it's interesting
because like a lot of the time when business partnerships do end, that's why Dario was asking
like how did that whole process go? Usually it involves some kind of buyout or an exchange and
even though there wasn't exactly a monetary buyout on your end, like you said you basically sold your
interests in his other businesses and he sold his interest in this business to you so in a way that was kind of like the amicable way yeah
to go about it yeah it was just and and honestly I kind of felt like I got the
better end of the deal you know I always felt a little guilty like are you sure
you know so it was perfect we're still great friends we actually we have an
office in a studio connected in the top floor of our offices
He still inhabits and that's his his office that he works out of
So we see each other all the time and and we're great friends and I'm very grateful for that
You know John is
very grateful to John to be such a wonderful friend a wonderful partner and
Without him. I certainly wouldn't be where I am today
And you mentioned that this happened like about a year year and a half ago where you guys
Yeah, amicably split. What is that process been like for you kind of taking over more of the business responsibilities?
And coupling that with the rest of the business as well since then? What has that journey
been like? It hasn't been dramatically different because like I said I think I
was learning more about business and I was taking a much stronger role in
running the business. That was happening organically over time. So really we had
gotten to a point where he was almost a silent partner.
He was working on these other things that I had an interest in.
I was working on this that he had an interest in.
So by the time we parted ways, it was very smooth.
You know what I mean?
It was so organic.
It just became kind of entitled that it happened.
And I think the other part of it too,
what the straw that really broke the camel's back,
I'm a filmmaker, that's a massive interest of mine.
And I started a company about probably about two years ago
called Year of the Phoenix Productions.
And really what that is is it's just a home
for the creative work that I'm doing.
So we've been working on a feature documentary,
getting ready to hopefully be shooting another feature
this year that's fictional, shorts, things like that.
And this is an important piece I think,
I'm not going to release that stuff under motion source
because that's not the market, right?
The MotionSource market has nothing to do with those creative projects.
So it was creating another banner under which to generate that content and rally people
together to create creative work.
And I had told him as well, this is a huge focus of mine and you know what it
always has been, I said to him, but as I'm in my 40s now I need to be putting like a
much bigger push toward that and spending more of my time creating this content and
the idea of growing motion source is there are ways in which we will grow and there are ways in which
I'm no longer interested in us growing because it then becomes an obstacle for
my other ambitions. So can you elaborate a bit on that like how much do you not
want to grow in it then? I think there was a time at which it was like take as
many jobs as you can get, you know,
kind of grow the name as much as possible, continue to grow the staff.
I think we all know for video production company, you know, how big is the typical actual employee
staff?
Three people, two people, four people.
It's like, yeah, under under 10 for sure.
Five is usually the average.
Yeah.
So we, I think at our biggest, we're at eight or nine full time. And then of course,
a lot of freelancers. And I think at that time, I was a bit more maybe drunk on the
ambition of like, oh, we're going to do all this work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Make all this money or whatever, I don't know. But the, you know, I don't want that.
I don't wanna be, it's a big responsibility
to carry eight employees.
It is, you have to get a lot of work through the door
to keep them busy all the time.
And you find, and you're obviously your overhead and your expenses are much larger with payroll,
everything from payroll to insurance to whatnot.
So I think you kind of lock yourself in this.
If that's what you want to be doing is growing the physical size of the business and probably
the quantity of projects that you're doing, then that's the way you do it. But that obviously is going to get in the way of other goals
because your time, you know, growing,
you grow this thing bigger, it's bigger,
and now you have to nurture something that's much larger.
It takes more resources, one of which is time.
So ways in which we are interested in growing
is are things like moving into certain markets
that maybe we're not currently in or deepening our relationship in markets that we already
have a big presence.
And then simple things like I think any business owner, you know, wow, wouldn't it be great
if we're making enough money that we can be a little bit, you know, we can be selective
with some of the work that we're taking. And we are a little bit, you know, we can be selective with some of the work
that we're taking.
And we are in that position, you know, at times.
Video production, I don't know how everyone else feels.
Most people I talk to get it.
It's like this.
So, you know, it would be, you know,
getting to a place where we're perhaps charging
a little bit more for our services,
because I think that there
are some areas in which we aren't making what we're worth in the current
marketplace. So there are small areas in which I'm happy to grow and I think
makes sense but you know there are other I feel like a lot of people like
initially you start to grow a business is exciting. I never thought I'd like a lot of people initially, you start to grow a business, it's exciting.
I never thought I'd be a business owner, really.
And when I became one, it was new and it was exciting
and it's like, okay, this is really cool.
And I feel a lot of ownership for this
and we're seeing some successes and this is interesting.
Let's see what we can do.
The obvious point of growth is size. You're like, oh, well, now we're doing more work. Now we need more people, blah, blah, blah, blah,
but that sometimes creates a very overburdened infrastructure that you have to continue to
support now. So I think for some people that works really well, that's their marker of success
or that's what they want out of life.
I did kind of come to the realization
that that is not what I want.
And in a weird way,
and I know this is perhaps somewhat controversial to say,
COVID was obviously a terrible thing.
I'm not saying otherwise,
but the effects that COVID had on the business
while crippling, in a weird way,
were a bit of a blessing
because that's really what ended up slimming us down.
That's what ended up forcing me
to narrow my focus in some areas.
So you were at eight employees pre-p pre pandemic or what are you at now?
Something like eight, seven, eight, nine, somewhere in there.
I'd have to sit down and count it.
Now three.
Oh, okay.
That's pretty drastic.
Yeah, three.
And I have I do have someone else here every day, but he is an independent contractor And he fluctuates between year of the Phoenix and motion source, you know sort of doing tasks for each
And then we obviously I think the audience for this is video production companies, right?
So yeah, yeah people understand how it works. I mean you have your freelancers and I
Generally work with the same people endlessly like they they are part of the motion source team,
but you know, they're not working every day.
They're not.
Yeah, cause you can't,
you can't be like keeping them as busy to the point
where you can justify bringing them on as,
as a full-time employees, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. We used to have to do the shooter editor combo.
So, you know, if they were going to be on full time,
they'd have to have production shooter-editor combo. So if they were going to be on full time, they'd have to have production abilities
and post abilities.
We're shooting, how many days a week are we shooting?
One, none, five?
It totally depends on the week, right?
How do you have a DP on staff?
How do you have a... It doesn't really make any sense.
Well, it makes more sense if, oh, they have talents in other areas, namely post-production.
Okay, now they can not only shoot, but edit.
I do find though that generally, and I'm a cross-trained person, but generally with cross-trained
individuals, it's a trade-off because the depth of talent in any one area isn't as great as somebody who's sole focus is that area.
So I actually, it probably is the best arrangement
in terms of quality, the freelancer model.
Yeah, I mean, we used to hire people that had those abilities
as well where they could shoot and edit at the same time
because of that convenience aspect.
But then we noticed one of the big challenges
that comes into play when you're hiring people like that
is that they get really busy on the production side
of things sometimes that the editing takes like a backseat
a little bit, right?
Because, you know, people are trying to fill up their days
with the shoots whenever the work comes in,
which is understandable.
But as a result, you know-
Do you post at night?
Yeah, either do post at night
or it takes longer to do the post.
And it's not as much the same as like,
if you hire just editors solely to focus on that.
And we found that it's become a lot better
to kind of shift into that focus like you.
Pick someone who's solely an editor,
pick people who are solely shooters.
And that kind of helped manage also expectations
a little bit better because everyone had their,
you knew what to trust each of them with, right?
Whereas like if you were hiring someone
who's a shooter editor, it's like,
oh, can you get this edit done by tomorrow,
by in the next two days?
It's like, oh, I'm on set for the next two days.
I won't be able to get to it until like a week from now.
It's like, and you're kind of in a little bit
of a pickle at that point, right?
So.
Yeah, it's not a good situation.
Yeah, like there's benefits and downsides
to each approach, but yeah.
That works if you're running a company.
Yeah, I mean, it worked for us when they were on staff because we could kind of control
the production.
And you would hit roadblocks, right?
Where you're like, crap, we need to get this shot.
This is the only day the client can do it. We're mid-edit on this.
Yeah.
Blah, blah, blah. I also found that, and I hate saying this, but I found that people
in those positions on staff tended to be less motivated than independent contractors are. I would see that people get
very lax and I don't want to say overly comfortable because it's important to me to create a comfortable
environment, take advantage of the situation and take too much time on things or whatever
it was. I don't know, I always said there's, it's seemingly there's two types of people
in the video production industry.
Those that want to be independent contractors
because they wanna pursue a variety of opportunities.
And they want, they like the gamble of,
this could be a really good month,
a really interesting month,
or it could be a really slow month,
or a really mundane month.
And then you have those that are looking month or it could be a really slow month or a really mundane month.
And then you have those that are looking for the consistent nine to five and health insurance
and all that.
So my guys that I had when COVID hit, I was forced to let a lot of people go, which was
very difficult because they're part of your team.
But there was also, after it happened and the dust settled, it was very freeing in a
lot of ways.
And the nice thing is they all got jobs, some of them with former clients of ours, which normally is not, you know, normally it's sort of a
non-compete thing, but in a desperate situation like that, somebody comes and
they say, hey, ex-client wants to hire me to do, you know, and I'm okay, man, I want
you to be good, I want you to be okay, and I think all of these guys ended up in
positions that were much better suited to them. So there's this whole world of
like, hey, this hospice company needs a full-time video
production guy.
This insurance, I don't know what company needs a full-time video production guy.
So there's a lot of corporate opportunities for people that want to be doing video production
work, but want the stability and don't care as much about the variety or, like I said, rolling the dice.
So it actually worked out really well for all of the guys, very quickly got hired in
other places that I think were better suited to the lifestyle they were looking for.
So it was a horrible thing.
I mean, COVID was a terrible thing, but I think in terms of our business,
and it was crippling for our business, and I think as an industry, we're still seeing
the aftershocks.
So in no way am I suggesting that it wasn't a terrible blow to film and video production.
But for me personally, I do think everything's complicated.
Nothing is solely good or bad.
And there was a bit of, I think, good in terms of the structure of the business that came out of it.
Do you think, with regards to the employees that you kind of saw weren't too motivated and whatnot, do you think that might have been a failure on your part?
Or was it just like a bad match?
that might have been a failure on your part or was it just like a bad match?
I think perhaps the only I think perhaps it was a failure on my part and that the failure on my part is I don't want to be a draconian leader. I don't want to have to criticize people's.
criticize people's, here's the thing,
if you're a bad match and you're a freelancer, I'll never call you again.
We're done.
It's simple, the breakup's easy.
Yeah.
With employee, I don't like being the guy
that's coming down on people.
I don't, you know, for me it's like,
why are you putting me in this position
where I have to talk to you?
We have to have this conversation where it's like,
hey, I know that you're, you know,
you left at three and you're clocking till five.
Like, come on, man.
Don't put me in this position.
So I think that it was a failure.
It's probably too soft-hearted.
But again, this works out so much better for me
because it's, it's not a marriage, you know, so if there's
problems, let's just say I'm not going to call you and we're not
going to go on another day.
And it's funny because like, freelancers, I think the reason
why they will also try to push to do well when they do well,
is that they know that they value that relationship
with their suppliers, I guess, or not their suppliers,
their-
Contractors.
Their contractors, their partnerships,
because if they do good work and continue to do good work,
they know that they'll get the call back.
They know that if they screw up
or do really dumb mistakes like you just mentioned, they're they'll get the callback. They know that if they screw up or do really dumb mistakes,
like you just mentioned,
they're not gonna get a callback.
And so that's why they value pushing that a little bit more.
Whereas, I mean, you hear it all the time
in a lot of full-time roles,
there's always gonna be sometimes people
that once they get into that role,
they may seem really hardworking right at the beginning,
but then they get a little bit too complacent.
They know, there's no motivation in a way, right?
And it's, and I, and I wonder how that is like in the video production
spaces, like sometimes there's, it's hard to kind of move up.
Is it knowing that this is the role that they're going to stay in for a while?
What is, I don't know, like, cause Dario and I never went down the
route of hiring people full time. We never, we don't know, like, cause Dario and I never went down the route of hiring people full time.
We never, we don't know what that type of arrangement
or experience would have been like.
We've talked about it many times about bringing people on
and maybe one day we do wanna bring some people on
depending on what the roles will be.
But it, up until this point,
it hasn't made financial sense for us to do it.
And that's why we still stick to the financial, sorry the the freelance model and it's just interesting to kind of hear
all these not horror stories but like you know like the good and the bad experiences of uh
of full-timers i'm getting close to oh sorry go ahead oh no go ahead dario i'm sorry i was
just gonna say like we're getting close to bringing someone on but then a friend of ours
mentioned i meant i think i mentioned this on the previous episode, but they use like
a virtual assistant out of the Philippines.
And what they use that person for was essentially what we wanted to bring another person on
for, right?
To get to deal with all the admin and all the access work.
So I think even going forward, Kirill and I might still be very slim organization.
The other thing made so much more financial sense to like we're now in the process of
going through that. So we'll see how it works out. But yeah, I mean, I think I have stuff
trying to hire. I have so many thoughts on that. But I do think you I think you're absolutely
right, Carol.
Here's the thing with being a freelancer, you have ownership because you're your business.
We're no different than them.
We have three employees, they have one.
When you work for somebody else, you're working for somebody else and your sense of ownership
is going to be less.
I think that it's not unique to our industry.
Oh, these people aren't working as hard as I want them to be working, or I think they should be.
I think it's anybody working for somebody else.
It's you don't, you know, how do you get them to buy in
and feel a sense of ownership?
Now, one of my employees, Michelle,
she's the lead producer, like, she 100%
has been a massive part of shaping motion source,
growing motion source, like, she has, she, her personality type, who she
is, how she works, she's taken ownership of her role in the company.
And she knows that while she may not technically own the company, the company is largely a
result of her efforts and she's rewarded for that as well.
So there are individuals and there are positions within organizations that I think do lend
themselves to that sense of ownership, but it's that combo of the right person, the
right position, the right time.
In general, I think, yeah, when you're a freelancer, I always say there's no different from you,
Dario and Kirill, and a freelancer.
There's two of you hustlingill, and a freelancer.
There's two of you hustling for jobs, a freelancer is one person hustling for jobs.
You're hustling directly with clients,
they're hustling with mainly production companies.
It's like, we're all the same thing,
there's just some of these boxes contain
more individuals than others.
And then the thing that I think is that I hear
from everyone is there's, And then the thing that I think is that I hear from everyone
is there's, I think the fact that people are independent
contractors also leads to a lot of exploitation of them,
where I hear constantly from people,
they're not getting paid in a timely fashion.
They're being overworked in areas.
They're not being respected on sets, things like that.
So I think it behooves those of us in our position to hire these people,
that we need to make sure we're showing them respect, we're giving them good
working environments, and we're compensating them for their time and
their talents in a fair way.
So it's a two-way street and I think there are abuses on both
sides unfortunately. And yeah in terms of growing like I said for me you know
Michelle was the best hire that I've ever done. She's been with me a decade
now. I got her two weeks before she left school and she's been such a part of building up
Motion Source. But she's a producer. She's got her hands in the structure of the business
and working with clients. I think it's less so when you're an editor, right? You're getting
footage every day or you're a shooter. And she's a different person. She's a unique person. So it's a hard thing to do.
I've never used a virtual assistant, but I think that if that makes sense for you, that
makes sense for you.
You know what I mean?
And I know a lot of people that do and have gone down that path.
So yeah, it's a hard thing.
And especially because I think it's become a much more difficult industry to be profitable in
You that's why you you know ten years ago you guys might have been in a position
We are like hey, let's bring somebody else on the team
We want to grow the team because there is something about physically having other people in the mix, right?
Yeah, you know that that's a whole different energy and you have that
that team here
localized but
It is certainly a much harder
Industry to succeed in and to profit in than it was a decade ago
Yeah, I mean especially when you break it down on a financial level because it's like if you bring on
Someone to be like, you know financial level because it's like if you bring on
Someone to be like, you know production coordinator like it's gonna run you I
Don't know what's the average salary here in Canada is like what 50k a year
So it's like that would be a good chunk every month that you'd have to allocate for that plus that's like what they get There's also the other stuff that you have to put into it as a business owner
So like yeah if it costs you like you're like, I don't know, 60 or 70,
like health insurance taxes versus versus like six USD an hour, you get someone,
you know, for however many hours you want that month.
And then, you know, again, it's not like I have to pay their pension or whatever.
It's like, if we don't need them anymore, they get someone else or just cut that off.
It's like another freelancer.
It's like, the funny thing is I find,
I feel like what we're all trying to do is like
find more freelancers to kind of like work more closely with
but in like different roles than we expect.
There is something to say that, you know, it's, it's,
like you said, it's good to find people
that you can work with in person
because there's nothing like wanting to succeed
in something with other people
and celebrate together as a team.
That's why also when you think about a lot
of the biggest sports in the world
are a lot of team sports
that a lot of people like to kind of get behind
because it's a lot of people working together
towards similar goals.
And that translates into a lot of other organizations.
But like you said,
our industry is getting more competitive.
It's getting, there's a bit of a race to the bottom
in certain aspects with certain industries.
And, you know, actually that might be a good segue
to one topic I wanted to also kind of quickly cover.
Cause you mentioned Craig,
that you focus in corporate and commercial,
but you also mentioned nonprofit, that you do a lot of work with them.
And we know some production companies that dabble in nonprofit,
but we get,
but there's always like a mixed opinion in terms of what it's like to work.
I think Carol, it's different. I think it's different in the States.
I think they're dealing with.
Well, that's, that's what I'm curious about. Like, like what I'm curious about. What is your experience working with nonprofits, typically
like in Chicago?
Yeah. I mean, the good thing about nonprofits is that their mission is typically something
you can get behind and feel good about. And you know that if you're contributing to their
cause, you're making a measurable impact in people's lives.
When you are helping sell a product or film a seminar
or do a training video, it's not as obvious
the impact that you're having.
Or you're having it on a different level, right?
Not as far down on the pyramid of needs.
Like with the nonprofits, you're really attacking that bottom of the pyramid of needs. Like with the nonprofits, you're really attacking
that bottom of the pyramid of needs.
That easier to see the effect on someone's life.
So I think that it's definitely more fulfilling for us
to be working on something that's more human interest
and less maybe capitalistic.
Budgets are never as good as corporate budgets.
I noticed with a lot of American production companies, there's quite a few that focus on
nonprofits. So I always figured, okay, the budgets must have been bigger because here in Canada,
almost no one specializes or has a good chunk of the income coming in from the from
the month. Yeah, we're not like that.
I would say almost 50 percent of our work is from nonprofits.
That's a good 50. Wow. That's a that is a larger.
That's that's not normal here.
I'm not sure that it's 50 percent of our income.
You know what I mean? If that makes sense.
So, yeah. Oh, 50 percent of the work, but not 50% of our income, you know what I mean? If that makes sense. Oh, 50% of the work but not 50% of the income.
Yeah, when they aren't, it is almost always working with a reduced budget for sure. I
think it's, we're in a difficult position because we're not the cheapest and we all
know there's people like way cheaper than us and way cheaper than you guys and a lot of times talented people. But we're not the most expensive. So we get stuck in this
middle ground. We're usually pitching to a nonprofit and it's a bit too much and we have to scale back
and figure out how to make it work. Or we could abandon the job, but our choice is to, we'd rather
scale back and develop that relationship because
it, at that point, part of the consideration exceeds financial gain, right? It's again
to be able to create a video that, you know, you and I never go to these events just because
I'm a bit of a hermit but the team often does so you can go to a Okay, gala a gala and see people
tearing up in their formal wear and
See that the story is penetrating
deeply and
See them start to raise funds and know that oh wow, wow, part of that was the potency of the
story we told.
And that now, whatever that case is, whether it's ALS, whether it's impoverished scholarship
funds or whatever, it's like to know you're having an impact.
You played a part in this impact being made
on the fundamental level of people's lives
and happiness and futures is, I think to us,
much more enriching than a commercial for,
I gotta be careful here,
because I don't wanna say anything
that's an actual job I've done.
Yodering, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So I think that the other stuff, like the corporate commercial
stuff, is we have a lot of great relationships
with companies and individuals and stuff.
It's a lot of fun getting the teams together.
A lot of times you get to face technical challenges, which is always
somebody who's interested in the technical side of filmmaking or even the theory side,
coming up with solutions to problems and trying to distill a client's message into a very
short period of time. These can be fulfilling problem solving activities.
But when we're talking about a quality of life, an impact on quality of life, I think for us,
we found that professionally, the nonprofit work has been more fulfilling. So we've put a lot of
focus into it. It's a hard place for us to be because they're not the big budgets. There are nonprofits that, there's big nonprofits across the globe that have a lot of money.
We're not working with them.
So we're probably working with a lot of medium sized.
We're not doing $2,000 videos.
I'm not sure exactly what the equivalent is in Canada, but probably relatively close.
That's about $10,000 Canadian dollars. I'm just joking.
Little currency joke.
I'm moving to Canada, but
it's, but we're also not, you know, we're not doing $50,000
nonprofit campaigns, right? So it's a, yeah, it yeah, it's an interesting place to be in.
Since you're your old business partner left,
are you, cause you sound like a much more creative person.
Like, are you doing just exclusively business side now?
Or do you still chime in on the creative end of things?
Like what's your role breakdown like?
With the company, yeah. I mean, I think my official title is creative director. I'm not even
sure what that means. It just sounded good at the time. You know what I mean? It seemed to make
sense. Is it the director who's creative? Yeah, exactly. I'm a creative person.
I feel like our roles have changed over the years, you know, like because when you're
running your own production company at that point, it's sometimes like it's like, what's
your role?
Depends on who you're talking to, you know, at that point, right?
The answer is everything.
We change, yeah.
Exactly.
I just put producer on the contracts.
That makes sense.
I mean, I could put that to I am a I am a director.
So I think that even though obviously that means a different thing than a director,
I think that resonated with me more because I would say I'm fundamentally a director.
But can you imagine if we're like those people that, you know, those filmmakers
where they do written, directed and produced by blank, we should do the same.
It's like,
I mean, it's done by,
CFO, producer, director.
Music done by,
funded by.
Funded by.
Yeah.
It's like literally every role,
it's just one name, the same name listed.
Yeah, that was the reality of a lot of my creative work
throughout my career, but apart um, parts of the business.
But yeah, I, I don't know that I'm more creative now. Uh, I, what was the question? I'm sorry.
Maybe I've, I've, I was just wondering, cause like, you, like everything you say sounds
like you're very like, what part of the brain is the creative side left? I think it's the
right, right. Whichever side it it is like you sound like a very
Whatever side it is like he's not like a very creative person But then like you're having to have like run the whole operation now, right? It's kind of hard to juggle both
I was just wondering how you yeah, but also I I don't want to
So I brought up Michelle earlier. She's a big part of running things we have
Lydia who's another one of our employees who plays a renaissance role, sort of like
associate producer, bookkeeper, designer, and she's got her eye on all the financials
and stuff.
So, I certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm on my own now taking care of all
of these issues.
I do have a team that supports me in that.
And you said it was a natural progression too.
It wasn't like you just all of a sudden
took over an entire business arm of the business
and then just had to figure it out.
It's like it was a natural progression like you mentioned.
You had already kind of built those relationships.
You were already kind of doing the role
as your business partner was basically like a silent partner
as you mentioned.
So I guess it wasn't that big of a switch at that point.
No, I think if anything, it was just,
I never really had my eye as much on things like insurance
and taxes and that was an area he already had experience.
I had zero interests and I trusted him.
And now that we're not partners anymore, I was right too.
Everything was always above board and fair.
He's a great guy.
So a little bit more time spending educating myself
on some of those, I think core sort of probably
business issues that I never had any inclination to learn.
But I think there's certain things you have to do that you don't want to do, right?
And if you're doing them in the service of something that's meaningful to you, those
tasks aren't very painful because you know that they're worth it.
Yeah, they're worth it.
They're worth it.
So that certainly helps. But creativity like my really my goal is to return to a state
of like when we were all eight years old, hanging out just right making movies or drawing
comics or like free creativity just being being a creative animal and not thinking about or having to think about things
like taxes and insurance and all that.
That is of course an impossibility,
but I think the more moments in my life
that I can cultivate that sort of a spirit,
the happier I am.
It's called adulting.
We have to adult.
We can't escape that, you know? I refuse.
How has it been in terms of like the creative arm and now the business arm basically
Was it the year of the Phoenix productions and motion source because you said now that you'd handle a lot of your creative endeavors through that other
because you said now that you handle a lot of your creative endeavors through that other name. Does your team help you with that or do you kind of keep it?
Oh, they do. So you just, it's like more passion projects for the team kind of.
Well, they're his employees, Carol. Like he kind of tells them go work on this, they go work on this.
But I mean if they're busy, if they're busy with the business stuff, that's what I mean.
It's like if they're busy with that, does he have time to, is he able to bring them on?
It's always optional,
because you know the Phoenix
doesn't have any employees technically, right?
So we're working on a documentary right now.
And Michelle, who's my lead producer at MotionSource
is a producer on the dock.
Lydia, who does some producing, design, everything,
she's a producing and designer on the dock. We have a part-time producer, Katie, and she's a producing and designer on the doc.
We have a part-time producer, Katie, and she's one of the producers on the doc.
My cameraman on the doc is my lead camera operator professionally, as is the grip, as
is the list goes on.
So it's all interconnected, but it's all by choice.
And those people, some of them are getting paid paid some of them own a portion of the film
You know what I mean? So it's
We're growing that end of things as well in a slightly different way, but I would never tell anybody
Hey, you've got to do this creative thing or you've got to work on this project, right? It's optional
But I tend to surround myself with people who I think,
though we may not share precisely the same mindset, we have similar
attitudes and aspirations.
So I think that that
naturally
things interconnect like that. And honestly, I mean, I don't know anybody
in the film industry below the administrative level
or in the video production industry,
below administrative, whose goal is not to make movies.
I've met a few where they're like,
no, I just got into this to do like
promotional videos for hotels.
And it's like, what?
Or, you know, nothing wrong with that, but unexpected.
So I think that most people in video production
want to be in film.
It's like the actor that is waiting tables at night.
It's like, you gotta pay your bill somehow.
Now, using our skills in the context of video production
makes a lot more sense to me than going and
getting a day job in an office, which would also kill myself.
Well, God forbid, for me, the lack of variety and the lack of being around things that are
of value to me.
God forbid that I ever have to not be in a position like this. but no disrespect to people that work in offices.
It's just for my own.
I think the same too.
Every time we go on set at these corporate offices, I'm always like, it's fine for a
couple of hours, but not for life.
I want to be clear.
There's a lot of different kinds of people, so I'm not disrespecting that.
This is my own attitude towards my own life and I think that in general though, and I'm not going to speak for you guys, I've
met more video production business owners that weren't particularly interested in being
filmmakers. But again, anybody who was more engaged in the craft was sort of in that freelance
position as a shooter, an editor, a cinematographer,
a gaffer, whatever.
All those people, I think, want to do film.
So when I was like, hey, I want to put more of a focus into what has always been my true
life ambition, I think it resonated with a lot of other people's that were already in
my orbit.
So it works out really well.
I've noticed an interesting trend with a lot of the last guests that have been
coming on. And I don't know if it's an age thing where after you hit 40,
you're like, okay, time to fire up the,
the passion for making movies.
Cause we all get into this cause we love movies and everything.
And then we get into it.
And then if you get to the point where you've got your own company,
you're just too focused on growing the business, right?
Making films kind of becomes like, it goes to the back seat. Yeah.
It goes to the back of your mind.
I don't know if it's like you get to a certain age where it comes back up and
you're like, okay, I've done everything I needed to with this company.
Now I want to kind of go back to the reason why I got into this in the first
place.
I think it was always there for me, but it was partially what you were saying.
So the business, it's like it's snowballing and you're,
you got to tend to it, right, for a number of reasons.
And that's taking up a lot of your focus.
Now, I never stepped away. I continue to make short films.
I've done like 35, 40 music videos, fashion films like Short Dot, you know, all sorts
of content, but I want to make feature films, you know, because that's long form storytelling,
that's of greater interest to me and where I want to be.
So I don't know if it was age.
I think we convince ourselves to that perhaps like, oh, this is the closest to that I'm
going to get, right? I'm not going to be the closest to that I'm going to get. Right.
I'm not going to be the next Darren Arnofsky or whatever.
This is the closest I got this and that's good.
And I guess that's what I got.
And I would caution against that mindset.
I think you should continue to cultivate your passion.
Nothing is more important.
And the only thing more important than your passion and arguably it's not is
putting food on the table,'s not, is putting food on
the table.
But if you're putting food on the table and you're miserable, it's... But yeah, for
me, I think there did come a point where I was like, okay, I'm making a lot of short
form content, so I'm being creative.
I'm always being creative.
But the feature, like how do I get money together? How do I find the time?
How do I do all this?
But then if that's valuable, you have to figure that out.
So that's part of why also I said,
I wanna grow my business in some ways, but not others.
Because growing it in certain ways
is going to get in the way of that objective.
Now we've been able to, there's always stresses and things always butt heads, but I've been
able to get to a place where it's sort of like, okay, we can do corporate commercial
nonprofit.
We could do that work.
We have a lot of wonderful relationships with clients.
We have great crew that we have great relationships with and this is beneficial to everybody.
This is that bottom row of the pyramid.
This is taking care of that.
But now we could move up the pyramid and say like, what are these other things we want
to do and put our focus into?
So you know, I am in year three of my documentary.
I think it'll be done this year for sure. What's it about?
The documentary is about, so the world's largest arcade, and I think probably the largest arcade
in history.
It's a block long.
It's just outside of Chicago.
Oh, wow.
And it turns out, so that's interesting, but the guy that runs it, this guy Doc, who is
an absolute character, long black hair, black fingerless Kevlar knuckled
gloves, black trans am, black Kung Fu jacket with the big ghost logo on the back, galloping
ghost arcade.
One of the biggest Godzilla model collectors in the world trained in Kung Fu.
You go in his office, there's about 200 Kung Fu weapons there, musician.
Just most interesting guy.
It also turns out that since he was 17 years old,
he's about 46 now, he has been trying to finish
his own arcade game, which he believes will revolutionize
the industry and bring the format back
and make arcades relevant again.
And it's a digitized fighting game.
So live action, it was filmed on green screen.
He's four of the characters and then he assembled a cast
from all different strata of society,
meeting people in coffee shops,
bringing on people from the gym,
bringing on students of the original Mortal Kombat cast,
which was also the original Mortal Kombat games,
also being digitized live action fighting games.
Having refilmed the game three times,
this great, you know, life's ambition,
and after what, 28 years now, it's still not finished.
But he's created this empire and it's known in that area,
retro gaming and video games and stuff
is known over the world.
I mean, the creator of Pac-Man flew out
just to see the arcade.
So when I heard this story and then I met Doc
and he's a super interesting guy,
very sweet person and just very interesting guy,
it was like, what's the story?
And starting to tell the story and everything,
it relates a lot to what we're talking about now,
which is like there's something you love
and you're passionate about and you never,
like he had the courage to never give up on that.
And when you see the film,
which will hopefully be done this year,
you will see that there were times when dudes,
he's got 40 credit cards
It piled up bills just trying to you know, he he's never had a job like he when he was younger
He worked in a video game store
You know between like 17 and now he never worked for anybody else. He did his own thing
How do you get 40 credit cards?
I it may not be 40 but we're talking the US are do you get 40 credit cards? It may not be 40, but we're talking.
The US are willing to give you credit cards,
they mail them to you, that's how crazy it is.
This is probably also like 2000 or 1999 or something.
He said they literally, yeah,
people would just mail card opportunities to you.
So he literally got. So you literally told you.
Yeah, he literally changed.
He got a piece of mail once to his dog and it was a credit card
offer to his dog and he's like, okay, filled it out, send it
in his dog at a credit card.
So he was, you know, fine America is wild, man.
Well, yeah, this was this is the best.
It is wild, but this is the best. It is wild. But this is the best.
So it's a credit score for the dog.
And I did.
Yeah, I could send you guys.
We did a Kickstarter a little over a year ago.
We ran a Kickstarter.
So we had to cut a trailer.
I mean, obviously the film's not done,
but we had to cut a trailer with the material we had.
I can send that to you guys if you want to check it out.
That's that film.
What I'm getting at is I want to be a guy that's making a movie a year, regardless of
anything else.
You know what I mean?
Just for yourself, as a passion project or for like...
No, as a filmmaker.
It's part of the global filmmaking community, making at least a movie a year.
So I'm writing a film now.
Do you wanna do like a career shift basically from?
Yeah, I mean I'm happy doing both.
Look at the reality of it.
Like most, many directors, certainly many DPs and people,
they're not just making movies.
It's like, oh, I'm just going to randomly pick someone.
I don't know if this is true, but like Matthew LeBoutique, who shoots all of Aronofsky's
films and stuff, he's probably also shooting commercials and other things.
You know what I mean?
The career extent.
So almost at every level, unless you're the big dogs,
you know, unless you're what Wes Anderson, Chris Nolan,
like people that are making a, you know,
in a day what you and I will make in a year
and they're the big names.
It's like these people, most independent filmmakers
are exactly like us.
You know, there's guys making movies
that are out there in the indie scene that they're just,
what are they doing during the day?
Well, they're doing a
Corporate video or they're doing a nonprofit video or they're doing whatever so
if
If you're asking me if if I had the opportunity to solely work on
Narrative work creative work a documentary work
Would I do that? Yeah, 100%.
Not just striking.
It's not realistic long-term.
To only do that, right?
I don't, I think that that's a very difficult position, yeah.
But it's possible, so if that is in the cards, awesome.
But I think that, again, most successful indie filmmakers,
what do you think they're doing when they're,
I mean, how many films are they doing?
Most aren't doing a film a year.
What are they doing the rest of the time?
Because films don't make that much money anymore
from my understanding, right?
So we're all doing, we're all in the same position.
So I do think kind of at this point,
the only thing holding anyone back from their filmmaking
career is them.
I'm writing a feature now that I have scripted in such a way that it will be relatively affordable.
It will require a very small crew.
I can do a lot of the work myself.
Those are the choices you have to make. Do I want
to do that and tell that story or do I want to wait 10 years until I've maybe gotten enough
money together or found investors that'll give me $4 million to do my sci-fi reservoir
dog or whatever? I think it's the burdens on you as an artist.
Like you make it happen.
Who can, oh, I need four million.
No, you don't.
Go make a movie for 10 grand.
Everybody, not everybody can find 10 grand,
but you guys know what I'm talking about.
Like, if you have to make it over a year and a half
and slowly filter money into it, do it.
Go make your movie.
There's no excuse anymore.
Things have been democratized to the extent that there is no excuse anymore not to make
a movie.
I would like my career to be blended.
I would love my career to be just making movies, but I would like for my career to be a blended
career which is what I'm pretty much doing right now, which is great.
And I think it makes me better at what I do for clients, right?
Because I have so many more experiences to draw from now to then bring those, the lessons
I've learned there to the set of a commercial or whatever the case may be.
And I've met so many more people.
Oh, we need this now.
Oh, I know the guy for that.
We were, we did a music video together or whatever.
So I think it's ultimately a very beneficial thing
for everybody, including myself and my own sanity.
One thing I've heard from other creatives
in our industry especially is that one thing they do
to kind of help broaden their horizons
and improve with their client work or any of their main filmmaking portfolio or anything
like that is drawing on experiences, drawing on from other experiences that they have like
hobbies and interests that they might have.
And that helps kind of elevate a lot of the things that they do in their other work.
And like you said, if you're able to do a lot of the things that they do in their other work. And like you said,
if you're able to do a lot of documentary storytelling,
narrative storytelling that you do on the side
as your hobby, as your passion,
that can translate into the corporate scene
because then you don't know,
because then you can figure out different ways
to kind of tell your client's stories
and pitch ideas that they otherwise
wouldn't have thought of than just playing the safe route.
You know, so it's, you have to dabble in other aspects
in order to elevate the main aspect as well.
Cause I never know where you can learn as well.
Even from just a very practical perspective,
I've realized that when I'm not on set,
cause I don't go on every motion source shoot,
that would be absurd at this point.
We have a lot of talented people that can take care of a lot of that.
But I've noticed that the lighting on the interviews of a standard interview and B-roll
shoot for motion source have improved because of the work that me and these same people
have been doing in the documentary setting. So
there's, I mean, I can give you real measurable, actionable results that it's actually a very
positive thing. So if any of my clients see this, don't be worried, you know, that we're spending
our time elsewhere, as if we're not focused. I mean, I don't have a distinction between work and personal life, which is probably like,
sometimes a bit dangerous.
But I wouldn't say I'm overworked by any means.
What I mean is a lot of my friends are in the film industry.
That makes sense.
My girlfriend's in the industry.
That makes sense, I think.
And we all kind of work on the same stuff together.
And I went to a play yesterday
and the people I went with,
was an actor I've been working with a lot and stuff
and another friend who's a screenwriter.
And everything blends, not in a negative way,
not in a, oh, I'm so overworked way, oh my God.
But there's not a big distinction for me.
And I think it's
going back to the idea of like, like I said, I just want to be an eight year old kid, like
doing interesting, creative stuff and having fun. Unfortunately, we have to pay the bills
because the world sucks. So that's just the way it is. At least you guys have healthcare,
right?
Yeah. If you want to wait eight months for it, you know, like, yeah.
Yeah. I don't know what they like.
I don't know what they tell you guys down there, but it's not the grass is not that green.
OK, you pay with time, not money.
That's the difference.
It's worth more here.
Basically, they wait until you get so sick.
And then they're like, well, we could help kill you if you want.
Oh, man. That's Canadian healthcare.
Can you purchase then private insurance that'll bump you up?
We're basically, they're basically introducing private, they're basically introducing private
healthcare now because our free healthcare is so bad that people are just dying and they're
like, well, why fly over?
We might as well introduce it here. Wow that's really sad. Yeah it seems like in a civilized world everybody should
have decent health care everybody should have food everyone should have rent and
clothing so yeah it's a kind of a disgusting situation I'm sorry to hear
that it's not more ideal. Everyone here's I'm gonna to go to Canada man. I'm going to go to Canada. Yeah. Yeah.
Everyone here. Everyone here wants to go to the States.
Yeah.
Like you said the grass is always greener I guess.
I was getting a haircut today. My barber's I was talking to my barber about this and
he's like yeah man all my clients say they want to go to the States because he's he's
half American. So I was like man man, I wish I was you right now.
Yeah.
I guess it's bad everywhere, man.
Life's just hard.
Pick your poison wherever you are essentially, right?
It's like, you might have a little bit of this,
but not this.
It's like in video production,
when you're selling to clients,
you want it good, fast or cheap.
You can only pick two.
It's the same thing. economy good health care and low cost of living pick two of the three
Yeah, it should be a thing though. I think as a species we need to we need to reach that
Well, someone's got to do it. But the question is who yeah, where's the money gonna come from? That's always a key question
That's the sad thing. Yeah, it's like where's the how is the money gonna go for it but i mean money's an illusion anyway
man right it's just we said hey this piece of paper is worth x for no reason none of it doesn't
actually relate to anything in reality so just make a better world i don't know just go make
movies give everybody health care you know it should be simple in the perfect world yeah
give everybody healthcare, you know, it should be simple. In the perfect world, yeah.
On that optimistic note, I think that's a, this is a good point to kind of end the podcast.
Before we do wrap up, how did you come up with the name Motion Source for the business?
We, so my business partner, John, that I had started with, him and I were trying to brainstorm
on a name and not coming up with anything that he would come up with things I didn't
like him, I would come up with things he didn't like him.
He had at one time, you called him a serial entrepreneur, he had at one time had a business,
a slide imaging business in Chicago.
So back in the day when people would make presentations
with slides and a slide projector,
his business would manufacture those slides for people.
And it was called Image Source.
And I said, screw it, let's,
kind of in honor of that, let's call it Motion Source.
It's an evolution, because you were the source of images,
we're the source of motion.
And it felt like, I certainly don't regret the name.
I feel it's kind of generic, but it felt, I guess, safe, you know, for like, it felt
PG.
It felt PG.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, it was just, if anything, it was just sort of a compromise.
But also I think for me, a little bit of like an homage to the origins of my partner at the time and kind of maybe honoring
him a little bit.
It sounds good as a name.
I like it.
And it's very applicable.
It's very applicable to the business as well.
It's not easy to find a good name that also sticks and also works and also is memorable
and also you get the
dot com for.
So that's the ultimate one.
There was no so get it.
Oh no.
No, we have it now.
But I think it was.
Oh, you have it now.
I think it was maybe it wasn't getting images.
I think that would be crazy.
But somebody else had it and then it went up for sale probably six, seven years into our tenures.
And we had motionsource.net.
So motionsource.com came up and I think it was like $3,000.
Oh, that's not bad.
But at the time we were like a newer company and you're like, oh man, you got to do it.
You got to have the.com.
I'm amazed.
I'm amazed as well with that name not having the dot com. That's kind of crazy
because dot net is like, it's sketchy. Like who uses dot net?
I agree with you. I think then would have been again like 15 years ago now, maybe the
internet was a slightly different place and it was like, oh, there's these other dot whatevers and maybe they hadn't developed the reputation
they have now.
It's like dot TV, right?
Like who, a lot of companies, I feel like I see companies
that do dot TV and it's, it's just the grammar is dot com.
Like that's what everyone knows.
So we dropped the three grand and we did it.
Yeah, that was like one of our things when we were starting our company name was like, can we get the three grand and we did it. Yeah. That was like one of our things
when we were starting our company name was like,
can we get the.com for it?
Like if we didn't have to,
if we decided to go the other route,
there were probably a lot of different names
we could have probably gone with if it wasn't for.com.
But you know, like it kind of needed it and it helps.
I think that was smart.
I think whenever you see a dot something else, it's just there's a moment of like
presentation.
Like, yeah, you know, so it just my on the right website.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think that was safe to open.
So I think you guys went about it the right way.
And I would highly recommend anybody else starting their own company do the same thing.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thank you, Greg.
If you want to find Craig, go to motion source dot com and your socials are what?
At motion source or were you not able to get those?
I think we I think motion dot source.
I'm not a very
good source.
Can I tell you a really quick funny story?
Go for it.
Yeah, go for it.
So we were redesigning our logo, which took us three years to come up with this.
Just script font is what we ended up with.
And we went through so many designers and from all over the world.
And we were working with a British designer and he had done some designs, handed him in.
That's okay.
What about this?
This the other?
Can you come up with some more options?
He did that, handed them in.
I don't know, maybe we could do this, this.
And he came back with a third set of options.
And I don't know where the disconnect happened,
but one of them said motion sauce,
and it was being squirted out of a ketchup bottle.
I don't know if he was messing with us.
Yeah, he was messing with you.
He was messing with you.
That was, so for a very brief period of time,
we thought, well, maybe we'll do motion sauce.
That's pretty good.
But yeah, so I, yeah, whatever at motion source stuff,
other people do the social media generally.
I'm not very savvy, but yeah, motionsource.com
and check it out.
What's the other, the narrative one called?
Year of the Phoenix.
Year of the Phoenix.
.com or the next?
No,.com.
YearofthePhoenixProductions.com.
I think someone else had Year of the Phoenix,
and I'm like, who else came up with that?
Okay.
That was like us with ours, like we wanted laps.com, but that was taken.
So we went laps productions.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, if you're interested, check it out there.
Yeah. Check out his trailer. I remember checking it out when we first got in.
Oh, I did send that to you then. Okay. It's pretty interesting. I think,
I think it was on that website you mentioned for the doc. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty, it's pretty interesting. The guy is a main character.
I wanna see it, I wanna see it.
He's quite a character.
That's good to hear.
Yeah.
Well, anyways, thank you again, Craig,
and yeah, see you next time.
Thank you, guys.
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