Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Matt Alonzo: Director, Editor, and Award Winning Filmmaker

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Welcome to another episode of The Radcast! This week Ryan interviews award winning filmmaker Matt Alonzo! Matt shares his experience working with some of the biggest names in the music industry, and talks about the importance of self promotion and branding."Alonzo, Partner/Head of Production, helped develop one of the first popular YouTube channels -Skee.TV with over 2 Billion views and 300,000 plus subscribers. The channels content was also syndicated on screens in restaurants and gas stations worldwide including McDonald's, Taco Bell, Denny's and more. Alonzo also helped Develop, Creative Direct and Direct "SKEE LIVE", a one hour original TELEVISION series that provides insider access to the hottest musical artists, athletes, celebrities and cultural tastemakers via exclusive interviews and performances. It aired on Mark Cuban's AXSTV.Alonzo departed from ICM as a Feature Film Director and is now pursuing Independent film opportunities." - quote from mattalonzo.com/about To keep up with Matt Alonzo be sure to follow him on instagram and twitter @MattAlonzo and check out his youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/MattAlonzo Thanks for checking out this weeks episode of the Radcast! Be sure to keep up with all that’s Radical @ryanalford @radicalresults @the.rad.cast @nick_weaver and like and subscribe to our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc8gmekIb1SS1s216ASNT_w  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

At that time, nobody believed in YouTube. So we just built up our platform and then we would premiere these music videos on our channel because Vivo wasn't out. The record labels didn't understand the like the monetization of the stuff yet. So they were like, sure, go ahead. As I continued down that path, you know, number one video, I think I had 11 number one videos within a year or two years span, something like that. within either a year or two years span, something like that. And as a creator, this is where the business and the creative side kind of bumps heads because like as a creator, I'm not really worried about business most of the time. I mean, now I am, but as a young creator, I just wanted to create.

You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. Ryan Alford, your host, talking content today. The king of content, filmmaker Matt Alonzo. What's up, brother?

Yo, what's going on? Pleasure being here. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, man. I you for having me on. Yeah man, I'm excited to talk content and you know everything that goes into the power of video man. They say content is king and video rules. Yep, that is very true.

That is very true. Pioneer on YouTube and you know I guess we could name drop a little bit. Justin Bieber. You know, just a few names. So you've been out there, man. I love your story. My team brought me your name. I'm like, dude, I want to talk to this guy. And, you know, it doesn't hurt that we have a lot of the same beliefs. So I decided to have you on.

And, you know, I just want to tell everybody a little about your story and talk a little bit about the business of filmmaking. I mean, it's a convoluted world out there. I know everybody thinks it's sexy and glamorous. It ain't always that way, though, is it? No, absolutely not. It's kind of the opposite of that. What is good from a business standpoint is not the sexy and glamorous stuff.

And then the sexy and glamorous stuff is not necessarily the best for business. So it took me like 10, 12 years to find a balance there. So definitely have some gems and jewels to drop. I know. It's funny you frame it that way. I tell people that all the time. I own an ad agency, and we do commercial work. Some of it's

super fun and super sexy, but some of the best paying gigs, though, are just some bread and butter marketing. The ones that seem to be the fun ones, the big names, don't seem to pay very well. You do them and but you do them. And if you do them, do them with the mindset of them being, you know, a commercial for yourself, essentially, and not necessarily worry about the back end on those ones, then it's OK.

You know, so you have to be able to kind of like basically break, break each project down into into different sections and then put it in its slot and not think that they're all going to be the same. It took me a little time, but I learned it. I teach that in some personal branding coaching that I do called Circle of Influence. Borrowed leverage is what

I call that. It may not pay the best, but you're borrowing some leverage from the existing circle of influence of bigger names that then bring other opportunities that have bigger opportunity. But we can talk more about that. But Matt, let's give everybody, I know you've got a fascinating story. I know you're in L.A., but let's tell everybody a little bit about Matt.

All right. Well, my name's Matt Alonzo. I grew up in Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, which is about 50 miles north of Los Angeles, nice little beach town. But my parents met each other about 16. One night decided to make me and they didn't know each other, but they they decided to like make a family, create a family. They both were street kids, so we didn't have much growing up. But the one thing that we did have or my dad saved up to go get was a video camera. And he just had this video camera in my face constantly. he had no connection to film he was like a 17 year old kid cleaning cars you know so he just wanted to document everything because he didn't really have a family life so eventually he plugged it into the tv and and i saw myself on tv like you know some stuff he had recorded or he would he would do it

so it was live on tv and i thought i was on TV and my mom would be laughing. My sister would be laughing. And so I realized I could, I can make people happy with this, this device. And I learned that at a very young age, I don't think I like intuitively could spell it out for you, but I understood one plus one equals two. And so I started taking that camera and just creating short films. And basically I learned how to, for lack of better words, manipulate people's emotions through this box. I started editing and putting together all these clips when I was like eight or

nine. So that was pretty much my life. That and football and being 5'5", 112 pounds, like football was out of the equation at 18. So filmmaking was going to be what I did unfortunately first year I went to city college and it just didn't work out and I was just going to be working for the city of Santa Barbara which my dad did and my friend who I got into filmmaking at a very young age he started going to this film school excuse me um and I was doing his projects just casually on the side. And he put my dad aside a few times and was like, you have to get mad into this film school. He's acing all my projects. He's doing all my work like he's he's he's he has to be here.

And my dad just couldn't afford it. And six months later, he refinanced the house and just sent me to school. So I just put my head down and went to work and did internships. I did everything. I went above and beyond in every opportunity I could just because I knew how much my parents had invested into this opportunity for me. So by the time I graduated, I had a full-time job working for a small record company. I was making a hundred plus thousand a year living in Santa Monica. And I just wasn't happy though. So one day I called my dad. He's like, why are you growing as a man? I said, Nope. He said, are you growing as creatively? I said, Nope. He said, okay, well, you know what to do. I don't think he meant this like literally,

but I grabbed my bag and I just walked out with no savings, no concept of like tomorrow in terms of like what I'm going to do or like strategy in terms of like, let me slowly get out of this job and put my two weeks in, let me save up some money maybe. And then kind of sail, sail off into the sunset. But at 22, that wasn't, that wasn't necessarily the way that I, I moved, uh, operated. So yeah, it rarely works out that way. Yeah. Yeah. car got repossessed. I was sleeping on couches, but I was like, I was at peace. I felt completely comfortable in the chaos because I just knew how talented I was.

And I knew where I was going to, I knew that if an opportunity presented itself, which it would, that I would be able to show my talent. And I knew I was talented. And as cocky as that sounds, I just, I had been working every single day editing or shooting for four years straight on top of what I did, what I did as a, as a, you know, as an adolescent. So I just knew that no one had put in the work that I had done. So I was very confident in my skills,

did a concert in San Diego for 150 bucks or $200 for this no-name artist but they happened to be opening up for little wayne i uh was able to film the concert took it home put it on youtube that night and it had like the first video to ever get a million views and so like a month later i was shooting a game the game featuring travis barker and i had it on jimmy ivine's desk the next morning so it was uh it was a pretty like meteoric like it was so fast from going sleeping on couches to sitting with jimmy ivine who was you know like the founder of interscope records and um and shooting for the game and dr dre and and just the whole so would you shoot the concert literally would you stay up all night editing?

Like, yeah. So I shot the concert in San Diego. You know, at this time I was just shooting on a little, a little camera with like little tapes. And at that time on YouTube, nobody, YouTube 2007 just wasn't really used the way it's used now. So I labeled it official music video, wayne official music video and all the outlets mtv bet all everybody took it as the official music video so they place it on all

their blogs or on all their websites so that really helped generate all the views and then dj ski who was games dj had just started ski tv and we connected to create ski tv which was one of the first like popular youtube channels. But you know, he was obviously with game and interscope. So he asked Jimmy Iovine, Hey, give us like a, a micro microscopic budget from what you're used to and let us show you what we can do. And so he did. And we kind of changed the whole music video industry with that one, one ask and that one delivery in terms of like

before us it was 200 000 was like minimum now it was like 10 000 minimum we obviously didn't understand that we just wanted an opportunity and we took whatever opportunity we had but we were just able to give them the same product for that price which unfortunately changed the game you know at least for for that time being. The democratization of content is what I call it. It's like, you know, I used to do 30 second TV commercials that took six months and cost $2 million. And now the same things, you know, maybe 100 grand in three weeks. Yeah, I mean, it was, you you know when we asked for it they gave us like the game video that we were shooting even the soldier boy turn my swag on song it that one

went number one it wasn't supposed to go to number one it was supposed to be like a b-side record they were just like here's 10 grand here's 20 grand which then was like craft services and they were kind of laughing like kind of almost giving it to us as a joke or like wanting to see us fail, like not wanting to see us fail, but like kind of just, just throwing us off. Right.

Like it wasn't much, it was nothing for them to lose. So, but the fact that we had, we had, we knew the red cameras, which had just came out. It was like brand new.

Oakley was still around, like the glasses. And, you know, the Oakley CEO was the one who created RED. So, like, no one knew how to use those cameras. We did. They were cheap. And we just kind of bridged that gap. And it was an opportunity. We took it.

But we just, we didn't understand the repercussions. But at the same time, I wouldn't be where I'm at if we didn't take that opportunity. So, it's good and't take that, that opportunity. So it's good and bad. Yeah, it is. But you know, like the game was going to change, I guess, pun intended, no matter what. Right. I mean, you have this proliferation of software and the tools, you know, where, you know, what, 25, 30 years ago, you didn't have a hundred grand. You couldn't get a camera that shot at a good enough resolution or in this editing software wasn't good enough 25, 30 years ago.

So this marriage of software and technology was coming like a freight train. You just jumped on it early. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we had no concept of any of the other way before us. Our only concept of filmmaking was from these apps and these sort of digital cameras and stuff. So it was just natural to us. But I didn't you know, we we really cut the music videos down for a long period of time. They started to go back up. But yeah, there was no reason for them to spend millions of dollars when when they didn't have to anymore. But yeah, there was no reason for them to spend millions of dollars when they didn't have to anymore.

And the quality was up to par. So then I did a bunch of music videos for Interscope. Yeah. Yeah, Pioneer on YouTube. Yeah, probably like a G6. Yeah, so what we did at Ski TV is we really just used music videos. We were really a marketing company. And what we really wanted was basically what you're doing commercials. We wanted short form commercials that would be used like in on YouTube

because we understood that YouTube was going to grow. At that time, nobody believed in YouTube. So, so we just, we just built up our, our platform and then we would premiere these music videos on our channel because Vivo wasn't out. The record labels didn't understand the, like the monetization of the stuff yet. built up our platform and then we would premiere these music videos on our channel because vivo

wasn't out the record labels didn't understand the like the monetization of the stuff yet so they were like sure go ahead and so we just kept building and then we would go pitch to chrysler and say hey we have you know a million viewers from 13 to 35 what card do you have that's in that demographic and then we would go make some sort of 10 second 30 second bumper for 50 000 or whatever it was and we kind of double dip on that and and that's really where we wanted to go would be more marketing and breaking products so we were able to do that with like a few a few products and uh and really kind of grow that and then continue to get big music videos in um so so it was good from a from a business standpoint so we go from uh the game we've got uh opening for was it little wayne someone to

when did uh the beebs and other all these other big names hit the fold so that i mean as i continued down that path, you know, number one video, I think I had 11 number one videos within either a year or two year span, something like that. And then, and then I left ski TV and I wanted to just, cause they wanted to go more into like a, into more of a marketing standpoint of business. And I really wanted to either just, you know, build on my music videos and then go into more narrative. marketing standpoint of business. And I really wanted to either just build on my music videos

and then go into more narrative. So I went, journeyed off, created my own company and teamed up with another company called Happy Place. And they pretty much started repping me. I had another rep from Hello Company, Lark. She was a huge rep. So she repped me and the bill and a couple of other big people.

So that's where all the big names started coming in where she was able to like go pitch for me and have meetings for me and be my voice. So that from a business standpoint was great. Obviously she took a percentage, but I was happy to give it to her. What was crazy during that time was that there was like six months where I didn't work

because she was like, look, your videos are are great but you need to make money so we're gonna say your cap is or your starting point is 50 grand I was like freaking out I'm like 50 grand no one's ever gonna hire me she's like yeah they will but it's gonna take a little bit of time you know so every month I'm like itching I'm like what's going on I'm freaking out you know and then eventually they started coming in you know 50 and 60 100 you know before that it was like 10 20 000 and i was pretty fine with that but she was like we got to make a stance for you you know you gotta stand firm and it'll come so thankfully it did and so i started being able to like believe on in terms of like setting my you know my my prices or my expectations for what was going to be my bottom line, I guess.

I was able to see that eventually it would come to fruition. But there's a good lesson to learn there for anybody listening. You've got to set your value at a certain point. It doesn't mean you can just be unrealistic completely but you know if you've been in the business as long as you were going from 20,000 to 50,000 that's not that's a reasonable like upgrade from where you were you know one like you went 20,000 to 2 million or something you know yeah I mean in the videos that I was doing at 20 20 000 were really were really more

of 50 000 videos anyways as far as like the resources that we put into them we and as a creator this is where the business and the creative side kind of you know bumps heads because like as a creator i'm not really worried about business most of the time i mean now i am but as a young creator i just wanted to create so like all the money could go to the screen. I would eat Top Ramen. I didn't care. Like it's just because I'm an artist. Yeah, right. Is that why they say it's called starving artist for a reason? Exactly.

And I had to come to the point where I realized, look, you can be an artist. But if you want to be a financially stable artist, you need to be an artist for the brand or for the clients. And the client is like whoever the actual brand or artist is. Like I can't like sometimes I would get like a song and maybe a Bieber song and I would write this like very, you know, artsy fartsy creative that didn't fit his brand at all. But I wanted to go with it because I'm such like an artist and I'm like okay i'm gonna decline the job instead of just writing something that is for this brand it fits into the brand but has my little sprinkle on it and then make the money right like uh and so i think a lot of people get stuck there because they want to like i'm an artist and they feel like oh i don't even know what the word is but like yeah, yeah, you can do that. You're just going to be doing it for nobody, you know? So.

What's the Matt Alonzo style. I mean, you know, not to pigeonhole yourself, but what, you know, do you feel like you have a certain style or, you know, like, yeah, I mean, my style is pretty like fast. I mean, I've been editing since I was eight. So like, I just like to, I like to edit quickly. Like, and I like to like, over, I just like to keep things like and i like to like over i just like to keep things i have add like through the roof so like a couple frames my attention span like is gone so which is good now because nowadays like 15 seconds and you know even for me i'm an old head but like i even check out of a 15 second video you know um so so i would say just really fast and just a lot coming

at you in a short period of time. Um, I have a really hard time, at least at this point, like being slow. Like, I just feel like, okay, I'm, I'm done. I'm bored. You got that TikTok brain. Yeah, for sure. And I had it before TikTok. So it's kind of worked out for me.

You know, there was a time where it didn't because like TikTok brain for everybody else wasn't there. So that was a little bit of a rough patch, but I managed to survive. Yeah. I see a lot of effects and stuff in your stuff. I mean, is that working with others or are you a practitioner? Are you just like a jack of all trades? And I know you're directing some you're editing some you're filming some like you know where does your skill sets kind of fall i direct i mean i write and direct

and edit pretty much everything uh i think i have one or two videos i've had other editors but i started as an editor as a kid really and then i started shooting and directing and everything in college and so as a director and editor it's it's it's, you know, it just helps on set. You're able to kind of get in and out and kind of like combine shots. And if you have a problem, some directors are going to sit there. They're not going to really like be able to have the vision of how these shots are going to connect. They're going to take time and I'm able to just kind of move along.

So my skillset really lies in, I would say more like leadership. And then, which was from a director standpoint, creating the vision and then also creating the vision in a way that is going to be executable for the price or for uh slightly under the price so you're able to make some money right so like that's a big part of it um which it does fall on the creator like I used to think it was like business side but it does fall into that so I'd say that's the strength of mine as well. And then being able to like edit and all that stuff in the effects, I would say 95% of them, I do myself. And I do them all in one program. So I've just learned to,

I didn't have much as a child is in terms of like the top equipment and top software, top computer. So I had to make do with what I had and I had to improvise in ways to make things that weren't necessarily meant to be done on this computer or done on this camera i had to find a way to make or find a way to be able to make them on these things all right i gotta make you gotta name that program because nick and i are in the business so i'm watching my producer nick kind of you know light up we want to what program are we talking about i do everything in premiere i do everything okay yeah yeah but it's just like i said i've i've been um like i just find ways to make the program work for me as opposed to like going you know using multiple programs which most people would do or

they look at my stuff and they think like i had to do all these steps which i didn't do i just my brain just cheated yeah yeah yeah yeah so hey i like it i like the mutant jack of all trades like uh nick my producer is one of those where he can he has the vision to direct and he can see it but then editing that's a unique skill set but you have to i don't know i think it's uh a relationship because it's a, it keeps you in the box for like 18, 20 and I'll edit for like 72 hours straight sometimes. Um, cause I, I want it to get over, be over with, but I also want it to like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm in love with it. So like, then I'm like, I missed half my life, you know?

Yeah. All the, the editors toil. So finish out that story, man. I know we've been having a couple sidebars. I mean, lead us up to now, like the last four to five years. I know COVID's been difficult being in L.A. and battling through that for anyone that does live action and things like that. But walk me through the last few years. Yeah, I mean, once COVID hit, i've been the last few years i've been trying to figure out where i was going to go um i didn't know really what i wanted to do music

videos it's like you know when you wake up on the first day of of school like you know those those those nerves and all that stuff of excitement that kind of all faded away so it was just kind of so easy for me um or just not challenging I wouldn't say easy because it's still difficult but it just wasn't challenging me it wasn't like pushing my boundaries and I was like what else am I gonna do COVID happened and then you know I tried to work for a couple record labels like do some jobs and I saw people wearing hazmats and like you know getting like 87 tests before the shoot and I was like there's absolutely no way i'm gonna do that and like if i can't even touch my friend or like see my friend i'm gonna be wearing this

big suit and shit like i'm not gonna do that luckily i had a lot of friends who are artists and so they would just contact me and just you know we just do side business yeah or you know small business like um stuff so it's like small videos 5 10 15 20 grand like anything under like you know just like the bigger videos for record labels are usually on the 40 to upper side so like these were all considered smaller videos i just did myself and so that that was kind of refreshing at least for me um and it was good financially and then um i was like all right i need to get a big boy job like um you know i'm getting up there in age so one of the guys that that uh started ski tv with me kai henry he he was he's over at

phase clan which is an esports video game org and i just i was like something about that i just had grabbed like it just started pulling me and so i I contacted him like, hey, get me over there. What's up? And he's like, yo, it's a big boy job. Are you ready to come into the office every day? I'm like, I don't know, but let me just go over there and check it out. And so I went and checked it out. And I've been here ever since.

It's a great place to be. And so I run all the branded content. We have like 15 brands from okay luckily i didn't say that one because we're not allowed to say that one yeah but we have we can add these yeah we have big brands who do business with us and then we basically pump out content for them basically like commercials but with uh our talents like our video gamers and things like that who who star in these pieces so there's a ton of deliverables that are um that need to be met and it's a different a different challenge for me

and uh because it pays amazingly compared to freelance so it's been a blessing it's definitely been a blessing something new and uh that's where i'm at today no that's awesome i'm very familiar phase clan big one of the biggest name probably the biggest name in esports. We did a huge segment on the Radcast. We had like a 10-guest series on esports. And so it's a huge – I mean people, if they listen to the Radcast, they know how big esports are because we made sure they knew the numbers behind it. I mean it's fucking insane like how much money it is.

Yeah, it blows my mind. sure they knew the numbers behind it how i mean it's fucking insane like how much money yeah it's it blows my mind like like i'm going in some of the like some of the stuff a lot of the stuff we're doing is like sometimes we'll do bigger pieces but some of the stuff will be like just for instagram or for like tiktok or something and i'm looking at the budget going holy like this is just for social media but when i say for, that's because I'm an old head. Because if you're a TikTok or Instagram, you know, in this demo of 13 to 24, you don't even know what TV is. So it's not just for, that is their TV, right? Like that is their bread and butter. So the budget makes sense.

But for an old head like me who still has like, you know, still wants to watch Monday Night Football on my big screen, like it's a little shocking. I'm just like, wow. But it's great. It seems to be perfectly fit for my skill set. And I have like, you know, five or seven producers underneath me who I'm able to kind of manage. And I love being like being able to be a leader and coach and mentor.

And, and, you know, I've done some film classes I've done as, as, you know, as many like tutorials or, or things where I can kind of give back as possible.

So I'll be able to do that on a daily basis and kind of help these guys through, you know, struggles, not only with work, but, you know, some,

some of the things that are going through with life and be able to kind of help them out is definitely more rewarding and fulfilling to me as Matt Alonzo, as a person than anything I've done, you know, up to this point. So it's kind of a great mend of all these things I was looking for. FaZe Clan, they still have the, if you, we could edit this if you were not to be able to answer, but they have a huge activation with the Cowboys or they did. They did, I think.

Yeah, well, we did a lot of stuff with the NFL as well. So, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. It blows my mind. It blows my mind. What's – give me an example of the types of – like one of your latest projects maybe, you know, like maybe for the listener, like walking of your latest projects maybe you know like maybe for

the listener like walking through like you know a video or some type of content so I'll just say the last project that I did was so we had a moon pay which is one of the cryptocurrency brands is one of our branded partners. So we put together a huge party for TwitchCon with MoonPay. And, you know, events are part of events like competitions, all these things. So we did that with Travis Scott. So we filmed it, put together a video with all the biggest names. And then just really trying to figure out how to basically like shoot a music video at a club without disturbing people like so there's a lot of different challenges

and really that that deliverable is like a one minute video on instagram you know so it doesn't even go to youtube um so that's kind of like kind of just you know one of the things that i just did recently um and uh before that i did xfinity nate hill uh so which is a big you gotta remember i'm not a gamer so these names to me i don't really know yet i'm learning you know um last we got made the play was like duck hunt so um i think there's some duck out on Twitch somewhere just destroying my dad's TV you know but the content

is the same it's just the faces are different so like we did you know did some they're like commercials essentially so we just try to find a way not to make them commercials it just depends on what the client wants but it's a lot different from that to from that to like 100 girls running around in bikinis shaking their butts and uh you know alcohol being sprayed everywhere and you know dollars yeah yeah yeah

exactly it's you know it's a lot different it a lot different. I can't say it's as visually exciting, but, you know. But it's interesting, you know, and I'm going to go down and put on my marketing hat for a second. But you said it, you teed it up. What some people haven't grasped yet is 13 to 23-year-olds do not watch television. They've never watched television. And I'm not saying they don't watch the screen at home that's on the wall. That's not a TV to them. It's a content screen.

And they beam stuff from their phone there, or they watch Netflix, or they watch a ton of YouTube. And the only way, if you're a marketer, to reach these people is in video games or where they're at. And so that's why esports is gigantic. That's why FaZe Clan's huge. That's why Twitch and all this stuff and all these brands are spending all this money because you can't reach these kids. And eventually they're going to be the leaders of the world.

they're going to be the leaders of the world and you've got to have brand impressions and you've got to build that same brand resonance that that you know pep to bismal could just run a commercial you know back in our day and yeah but that shit doesn't get seen anymore yeah no you want you want their parents dollars right now you know like yeah you want their parents dollars they probably have they probably have the ability just to press and buy so uh so you gotta eat like you said you gotta go to where they're at you know and i don't know how video game integration is but i know that if you have the best gamer using your product integration is going to do well for you you know and at least gives you a chance i guess that's all you can hope for is an opportunity and a chance that they walk by your product and they happen to remember or it spark something in them to buy it, you know, because without that, you have no chance.

I mean, you just have no opportunity. You're unseen. You're unheard, you know, out of sight, out of mind. So I get it. I get it from like the from, you know, from a broad sense. from a broad sense, but sometimes I just don't take that into account. I'm just going, what the freak is going on here in terms of budgets and what we're doing and creating? I'm in the business, brother,

and I do the same thing sometimes. I'm in the business every day and I step back sometimes and go, I get it, but I don't get it. And I think about what our music video budgets i mean music video budgets were were absolutely pennies i mean they still are pennies you know what i mean and like and sometimes the bigger the artist the lower the budget you know i mean a lot of times like i was telling you earlier before we got on a lot you know a lot

of big big things i did were more for recognition you know like it wasn't for uh it was to bring in other business you know a lot of times that would bring in artists from overseas who just wanted to shoot with me because i shot with bieber and they would pay me an exorbitant amount of money and so i was able to get jobs like that with that video would never be seen to the general public but i wasn't i wouldn't be able to get that job if i didn't do this five thousand dollar000 video for X, Y, Z, you know, and like $5,000 or 10,000 is nothing. Sometimes I do videos for free, you know, like just, just for the exposure. So, but it was worth it because all that probably led to the opportunity today.

Right. Absolutely. No, no, absolutely. And I, and I tell kids all the time, like take it, obviously you have to be strategic about it. Don't just do shit for free, like just left and right. You know what I mean? But if it makes sense for you in terms of like you see steps after that, absolutely do it. You know, some people tell them not to do it. And I'm just like, why? Well, because you're worth more and stuff like that. Well, you're actually worth nothing right now because nobody knows you. You have all the skills in the the world you're still worth zero because you are just not a commodity you know so you have to make yourself a commodity and trying to make yourself a commodity and make money at the same time it's it's almost impossible i'm gonna say it is but it's almost impossible so the tagline for my coaching is it pays to be known and because if you ain't known there you go you know you know and you don't have to be known and because if you ain't known there you go you know and you don't have to be famous you don't have to be famous but you got to be known to the right people yeah your skills have to be have to be wanted you know you have to be a commodity and obviously you

know as the more you're wanted the higher your your, you know, your prices can be, you know, in anything. Right. So, and I had a good understanding of that. Like I said, once again, I couldn't, I couldn't verbalize this stuff early on, but I just knew that was how it works. So I was able to take that concert in San Diego for free, drive back home that night, edit it all night, split screens, all this crazy stuff, post it, knowing that or hoping, I guess I was hoping that I would start to get known. like and i knew if i started to get known then opportunities would come in uh and then i can build my my leverage up and start bidding more so talk to me about

your perspective on tiktok and instagram and reels and vertical video like you know let's go down that rabbit hole just a minute as we close things out. Like what's your perspective on vertical video and, and the like. So I, when vertical video started in vertical video first came out as well as like square video, I was completely like against it. You know, I did everything in my power not to fall in line with this sort of you know deliverable uh i was very like egotistic i was like my head up in the air like no cinematic film is only this way and then i realized like i'm fighting something i'm

never going to be able to win to win the battle against and i'm hurting myself or the clients or the brands that i'm working with i started studying a little bit more about the algorithms and how if you stay back in old headville, then your content is never going to be seen. The more you take up the screen and all these things on all these algorithms. I'm'm like i want my content to be seen i want to grow i want you know i want all the things that come with um you know exposure so if i'm hurting myself by by staying in this old lane because just because i i feel like it's so precious to me that i'm i'm retarded i'm just i'm not using my head properly you know so what i did was i started challenging myself to find ways to still to shoot in to shoot square so that i didn't have to reframe my shit later and i didn't have to like make something out of out of something that would make a different video that wasn't supposed to be

that way so i started shooting vertically or i started like taping my my camera off so i could i couldn't see you know I could only see a square. And so I started challenging myself to shoot cinematic that way. But also just doing that framing really helped me so that, so later on, I wasn't trying to figure out which portion of the frame I wanted to show and feel like I was losing something. Once I did that, then it all became just intuitive and like natural to me. And now I'm like the more vertical the better for me i don't care i'll push the limits like anywhere but i shoot i shoot i first figure out what the deliverable is going to be or where i want this video to live and then i shoot accordingly so

that seems to help out tremendously but now i'm all for it because i know that's just if you're 18 or 17 you don't even know what the widescreen videos are like for movie theaters which are like drive driving theaters to us you know like it just it just doesn't really register you know so the um yeah i had to change i had to change i think we all have but it's been interesting watching the you talked about the short form video and how you were ahead of your time a bit with that but now i mean everything's like 10 15 20 seconds you gotta you know i mean if if it's a video like a music video or something with a big star you certainly got more uh leeway uh on length and as long as you're entertaining maybe but maybe i don't know because for me

for me for me i'll even even if i like it I get to about 20 seconds and I register it as good video, but then I click off. Even if it has another two minutes to go, even if I like it, my attention span is like, okay, what's next? So if you're listening at home, the key there is get that brain in early. Yeah. No, for sure. For sure. If you watch any of my content, it's like five seconds. First five seconds are like, you know, just to at least keep you there to 15.

I was reading these studies and they were saying like 85% of your viewership is gone by like six seconds or something like that so if you start looking at these analytics and these are like analytics from actual you know real living human beings who are checking your content so uh it's very telling on you know it gives you a lot of information on on how to edit or how to create something because you you just can't you can't be so stuck in your ways or so like you know stubborn that oh no i'm going to show my my logo at the end of the video it's like well it's never going to no one's ever going to see it you know so having all this data and having these like facts that you can literally just take and then implement uh is is a great thing if you're able to kind of like like i said not be so stubborn and hard-headed you know um but eventually i guess the

numbers will tell as as you lose customers or lose you don't sell merchandise or whatever hey man marry marrying the art i just think it's yeah with that and you got to get it out there i mean that's a good point go ahead go ahead no i mean you got to get it out there because that's the thing now. People fall in love, and if you spend three weeks doing something, you could have already learned if it worked or not and done four other things. That's the key now is get it out there and learn. I managed an artist during COVID.

I managed a huge TikTok artist. I was able to get his Spotify from like 200,000 to when I, you know, we start working together. It was like 2.5 million monthly listeners. No, I got him a deal, singles deal and everything.

But like any song that he would work on for longer than like a few weeks, I was just like, throw it away or save it for later because you're, you're attached to much to it. And it's, it's like, we got to just throw stuff out. And the stuff that he didn't care about,

or it was like, okay, I'll just put it out right away. It did really well. And the stuff that he would babysit a little bit longer, just never, and it wasn't because people knew that he put in more time or anything. It just, I don't know what it is, but the more you work on something, the less likely it is to be successful for whatever reason.

And I'm not saying like just throw trash out there. No, but I'm saying I think everything has a 90-10 rule. Once you get to a point – and I'm a perfectionist to the fullest. I've had to give money back because I've done like 10 versions of an edit, and I still didn't feel comfortable sending it to a client. I've had to send money back. Here's your money for your project. I just can't edit this. I don't want to send it to you because uh because my perfectionism is so crazy so me

as a perfectionist being able to say this like you have to be able to put it out when it's 90 to your liking uh it is uh shows the growth but it also shows like how important it is to do that you know um and like it's not those days of like you know putting all your energy into one film or one single or all that stuff it's gone it's gone it days of like, you know, putting all your energy into one film or one single or all that stuff. It's gone. It's gone. It's just like you said, you have to just throw shit out there, see what sticks, see what doesn't, and then be able to adapt and just continue to do it out of sight, out of mind. And, you know,

instead of doing like one thing where you put all your energy and all your eggs and all your budget, do 10 things and you kind of spread your resources, which is kind of opposite of the way I learned, but what works right now, you know, a lot of wisdom there. Hey man, I've really enjoyed this.

Where can everybody keep up with you, Matt? And, uh, follow along with, with everything. Where's the best place to get you? Uh,

best place is probably Raya Bumble. I'm just kidding. Uh, Matt Alonzo, Matt Alonzo.com. Everything's, Matalonzo. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. So keep everything pretty easy for people to find.

I love it, man. Really appreciate your time and your perspective and a lot of good insights, man. I appreciate you having me on here. And hopefully we dropped a few gems for some people. I know. Maybe we'll get to work together down the road i'll get in touch with you hey guys you know where to find me i'm at ryan alford on all the platforms we're at the radcast.com search for matt alonzo you'll find

all the highlight clips from today all the stories about matt and great perspective here we'll see you next time on the radcast