Frame & Reference Podcast - 182: Chris Ray of "Motion Clubhouse"

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

This week I'm thrilled to have my good friend Chris Ray on the show to talk about basically everything! Chris is the founder of Motion Clubhouse, as well as an incredibly accomplished action sports cinematographer and all-around great guy.Enjoy!F&R Online ► https://www.frameandrefpod.comSupport F&R ► https://www.patreon.com/FrameAndRefPodWatch this Podcast ► https://www.YouTube.com/@FrameAndReferenceProduced by Kenny McMillanWebsite ► https://www.kennymcmillan.comInstagram ► https://www.instagram.com/kwmcmillan

Hello, and welcome to this episode 182 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Candy Macmillan, and my friend Chris Ray, the owner of Motion Clubhouse. Enjoy. I tried to do like a home NAS off of my router, you know. What's that? A network attached storage. Oh, okay. Like a raid, but attached to the network so that you could access it.

You had access it from like any device on the network. Just I had, it was essentially a one terabyte SSD that I just plugged in. And it worked, but even that was like clunkier than it. needed to be yeah that makes sense i think martin my business partner has stuff like that you've meant martin right no only only uh online okay yeah so martin has a some sort of set up like that and then i just use the o wc whatever 160 terabyte thing where i'm like i'm just putting everything on there and i'll access it when i plug it in so yeah yeah i made a god you have to have a lot of i thought i had a lot of footage but so what sucks is i have two of those units two eight bay 160

terabyte units, both of them are full. Yeah. Another one. And I still have, I'm looking at 20 more drives I need to dunt. Yeah, every single thing I ever shot. I don't delete things. I keep it all.

I actually, what's funny is I, so I have my own little raid basically, a little DAS, direct attached stores. And I it had, it was like a mess of drives. They weren't all the same so they're like different sizes and stuff so there were but uh i replaced all of them with the

max that that thing can handle which is a 20 terabyte drive so there's two three four five 20 terabyte drives in it with no parity switch is scary but um uh i thought oh my god i'm gonna have so much more space and i don't have like even close to double the space i have it's like it was like an extra 40 terabytes i was like luckily prices are going down i mean for what i right now probably would have been like a hundred thousand dollars ten years ago yeah it's pretty crazy do you mostly film is it like no i guess you got what that c7 c80 you got so i've got c80 and c400 now but we're we're testing out a few sonies and trying to figure out like do we switch to fx6 do we go to the sony route do we um stay canon like i don't know everything i see out of the

the uh sonies i really like from sony users mm-hmm And it's always like that is the grass greener in there. So you kind of want what you don't have. And I'm like, should we go Sony? Like just to make it exciting. We have a relationship with Sony too. They've been really supportive. And so it's canon.

But it's just like, which one do we want? We don't have. We're not like stuck to either, except, you know, every canon lens they make. So. Yeah. I honestly, the, the problem that I have with Sony, if you could even call it a problem, is has nothing to do with them because they're, products are great um it's that uh i'm going to close my email because that's just absolutely

turn me honest you have to be in dallas um that is is Sony is so popular like their marketing team is so excellent that now i can't even tell like if any you know you see especially like with fx3 stuff it's like is this a great cinematographer or a great colorist because that because so many people are using Sony cameras, we're no longer seeing the results of that camera. We're seeing the result of the individual. And at that point, you know, does it matter? Yeah, I'll

say it's pretty hard for there to be a bad camera out there. But I think the coloring has made such a difference. And everybody that, I guess it's like, somehow Sony got all the colorist it feels like because everything I see, I'm like, damn. It's because they're on YouTube. Yeah.

Everyone who owns a Sony is a YouTuber. But it's funny because like Martin is a more of a color nerd and like spec nerd than I am and they'll like color stuff and I'm like hey man if you told me this was this camera I'd be like oh cool I believe you if you told me is this camera I believe you

like it's it's you could you could be like hey this is FX6 I'd be like oh that looks great you'd be like this was canon I wouldn't doubt it I wouldn't be like no no no that's a black magic like they're all so good yeah at this point I am almost exclusively with

very little exception I'm like, if the body is giving you what you need, that's it. Yeah. So usually that comes down to like even mount I don't really care about because almost everything can be adapted to whatever. Although they do make, I will say one, because Sony is so popular, there's so many email lenses out there. But I shoot mostly PL anyway, or like EF, I do have.

But, or you know, like built in NDs, I will not be buying a camera that doesn't have built in NDs. That's a big. rule of mine for sure too yeah but that that sensor in the c80 c400 is nice it is nice we ran some tet we've been kind of bummed on the image coming out of the c400 so that's why we're thinking by switching the sony but we did some tests and we sent i mean uh martin figured out if you shoot at the base iso and then as long as you shoot below that yep yep i uh i shot a commercial and learned that off rip because we were shooting kind of late at night and i was like uh what what camera was at

C-80. Okay, great. Good. That's good to know. Yeah, yeah. And it was, I ran a few tests as well because I knew we were going to be shooting at night. And I was like, yeah, just whatever ISO you don't shoot at the base. But, and I should have known that because I do that with my C-70 and my C-5 hunt.

Not really the C-70. It doesn't necessarily need it. We didn't know that. And that's, we have a shoot tonight. And so I'll be starting today with that rule. But Martin was like, hey, I got a good image out of this. And I'm like, just shoot below it. Yeah. Well, the trick that Canon doesn't tell you, and I had a guy tell me this in public, like, on a recorded interview, so it's not like a secret. But the Canon sensors, I don't know if this is true with, I assume it's not true with the 80 and the 400, but probably is. The Canon sensors, all the cinema sensors, their base ISO is like 160. That's crazy. They say that their base ISO is 800 because that's where you're going to get the best highlight and shadow detail.

simultaneously. And I noticed with the C-80 doing that trick of shooting lower doesn't affect your highlights in an appreciable way. Like you don't blow out like suddenly like two stops sooner. Like you might on like a C-200 or a C-300 or something. But yeah, so if you want like the best image out of the older Canon Cinema cameras, technically shoot the lowest possible ISO. I usually shoot around 400, honestly. That's what that's what Martin Mosein to do. So, Because the C-400 body and the C-80-wadi is like, I'm stoked on it. It feels great. Yeah.

And I like what the changes they've made to the monitor hinge because on the 70, it's a little sloppy. Yeah, totally, totally. It's good times. What have you been up to? So I guess I'll have to say, you were on this, but you were like, I don't know, guest number 12 on this podcast. and then the internet took a shit on both of us and so it never went out.

But that was like four years ago. What have you been up to in the past four years? Oh, man. So I guess, did I leave D.C. shoes? Was I with D.C. shoes? You were still at D.C. at the time, yeah. Yeah, so I left D.C. We started a motion club house.

Martin and I left. We took Sam that was also in the film's department there. So we kind of cleaned out the films department. and went and did our own thing. And we've worked with a ton of cool brands. And we fell into the podcast space, which was not the plan at all. Right.

Because you do Huberman, right? Yeah, we do the Huberman podcast. We also work on like Rick Rubin's podcast, Tetragramaton. Oh, cool. Yeah, so we help with that stuff. And it's funny because we were doing a ton of music stuff around that time with big bands. And when we were at D.C., I was like, hey, you know what?

Like, if we leave, we have enough work to keep us busy with just the music stuff. And dude, we left DC and didn't get a single music job again with them. It was so funny that it never even lined up. And then this whole other thing happened. But it's just we were very, very good about just being like, okay, let's just go with the flow. Let's see what happens. Because we had a whole plan, which we can go into of like, we're like, we're going to leave. We're not going to do any editing.

We're only going to film. We're going to hand them the footage. We're going to have free. freedom to like not do 20 edits then we fell into doing all editing and it was like it was just like oh whoa like well this wasn't the plan but we were very good about being like it's okay that's not the plan because we're going to figure it out as we go and we've been super happy but the human thing is like the the main main thing for us yeah we worked with polar pro did a set of indies with them we've done a lot of their launch campaigns and stuff it's been awesome yeah one

thing that I've always found fascinating about your guys' work, especially at like motion club houses, I feel like every, this is going to sound kind of like an insult, and I trust, trust me, it's not like every influencer in the world would love to be at the level that you guys are at. Because it seems like from the outside, if I'm making educated guesses, it's like you're, you're just pulling in brand deals, but they're all really good ones and you're getting work off of them. You know, it's not just like, here's some free. Like, you, you made a fucking indie filter, you know, like it's, yeah, um, you're getting the good, you know, and as your work is concerned, like getting promoted by Canon and, you know,

whoever having being at film tools, like those are all like higher level trust level stuff versus like, I got this new man's, you know, well, we've been, the, the main thing was that we always worked with the brands that we were fans of. So we've never really jumped around. So it's like small HD, taradick, wooden camera, like all the creative solution companies, we've always worked with and partnered with go pro like all these companies we use those cameras we use all their equipment and that that was key because it's like we don't we don't want to just jump around like we when we go on we shoot our our camera products and things like that's like that's what we truly use but if i'm sitting there and i'm posting a wooden camera product and then

like till to the next week i just don't think there's any like there's nothing authentic there right right but you're just you're just jumping around and people see oh this is just you know whether that's just you're getting paid or this you can't believe that person's word if they're promoting now there's there i mean there's people out there that are that are doing reviews and things like that and that's great and they have a lot of knowledge and they can compare to other models but like we're all about like the true partnership of like how can we work together um and again like we like you said we're very lucky to work with the best ones yeah well and that kind of thing sort of comes from uh the skate world doesn't that we're like you'd get a sponsor

and you like you rock with them especially if they're you know like a shoe you wear or board you ride or whatever trucks you like the camera industry just like the skate industry it's not that big everybody knows each other as ain't that many companies so if like you're jumping around all the time like you're the guy that jumps around you know how many times what i jump around to all these different brands you know we have switched a couple brands partnerships and things like that and that's just because there's a lot of companies that work with each other and like hey come work with us or come work with this you know so um like we were with tiffin before and then you know polo pro we started like to do some actual work with them and we were just

like we're clicking with these guys uh we really like what they're doing and so we're like you know what we'll switch here and then we got more involved in like the product side and that's how we need of getting our own line of four by five filters which they had never made four by five filters you know for the cinema world and we were like we want this we want this we did a lot of testing and they were like totally supportive of it so it was awesome to see those come out and obviously or have our logo on there is insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's cool as shit.

Yeah. I had a thought and then it ran away. I did want to ask about the Heurban thing before you got past it, which was just obviously, you know, if people don't know, it's kind of a self-optimization kind of guy. Is there anything that you've learned filming all of the, you know,

because even fans of his probably don't listen to every single episode or as you're there of every single episode. Is there anything you've learned that you've applied to your filmmaking life, whether that be actual work or changing the way that you approach this is a job? I mean, definitely my health overall, right? Because I think that I always prioritized work before my health or my family. So for me, it was always like, work is my life, nothing matters. But working with Andrew and the whole crew and listening to the podcast, it's like you quickly

learn like if you don't have your health this isn't going to last long you're not going to be able to actually work as well so it's like you know eating eating right because when we're on set like dude what's crazy is it most of the time they're like here's pizza i thought i was about to say i hate the pizza they bring the pizza it's not even good pizza it's like dominoes at the time yeah so they'll be like here's pizza you know and i remember like i had gotten like a health coach i was working with this company out of Vegas called clay and i was doing a bunch of video work for them and they were like Oh, like let us let us just like you want to test some, some, you know, of your, I guess health life. So I started doing some tests with them.

And I was working with their coach, Andrew. And he was basically like, keep a food lock of everything you have, right? And he's like, hey, I noticed you had pizza twice this week. And I was like, yeah, I was on a shoot and I did this. And then I went on another shoot. And that's all they had. And he looked at me crazy. And he's like, why don't you just use a snack bag?

And I was like, a snack bag. I never thought about that. And he's like, well, like it like when you're a kid. Yeah, I was like, I didn't think about that. And he's like, you don't have to eat the pizza. And I was like, you're right. So it was a cool like experience, obviously with Andrew and then like meeting people in the health space. It's snowballed into, you know, you just, I don't know, I don't feel like tired anymore.

And I feel like carrying all these cases or like. Yep. Things like it all connects to each other, which has been awesome. But sleep is important. I used to believe that I should stay up all night. and edit and not get any sleep and now for me i'm like good sleep is important like andrew will be like you know he doesn't ask how you're doing he asks how you're sleeping you know getting sunlight crazy important like we have an episode that we uh have been editing this week and it's released

on this monday which i don't know when this episode comes out but this would be like the end of march so yeah it's out yeah so go back and watch this uh i can't remember this guy's last name but it's it's and this guy roger and anybody wants to see it's to just DM me, but it's like all about sunlight, the benefits of sunlight. It'll just blow your mind on how much or how important that is. It's pretty wild. Well, we, we, you know, as much as people hate to think it,

we are animals. We are a result of, you know, we are the universe experiencing itself, as it were. When we don't do natural shit, bad things happen. Yeah. you know but i mean it the biggest thing too is like you you know working with andrew and him being so concerned about everybody's health which is like it's not a thing he's just putting on like it's a real he's really concerned about helping people and obviously he's a friend of mine too

but for him to be looking out for us and being like making sure they were getting rest instead of just working 24 hours a day like that's pretty unheard of from anybody that's actually paying even well yeah i mean so first of all to just to echo your point uh About a year ago, I realized that I was, like, getting gassed, like, walking upstairs with a camera case, you know? And then, like, I'd see photos of myself and be like, oh, Jesus. So I started going to, there's this great gym here in L.A. called Allegiant. And they've got three locations. And they, you know, they're like, right now they just switched out coaches.

It's the strength and conditioning coach for the Pacers is my coach, you know. And they, like, make sure that you're not getting injured and stuff. they have they'll do like body comp tests and stuff they they have a path where they'll focus on your nutrition but that's cost more so i don't do it but but uh yeah literally everything you just said is like everything they talk about and everything i've been thinking about for the past year because it's it's so true yeah i was at this weird point where i wasn't like crazy overweight i wasn't necessarily in shape like you said i was gassed out if i if you told me to like run around the block i'd be dying you know where i was just like man this is this is

it's just i had the decision to make and i'm like do i do i fix this before it's bad or because i'm not going to stay the same as you get older it just gets harder right uh-huh i was like what do i do i i wasn't happy with myself like where i literally thought about it every 15 minutes throughout the day and if people that know me were like you're crazy like you're not this huge to do, but I was like, yeah, but I'm not happy with who I am. I feel huge. That's all that matters, you know? I'd see photos and I'd be like, is this the camera? Or is this, you know, like, do I really look like that? And so I just, I started like working out like crazy. And I didn't post it. I didn't tell people. And then I started to, to, uh, run into people. And people will

pull me aside and be like, hey, what, what are you doing? Like, what, what's going on here? You know, so it was pretty cool to go like six months. And finally, you just wait for somebody to be like, notice. And you're just like, oh, I think it's been hard. You know, you are putting a lot of work. And but obviously processed foods and crap like that, that's like a huge difference. It's like not, you know, I was sitting there eating chips and cheeses and all that stuff while editing all day. And now I'm like, I get a phone call.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to walk around the block and take this call. So. Well, and also the to your point about like, if you asked me to run around the block, the other thing about being out of shape or at least not in the. process of like going to the gym is it's a mental block right once you once you break past that that mental block of like i don't want to work out or i don't want to exert myself or whatever other things become easier you stop thinking in the i can't do it kind of thing yeah it becomes well it becomes a part of your life where before it was like a task like it was a it was a homework it was a do thing yeah and i started to understand it but also i wasn't educated i wasn't educated on food

and I wasn't educated on on any gym practices. I'd walk in a gym and be like, I don't know. That machine cool. Yeah, I'd be like, okay, cool. But I started to, you know, using apps and talking to people and obviously working with Andrew and him training me. So it was like, okay, this is how you're supposed to do it. I understand it. But then I remember, like, I felt like it clicked.

I was like, oh, this is just, this is just my life. This isn't a, oh, I got to wake up and go to the gym. This sucks. So that once you can turn that switch on, then it's like, it's a game changer yeah for me it was like i think three or four months i hadn't worked out in 10 years and it took about four months of like and every morning i would wait every single morning i would wake up and and and start coming up with excuses that i would then tell lies that i would tell the coat sorry i can't come in uh something happened and then after making up enough lies i would

go all right time to go and i'd get up out of bed and go yeah it's hard it's hard it's i mean you know but you have to you have to just do it unfortunately so now i'm like if i miss a day i'm bombed so yeah well and it it's interesting to hear that come from your perspective because like i'm you know i i snowboard every winter but you know that's two months out of the year that i'm quote unquote an athlete but you're you're a you're a medalist skateboarder you know where where uh where did that have you still skate uh so i still go to the skate part uh so i still go to the skate parks and stuff. And that's pretty much it. But I'm not in the streets as much as I used to be. So I'll just cruise out with my friends. And I still do stuff with GoPro. So I'm out filming

clips in the parks and stuff. And sometimes in the streets, but mostly just having fun at skate parks. Yeah. What is that the Eric Costum joke of I used to skate? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are my friends that, uh, that do, uh, storied skateboarding. So the producer of DC shoes when I was with them he him and his brother uh went and started that company and they did the whole i used to skate thing which is it's pretty funny yeah i'm i'm definitely in that game well actually that's why i started snowboarding because like i just could not ollie for the life of me as a kid you know i was like yeah you know what's funny is i never thought like growing up i mean skating for the majority of my life and then now being 41 i never thought i would suck at skating this much

like now if i'll be like dude there's no way that you skated the majority of your life it just it gets harder to jump. It gets harder on your body. So it's a lot different. I pulled my neck doing a pull up yesterday. Yeah, you can, I mean, at our age you can get hurt sleeping. Oh, that's the worst. That's what I tell like college students. I'm like, just get a pillow, like invest in a nice pillow with like some structure. Because one day you're going to, you know, pull, yeah. That's been half your life in bed. So you might as well. Well, and you know what? I was looking at the analytics for this podcast like the other day. And most people are 25 to like 45. It's like 25 to 35 or something like that. So there are people that need to hear about pillows and health. Talk to me

about the DC shoes. Because you were there for what, like 10 years? Yeah, it actually left on the 10 year day anniversary. Because they like that is one of those kind of like in the sports industry. That is one of the monoliths. Like if if they go down, you know, the entire industry is probably gone now. Yeah. Yeah. It was a rad place to work because, you know, I grew up as a DC fan and DC was always amazing because of the content that they put out, right?

Like when people talk about DC, it's kind of like the Red Bull formula in a way, right? When you think about Red Bull, you're like, what's so rad about Red Bull? You don't sit here and everybody's like, oh, the drinks just give you so much energy. It's usually like, oh, they did they threw guys. a space and they did this and they did this event they sponsored this team well they had always had such a rad skate team they always had rad categories and they always did crazy videos that were red bull style and things that other companies weren't doing so to be a part of that for 10 years was absolutely incredible and they were huge supporters of my whole journey and my career of like

doing freelance like i was allowed to do freelance the whole time i was there that's nice how about they're getting experience with everybody and meeting a lot of people. So when, you know, when we decided, hey, we're going to go start our own agency. We're going to do Motion Clubhouse. You know, I went to the films team and I was like, guys, it's time. We're going to do this. I don't know exactly what this is going to take. But I do know that as the things come along and the questions, we're going to figure out as we go.

But I think we're ready. And I'm going to do this. And I actually didn't expect anybody to kind of like join me. but we ended up, the entire crew ended up just leaving and doing it. And it's been amazing. It was the best decision we ever made. Which also in some cases, doing that is illegal. So check your local laws to take an entire department.

What were some of those first? Because I've weirdly enough, I got an email about this like two days ago. But I never really had like a normal job. I freelanced my entire life. What were some of those initial sort of things that, that popped up that were different for you going from a working, you know, whatever, nine to five, whatever you want to call it, working for a company versus working for yourself. Well, one, if we were on a shoot for DC and things didn't go well, we all still got paid, right?

The losses didn't come out of our checks. So that was a huge one. So now when you're walking into a shoot and we're doing our own thing, we're the ones responsible, right? So if we're hiring out a crew, a bunch of people and the client doesn't want to pay for two to three months, we have to pay all these people out ourselves, right? So we don't, we didn't have that financial backing that a big corporate company has. We didn't have access to a company card that magically got paid by somebody every month, right? And didn't have a limit. Yeah, we, yeah, we didn't have a limit. We, we had company vehicles. We had an office that was fully paid for. We had a creative

team that we can lean on if we needed something else. And pretty much an unlimited budget because we were able to outsource and get help whenever we need it. So that was probably the biggest challenge was the sense of responsibility. But working with Martin, who's the co-founder of Washington Clubhouse, we both were on the same page. We're like, you know what? We're going to make sure we take care of everybody else. We're going to make sure that people always get paid. We'll be the last ones. We're going to make sure we can do this. And we were very fortunate, you know, to not really like miss a beat when we left and you hear the stories of like

oh if you leave and you work for yourself you can like make more money and in our case that that was true oh that's good yeah I was going to say you make more money but you're also doing more jobs you know you're wearing far more hats I'll say that I don't know I feel like we were doing it was really weird

it was like a it was like a culture a little bit of a shock at first because I was like whoa like we're working like two days a week oh way less time Yeah, so I was like, where before at DC, like it was a lot of grinding, right? Because you're like I was a, I was a person that was on calls with marketing. I was involved with a lot of things.

And then I would edit at night because that's when the meetings were over. So I kind of felt like I was never getting a break. And that was 10 years straight. So when I started to not be on all those calls, that was huge. Like I didn't realize how many Zoom meetings I was on because they had to have a call for every single thing. And that's most corporate companies. Everybody. And yeah, I'm like, you'm wasting my time.

So now when any company is like, hey, we got to do a call. I'm like, oh, I get like a PTSD. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I got to do a call. Like, for real, we got to do a call about this. I don't miss any of that stuff. But that just sucked away a lot of time, a lot of creativity. Obviously, you got to have discussions. You got to talk about things.

You got to make things, you know, figure things out. But I think a lot of that time was wasted. So we had gotten a bunch of this extra time where we were like, hey, we can actually enjoy life a little bit, make more money, focus on our health. hang out as friends and just not be working around the clock. So we're fortunate. I know it's not that way for everybody, but we were very unfortunate. We had a lot of support from people that believed in us.

Well, I will say, you know, I'm certainly not at that level. I work for myself in that, you know, I'm my own boss, I guess. But all of that stuff is true. It's just you have to have the, I don't know, stick-to-itiveness. You have to be a very, like, you know, what is the jocco-will-nick thing? You know, discipline is freedom. You know, if you're disciplined enough to get all the work done, when you're supposed

to get it done, you end up actually having a lot of free time to do the stuff that you need to do. If you're lazy like me and you put things off, it compounds and gets worse and worse, you know, so I think that's really the main difference. Yeah, I've always been like a, you know, I struggled with this because I had a lot people call this out in my life but work has always been what i felt like defined of my life what i didn't like hearing that for a long time but then once i kind of accepted it and i i stepped back and i looked at like how i was and how the way i worked i was like you know what it is that

it like i truly believe like like i love working hard i love what i do but i'm also always very cautious about who i'm working with and who i'm working for so for me it's like it just it doesn't feel like work because it's it's become a part of my life so I'm never dreading any of it and you know we're always like I said maybe we've just been lucky on who we've worked with and the support we've had I don't know it's just it's we've been really fortunate well you're I would I would make sure to give yourself some credit you're you're a pleasant person to work with you know I think people choose to come back to you you know I guess it's just a dream come true and that's why it's kind of like I got to pinch myself and be like we're

doing this. This is insane. I mean, I'll text like the group thread and I'll be like, guys, this is crazy. Like, we're working with Andrew Heberman. We're doing this. Like, we're doing this. We have a polar pro filter. Like, it's insane.

Like, we have to remind ourselves how awesome this is and not get caught up in it. Well, and it's, it's so fun to hear that too. Because I think also exactly what you're saying. I'm just going to agree with you this whole conversation. You know, having joy in what you do. I think he's incredible. I was just at the magic castle last night. And I was talking with some magicians.

And they were talking about this, like, legendary dude who was so burnt out. It took him like 10 years to come back to it. We're like that he would, all of his friends were all magicians. And this is like top three in the world kind of guy. And, and he wouldn't even talk about magic for like 10 years. And then one day he was like, you know, pulled out the cards or whatever. But it's, if you don't love what you're doing, like literally step back and do. something completely unrelated for as long as you need to to like get that spark but for it's fun

to hear you say stuff because like you shot fully flared I'd be that was my dream job I mean dude to work with those guys and tie spike Jones yeah yeah I mean that was my dream again like there's been so many layers of my career to where like what I hit that one right and that was like I wasn't getting paid anything really like I was getting like $750 a month, but to me, if you said, if you could do anything in the world at that moment, it would have been work for LeKai, work on fully flared with Ty Evans. That was my dream. That guy taught me how to film.

I owe him so much. But like, I had so many of these checkmarks where it's like, go work for trans world, make a trans world video of, you know, checkmark. Like to where all these things kept happening, where I was like, well, if this is it, if this is the last checkmark, my dreams came true. So I was very fortunate to just have all these checkmarks of just like, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. And they're still going.

Yeah. Do you sort of visit? Do you, I don't know what do they call it? Because I certainly don't, not mood board, vision board. Do you like write these things out? Are they more just kind of like goals in your head that like how, how I guess like actual I realized? How firm are any of these goals that you make? Do you like write it down to go, I need to do that?

or do you just kind of take it day by day and do the work in front of you? Yeah, I take it day by day, but it's more of like a feeling. Like I'll have this like feeling or like urge, you know, where I'll be like, I really want to shoot fitness, but then I'll just make it happen. I'll just be like, hey, I'll reach out to, I'll go on Instagram and I'll find a fitness person. And I'll always be like, hey, we're, we're going to, we're going to do this. And I don't, I'm not waiting for funding. I'm not waiting for somebody to be like, oh, here's the shoot.

You can do it. Like I have such a passion for filmmaking. I trip out when people are in filmmaking and they're trying to do it for the money or they're trying to, they're thinking this is a fun career. Like, it's an exhausting career. And if you want to do something for the money, then like you should go to college and be a lawyer or doctor or something that pays very well and won't drive you crazy like the film industry. But I always try to remind myself, why do I do this? Why do I have passion for this? What gets me excited?

You know, and that's like I said, it could be like right now, I have this urge to shoot a rodeo. I really want to go to a rodeo and just shoot a piece to just even post on my Instagram. I don't think you're here. I just want to do it. It's the reason I made that face is just because like I've seen a lot of rodeo stuff. I think it's in the ether. Well, because that's the other thing I was going to say was I think you do what I do, which is like you just kind of, I guess it's like the David Lynch thing of like being open to the ideas.

Like you don't make them up. They kind of appear in front of you. And then it's up to you to go do it. Yeah. You know, so if you got rodeo in the ether, you're like, you just go, that is the exact correct time to do it versus, well, you know, maybe next year I can schedule out some rodeo time. You know, it's like, that or being like, oh, I hope a rodeo company hits me up. Or I hope there's a shoot that lines up. It's like, no, like, I'm just going to go do this.

And then, because every time I've done that, I then get reached out to buy a company that that, I guess, like, works on that. And they're like, hey, we saw the car commercial you did. We want to hire you for this. And I was like, oh, cool. Like, that was one we just went and did because we want to get the experience. We want to see what it's like. And I'm inspired by other filmmakers. So for me, it's like, I want to, I want to my, I'm very fortunate because my friends are

all the exact same way where they just get excited to do the shoot. Nobody's like, well, how much money we're going to make and how is this going to do? It's like, dude, like, let's let the money follow in another way, right? Like, we'll figure this out. And, you know, maybe it's a pitch video. maybe it's just something that we just do for fun. But the more experience we get behind the camera, the more experience we get editing,

like that helps all of us. Well, and something that you do that I really appreciate, which I think helps. You know, because obviously this was a classic thing they told us in film school, which is like you're only as good as your last job, you know,

meaning exactly what you're saying, someone sees the gig you did before and then they hire it, which is how like people who do horror films, but really want to do rom-coms, never get to shoot a rom-com because they, you know, they see a horror film and they go, I want you for that.

Um, but something that you do that I think is really great is when you do do those passion gigs or stuff, it's the exact same level of quality and attention to detail as the paid gigs. So from the outside, you would never know. And that, and that even, even if you didn't get paid for it, even if you didn't get hired for it, you know, you just did it. Um, you don't know the brand. It's because we think the same approach to our paid gigs as we do is our passion projects, right? Every time we do a paid gig, I tell the crew or our friends or anything, like, and even tell the client because the client usually comes to us and they're like we don't we don't have to reach out for work people usually just reach out to us and like hey we like what you guys do we want to

partner up and do this which is great because usually there's some sort of relationship that's already there but I always tell people I'm like I want to make something that I'm proud enough to post on my own channel and and the client always goes exactly that's what I want as I want you to be so proud of it I want the crew to be proud of it that you guys are also going to share there's there's nothing worse than sitting there making a project and looking at each other being like this is the worst thing we've ever filmed don't tell anybody about it we don't want anybody know about this that's not like that's we only have a short time in life i definitely don't want to spend it doing that yeah unless unless kind of the opposite of what you're saying

unless the pays really good then you just you know sometimes you take a cake but uh because i was tell you there's no there's no shame in any job you know take oh no totally totally you learn i mean I'd hope that everybody learns something from every single job they do. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And especially the other thing, too, is like on a lot of those, like, well, now this is kind of going directly against what I said, but like on those like shittier paying jobs that even are bad, nine times out of 10, you meet someone on that set who like is also quote unquote

slumming it. And then you start a relationship with them and then maybe, you know, you hire each other and make each other's work better later down the line. Yeah, I remember there was a long time ago. I got hit up for a job and I got off the phone I was telling my friend Mike I was like man this this just hit me up and it's like a music thing and they want to pay me $500 for the day like that's crazy and he looked at me and he goes what are you doing tomorrow and I was like nothing he goes $500 sounds better than zero what if you meet somebody that's awesome and I was like you know what

I'm going to do it so I did it and I met amazing people that I still work with to this day and and we paid much more on other jobs. So it's great. I think it's take a step back, look at it, evaluate, you know, your time. But most importantly, do you want to do it? Like, is your, is your body want to do it? Does your mind want to do it? And like really evaluate and think about it.

Oh, yeah, because that's another thing, right? Like 500 sounds better than zero, but also don't, one of the biggest mistakes I see younger filmmakers making is show. going up and with the attitude that that gig is beneath them and not, you know, actually trying. They're like, oh, my day rate's $1,500. You're paying me $500. Well, you're going to get a $500 effort. It's like, no, give them the $1,000. Give them the $2,000 effort, you know. Give them the $2,000 effort. And then then they call you again because he did an amazing job. They'll know why you're worth of $2,000. Yeah. And I mean, don't let people, you know,

stomp all over you, but generally you know, and everyone's been handed different budgets. You know, it's not like you always have the same budget. Yeah, but I mean, you also know, like, I think you can go with your gut. I think people got chose their gut and like, you know, when you're getting taken advantage of versus, versus they're like truly not being a budget. I believe like, and I didn't go to film school,

but maybe they taught this in film school to every producer to put it in the end of the email that we don't have a big budget for this. I don't know if that's, but I've never ever been hit up and somebody says hey we got a great budget yeah it's like never happened it's always uh you know this one's gonna be a lot of fun uh we need a few rock stars on this one um you know we we really we're hoping to really partner you know all this all this teamwork discussion i mean a lot of times it's just like i go off of how exciting and fun doesn't sound yeah that's truly like what that's truly what it is you know and

If I'm working with my friends, like that right there has value to it also. But if the project sounds fun, I usually forget to even ask what the rate's going to be. Because I'm immediately bought in because I'm like, this is, this sounds amazing. I fit perfect for this project. I know people, other people are going to fit for this project. So like, let's do it and make this happen and figure it out. Yeah. My friend Nick is a producer and he is constantly hounding me to get paid what,

I'm worth because I'm so easy to please like if I work for some clothing company that I really like and the budget's not amazing but they give me a bunch of like free clothing you know it's really nice some of it's like really expensive I'm using an exact example of mine like I'll take it you know I know I got if like Viori hits me up I'm going to be like no charge it's okay like just just into the clothes like I spend more than my day rate on your guys of stuff it's all good. So yeah. Yeah, you got to, but again, like, that's exciting. Like, again, like Seattle Seahawks hit me up. I'd be like, oh, no, you don't even have to pay me. Just bring me in. I'm doing this, you know. Why in the sea? Aren't you from NorCal? No, I was born in Hawaii,

moved to Washington, grew up in Washington, went to North Carolina, southern Nevada, northern California, then down here, Orange County. Gotcha. So have you been to a cracking game yet? No, I only only follow football, but, uh, but I, they're my favorite hockey team because I don't follow hockey, but I'm a Seattle guy. So I go for sure. You, you should definitely next time you're up there, like, just go. Like, I was there for two days. I, you know, I flew in, went straight from the airport to the arena because I, you know, I was just, I was a one day shoot that I was leaving the day of the shoot. And, uh, boy, that's not only is that stadium super nice, like the food isn't even that expensive, like food and drinks are actually reasonable for a stadium. But it's, it's, it's

Hockey's just fun to go to. But that arena specifically is amazing. The Seattle fans is what gets me excited. So I definitely, I need to make a trip up there. The, what was it? Oh, I did have a note about, oh, no, I have too many, now I have too many notes. All right. First one, going into freelancing or, you know, working for yourself, starting your own company.

Are there any, I guess. yes, maybe pre-production tools or software or methods of operating that you've implemented. Because I think that's something that kind of, you know, we always talk about, oh, you know, Premiere versus Resolve. But, you know, there's like for me, you know, calendarly for scheduling meetings or like, you know, just anything like or like pitch deck generation, you know, sometimes can be a thing. No, we don't do anything like too mind-blowing, which is funny. Like the one of the things that we did, was we did create like a Google spreadsheet between Martin and I and we kind of created all these categories of different freelance people that we knew, right? Because, you know, we try to have like

the best team possible. But when somebody does reach out for a job and they say, hey, we need audio guy. We need lighting. We need DIT. We are able to open up that spreadsheet and look at it and go, ooh, who do we have? It has their day rate next to it. It has their contact. It might have on link to their reel and we kind of have this quick reminder because I think that there's a lot of times you just forget about yeah with or or people that do special categories because there might be a job coming up that we go they go we want somebody specifically d it and it's like we're pretty run a gun we can handle dIT ourselves usually but it's like oh we know a dIT person that literally does that full time they're going to be great to bring in to do this so having that spreadsheet

helped us that was like a little I guess tip that that that we have But other than that, it's like pitch decks, things like that. Like, I don't really build too many of those. I'll use other videos as references and inspiration. But a lot of the companies that we work with are almost like producing it themselves. And we're coming in to kind of help with the with shooting it and working on post and like delivering like their vision. So like I said, we don't really reach out to companies and say, hey, we really want to pitch you on this. We really want to do this job.

it's usually somebody has an idea and they come to us right and with your experience with these kind of uh higher end company you know we were talking about i used to work for red bull and when you were talking about like dc kind of being the same thing um i remember you did that uh was it robbie madison who did the wave yeah yeah we shot madison on the wave that was crazy i legitimately thought that was a red bull project until the dc logo came up and i was like oh because you know he's a red bull athlete so i was like what do they look at that Well, I just said that says a couple of things. I mean, Red Bulls done an amazing job.

And obviously owning that category and level of craziness to where if you see it, you automatically think it's Red Bull, which is awesome. I had a lot of friends even be like, hey, man, did you see that video that Red Bull did? And I was like, are you joking? Like, I was out there for three weeks. That was D.C. That was us. It was a month. Yeah.

So, I mean, for people that don't know, like that's Robbie Madison and Tijuana. riding a motorcycle on a wave, which was a mind-blown experience. That was that experience, basically they brought us in because we're skateboarders. We don't, you know, we don't work around if the lighting's perfect or if we have permission. We're very like, like if you're out skateboarding and you're the skateboarder wants to do a trick, you have to be ready. You just have captured. It doesn't matter if the light record, baby.

It doesn't even matter if the, if security is kicking you out or the police are pulling. up or the lightning is horrible like you have to make it work because the skater is failing it right so they wanted something with robbie and they came to us like look we can't hire hollywood style production people that are going to hold everything up we need this thing to go so we need you know you guys to get in there and just overcapture everything and just go with the flow and we did that but it was one of those experiences that obviously after it came out we looked to each other and we can do this we can do anything and that was really the first like team thing that I felt like I was kind of involved in that I was like, whoa, like it's so

rad to have a crew of people that are amazing that working together where, you know, if you're doing a ski video or you're going out and filming a trick, usually it's just the filmer and the skater, you know, the filmers, the director, the producer, all that stuff. You're like, you're telling them what spot we're going to go to your, you're filming the trick and then you figure out the angles, all that stuff. So this was like, whoa, we have a dream team of people that we didn't even know it was a dream team and they put out this epic video and people think it's red bull doing it but really it was just a bunch of skateboarders that gave us a lot of confidence yeah i mean it's a sick it's one of the

sickest things ever i mean it's like you know it's it's not surprising that the person you know fully fully flared was one of the most important videos you know yeah right which i know you didn't you didn't work on yeah right right i didn't work on yeah right i was the kid calling the skate shop every day asking if it was in yet so yeah and then you know that video but the point uh point of all that was to say like when you work with these higher in companies doing cool shit what what are some of the things that you know because a lot of time the client doesn't know what they want you know so what are some of the things that you've recognized doing these jobs that when you go to you get some new client who's like we just want some of that magic like what are they

actually asking for man i mean you definitely got right when you say most of the time they don't know what they want you know but uh that's one of my favorite things is trying to figure out like how to achieve their vision um and usually usually it's inspiration off something else it's inspiration on and that's why we're coming in you know it's not like uh we're going to hit up to shoot a baseball documentary like i've never done that so that's probably not going to happen right but there's usually some sort of affiliation of like motion clubhouse has been involved in something at some capacity and that's why they're reaching out to us so we're kind of of able to kind of figure it out. And we always like to give things a twist and obviously like

elevated just enough to make it even better or different. But yeah, we usually just try to achieve the vision of the client. You know, that's you to their goal. We enjoy doing that. Do you find that there's, this is a loaded question. Do you find that there's like technical considerations? You know, we were talking about cameras earlier. Like do, has a client ever asked you for a specific camera setup or lighting or a camera platform or lighting thing or lens package or anything like that? No, it used to be like a lot back in the day was if we got a lot of jobs because we under red now people are asking what camera it is.

It's pretty crazy. Nowadays people are just like, yeah, whatever, like doesn't even matter. So I definitely saw where it was like, if you ever read camera getting hired, I haven't had anybody ask me to use a red camera. We're shooting on Canon, Sony doesn't matter. For us, the way that we've approached it to as we go, hey, this is our day rate. This is what we charge that you can get every single thing, equipment is included. And that's the rate if we're shooting on a red and that's the rate if we're shooting on a cannon and that's the rate for shooting on a GoPro.

It's all the same amount. You're getting motion club house as a whole and you're getting our experience. Like all the cameras are good now. So I'm not going to sit here and like lower numbers because you're picking what camera body I'm going to use. Like that doesn't matter to me the day. like obviously I want to achieve what their goal is right we all want to win so I'm not going to sit there and go well I'm not bringing my extra monitor unless you pay that extra $200 like no like you're going to pay us we're going to bring everything we got we're going to do this and producers love that they love when it's just everything's included we're easy to work with if there's something that they want that we don't have then yeah let's go out and get that and obviously have them pay for that because we don't own it but between Martin Sam myself the people that we're friends with it. We bring on jobs. We pretty much own everything that you need. Yeah. And once like the argument of like first of all, it's fantastic advice. People especially when you're working with like

non-film clients. Yeah. They just want to see a round number and they want to pay by credit card. Yeah. The biggest thing. The biggest I guess like difference too with with with a corporate company and starting motion clubhouse was the whole, you know, what's your budget? Like going back and force with clients and trying to figure out what it is that they're going to pay. Because when you're a DC, we were getting paid a salary. So it didn't matter like how much work we were doing. We were always getting paid the same amount of money. It didn't matter if the job lost money, made more money. We were getting paid guaranteed. Now I have people that'll be like, oh, I want to do this job, how much is it's going to cost. And I'm like, but there's not really any details. And one thing I

kind of learn is when that question of like, what's your rate, it's also like, okay, well, we have like base rates for just like shooting. But if you want like for an entire project, it's like, well, what is what is your budget also? Because then that tells me what can I bring in how much more to how much time can I put into this? Like how big of a career can we get? If you're telling me that you only have $10,000 to do it, well then like obviously I know I'm going to shrink down my crew. If you're saying you have 30, I can afford some of the some of the bigger people. I can afford more people and so on. So it's it's really like we can do it for cheaper. We can do it for more. there's going to be a few things that suffer.

Right. And I think something to highlight in what you're saying is for people who don't know, that that might be a little confusing because you said, like, we have a flat rate and then budgets change. It's correct me if I'm wrong because I, I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here. Budgets dictate how many people you can get on because you can't,

you don't own people. You have to pay them. You know, you own the equipment, but you don't own the personnel and the personnel need to be paid. And so if you have to shrink down the personnel, just stuff physically can't get done with a small. our budget.

Absolutely. Yeah. And nobody's figured it out because nobody's talking about rates with each other. Nobody is telling each other what they get paid. It's not the NBA where the Brown signs a contract and it's like, this is what he's getting and this is what his rate is. You know, it's like we don't know what each other's rates are. Yeah.

I think that that's actually hurting the filmmakers a little bit more because some people don't know their true value. I mean, I'd say, well, I'd say everybody's undercharging, probably, in that case. well and I think I think it's because people don't like it's kind of a weird double-edged sword right because if I tell a film student just graduated hey average day rate for a DP right now is you know somewhere between 1,200 and 1,800 and they start charging that and they don't have any experience they don't have any equipment they don't you know that's not good because you're going to do that kid a disservice they're going to eat shit very quickly yeah yeah yeah Because that's a good point because my day rate today obviously isn't what it was five years ago. Right. So, so yeah, it's definitely a tough one. But like, it's not something that I didn't go to some school.

So I want to say it's not something that isn't taught in Phil school because I don't know. It's not. Yeah, they don't tell you there either. Well, the whole point was I was just thinking like, it's good to know what the average is. Because there's, and what honestly, what I'll do is I'll just go into the, um, what is it the like the union book there's like a website you can find all the union rates and just look at that and go all right i'll pay that okay that's good to know you know there's just massive charge and it'll tell you like you know based on what budget and of course

everything is like the lowest budget for the union is like 250 000 or something like that but um i'll just pick those numbers because that's average you know and then if someone's higher lower you know you you you figure that out if someone's way low and and i know they deserve it i'll be like yeah and as people start to do like as you start to work with companies and you're in the same industry it's like the a good example is the podcast i'm sure right so if like we found to the podcast space wasn't really planned um and we started to kind of learn the rates as we started to see what people were paying so we're like okay cool like for this job they're asking for this So we now have kind of like a rate set based off of these, the, you know, these requests.

And then you can kind of go off that and go, okay, well, this client's asking for something similar, but it's a little bit less. You kind of know how to adjust the numbers and kind of like said the ballparks. But that's a lot of work to do. And that's something that like I wasn't really having to handle again at DC because it was like, cool, you're hired. This is what you're getting per year. Everybody, you know, was had their salary.

But with this, you're kind of like having to figure out like, what you're going to charge clients, what, what, uh, how to charge more as a company as well because you have company expenses. So it's a whole different kind of like a mind game of trying to figure out like, oh man, how are we going to do this, you know? Well, and I think one simple thing that really helped me out when trying to, because, you know, especially if you're trying to be nice, you know, I think there's something within every artist that makes them not want to charge people quote unquote too much. Well, because you're passionate about it. Because you don't want to you don't want to not do the job like you obviously want to do it in you're in this

industry because you're excited about it right but you you still want to get your worth you still have to make a living so that's the hard part is that you don't want to overcharge because you're like I don't want to not be doing this well and there's this kind of weird I feel there's this kind of weird cultural thing where filmmaking whatever anything in that space any art form is not a, quote, real job and therefore deserves less for whatever reason. And that I completely disagree with, especially when, you know, if you're working as, you know, Ford and they're like, we need a commercial and you're like, oh, okay, well, I'll do it for, you know, no, charge them. But the thing that really helped me out for like realizing what my rates should be, A, that union sheet, be, just looking at a rental house and seeing what my gear is going. going out for these days, you know, and then C, creating a spreadsheet of my monthly expenses.

That's huge. It's really, suddenly you're like, I need to be making 10 grand a month. And that number doesn't sound so crazy when you, when you see it in front of you. You're like, oh, that's why my credit card's angry, you know. Absolutely. And it's, you know, at that point, it's, I find it much easier to tell people like, this is what I need to. It's not even what you're worth. It's what you need to be paid.

And a lot of times, once you break a threshold, companies just go, all right, it's the companies that haggle that always. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's building those relationships too and just being like showing your value and showing the trust. You know what I mean? It's like you don't have to be the, you can be the best filmmaker in the world. Well, like, you also, they got to trust you. They've got to be able to rely on you. So it's like, it goes a lot of ways. And there's a lot of producers are going to be like, you know what?

I want to work with you out of anybody because you didn't. you gave a lot of passion during the last project and you're familiar with our brand and we want to keep this going. So it's like people should want to work with you and it's okay to have those discussions. I think they should be a little bit more open of like, look, I need to make some more money. I need to charge more. Last time we did this, I actually lost money over here in this space. So how can we adjust this and do this? And most of the time, they'll be like, oh, you know what? That makes sense. Let's like, let's figure this out. So discussions has helped us. yeah do you uh no that thought i'm trying to stop myself from just going totally agree

and then not having not having a pivot point let's find something we disagree on yeah uh grapes um i did want to know uh going back to the fully flared thing because if if no one's seen it it is it is one of the most impressive gay videos of all time um what did you spend any time with Spike Jones? No, so I didn't spend any time with Spike. I was basically, I was basically the NorCal Filmer. So I was filming Brandon Bebo a lot, but then what was happening was a lot of the team writers would come up to Sacramento, and we would film a ton up there.

And that's how I just, you know, got to film Costin and Guy Mariano and Mike Carol Ricarrode, all of those guys. So I was like, Mike Carroll. Yeah, I got to film like all my childhood heroes in a video that I was more excited. about than probably anybody else in the world like and tie evans my favorite filmmaker and skateboarding of all time is the guy who taught me how to film i'd send him the footage he would give me notes tell me what to do how to i didn't know how to say a white balance or anything on my camera when he hired me that guy gave a he gave me the opportunity that nobody else would and because i worked for him

and because i worked for fully flared i was able to get any job i wanted after that point what uh what cameras were you using back that are those dd yeah sony vx 1000s it's like more powerful it's like more iconic camera on skateboarding of all time. And I just would turn it on and go, you know, and he's like, hey, man, it's looking really orange. You got to do this. You got to do that. And like, you know, when you're, when you're filming here, fish, I do this.

So he put a lot of trust in me where there's a million people out there that were better than me at this and would have wanted that job. And I got extremely lucky working with Thai and it's still good friends with them still today. Did you, you know, it's funny. Now that I'm thinking about it. Did you ever go to the St. Alina skate park? I don't think so.

So I grew up there. And they, I can't remember how, but we basically petitioned the city. Now there's like an insanely good one that Walker. I get. I wouldn't say he's my friend. He's my acquaintance. We know each other. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, he's friends with everybody. Yeah. Whatever. But he grew up, you know, same schools and all that. And, yeah, yep, in Napa, great author now. He got them to make, I think it was him, got them to make like a really nice skate park now. There's a big, nice concrete one. But before it was just like a fenced in like 20 by 20, you know, like not even concrete,

just like that pebble asphalt with some wood things. And then a massive half pipe. At least it was massive when I was there, you know, I was 12. But Billy Pepper would show up all the time to like. to like break the lock or some i don't know if he worked there but he was constantly skating that half pipe and i thought that was the coolest that's a real skater you know isn't yeah northern california is fun um all right well we're kind of coming up on time i don't know what else to talk about now um oh how many uh no i guess that's kind of the same

i was going to say how many trans world videos did you shoot because that was another big one Yeah, I mean, I worked, I went from Lakai to Trans World and that was another dream job of mine. And I want to say I was there for four to five years. So we did like four to five videos. And then, yeah, I was working in Trans World because it was a magazine, I worked with everybody in the industry. So I had to film every skater, work with every company, help book the travel, worked with John Holland all those videos, which is I grew up watching him and Ty Evans make all the Transverse videos. So I got to experience what it was like to work with Ty and then work with John, which they were complete opposite people, but it was a great balance where it's like, Ty was this more like, I don't want to say it was like a drill sergeant, but he was definitely like a, like, we're going to get this done no matter what where John was a lot more laid back and was like, let's not approach it that way. So it kind of, it kind of helped me landed right here in the middle where it was like, okay, cool. I can be this like drill sergeant to the guys that need it and want it. But then I'm like, I'm like, I can also be like laid back and back off to the guys that don't work well that way.

Yeah. You know what? That actually brings up a great thing we can end on, which is what makes a good video part? Well, the skateboarding at the end of the day. It's not the filming. It's not the editing.

It's truly the skateboarding is what matters. It's obviously the skater style. It's what they skate, how they skate. And most of the people that are watching skate videos are, not watching the filming like we might be where i'm sitting there watching all the filming the whole time but a skateboarder is watching it for the skateboarding so what makes you want to go skate that's what makes the best skate video yeah i'm actually that's something that we were

talking about a little bit earlier about like you you make something that you want to post on your own thing i was telling that to a friend of mine who who's like a marketer for this company that we both work for well they work for it like officially and they're not getting a lot of engagement on their post and I'm like you're not making anything that I would want to send my friends yeah like stop making ads yeah no one shares ads you know people share just think like is this something I would send to my friends on Instagram if yes you're good yep exactly but but I did want to drill down on the skate part a little bit because there is I mean you know, skateboarding is very insular, clicky, particular.

If you do, if you just shoot a skate part and in any way, it'll stand out. Not in like necessarily in a good way. People will be like, well, what the hell is it? Because there's a certain visual language to skate films that I think, just like in any movie, you know, if you shoot, you know, the horror film like a rom-com, to your point unless the content fits that visual not dichotomy but

you know whatever this is not you know not not difference there's a lot of rules there's a lot of rules but there's no there's no skate film school and there's nobody that's ever even talked about I bet you it's not even on YouTube like

here's the rules of skate filmmaking like nobody has has done I've never seen that before because there's a lot of rules and there's no rules so it's like it's complete freedom but don't do the wrong thing. But I can't tell you what the rules are.

You should know. And for anybody out there that doesn't skate, you can't just like walk in the skateboarding and be like, hey, guys, I'm going to film skating. Here I am. They're going to be like, no,

you're not. We don't know you. Like, you got to like click with them. They got to trust you. Like, you're traveling with these people. You're rooming with four or five people on a trip.

Like, it's a completely different world. To me, it's normal. But to see like the non-scapeboarder, come in and be like, oh, we're going to do this and to see a NASC skateboard or edit a ski video, it's, you're like, oh, whoa, like, you can't do that. And they're like, what? I'm like, you just can't. You have to be able to see the ground and the top of the stairs the whole time,

things like that. So it's like, like I said, a lot of rules, no rules. That's it. Well, and you know what it is? It's, this is going to be the craziest, like, comparison. But it's like high-end cocktail or restaurant stuff. It's like, how do you get a Michelin Star? It's like, well, you have to be making food or drinks or whatever. It's an ongoing conversation with everyone else on the playing field. But it is a silent conversation. One person does one thing.

You go, oh, that's interesting. And then you one up. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It's the same thing with skate films. It's like the way you know is, watching all the other skate films well isn't that copy no because you got to do your own thing but it's like it's it's it's the ship of this this a fist you know it's like it just is now and if you want to be a part of it just slot yourself in wherever it is yeah it's it's an

interesting one and you know like i i never you know i got into it and just thought i'm making skate videos my friends this crazy that we can do this we don't need uh anything else and then when companies were like hey we're going to pay you to film these pros we're going to pay you to travel the world like it just didn't make any sense to me it just seemed like uh too good to be true i didn't know you can do this for a living and then to see where else it's it's led myself to is just it's shocking you know every single thing i do skateboarding or not like skateboarding has some sort of inspiration behind it of what I'm doing today. Yeah.

Well, you're doing a great job, buddy. I'm going to let you go, but thanks for, you know, I'm glad we can finally get your episode out. A hundred and sixty episodes later. I'll say this was one of the best podcast interviews I've had because your questions were a lot different. I feel like I always talk about the same stuff. and this was a completely different style where if anybody you went back and watched my

last five podcast interviews I've done, you'll literally hear the exact same phrases, word by word in answers. And so this one was a lot different. So thank you so much. I appreciate that, man. That's literally been my goal with this thing is like everyone's on a press tour usually. And it's like, I don't, I just listen to all the, if I'm lucky enough and they've already done those interviews, I'll just listen to them and.

not talk about that. Yeah. No, I really told somebody other day I was just like, I got to figure out how to switch these up. And yeah, you did it for me. So appreciate it.

Appreciate you. All right. Well, you know, whatever. I'll text you whatever. I'll text you whatever. I'll talk to you soon.

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And as always, thanks for listening.