The Offset Podcast - The Offset Podcast EP057: Parenting As A Post Production Professional

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Recently we've been thinking a lot about how quickly time seems to go by and nothing demonstrates this more than how our kids have gone from being to toddlers to graduating high school and moving on to their next stage in life.  While there isn't anything novel about this transition, it got us thinking about the unique challenges of being a parent who's also a post production professional. In this episode of The Offset Podcast we're exploring this topic in detail.  Some specifics include:Time management & being presentHow the work around the work is a big parenting challengeParenting when your partner isn't in the post businessGiving a peak behind the curtain to your familyIs post a good carer path for kids?How knowledge won in post applies to other careers & industriesCheck out offsetpodcast.com for our entire library of episodes. You can also follow us on Instagram & Facebook - just search for The Offset Podcast.  Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you found it and be sure to check out our growing library of episodes.  If you like the podcast it'd mean the world to us if you'd consider supporting the show by buying us a cup of virtual coffee -https://buymeacoffee.com/theoffsetpodcastSee you in about two weeks for a new episode.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Offset Podcast, and today we're taking a look at the unique and sometimes challenging experience of parenting as a post-production professional. Stay tuned. Support for this episode comes from Flanders Scientific and the XMP 270 and XMP 310, the accessible, lightweight, and versatile monitors helping to bring HDR monitoring on set while also being very well suited to. post-production work. Learn more at Flanderscientific.com. Hey, everybody. Welcome back into another installment of the Offset podcast. I'm one of your host, Robbie Carmen. And with me, as always, is Joey Dana. Hey, Joey, how are you? Hey, everyone. Um, so Joey, uh, I feel like, uh, this is a topic that we're going to discuss today, the idea of parenting or being a parent as somebody who is a, you know, post-production professional that is long overdue in our, our long list of, uh,

episodes here. And this is, uh, in particular coming to mind as this past weekend, uh, unbelievably celebrated the, uh, graduation of my, uh, my first, uh, my daughter, uh, from high school. It's crazy that 18 years have gone by. Um, and that just got us thinking a little bit about, um, post-production sort of as, you know, the unique challenges that exist as, you know, being an operator in this business and how it eats time and how it adds stresses and, uh, you know, the financial parts of it. But then also, I think we wanted to talk a little bit about just sort of like, hey, you know, kids are growing up. Hey, it's time to start thinking about what you want to do in your life.

Is post-production something that we should be steering our kids towards or talking about or encouraging? And so today I think we want to dive into those kind of broad areas and just kind of discuss it. I mean, there's not a right answer or a wrong answer for any of it. But I think there's a lot of people like us who have kids that are getting older or even if they have them, young kids are experiencing the challenges of being a parent with the rigors and the demands of being in post. And that's not easy, to be honest with you, having done it twice now. So we're going to take a look at that.

But before we begin, as always, just a little bit of housekeeping. You can watch the Offset Podcast on YouTube. Just search for the Offset Podcast over on the YouTube, and you will find us there. That's a video version of the podcast. You'll also find us on major streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple. podcast or any place where you consume podcast, just again, search for the offset podcast. And you can find our complete library over at the offsetpodcast.com. And if you're on the old social media, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

Again, just search for the offset podcast. All right, Joey, so let's talk a little bit about the kind of the, I think the first place I want to start is just sort of like the general challenges of being apparent when you are an operator in post production. And I got to tell you, man, I think often. about a period of both. So my, just for transparency here, my daughter, 18, just graduated from high school. My son's 12, going to be 13 this coming year, going into seventh grade.

So, you know, my kids are a little, a couple years older than your kids. But I think back all the time to when my kids were in that like two to like six, seven range. And it just happened to line up with a period of the business that was unmanned, unbelievably busy and a lot of challenges and I was, you know, had an office that was 30 miles away from the house and all that kind of stuff. So let's dig into that part because I think that there are a lot of challenges. And to me, it starts with the idea of how do you be present and manage your time for your family and for your kids in a way that, you know, doesn't leave you sort of in shame or with regret. and also at the same time, you know, allows enough time to do the work that you need to do while also being present for your family. And I know that you've experienced this challenge a lot as well.

So why don't you kind of start like, you know, again, as we always do, sort of a 50,000 foot view of this. And then we can whittle down into some of the some of the particulars. Yeah, I mean, like you said, in the past, just a lifetime of our children, mine are, you know, I've got one who is, you know, same a tiny bit older than your youngest, going into eighth grade next year and then my older son is actually just going into his first year of high school next year, which is a ridiculous thing for me to even think about. So in there, just in their lifetime, what my job looks like and what my time management has looked like has completely been upended and changed. It used to be I would go to the office. I'd spend, you know, it would be our commute in. then eight hours at the office and an hour commute home.

So 10 hours of the day, minimum, I'm gone. Days that were busier get into like overtime, longer hours. I would just be home late. So there was a lot of disadvantage to kind of the old way of doing stuff in that we were just gone. Right. Now that the office is kind of out of the picture and I'm working remotely, it's a whole new set of challenges because the job never leaves. leaves, I can run downstairs and work on something at any time of the day, on any day,

including weekends. And I do. But the net of that is the amount of time I spend working is probably about the same amount of time, but it's spread over like starts and stops dramatically, which is something that when the, when the kids were younger, I could have never even conceived of with the idea that I was going to be working from home, right? That didn't even come into our mind. It was you go to the factory, you come home from the factory. When you're home from the factory, you might get on email. You might remote in to do a real quick fix or something. But there was never, it's 9 o'clock at night.

Client just sent a project. Why don't I get it prepped for tomorrow tonight? So my day tomorrow is a little bit easier, right? So the biggest thing for me that I'm going to say is a positive of the big work remote changes that we've seen in specifically the context of having kids. kids is I can proactively manage my time dramatically better. I can at three o'clock when they get home from school, take an hour break and hang out with them

or take them to go get a snack or something like that and then come back to my office like nothing happened and keep working, right? If I was actually at the office an hour away, that would never be an option. Yeah, right? And I can also take some of my downtime on the weekends to make my weekday days a little bit more flexible.

So if the kids have something that I need to do during the week, I can kind of wiggle around it because I can work all the time. The downside is, yes, the work is spread out over smaller chunks, but now it's like I feel like I'm never not working. I agree. I think there's a lot to unpack there. I think that, and I mentioned this in the open of the show, that I feel like I have a lot of regret and a little bit of shame for like when my kids were really.

really little because it happens all the time where like, you know, my wife and my, my kids will be talking about something. They'll be like, oh, you remember when we went here or we did this or we did that? I'm like, no, I don't know. Oh, yeah, you weren't there. And that phrase comes up a lot, especially, I think in the past five, six, seven years, I've done a remarkably better job. We'll get into that in a second. But like, at least there was a period when the kids were really small, but it was like all my wife, like 100%. And like to this day, I'm still indebted and a little bit in awe that, you know, she's basically like a single parent for a number of years while I was 30 miles away

stuck in an office doing television shows that in hindsight really don't matter. But at the time seemed like these critical, you know, big, huge opportunities and things that I had to work on. And I think for me, part of the problem in that model was that I'm a chronic underestimator of time. and I'm chronically, I'm a completest, right? I really have trouble walking away from things when they're still in process, right? Even if it's like a grade, like at the end of the day, like if you're graving like a 90-minute movie or whatever, like I still fight that problem.

Like, did I do enough today to get like, you know, I always want to just keep going until it's done, right? And when, you know, early on in my kids' lives, I think that was unfair to them because I was coming home at 9, 10, 11, sometimes midnight or later, right? You know, after they had gone to sleep, missing out on some of those, you know, some of those things. And, you know, we managed. I'm not making it like sound like, I'm making it sound a little bit more ominous and like doom and gloom than it was. But it's definitely a regret of mine that I focused too much on the office and work at a formative time. in my kid's life and I know that and it's like that's time I can never really totally recover and so like to me you know one of the goals of this episode is just to sort of say people that like

no you never can get that time back really really focus on it and prioritize it because it is important thing now to go to the home thing I think you're you're right that it has brought a lot of advantages in sort of workflow hey it's you know it's late at night I'm so I can still do my thing you know, families going to bed. I can still go back downstairs, get a show prep, do whatever. I have to say, though, if I'm being really honest about the analysis of that, is that there's a difference between being home and being present, right? Yeah.

And it's the being present part that I'm still working on because it's just as easy to go, you know, into my home studio as it is to disappear for 10 hours to go to the office, right? And like I still feel like I do that a lot. I still go, you know, and hide out. And it's like, where's dad? Oh, he's in the basement working. That's my biggest like downfall and probably my biggest regret is that, you know, yes, there's always if you're working, there's going to be parts of your kids' lives that you miss, right?

But also, parenting's not easy, right? No. There's sometimes where it's really stressful. And in those instances when the kids are just kind of too much. or, you know, where it's not all happiness and roses and candy and wonderful. When you have the office at home, it's real easy to just default to, oh, no, sorry, I got to go get some work done, which might be true. But if you're managing your time proactively, you can use the office being at home as kind of an escape when you shouldn't. That's true.

But I will give you the flip side of this. And this is the way at least that I've been working towards and trying to frame it is that because, I have this flexibility now of pretty much be able to work anytime that I want. It does make it easier to block time in a different way than I was able to before, right? So I kind of know that like, look, between four o'clock and like eight o'clock in the afternoon, there's not a chance that I'm going to be able to focus and get the stuff done that I need to get done because that's like, and like instead of fighting that, right, I've kind of just kind of like embrace that. be like, okay, cool.

Kids came off, you know, my son got off the bus at four, daughter comes home after practice or whatever, like, and we'll hang out, everybody does a thing, we'll have dinner, we'll chat, watch TV, like, and that's been really good. But what it's done in hindsight for me is that it's really modified my workday, where I have, like, the way that I tend to work is I'm more productive in the evenings. And so evenings have turned into like night, if that makes sense, right?

Like, I'm sitting back down. up, right? Like it gets later and later and later until a couple months go down the road and you got to kind of reset it. And I haven't and I haven't reset it yet. This is the problem. Right. So now I'm like, oh, cool. Like I'll sit down at 9, 930 and just I'm going to do a couple things. And then next thing you know, it's 1 a.m. It's 2 a.m. sometimes even later and I'm still doing that. So like it's a tough thing because I feel like I've gotten better at that part of it, but also worse at that part of it at the same time, right? That like I am arguably improving the family part of it, which is important, but also arguably making my my situation worse because I'm pulling hours that I wouldn't have pulled in the same way at the office, if that makes sense. Yeah.

And I'd say if there's a positive of all of this, aside from the working from home versus not working from home aspect, I feel like the industry as a whole has had. had a general shift towards better, more reasonable time management in the past maybe 10 years. Right. It used to be like, we all thought that this was, you know, the be all end all. This was really, really important. And there has been a lot of trends in the industry of people kind of pushing back on that finally and saying, hey, you know what? It's okay to take a break.

You're working on a reality TV show. Yeah. This is not open heart surgery. Nobody's going to die if the show is. know, an hour or too late. I agree with that. I think that there's that, that, that pressure that existed, uh, 10, 12 years ago or before of like, hey, it's all open heart surgery. Like you have to, and I think you're right. People have got. Because it was like cool, right? I'm like, I'm super working a billion hours a day to get these shows out and it's, you know, hip and cool to be like

overworked. And that's not trending anymore. Everybody's like, no, dude, that's kind of dumb. Support for this episode comes from conform tools. Conform Tools allows you to translate timelines between Premier and Resolve and other NLEs while automatically solving common issues that normally need to be fixed by hand. Avoid time-consuming trim and transfer issues and securely send large media files to collaborators at a fraction of the size and in minutes instead of hours. With a growing toolbox of features, let Conform Tools handle the tedious stuff so you can focus on the creative.

Built by Post professionals, conform tools helps editors, colorists, and conform artists move faster and finish stronger. Learn more at conform. Tools. Well, and I also think that part of this is, and we've done episodes on this about working harder or not smarter, or working smarter,

not harder, rather. And, you know, I think that's inevitably true too, right? Computers are faster, workflows are better, tools are more apt to do this. The other thing I,

was I was going to say about sort of the challenges of being a parent in post-production, too, is that a lot of the attention time away from family is not actually spent on, like, the work part of it is relatively straightforward and blockable, right? The things that I think that really get to me as a parent or the stressors that get to me are a parent is like, you know, you're at, you know, a kid's event, right? Like maybe it's a, you know, a piano recital or a sporting event or whatever. and you're sitting there, you know, with your phone answering emails or, you know, hey, give me a second.

I got to go talk to this person. And like, it's that part that I think is more disruptive and more noticeable by family than the actually. Because like people sort of a certain degree understand like, cool, like your job requires you to sit in front of a computer and do this work, do that work and then be done with it. And like the idea, especially as somebody who owns, you know, a couple small businesses, the idea that I'm always on and always working is a little bit at odds. And so one of the things that I've been trying to do, and I can't say successfully,

but is like do things like use like my do not disturb modes, right, in more effective way. Also, I've, you know, one of the things I've really been trying to do is like procrastinate on purpose, if that makes sense. So like getting emails doesn't have to mean no response happens immediately. or like, hey, if there's something that's pressing, you know what? It might be pressing, but it's 11 o'clock at night. And so, like, I've, the things, some of the things I've done to mitigate that pressure that I feel as an operator and as a parent is that I've gone, okay, well, this can wait, first of all,

but then I'm also adding to another layer to that. Things like scheduling emails, scheduling Slack messages or whatever, like all of that kind of stuff to where, and it's kind of funny, sometimes I actually screw this up with you. You're like, you know, you'll get a message from me at like 7 a.m. And you're like, what are you doing up at 7 a.m? I'm like, oh, I wasn't. I just, I thought of something the night before and I just scheduled that.

But my point is, is that like, you don't always have to be disruptive. There's ways to like pile things off, plan it. And like, one of the things that I've also been doing just on the email phone is if I'm not ready to fully respond, is that I will start a draft. right so I'll hit reply and type like get back to so and so about xyz and that's all i'll put in the draft and so then in the next morning i look at my my inbox and it's like okay i got six drafts now let me finish them when i have time so from like a mental mode point of you i feel like i've addressed it right i've taken some of that pressure off but i haven't necessarily done the

whole thing so i think there's you know depending on how you feel those pressures i think there's different ways to mitigate especially that the work around the work part yeah email is the worst because you know we come from a world where it's like i think both of us probably feel when we get an email we need to respond right now and that's just not the case and it's not what most people are expecting but we've kind of made it our expectation that that's the thing and it really shouldn't be so i think what you're doing with scheduling or starting drafts is really really good one little tip because i've I do the same thing.

I'll start a draft email and start replying. Quick little tip for those who want to do that, whenever I do a draft that I know I'm not going to be like, that I'm going to come back to later, I go and I delete the recipient from the two field before it saves. So I can't accidentally hit send until I'm ready to. Been bitten by that one. I have been bitten by that one more.

I have sent the draft by hitting control enter instead of enter too many times. I will literally delete the recipient out of there so I can force myself to, oh, I'm ready to send this. Let me put you back in and send it. The other thing that I saw, and I have one or two clients that actually do this, and I thought it was really clever. And I think it's really good that it's the client doing it because I feel like as a vendor, we couldn't do this, right? The world has not changed enough for us to put this in our emails. But I have some clients who in their email say, hey, if you get a, you know, I, you know, I, My work hours and our schedules.

Yeah. If you get an email at a weird time, unless I'm saying this is an emergency, don't consider an emergency. Get back when you feel like. Yeah. I've actually thought about it. Really good thing to like put out there in the world for people to think about. I don't know if I'm ready to do that as a vendor.

I've actually thought about doing it. Like I think about doing that all the time, but I stop a little bit short for the same reasons. But that's definitely good. It sets a boundary, but like, it's not a hard boundary. It's sort of like, hey, like, I'm doing this. I'm not trying to be annoying by sending you emails at 1230 at night. I'm just, this is when I'm on thinking about this. And I think as long as you qualify, that's totally fine.

The other thing I, switching gears slightly that I wanted to talk about a little bit is I think that I see a lot of stress that happens in families when somebody is in the post business or production business or whatever and the other partner is not. and that level of communication that happens with your spouse or your partner or whatever about how to manage that thing. I think that there is a tendency by a lot of people to, like, I'm going to shield my spouse from this craziness. And so, like, I, you know, that's one part of it. The other way of doing it is, like, I'm overcommitting with my spouse. And so it becomes, like, the youth story all the time about the, you know, the perceived

stresses. And I found myself over the years, I was lucky because my wife worked in post. for a number of years. And so she kind of thinks it's all stupid, but she gets it, right? But, like, you know, we've ebden float over the years about, like, you know, hey, payroll's going to be a little late because I'm waiting on some checks or whatever. And, like, you know, we've ebden float. And there were some ways that I was communicating that were driving her crazy.

Other things were, you know, like, maybe it was too much information. So I think one of the things that you have to figure out about being a parent, too, is how to be a partner with your partner in. in this process, right? Because, like, you do need that time to work on a show or get your tasks done or you or write the emails or whatever, but you can't do that at a total net loss to your partner. Like, cool, I'm just going to go to the office, peace out. Like, that's not cool either, right?

And so, like, figuring out how those timeframes work, like, hey, you know, sweetie, like, I'm on, I'm on this for the next two hours, three hours, but then I need you to take over so I can go do my thing or whatever level of communication you're comfortable with, you know? But I do see one of the big stumbling blocks is how those in post-production communicate with their spouse. And I think it really comes down into two categories. It's like walled off, not telling you, giving you any information, right? Just living with the stress.

And then the other side of it is too much communication. Yeah. And it's funny because I think I would bet that, and it's weird in our industry, I would bet that 80% of people listening. this podcast if they're married, married someone in the industry, which it's very common. I think it's very high. I'd be curious to maybe not 80, maybe 70, but I feel like a lot of people that I've worked with end up getting together and marrying people that they worked with, which is a commentary on the industry as a whole, I think, more maybe a commentary on the industry as it was 10 years ago than today. But I went the opposite way.

my wife has nothing to do with post-production, has never been in the business at all. So I'm probably more on the walled-off side of like, yeah, I'm in this office down here, making TV things happen, makes money great. Let me clarify something. And there's disadvantages to that too, because sometimes I might say,

I might be like at something that's like really high stress and to the outsider that's not in the industry might think, well, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. why is that even bothering you? Well, so that kind of communication falls into a couple different categories. I think it comes into like, you know, the creative technical side, I mean, whatever. Like, that's not who can't, who can you can talk about that. Like you might just get a like a dumb look at you.

Like, what are you talking about? The things I see more are the, especially for freelancers and small business operators, is the financial transparency and communication about that stuff, right? I see that causing a lot of stress for people's marriages and partnerships and ultimately stress on their kids, right? It's like, you know, it's like if you've had a slow month or like whatever, how to handle those kind of communications, I think cause a lot of stress in relationships, right? And ultimately that stuff like when that kind of stress is wearing its head, it ripples, right? Like waiting on a check from a client somehow becomes you don't love your kids anymore or something like that. You know what I'm saying?

And it's like, you got to. I mean, with time as well, because like, it's hard to, there's, there's periods of busy where it's like you are, you know, head down working. You can't even, you can't even get up for lunch. You can't even do anything. And then there's times where it's like, oh, I got two days where I'm like, I might get a couple shots done here, send a few emails and just chill. Sure, I can go pick up the kids at whatever.

And then I could do this. I could do that. But then like, so the transition between when it's massively busy, I can't do anything to I'm really flexible can sometimes be really opaque and hard to tell. Yeah. And I think that's why it makes communication about it even more important and sort of setting the expectations of what availability is like what's realistic. And I think that I can only speak for myself and my partner. And that is that more times than not, it's not like. the danger is not communicating about it.

It's not that it's like a problem. It's more about, okay, we're a team. Let's figure out how to manage this, right? You have a client call at 5 o'clock. You know, my son needs to be at a school event at 530. Are you going to take him there, right? And it's like one of those things where it's like, if I don't communicate that, I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure, it's no problem, whatever,

not saying, hey, you know what? I need a backup plan because this call is probably going to run a little late. like can you take him and I'll pick him up. Like, you know, whatever that, whatever it may be, that kind of communication, I think alleviates a lot of that stress. I think the other thing, too, that you kind of mention about your spouse, not being in the industry, I think in some ways that's easier, but in some ways it's harder, right? Because it's like, it really, like, unless you've lived the life a little bit, it's hard

to know exactly what that pressure, that pressure is. And like, one of the things that I've tried to do over the years is explain things in terms of like relatable time pockets, right? That it's just sort of like, you know, listen, if I stop right now, this is like you stopping whatever task it is in your job or whatever. Like trying to, like, not to make it a measuring contest, but to make an analogous sort of thing about your partner's work life so that they understand a little bit better. And I would say also the thing about that, and we'll segue into our next topic here about this, is that that also comes true with like your kids and your kid management, right? Because like, kids are not going to understand like, oh, well, you're just looking at a stupid screen and not paying attention to me, especially when they're little, right? Like, they really don't get that.

That was the hardest for me. Yeah, and because you need to focus and then you got this little bundle of energy going, hey, dad, hey dad, hey dad, look at this. Look at this. like, Jesus, I just need to focus for an hour, right? But having that, like that, how that works is, it's a delicate art form. And one of the things that I think that, especially those who are working from home now or have, you know, are the primary caregiver and also need to work is it's about, to me, it's about engagement with the kids and acknowledging what's going on in their lives

and sort of trying to bring them in a little bit to what you're doing, right? So like all kids are just curious. They want to know what you're doing, how you're doing it. Why are you focused on it and not them, right? And so I found it like over the years telling my kid like, hey, you want to see something cool. Look, I can change the color of this person's nose or, you know, whatever. And they're like, oh, that's cool.

Like whatever. Even to the point where like, I've been like, hey, take my laptop. Here are some, you know, here's a timeline and play with the timeline. And you can just do just like dad does. And actually that was like, especially with my son who's a little like love to experiment, that was a great way to manage the, hey, dads, hey dads, hey dads, hey dads, by getting him involved a little bit. I mean, every kid's going to be different, but that's another thing I found to be a little

sort of self-serving, but at the same time, a little rewarding because they were learning a little bit more about computers. They were learning more about respect of property. I can't break dad's computer, right? I've got to be careful with it. They were learning a little bit of the creative stuff and also learning some of the technical stuff. I mean, now, like, my kids, like, my son edits like 10 YouTube videos a week, right? And like, color corrects them and adds motion graphic packages and all this kind of stuff,

which is like, whoa, where did you learn how to do that? And then my wife's always like, you taught him how to do this when he was like three. And I'm like, oh, right, I did, yeah. And that's kind of the next thing that I wanted to talk about is, uh, is this industry something we want to bring our kids into and is this a good opportunity for them to learn a skill. Do they have interest in joining us? And this, because, you know, that's, that's a topic that I'm, I think about a lot because that's how I got in the, you know, my dad was a, was a broadcast engineer for, you know, since the early dawn of electronic news gathering in the nation's capital, right?

So he was involved. And that ended up evolving from news to post-production in general to a big, post-production facility so my dad would bring me into TV studios my dad would bring me into post facilities edit rooms studios i saw all of it from a very very young age and i was enamored because you saw these big grass valley switches with lots of lights and knobs and things that you could pull and it was awesome and it was like a foregone kind of i you know it's weird because i i i don't think my my other siblings took to it like i did but from the second i was in a studio environment or a post-production environment, I knew what I was going to do, right?

Like, I was immediately in there and I was around these big facilities from a young age seeing the professionals do it at a high level and I knew exactly what business I was going to be being. I don't so much see that as much with my kids and I'm kind of sad about it. But also it's kind of like the business has changed so much now that I'm not sure I understand it enough to bring them into it or to. There's just a lot going on that I don't, you know, so I haven't taught my kids how to edit YouTube videos very much or anything like that. I'm kind of like almost hands off trying to figure out where their interests are going to go and see what happens. You know, I'm kind of taking the stance of let them figure things out.

And I don't know, I don't know if that's right or not. Yeah. No, it's a good point. And I think I take the tack a lot of times of I want my, because my kids are very creative. And, but that creativity doesn't necessarily, like, necessarily mean that it's like, you got to be in media and post-production like dear old dad, right? There's a lot of ways to be creative. You know, my son's very musical. My daughter is, is, is creative from like just like a process and thinking point. of you and like she gears much more towards engineering and like you know the the process of things and so i mean part of my my thinking about this as a parent is yeah kids will naturally kind of find their way but also like it is relatively rare that somebody at 12 or 13 figures out what they're going to do for the rest of their lives at 12 or 13 right i mean shit i'm in my late 40s and i'm like huh what can I do next after this right you know so it's like um I don't think we have to force that but I do hear what you're saying that sort of like it especially to me the one reason to talk

my kids out of this business is solely a selfish financial reason and that not that I'm going to spend a lot of money but it's that it's really difficult to find a well paying well structured job in this industry in 2026 right I mean, I think back to 25 years ago, and I always make this like excuse that like, oh, well, I started my own business because I felt like I was the smartest guy of the totem pole. The reality of it, if I'm being honest, was that even 20 years ago, it was a hard industry to break into. You had to be, you know, in an assistant editor or running the machine room for a long time. You needed access. And that's something that for me, my dad provided that access.

Now we're at a point in the industry where you still need access, you still need a starting point. I can't really provide any extra access than most people can. No. And also the gatekeepers are different, right? It's not that it's not that that stuff has to happen in a room, you know, a facility with million dollar machines in the room anymore, right? Like you can be a post studio sitting in your bedroom and with all the same functionality that we had 20 years ago. So it's a little bit of a hard sell to be like, because I think that's, there's been a transition about Post that it's become, it's gone from a, you know, a job, an industry,

something you go to. And that transition home has also made it a little bit more under the umbrella of, you know, creators, influencers, that kind of stuff. We're like, talking to my kids about, like, making a movie. They're like, what? Like, people make movies? They're not, like, done by, like, you know, like, yeah, people make movies. And so I think that, you know, they're the way that they consume media has a lot to

do with it. I think the way that media has created that they consume these short form things, very campy, not a lot of structure. That's kind of just how they think about how, like, so why, like, that's not a job. That's just something I do on my, my phone in my free time to, like, get likes and impress my friends, right? It's not seen so much as that. But the other thing, too, I think that I think as a parent, you owe to your kids to be, like, a strong analysis of this, right like my daughter's going to college we're looked at this and she had a lot of interest varying interest and you know it's just sort of like I couldn't with a straight face be like yeah you should totally embrace the creative side and get into what what I do or or to gentrential

field because the reality of it is she's not going to walk out of college getting you know 150 grand a year as an assistant editor you know what she might get that as an engineer she might get that as doing some of the other interests that she has. And so it's like, it's sort of this rub as a parent in this industry between being like, I love this for me and not forcing that on the kids. And I think that it's not, it's easier not to force it on it now in some ways than it was when we were growing up because it was like, there wasn't a lot of technical plus creative outlets then. And there's more technical plus creative outlets now.

Like even, you know, I was talking to my, my daughter's friends about some of the things they're doing. And it's like, you know, these things that are like, they're wildly creative. Like they're talking about like event promotion and like event management kind of stuff where it's like, oh, dude, we're going to do like these pop up things with like, you know, holograms. And like, you're like, you're like, what? Like there's just a lot of really, you know, things, different industries that have come together that I think provide a lot of outlets for these. kids to still be creative but also with an eye to being successful and I I want to clarify because somebody's undoubtedly going to say well you know there's more to more to life and working than making money true but the reality of it is like you know like it would be a little bit irresponsible

for me to just say you can't pay it don't don't ever worry about making money or be because like you have to live your life you know and it's it's harder than ever to yeah and that's kind of like This is where I struggle with this entire question is, like I said, my background was a very specific set of events. You know, my dad was in the industry. He brought me in, exposed me to a bunch of really, really effective mentors. And I was on my way from an early age. Not to say that I didn't stumble quite a lot in the following 40 years or 30 years. I did.

But it was like preset almost. I look at my kids and I look at where the industry now is and I don't see them following that chain of events in any even similar way, which puts me like kind of like, I don't know what to do because I know how it worked for me. It would never work like that for them. I'm kind of at a complete loss here looking at the world like, what's next? learn to be a welder or a plumber. Great. Yeah, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with this. Sometimes I wish I did too. Support for this episode comes from Flanders Scientific

and Gaia Color Direct Connect volumetric autocount. Calibration of reference displays is critical in our industry, and there's no easier way to calibrate than by using Gaia Color, which is standard on DM, XMP, and XMPC series monitors. color calibration allows supported probes to be plugged in directly to the monitor for fast, accurate, and automated calibration with no computer or operator expertise required. You can learn more about this powerful system at flanderscientific.com. I think the thing that I like to focus on is that there is take out post-production from

the mindset. I think that there's a lot to learn about being, I think about it more conceptually, about a client-facing service provider, right? That client-facing service provider can be a plumber. It could be a high crane operator. It could be an engineer at Google. Like, what I don't, there's a million, like, there's a lot that I think that we in post-production are actually more positioned to teach our kids that have less to do with control surfaces and buttons and computers and all the nerdy technical stuff, right?

And a lot more about- I like that. that I think that's really smart. I did not, even when we were kind of outlining, prepping this episode, that thought never even occurred to me and you're absolutely right. I mean, think about it like this, right? You hire a service to come in, you hire an electrician or a plumber or something like that to come out of your house, right? You want them to have a certain level of customer service, professionality, right? Hey, they told you that they were going to get you a quote for the job. Did they get you the quote on time? Was the prices

communicated accurately and fairly and like everything you talked about like all the things that we think about doing they're really no different in those other industries so like the one thing that stuff to be honest right and i think that i hope right and that's one thing that i was like okay my kids yeah you're not gonna you're not gonna you're not gonna be making movies there aren't to be producers wherever but like i think they can gronk a lot of those skills that i've earned over the past 25, 30 years and apply them hopefully to whatever avenue that they want to go in. And I think the one thing that I do also think that, you know, I think there's a lot of parents like me who have a little bit of guilt, a little bit of shame about working too

hard and not being present over the years. And I think the one thing, I think the one positive part about that, though, and I know this is true for your kids and it's true for my kids. And I think for a lot of our listeners who have kids, this is probably true for them too. The one thing, one good example, I do think that Post has for our children is the work ethic, you know, sort of focus, right? And that is that like you tell somebody you're going to do something, you're going to do it to the best of your ability and finish it, right? And I think that there's so much in our culture. Even if it's not your favorite thing.

Right. And I think there's so much in our culture. these days that just goes, oh, it's uncomfortable, oh, it's stressful, just quit and move on from your life. And I think as, you know, I am proud of the fact that I feel like I've taught my kids that. Like, if you're going to do something, you're going to tell something you're going to do it, you're going to finish it and you're going to do it to the best of your ability. And I've seen my kids do that from sports and academics and all sorts of stuff. And I think that's a positive, you know, for sure. I think that's honestly, I was sitting here kind of struggling over, well,

what am I going to teach my kids in terms of the professional world? Because the industry is completely different than when I learned it. And I don't think any of my skills are relevant to their lives. The idea of how to be a good customer service provider, because at the end of the day, that's what we are. We are nothing without our clients and without the work they bring us. And those, I think, are skills that apply to any industry you could go into. I never even made that connection.

I think that's critical. And I'll take it a step further. I think there are things about the post production process that are applicable to any, any real industry. Certainly, the things that come to mind are teamwork, working with different people with different skill sets and different focuses, right? That might be internal or external with clients in the process, right? I think it's dealing with a lot of, let's just say, personalities, right? I think that our culture is set up to where it's like this expectation that like, hey, everybody's just going to be nice to you all the time. And the reality is that that's not how the real world works.

And like you got to keep, you know, as a service provider, like somebody's mean to you or gruff to you or whatever, got to keep on that smile on and move on and make it right. And I think that like, you know, it's, to us, it feels like a bat like, oh, God, I'm such a pushover. All I do is say yes to people. All I do is go the extra mile. But I think the example to our kids is that it's sort of like, yeah, no, like you've got to work at this. It's not easy. It's not going to be handed to you. And I think I do have a lot of faith in, you know, where our kids are right now in this generation solely because I think that they've just been through a lot in the short time that they've been around, right?

They've gone through, you know, disruption to their lives with the pandemic and, you know, in school from home, you know, watching their parents go through the same things, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I just think that, like, these kids are better prepared than we might think they might be. But it's also, this might just not be the right industry for a lot of them. But I think we can still gronk a lot of the lessons learned from being post operators to our kids. one more thing I just want to add to this conversation is I think there's an idea that and I mentioned this earlier that like our kids are thinking about like the work that we do as part of like being an influencer or social media or whatever I said that in a semi like what I think could be interpreted as like a disparaging way and I just want to walk that back for a second because

oh I don't that stuff silly but hold on a second second, if you want success and, you know, stability for your kids, like, it's, that's just the way that people are consuming media. I mean, look at the, you know, the top YouTubers in the world. They're, you know, they're making millions of dollars. You know, I'm not saying that's everybody, of course. That's the, that's the, it's a very small number. But it is possible.

And I think the other thing, too, like, I was watching some guitar videos the other day. And my son was like, who, who's that? Like, why is that guy talking about that product? I'm like, because he gets paid to. And my son's like, what do you mean? It's like, yeah, well, like, he's a big enough YouTuber that companies come to him and say, hey, rep our guitar strings or our amps or whatever, right? And so, like, one of the things I think that the sort of creator economy, the gig economy,

is doing for kids today, too, is showing them that they have some control over making their, their lives and their career pathways. I think 20, 30, 40 years ago, you were right. Nobody had control. Everybody just went, you got a job, you changed jobs, you got another, you know, you moved on. And now I think it's much more easier than any time before for kids to take a little bit of a clue from what we've done and gone, no, I'm just going to do my own thing. And I know how to make money with these different, you know, connecting the dots in different ways. And I'm totally good with that.

Yeah. And that kind of brings me to the last thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to kids post-production and the industry is, you know, now that our kids are getting to kind of a much more media-consuming age, their generation is, you know, tangibly starting to affect our work. You know, kind of we're, I don't want to say at the, the tail end of the career arc, but we're getting there in years. And, you know, what we consider to be good or bad or high-quality or low-quality doesn't necessarily apply to the world today.

And we're seeing that change dramatically. We've talked about this in a lot of different episodes and a lot of different things. When we talk about things like frame rates, we talk about things like how HDR is being used. We talk about how the video game industry has really changed the filmmaking industry in a lot of ways. And I just wanted to touch on that a little bit with kind of our kids and the age of they're at now because the way they consume media, obviously very, very different than the way we might be producing a lot of media. I feel like a lot of the stuff that I'm making and I'm working on

is more for people our age and declining. And if we want to keep our business going, we need to look to the kids a little bit and figure out, okay, what parts of the media landscape do we as vendors need to be in that we're not? Because doing documentaries for conventional cable television is not going to be sustainable. You know, so we can, I think it's important to kind of look to the kids these days and figure out, hey, where are the markets that we as, you know,

more senior vendors need to be putting ourselves into that we haven't been? And I think that cuts a couple different ways. I think you're absolutely right. That there's a lot to learn from from this generation doing some cool things. But I think also it kind of goes with what I said earlier, that I think that media creation is just kind of inherent to what these kids do because they grew up in a social mediated world, a YouTube world, etc. And it's kind of just like, I mean, honestly,

it's kind of just like expected that like, you're going to create something, right? Like this almost like this built in onus to be like, you have to make creative stuff, right? And I mean, I see my kids, from every stupid TikTok video that, you know, they're in the kitchen dancing or doing some skit or whatever. And it's just like that is media creation, right?

Whether they realize it or not, it's teaching them skills about, framing, planning, writing, you know, all of the, you know, the camera movement, audio, all of those kind of things. And it, but the thing that's interesting to me about it is that, like, they're doing that from, like, sort of social pressures, keeping up with the Joneses kind of thing, not really realizing that they're, they're also learning, I think, some valuable skills. And I think us as parents in post-production can help hone those skills in a way that helps

do the thing that they want to accomplish, make the TikTok video or whatever, but also, as we've discussed, sort of port that knowledge into, you know, other ways of thinking. Be like, hey, yeah, did you notice that this video went better when you wrote it down, storyboarded it, planned it out a little bit? That's just like any other job. If you think about it and plan it, you'll have more opportunities for success. Oh, okay. So, like, you know, I think that there's a lot of, like, And I firmly believe this. For as much as I, you know, bemoan, you know, the past 30 years in a lot of ways of working in this industry, the one thing I wouldn't trade it for is that it has taught me more about personal personalities and people. And it's taught me a lot about how to identify a lot about process, right?

And I think that those are skills that whether you're a banker, whether you're a scientist, whether you're, you know, a scientist, whether you're. or a football player or whatever, those skills are portable into those different lines of work too. So I do think that posts people have a lot to teach their kids, right? So, yeah, it's a complicated thing. And I think the last thing I want to say on this subject is just that, you know, kids are remarkably resilient. And they find the things that they like and the things that help them and complete them.

And I think our job is that as a post-production parent, let's just, that's a funny phrase, but let's just say it that way. I think that we are uniquely positioned to analyze that path because we do it ourselves, right? One day we like doing this style of grading. The next day we like doing that style of grading. We understand where creativity meets the business part of it

and schedules and all that kind of stuff. And so I think that we are, we do have the ability to help our kids be guides for them in that kind of stuff because we've, believe it or not, this is one industry where we've experienced a lot more things than the average office worker, but just because we're exposed to creative, business, legal, you know, all of that stuff. And I think it really, it really, really helps. And is there one answer to all this stuff? No, of course not. But, but. I think the thing that you said earlier that I would just leave people with from my point of view is that like you got to do the best you can. Right. And I think that like, you know, just thinking about this and having these kind of discussions or just thinking about the stuff, you're already leg up on a lot of people because a lot of people are like, I don't give it, whatever. Like it will be fine. And they don't think about the process. And I think that hopefully, you know, having our short discussion here today has maybe helped people with that. Yeah, honestly, I think, you know, going into this one, I was like, I feel like I was, I'm less optimistic. mystic than most people. I'm kind of more gloom and doom and the, you know, an old man yelling at the clouds, the kids these days with their TikToks and blah, blah, blah, blah, grumpy.

I think you're right in a lot of ways that I wasn't thinking about in terms of the knowledge that we have is applicable not in just our industry and the direction it's going. And I think that's going to be really useful moving forward. Yeah. And, you know, and I would just to go back up to the top of this conversation, when it comes to the stresses of, you know, being a parent and how to do it while also still having a successful career, it's hard. But it is manageable. And I think that understanding, as we talked about at the top of the show, understanding where the balance points are, understanding communication with your family and your partner, like that kind of stuff, like, it goes a long way to avoiding a lot of that stresses. And I think that, you know, I think like anything else, when

we talk about the stuff, it makes it easier and less, it doesn't seem as insurmountable as it does when we just don't talk about it, right? So I think that, like, that is one thing that I think our industry has shifted to, in a very positive way in the past decade, is, you kind of, you kind of said that it's like, your analogy was like, oh, well, everything's not life or death anymore. I would, I would also say that, like, the discussions about this stuff are much more open than they used to be, right? The idea of just getting, you know, crapped on by some client all the time. Like, now people are like, yeah, I want to share that awful experience with you and let's discuss it because like there's something, there's something to learn if we relate to each other.

And I think a decade ago, 15 years ago, whatever, like that was, that just didn't really happen that much. People just sort of it, yeah, whatever, you're in post, like suck it up. And now I think that we have made that shift for the positive, which is good. So good stuff, man. Well, if you have any suggestions or things that we might have missed in this discussion, please let us know. You can always do that by leaving a comment on one of our YouTube videos. You can also comment

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or just give us some feedback on this episode or any of our other episode. but we always love to hear from our audience. As a reminder, if you want to support the show, you can do that by heading over to this link right here to buy us a cup of virtual coffee. Anything you can do is greatly appreciated. Every dollar goes into supporting the show.

And then don't forget, you can find us on social media on Instagram and Facebook. Just search for the Offset Podcast. All right, Joe, good discussion, as always, man. We'll be back in two weeks for another fun and exciting one, I'm sure. Until then, for the Offset Podcasts, I'm Robbie Karnman. And I'm Joey Niana. Thanks for listening.