#115 Experience-Based Hiring & AI Tools (ft. LivaLittle)

Kyrill (00:00)
Welcome everyone to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we have JD Gonzalez from Live a Little based out of New York City. And finally, we’ve made it to the Big Apple. Welcome JD.

JD Gonzales (00:10)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Kyrill (00:14)
So before we dive

right in, just give us a little backstory into who you are and who Live A Little is as well.

JD Gonzales (00:21)
That is a really big question. I think you have no idea how big of a question that is. Ultimately, Live a Little is, it’s me, right? I am a producer, cinematographer, and director. Mostly, I am a cinematographer first. So I’m a director of photography. I shoot for other production companies. And then I produce work through the production company, Live a Little. And then I also direct the type of work that I want to see directed. So it’s usually more story-based, heavily

and things that have a heavy creative is what I’m interested in. And for, as a producing side, what I’m always looking for is creating the types of work that I want to see and the things that I want to see on the screen and online and wherever else. And so I’m not always out there pushing for clients to just have this running roster. My goal is always to have…

high quality clients who care a lot about their product and who want to be walked through a full process. That is always my goal. Instead of ⁓ being more of a run of the mill, come to me, I’ll do this for you, which I will. Don’t tell anyone that I won’t because I will do that. Absolutely. It’s always my goal to find those clients that want the most out of it. ⁓ And that’s fully the full service production company side of it. ⁓

Kyrill (01:39)
Ha ha.

JD Gonzales (01:50)
So there’s all of that. then I also, let’s see. So the other side of Live a Little that is really important, which I can get into in a bit, is that it’s heavily DEI focused and heavily focused on building ⁓ accessibility for people from diverse backgrounds to get into the film industry and to grow skill sets. So a lot of what we do is focused on experience-based hiring, which is not…

who has the most experience, but who will gain the most from this experience for this role. ⁓ So it means that I am hiring different people a lot of the time and switching it out for different jobs. If someone hasn’t had ⁓ an opportunity to work with an A-list actor, and I believe that that’ll help them if they have that on their resume.

to help them get another job with another company, then that’s something that I want to be the first to give them that opportunity. And that’s something that goes really far for ⁓ me, as in my network, it definitely helps me out, it goes, know, because they go out there and they’ll say, like, I remember my first job when I did this, I had that with Live a Little and JD, and he helped me get this thing. And that’s something that’s like, I want.

I want people to take that with them. And ultimately, that has gotten me work because I work with other production companies as a cinematographer. And so when they move over there and they talk to people, those people notice. And that’s kind of how I’ve built my network. That’s how I started when I was starting in Colorado, which now I’m in New York, Brooklyn, New York. ⁓ And that’s what I’m trying to continue to do here. So.

Kyrill (03:30)
So you’ve

really built a big network of people to be able to rotate so much because I know with a lot of production companies, you find your core group of people that you like to work with, that you know, that you can trust with a few options, obviously, you know, in case people get busy, but it’s hard to find a lot of people to do that. So how did you, is that kind of, guess, how you created your big network is just taking a chance on a lot of new people that you had never worked with before?

JD Gonzales (03:58)
Absolutely. And I am open to saying I’m adamantly against hiring the same people over and over again. And certainly there are people who I personally like, I do hire over and over again, because it’s like, this is my AC who I work really well with. He knows how I work. But I also make sure that they know, like when you’re working under me, you are responsible for the person working under you and making sure that they’re trained properly if they don’t have that skill set. And so your experience, you are here also.

as someone to guide other people’s careers. And ultimately that’s better for them too. So yeah, I try to rotate it out as much as possible and that’s, you know, it’s a great way to like bring in clients as well as a great way to ⁓ further get our name into the community. ⁓ It’s a little different, I know, but that’s like, yeah.

Dario Nouri (04:51)
Yeah, I was just thinking about how we do it

and yeah, we tend to stick with the same people unless they’re busy, then we go with someone else. it’s, yeah, I never thought about it like that. We try to train the people we work with too, but you have it at the forefront, which is interesting. I never really thought about doing that.

Kyrill (04:53)
Yeah.

JD Gonzales (04:57)
Uh-huh.

Yeah, and that’s a big part of the website actually. If you go and check it out, that’s a huge selling point for everything and it’s something that companies wanna see too. And they wanna see that there are some values behind the production company. ⁓ That’s what brings a lot of ⁓ clients in. That’s… ⁓

you know, that’s what landed us our HBO client is they really enjoyed that, ⁓ you know, is taking this kind of approach. And so when I’m on jobs with them, I make sure that that is, you know, something I stay very true to and that I’m trying to bring people in to have those opportunities. And also, you know, every time I film for HBO, we cover all of their red carpets out here. It’s like, I am trying to switch the AC. It’s not a difficult job to shoot a red carpet. It is a little bit fast paced, but ultimately it’s,

something that’s out of reach for ⁓ most camera assistants, right? But what might be out of reach is having an HBO credit on their resume. And that’s a really difficult thing to get. So yeah, when I think about, you know, again, like the experience and the job and what is it, ⁓ then I want to make sure that I have the right people who have the level of professionalism that I can… ⁓

I can make sure that they’re like, they’re not going, I’m not setting anyone up to fail. That is not at all what I am doing. And I am not doing this as ⁓ a detriment to the client or any sort of loss of quality. What it is is something of like, I am taking people who are ready and qualified for this, like, and giving them that next step and that next opportunity ⁓ where I can. ⁓ Ultimately, I’m not the type of company who can have ⁓ people on salary.

And I would love to, like, I would love to have that. I would love to have crew just constantly under me. Like, yeah, let’s just, we’re just keep shooting constantly going and going. but realistically that’s not how it’s built. And that’s not, ⁓ that’s not how my, company is built to function. That’s, this is something that is a platform for, ⁓ for creativity. And I will support people in any way that I can to get there, to get their stories out there, to get them built, to get their careers growing.

and you know, I also found that the best way to really get your name out there in a new, in a new industry. so in a new market, if I’m in, ⁓ New York or Denver, ⁓ it’s, it’s hiring people, even really experienced people. When I talk about diversity, I’m, you know, I’m not just saying new people. I’m not saying new young people. I am saying like everybody, like this is, there are tons of people who have been out of work.

who have been struggling really hard and they also want to meet new people. And when we tighten up our circles, that’s a detriment to the work overall. And those people will reach out to me, like those people who have been in the industry a long time when things start to pick up, they will reach out to me and say like, hey, how are you doing? Like, you know, like I heard about this thing coming up, like, are you going to be going to this event? Like, are you going to be, you know, is there something that…

⁓ I can do for you and sometimes like, I could really, you know, I’m doing this, this sort of thing. I’m looking for some equipment and they’re ready and willing to help out or it’s like, Hey, I’m struggling to find this kind of person who does this. And they’re able to give me that network like really quickly and easily. So a lot of, ⁓ yeah, a lot of what I’m doing is, is dabbling, not just in having the company, but also seeing it as like ⁓ a flexible freelance, frontier. So yeah.

Kyrill (08:38)
Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (08:51)
I like it because you’re basically applying the type of mindset that I find a lot of our freelancers have amongst themselves to like the business side. Cause I think like for Carol and I, we’ve been on the producing end so much. don’t really think about, think about it from that perspective. It’s more so like, okay, I just need to know I have a core group of people I can cycle through for different projects, right? Versus like if we were freelancing a lot more, like we would be…

JD Gonzales (09:14)
Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (09:19)
Making more connections and bringing different people to different projects, right? So it’s it’s it’s a good perspective of have I think ⁓ Carol after this episode should probably Think about incorporating that somehow and it’s a good selling point too like I can see like potential clients like really liking that aspect of like You know trying to lift lift other people up, right? It’s a good selling point,

Kyrill (09:30)
I mean…

Like the, the one thing with it is that, like we’ve, I’m, I’m, we’re always open to trying to work with new people because also like from when we do freelance or when we have freelanced in the past, it is a good way to make those connections. And that is actually how we met our core group of people was through the time when we were freelancing. Right. So, but the one thing that we also realize is that it is also a time consuming thing to try to find good people and also to vet good people. Right. So if you’re constantly doing that, like, have you found that

time has been a little bit of a challenge to allocate for that or have you kind of dialed it in in a way that it’s that it’s that it just works for you and it doesn’t take too much time.

JD Gonzales (10:23)
that’s a, that’s a great question. I, okay. It, it takes, it’s not time, it’s consistency. ⁓ especially in a city like New York, it’s really difficult to be remembered here. And what I found when I first moved here, it was a little strange. I was showing up to events and it’s like, no one knows who I am. No one knows how serious I am. And I just kept coming back to them and then.

having more conversations and more conversations like, yeah, you’re not from here. Like, you don’t really know like the commercial scene here. You don’t know like the work here. it’s, in a lot of ways they were right, but I had worked out here before. but there was certainly like so many things that I’ve learned ⁓ since moving the company out here from Colorado. And it’s, it’s so the, the landscape was fresh. ⁓ But I just, what I, what I ultimately found though, is that all of my tactics that I was using in Denver, ⁓

how to network with people, talking with people is the exact same. ⁓ Even though it’s a big market, nothing is different with how you put yourself out there, as well as your general approach to networking in general. Basically, up as much as you can. People will start to remember your face.

give value where you can, which I’ll come back to in a second because another thing I do is workshops. then, you know, so try to contribute and then, man, I had a third one and you know it’s gone. That’s okay.

Kyrill (12:07)
What would you say is like a good tip for people who are trying to

Dario Nouri (12:10)
hold up. you want to,

Kira hold up. Do you want to end up, cause you said you were going to come back to the last point about workshops. Is that it there?

JD Gonzales (12:17)
Yeah, I can come back to it. So workshops is something that I would have mentioned in the beginning typically. Because again, part of what I’m really heavily focused on is DEI in the film industry and creating accessible information. And there are a few ways that I approach that. I have a very long backstory here. I used to teach high school. I taught high school for five years as a film teacher.

This was after I went to film school. So this, you know, I don’t want to dive too deep into this if Carol, you have a question or, you know, a follow up question of that. Okay. Yeah. So, I, I went to an arts high school, Denver school of the arts, and then I went to film school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which they have a great booming film industry there. had this great 5,000 and 10,000 square foot stage of Longmire. The show was shot on our campus, like really great small private school.

Kyrill (12:55)
no, it’s okay. Continue, continue.

JD Gonzales (13:16)
After that, I worked in the industry in New Mexico, ⁓ in Albuquerque for a couple of years, and then moved back to Colorado and started teaching high school as well as doing commercial stuff and short films on the side. So the high school was at the high school that I went to. It’s this really excellent school. They have the same students every ⁓ day for an hour and half. From eighth through 12th grade, they’re all in the same classroom. So I really got to know these kids and see them grow up from eighth through 12th grade. And it’s like,

really helped them out. And that was where I built some of my strongest foundations as a cinematographer, as a production manager, as a leader, ⁓ someone who can speak to a large group of people with confidence. That is the space where I learned those skills. ⁓ So when I left the school, I actually moved out to, well, now I’m just getting into my backstory without talking about the workshops at all.

Kyrill (14:13)
It’s all good.

JD Gonzales (14:15)
Context, yeah. Yeah.

Dario Nouri (14:15)
It’s okay, I’m listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill (14:16)
People need to know the context. People need to know the context. Yeah.

JD Gonzales (14:19)
It’s a lot of context. It’s a lot of context. So I moved out to New York because I wanted to be an electrician working in the film industry. Did that for a year. I wasn’t really feeling it. It was in a long distance relationship with my now wife. So I moved back to Denver and I wasn’t sure where I was landing. And that’s when I was like, all right, maybe I should start, you know, I should start making stuff that I want to make because I don’t, you know, I wasn’t totally vibing with.

the production companies that were in town and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to jump in and just be an electric. And also there were lot of tight-knit groups, like tight-knit crews that are like, yeah, you guys all work really great together and you don’t really hire outside of that until you absolutely need to. And I’m not someone who wants to sit around and wait for it. And my wife gave me this advice around that time of just like, listen, no one’s gonna do it for you but you. So if you wanna do it, you need to do it.

And I really take that to heart. I really think that’s 100 % true for everything film. It’s a lot of people, and your producers, I’m sure it’s like, you know, it’s a lot of people who ⁓ want work. And you know, they really want to work in this industry. And they don’t know where to start but to come to people and say, like, do you have any openings? Is there anything that, you know, is there anything that I can help you out with? And I…

you know, that’s just part of it and that’s okay. That is completely okay. But I think that ultimately, if you want something, you have to be the one to create that drive and go get it. Anyway, so I was, ⁓ told you this is a long story. ⁓

Dario Nouri (15:56)
No, it

Kyrill (15:57)
It’s all good. Yep.

Dario Nouri (15:57)
provides good context because I was going to ask why you moved to New York and I can see why. Anyways, yeah, basically, yeah.

Kyrill (16:03)
He’s answering all our questions before we get to ask them. I love it.

JD Gonzales (16:08)
So, ⁓ yeah, so there was that bit. And so I started Live a Little on a plastic table in my parents’ front room because when I moved back from New York, I was like, well, I didn’t have an apartment yet. I didn’t have anywhere to live. So I was staying with my parents and I literally had a computer and a plastic table. And I did this $300 campaign video for a friend of my wife’s who was running for…

⁓ some position in government. ⁓ And that was, was a really, I think I lost $300 on that actually, on that first little video that I made. Yeah, but ultimately that led to, that led to three jobs doing these long form, like short story videos. ⁓ Like,

Dario Nouri (16:48)
broke even.

JD Gonzales (17:00)
these short form videos for ⁓ nonprofits and then that turned into ⁓ having some money to do some marketing and getting some Google ads out. And so I got some Google ads out. I joined a business ⁓ workshop company because I knew nothing about business at all. ⁓ Or not company. I joined a, yeah, did a nine week workshop thing. then, yeah, the rest is kind of history. Anyway, coming back to the workshops.

⁓ Based off that history and coming to, you know, going to Colorado, and it’s like seeing these tight-knit careers and wanting to make films that are accessible to people. And ⁓ I found that one of the things that was, ⁓ and this is gonna be, it’s unfair, but one of the things that I think was not totally present when I was in Colorado was film education.

and film resources. And there is just hard information that people can know, like hard technical information and theory information that would be extremely beneficial for people to know. So I started these workshops called Crafting the Image. And so ⁓ what it is, is we take ⁓ a story and, basically it’s, what I do is explain how to turn story into technical.

and managerial and creative decisions. And it’s like, how do we get from the story to the screen? What is the story of this thing? So how do we bring purpose into our images rather than just saying, light it like this? What is the purpose behind this and how do we get there? And how would we find that creative joy in anything that we’re doing? It doesn’t matter if it’s a corporate video. It’s like, what do we want it to feel like though? And what you realize is as I start talking about this and I can go into this more, I’m just gonna talk for 50 minutes here, guys. That’s okay.

Dario Nouri (18:57)
Go

Kyrill (18:57)
Hahaha

Dario Nouri (18:57)
for it.

JD Gonzales (18:58)
⁓

As we start, as you get into it, what you realize is clients are just giving you boundaries. And between those boundaries of what they’re saying of like, yeah, elevated, modern look, you know, that’s like, it’s so broad. And there’s like, there’s infinite possibility in between that, right? There’s infinite possibility. Ultimately, all I hear in that is like, okay, you need

Kyrill (19:15)
Yeah

JD Gonzales (19:26)
you need something that’s kind of like a little bit hierarchy. Like, all right, that’s like, that’s it. We can do so much more with that and we can work with color. We can work with their positioning. How are the two camera angles actually speaking to this story? Is it gonna be more objective or subjective? Like, how are we, you know, are we doing every interview that we have in this corporate setting the exact same? How are we gonna frame this person as a leader and the other people as their followers? Or do we set it as like the leader is the person who is stepping?

who is back, stepping back, and we’re seeing them from a more objective standpoint of just like, and they’re just speaking about their people. And then we let the people, the employees rise. So they’re the ones who are really facing the camera, and the leader is the person who’s a little bit off to the, like looking off to the side of camera even further. So then the story becomes more about their employees and the other people that we’re interviewing. Maybe it’s testimonial stuff rather than it is ⁓ just, you know.

but everyone having the same frames. So then we’re telling that story, giving character, ⁓ without, ⁓ I don’t know, revamping the system. ⁓ Okay, so yeah, that’s what, like crafting the image does that, but it’s an entirely free two-day intensive workshop that is eight hours a day. And I go from very foundational concepts from,

that I’ve learned from my graphic design teacher, Gray, graphic design professor, David Gray, back in Santa Fe, New Mexico. it’s basically, this image symbolic? it, know, symbolism versus metaphor? Like, what does that mean to you as far as an image? Like, what are the differences when you say this is symbolic of something and this is a metaphor for something, right? And so, really bare bones. ⁓

literary terminology and graphic design terminology of this is how we’re communicating this to people. And sometimes people naturally use those words when describing an image. And here’s how we’re gonna turn that into these technical decisions with these resources that we have and these rental, like from this rental house and from this crew and this team. What do we have, right?

⁓ From there, yeah, the workshop though, anyway, I doing that in Colorado. ⁓ It was a great way to meet people. Definitely got me a lot of crew. Also got me favors, which is a big ask, you know, when I’m trying to do a lot of creative work and stories. And it’s like, yeah, I basically built an entire crew, like a 15 person crew for a short film, just because I did one of those. And then at the end was like, all right, we’re filming next weekend. Does anyone want to join us?

And that was a great way to do it. And it’s like, I gave you something, like now can you do something for me? And they want to be there after that. They want to practice these things. And so I’m giving them not just the information, but then I’m giving them the practice. And then I’m also observing and I can see what level they’re at. And then I bring them in for jobs based off of what level they’re at using that. ⁓

that experience, ⁓ the experience focused hiring essentially. Yeah, the experience based hiring that I spoke about earlier. ⁓

Kyrill (22:59)
So you do have

it dialed in pretty well with that whole system where you basically create these workshops where you invite people in and then see who has the hunger to come out and work collaboratively on something. And that alone is a great vetting process in and of itself, right? And then you get to do it in a low pressure environment where it’s not a client gig or anything like that, where, you know, like you can’t afford to like… ⁓

not ⁓ bring in someone you haven’t worked with because you don’t know how they will act in front of a client or something like that, right? So it’s a good system you’ve dialed in with that. yeah, you really answered a lot of questions that I think Dara and I had already previously ⁓ were thinking of, but. ⁓

Dario Nouri (23:37)
Hehehehe

Do

you still do now or was it you were doing back in Denver?

JD Gonzales (23:46)
I do, I took the year off last year, but now I actually partner with Aria Rental here ⁓ in New York. So the last ones, so one of the things I’ve been studying, I’m really well versed on is virtual production. ⁓ So I’ve done…

Kyrill (23:53)
wow.

JD Gonzales (24:01)
You know, lot of virtual, like if you’re, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with filming on a volume and that whole process, maybe some of the listeners aren’t, but it’s basically filming against a giant TV screen. Mandalorian was filmed that way. It’s a very, yeah, it’s a very expensive process if you don’t know what you’re doing, especially, and also if you, you know, so this is, that’s something like I’ll go to AriRental, I get to use their volume, train people. The last couple of times we did it, we had about 50 people show up each day. ⁓

get sponsors and provide lunch, have a full crew there. that’s, ⁓ yeah. So that’s…

Kyrill (24:38)
Do you allow virtual

attendees?

JD Gonzales (24:41)
I was hesitant. Ask him for a friend. We filmed the last one, but I wasn’t live streaming it. And ultimately, it’s because we didn’t have the people or we didn’t have the resources to totally do that. This is out of pocket or free. So I’m not doing this for any ⁓ specific marketing purpose or something. I also just believe.

Dario Nouri (24:41)
Yeah.

Kyrill (24:43)
Asking for a friend. ⁓

JD Gonzales (25:09)
Like after teaching for five years ⁓ and teaching film specifically, I’m also like, I’m very firm in my beliefs. I’m just gonna say this, you if I wasn’t clear from the top, but I really believe that education and access to information specifically based around film should not be proprietary and we should not be charging people for this information ⁓ because it doesn’t actually do anything. it’s ultimately it is the person who ends up having to do it.

and you can give the information out there, but it’s not helping them as much as you might think that it’s helping them. And so I don’t think that they should have to pay it. So what I’ve been doing over the years is I very foolishly have been paying for a lot of different things and a lot of education resources that are proprietary and being like, okay, now I’m gonna incorporate that into this free stuff that I’m doing because I don’t want people to…

have to pay to know how to build a book light. That’s insane. That’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about here. And that’s coming from someone who started his career at 100K in student loan debt from film school. And that’s like, yeah, yeah, I’m not gonna, I don’t want anyone to have to do that. And ultimately the parts of the film school that were most beneficial. ⁓

It wasn’t how to set up the lights and things. It was the theory and the network and the connections that you can’t get outside of film school. ⁓ the last thing that I’ll say on that for now, I guess, is ⁓ that no one can do what you can do. That is the beauty of this, and we can talk about AI all day. And any other cinematographer, they can steal the information. They can steal your images, but it can’t.

steal your perspective. You are the only person with your eyes. So if you are the one who can, ⁓ if you hold on to that perspective and you narrow it in and you find your like your path and your image and your theory, that can’t be taken from you. It’s not like they can download your brain yet.

Kyrill (27:19)
It’s also that you can’t execute an idea, someone else’s idea like how they did, because the way they executed it is gonna be unique to them. Just exactly for what you said, their perspective and especially also people’s experiences. People’s experiences are unique to them. it’s like, and the environment, yeah, exactly.

Dario Nouri (27:20)
yet.

Well, even the environment you’re shooting in is going to be different. can’t replicate

an identical environment, right?

JD Gonzales (27:44)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyrill (27:45)
I mean, let us, it’s a white backdrop. mean, maybe that would be easy, but yeah, like, mean, that’s

Dario Nouri (27:47)
Even then.

Kyrill (27:51)
like one of the things we’ve learned with the show is that like everyone may have had like similar origin stories or similar ways of how they got into the industry, but like ultimately how they built their businesses is completely different. And like, yeah, we all make explainer videos. Yeah, we all make promotional videos. We make commercials, but it’s.

Everything is unique to everyone’s perspective and it’s not exclusive just to this industry. It’s to every industry as well.

Dario Nouri (28:17)
And even like the stuff we’ve talked about in this podcast, like little bits of knowledge, you can try to incorporate it in your business, but you’d have to change it or modify it to fit you, right? So I think, yeah, you’re right. Like just sharing the knowledge is always beneficial. Like that’s why we’ve never paid wall to this podcast. We did try Patreon at one point, but it was little bit early. Yeah.

Kyrill (28:39)
just to see if it could work, but we realized it was too much

JD Gonzales (28:40)
Yeah

Kyrill (28:44)
work as well to try to go that route.

Dario Nouri (28:44)
It was too early

too. But again, even still, ⁓ there’s just so many more benefits to just being public with information. Even us with this, the networks we’ve built out, they’ve netted us more money than I think we would have been able to do if we pay walled everything.

Kyrill (28:53)
put it out there.

JD Gonzales (29:03)
Absolutely, absolutely. the last job that I had, which was a big DoorDash commercial, that came from doing a workshop with someone two years ago who just remembered that I put that on and was like, you’re actually well-versed in this virtual production stuff and that’s the direction they’re going. And then they were looking to shadow that when that happened. Unfortunately, they chose not to go with virtual production, but that is okay.

But yeah, it just keeps going. This is a long ⁓ game, right? There’s not much short-term benefits here.

Kyrill (29:33)
Yeah.

It’s, what you put out there, you know, like what you put out there,

if it’s good information and useful for people, they will, it will reward you in one way or another that you may not realize. And you know, JD, you actually just gave me an idea that I was, I was going to pitch Dario after this on it. But, ⁓ I mean, we’ve been doing the show now for five years, almost six years now. And it’s always been virtual, I guess, because of that’s how we’re able to meet and talk the nature of the guest list. Yeah.

Dario Nouri (29:51)
Mm-hmm.

The nature of the guest list.

Kyrill (30:10)
But I was thinking, workshops is a good idea, but then I just thought to myself, why don’t we just do this show in person, but make it like a little event, have people invite industry people that we know in Toronto, and then have like, say, 30, 50 people or something in like an, almost like an event space, and then shoot it. That’s almost a similar way of doing, it’s like those panels at corporate events in a way, typically, but in this kind of way. don’t know, it’s an idea.

JD Gonzales (30:40)
Yeah.

Kyrill (30:40)
that I’m mulling

over. Dario, what are you thinking? Are you thinking that that’s too much? He doesn’t want to do it. He’s nervous to do it in person. If it’s not in his room, if it’s not in his room.

Dario Nouri (30:44)
We’ll talk about this later. No, I was like

JD Gonzales (30:45)
hahahaha

Yeah, Mm.

Dario Nouri (30:51)
30 to 50 people. I’m like, wow, he’s very optimistic.

JD Gonzales (30:54)
Yeah.

Kyrill (30:55)
Well, if it’s

people we know, right? And then just kind of like trying to build something. It could be, you know, like, I don’t know, something to explore down the road. I’m not saying we got to do this now, but we’ll see.

Dario Nouri (31:04)
We’ll talk about

this later. No, no, we’ll see. We’ll see how it is.

JD Gonzales (31:06)
The real trick is free food.

It’s free food, y’all. That’s what you gotta do. Yeah, free pizza. ⁓ Yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Dario Nouri (31:10)
Free pizza.

Kyrill (31:11)
That’s the thing. It’ll be food. It’ll be like, it’s just like a networking event. Basically, that’s the idea, right?

Dario Nouri (31:18)
⁓

I wanted to ask you a bit about New York City. I don’t know if you mentioned why you went back. Was it just for more work opportunities? Like there’s more work opportunities there compared to Denver?

JD Gonzales (31:21)
Mm-hmm.

No, actually it lined up perfectly. was it was a chance so my wife’s a dietitian and she had just finished her masters and she was trying to She needed to go somewhere to do an internship and we had both loved New York when I was living out here before she had come out and visit and we just you know, we fell in love with the place and so it’s always this soft spot and we thought

Very foolishly we’re telling people like, yeah, we’ll be back in a year. We’ll be back in year or so. ⁓ Moved out here, fell in love with it, and ⁓ the rest is history. We’re stuck here now. My wife has a very, very good job in the New York City health and hospital system. And ⁓ honestly, she’s thriving. She’s way cooler than me. She’s way better in her industry than I am in mine. And so I am just so proud of her. And we’re not going anywhere for the time being,

Dario Nouri (32:12)
You

JD Gonzales (32:19)
⁓ Yeah, and so, but that was, you know, that’s half of it. And then the other half of it, of course, is the film industry is out here and I want to work in film and stories. And ⁓ I can speak openly about what I observed in the film industry in Denver, ⁓ in Colorado, and how I felt about in New Mexico as well. ⁓ And I, it’s not, there’s nothing bad there. They just have a very different industry and there’s, ⁓ so New Mexico has,

They have they have 480 Union, is the IATC Union, so they have all the studios and things that are there. They have Panavision there now. They’re doing a lot of work. They had great incentives. Colorado doesn’t have all of those incentives, so a lot of the shows and films ⁓ and all of those big things have been, like, are in New Mexico. ⁓ Colorado has been a little late to the game. They’re getting there with…

those incentives. And I will say I’m bringing this up for TV and film because it is important to corporate and video production in general as well because people, ⁓ they notice it. They notice it when it’s on the street and they say, I see that thing and then now I’m hiring this video production company and when they see a 12 by flag, they’re not gonna be like, my God, a 12 by flag. It’s like, that’s a little much for what we were thinking. You know, it kind of normalizes the film culture instead of shocking people with.

you know, well, prices for one. ⁓ so Colorado has their commercial industry up to a certain tier. ⁓ And then there’s like this big union gap, I would call it, of just they just do not have enough trained union members on like they can’t, you know, there’s not a 200 person ⁓ film crew ready to go who would be available for a six month shoot. Maybe like maybe there is, maybe there is, maybe that’s unfair, but.

⁓ It’s definitely not like a constant steady work. And then there’s like the A-list, the much higher end commercial work out there as well. that’s it. And then New York, it’s spread all over. You kind of have everything. ⁓ It’s a dog-eat-dog world here. Anyway, go ahead.

Kyrill (34:30)
How

many years have you been now in New York again? Three and a half. So how have you seen, how have you integrated with, the work that you do here, like in terms of the industries that you work in, like how did you break into some of those?

JD Gonzales (34:32)
Three and a half years, so not long at all. Mm-hmm. Yep, still fresh.

Dario Nouri (34:35)
okay.

JD Gonzales (34:47)
⁓ great question. So when I was leaving Denver, I started telling people I’m leaving Denver and that was a big thing. Just, you know, if you know people, let me know. there’s that. And then it’s just talking to people and letting them know where I’m at and being completely honest about it saying, ⁓ listen, I’m a cinematographer. have a video production. I have a production company. ⁓ I’m looking for, you know, I’m looking for, for more work. I’m at this point of just moving here. ⁓ but.

If you take a look at this, you can see my experience. ⁓ The other thing, and this is something silly that we can go into, is I have an Alexa Mini LF, right? And so moving here with the Mini LF camera, and at first I didn’t tell anyone that I had this camera. And I was like, let’s just try this out. I have this great reel, I have this footage, it’s showing. I think this stuff is good to stand for itself.

⁓ But as soon as I started telling people that I actually have a camera, heads were turning more. And I really don’t like that. I don’t love that. But there is a reality to it in that ⁓ it’s like, they take me more seriously because they see that I invested in my industry, in ⁓ my craft. And that is how they viewed it.

And it was something like, you also were able to get the funds to have this thing. so there’s prob, like, so you’ve been in this industry for a bit and you have a good understanding of it. And so, and that’s something that I’m, you know, like I’ve, now I’m more, I’m more open about it. I just keep it, ⁓ I keep it at RE Rental. They, you know, I co-sign it there. ⁓ Consign it there, co-sign it, consign it there. ⁓ So.

Kyrill (36:38)
It’s the

industry bling, you know, it’s the industry bling of like, Hey, this is look at, what I got almost. Right. But I didn’t know that, that, still is something that happens ⁓ so significantly. Cause I know back in like the 2010s, that was a bit more prevalent because the gap in costs for cameras were so massive that if you did have a camera, that was like a lot of the reason why people were hiring. Whereas like now

Dario Nouri (36:42)
Hehehe

Kyrill (37:07)
the barrier to entry with gear is so low that I didn’t know that it’s still a big thing.

Dario Nouri (37:13)
Maybe for the level of productions he does, Kyril might be a factor.

Kyrill (37:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess so.

JD Gonzales (37:19)
Yeah, I mean, it’s all over, right? And honestly, I’ll still do smaller productions. It really doesn’t matter to me. It’s like I’m not trying to use the Mini LF on every shoot. When I first got it, I was like, yes, we’re using this for every shoot because one, I need to get comfortable with the camera and two, I don’t want to rent another camera right now because I just paid for this camera. So it’s like, let’s just…

Kyrill (37:33)
Mm-hmm.

you

JD Gonzales (37:46)
Let’s just keep using it. It’s going to get real weird. We shot at an amusement, a water park in Colorado. That was really funny. It’s like way overkill, huge overkill, but it was a fun time. and I, I, basically, I don’t know. It’s, it’s with clients. They don’t care so much. Sometimes they do, I don’t know, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll just ask for specific camera for specific cameras and things. ⁓ but you know, knowing that you just have the camera can sometimes be enough to.

just like for a producer to be like, you have equipment, you’re an owner operator, I put you in this hole here. Like, so when I need someone who has this and does this, I know that you can go there. And that, you know, I’m happy to be in that folder for some people, but definitely I’m not always saying, let’s use my camera and that’s it. It’s more of, I would actually rather keep it in the rental house, especially since it’s RE Rental and they’re the people who… ⁓

manage my camera, you know, they’re the people who certify it when it’s ⁓ damaged or if it’s like certify it every single time that it goes out and comes back. So I’m really grateful for that. ⁓ And I, but I like choosing a camera for the job. Like what is this camera for this specific job? And budget is certainly a big part of that. ⁓ But yeah, if it opens the door, you know, like, okay, like sure, I’ll take that.

I guess I paid for that.

Kyrill (39:11)
Is it making you money since they’re

managing it and they’re in that rental house? So you basically invested it, they’re managing it, and then you’re just getting paid for it. that right? Nice.

JD Gonzales (39:22)
Yes, yes,

Dario Nouri (39:22)
it’s a cut right?

JD Gonzales (39:24)
yes. it’s, hmm, actually I don’t know the rules on speaking about that contract with the consigning, so I’m gonna pass on saying exactly what the contract is, as far as, but I will say that they’re very generous and they’re very, it’s just great people to work with. And also,

Dario Nouri (39:36)
Yeah, that’s fine.

JD Gonzales (39:46)
When you consign your equipment with a rental house, it’s part of building that relationship with them because you’re not just making money for yourself, you’re making money for them. And that is something that I keep really close. And again, I do the workshops there and it’s not because I have the camera there, I actually got the camera in there after I was doing the workshops, but they’ve just been ⁓ very, very respectful and appreciative of me as a cinematographer and as a serious filmmaker and.

Kyrill (39:55)
Yeah.

JD Gonzales (40:14)
⁓ as well as of my company because and my needs there and Yeah, it’s it’s so that’s that’s just part of like the the business client ⁓ business relationship that we have because technically we work together, We’re but we’re both trying to sell The same thing essentially to two clients and I want to be able to take it to them and we have to use rental houses basically in New York. That’s I’m not sure how it is for you guys Are you owner operators?

Dario Nouri (40:41)
Yeah.

Kyrill (40:41)
Yeah, yeah, we have all our own gear.

JD Gonzales (40:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we… Okay, so there’s no space here for one. I don’t know, you might have that problem too, but there’s… Yeah, don’t… know, C-stands, that’s such a pain here. You have to have a storage unit or you wanna have a car. Rents are starting at like 3,000 a month, right? So we don’t want… ⁓

Dario Nouri (40:54)
Not to your extent.

JD Gonzales (41:10)
to use up anybody’s home space for C-stands to just sit around. So people will get storage units, they can put it in there, but then they have to be working and then that can be expensive. Having a truck on the road, it’s like, where are you gonna park it? How often do you have to move those things? And those costs can just stagger. And also Brooklyn has one of the highest ⁓ auto insurance rates in the country, if not the highest. Yeah, I found that out the hard way. was ⁓ quite, yeah, it’s incredible.

Kyrill (41:33)
Wow.

Dario Nouri (41:34)
really?

Kyrill (41:40)
What’s a ballpark of like say just a regular car?

JD Gonzales (41:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, I have a Subaru Outback. think it ended up, let’s see, it ended up being, like, we were paying like 150 a month and it jumped to about 350 to 400 somewhere in that range a month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just like, that was, yeah, moving from Denver to here. was like, I…

Kyrill (42:00)
U S D O

Dario Nouri (42:02)
Oh my god, it’s like 700 Canadian. That’s a lot.

JD Gonzales (42:09)
Yeah, I switched auto insurance and it’s like, great, we can knock that down $50 for you. it’s like, I’m paying off a car right now. It’s like every year I’m basically buying a new car. So they really don’t want you to drive here. And that’s totally fair. It’s a really congested city and there’s pretty good public transportation. honestly, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dario Nouri (42:15)
They always do that. Yeah.

my god.

But not for videographers, right? Lugging all that gear. Wait,

Kyrill (42:35)
No.

Dario Nouri (42:37)
so how do you do it? Like, I guess the rental company sends a guy with a truck, so you don’t really have to worry about the parking or the thing,

JD Gonzales (42:44)
Yeah, this is ⁓ something I have to explain to companies who are hiring me from outside of New York. ⁓ There’s, you have to have a PA with a box truck go around and do pickups the day before. And then they have to go parking a lot overnight. And then they show up to set the next morning. They’re there before the crew arrives. So it’s, that’s just how it has to happen. So there’s usually a ⁓ camera truck and then, know, G &E rents truck from someone who either, you know, owner operator. There are certainly some great grips out here.

Kyrill (43:04)
Wow.

JD Gonzales (43:14)
⁓ There’s New York ⁓ Key Grip. I see Julio, I’m trying to just give him little plug there. He’s really awesome. And these are the types of people who they can show up with their van and what nots, but it ends up being a little bit cheaper than it is for getting a PA with the truck to go, or getting another person to go to a rental house to get a truck to get that out. So.

You want to keep your owner operators in one hand of people who have the equipment and lights and things, and then also the people who are ⁓ more familiar and comfortable and capable of going ⁓ out to get a truck and filling it up with the Genie.

Dario Nouri (43:57)
I heard from a friend of ours that in New York City they were talking about how getting into these office buildings is a big pain in the ass a lot of times. Like you have to go through the freight if you’re carrying more than like a card and that’s a whole process and whatnot.

JD Gonzales (44:11)
Mm-hmm. Yep. I’ve been in some weird elevators some some old buildings, you know, like 1912 elevator, you know, it’s it’s you’ve some things you just you can’t even fit carts You don’t know what you’re gonna walk into I’ve I’ve this like the old pole handle push up to go up and put down like this is that’s legit close the gate stop, you know, stop it at the floor you’re going to manually like those kinds of things ⁓ and then also there’s just a lot of stairs around like

Kyrill (44:24)
Wow.

Dario Nouri (44:29)
well.

Kyrill (44:29)
No.

JD Gonzales (44:41)
I don’t know what it is with these old buildings. It’s kind of like brownstones, right? Beautiful. We could shoot in a brownstone all day. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the classic Brooklyn home, but it’s got steps at the front of it. You’re not wheeling a cart in there. like, first thing you do is go up the stoop. so it’s like, okay, there’s no, and then they’re really narrow. And it’s like, okay, these carts aren’t working. But yeah, it’s certainly a journey. And then the freight elevator, of course, when you have these high rises, there’s one.

Kyrill (44:42)
Ugh, yeah.

Dario Nouri (44:54)
Yeah.

JD Gonzales (45:11)
There’s only one. So hopefully no one else is there.

Dario Nouri (45:14)
He was

telling us his name is David Tang. He’s a photographer in New York. He was telling us that When he shoots in what’s what’s that big building the one one?

JD Gonzales (45:26)
The One World Trade Center, that one. ⁓

Kyrill (45:27)
on the

Dario Nouri (45:29)
That one, the new one they built. He was

telling us that for that one, he’s able to get in pretty quick. But he said whenever he shoots with the video guys, it takes them like two hours to go through the whole process. Because apparently it’s like an airport with like the security. Like you got to like take everything out of the bag. So he’s like, when they go there, they got to take everything out and they got to scan every single thing. I was like, my God, I can’t imagine how long that would take.

Kyrill (45:42)
Yeah.

my-

my God.

Half day shoot is really a full day and a full day is a two day. A full day is a two day shoot. You need half a day to just get into the building.

Dario Nouri (45:57)
Full day shoot, yeah. Get into the building

and… ⁓

JD Gonzales (46:05)
Truly, truly.

mean, it’s, yeah, getting around New York is really hard. Something could be a mile away and that’s just like, ⁓ great, that’s an hour. You know, that is an hour. Like literally, it’s like, okay, we gotta get.

Kyrill (46:13)
an hour away.

Dario Nouri (46:14)
I can’t complain

about Toronto anymore, right? It’s fairly flexible when you think about it because we’re still able to go through the regular elevators, there’s always parking under the buildings.

Kyrill (46:18)
Yeah, Toronto’s is not too bad. It’s

JD Gonzales (46:19)
Yeah.

Mmm, that’s nice.

Kyrill (46:29)
Some buildings are a little stricter than other ones. There’s like one building here where we work with this other ⁓ production company every now and then they say, yeah, so when we get out of the elevator, gotta go around, we gotta go left so we don’t pass the security desk and then we go to the actual elevators. We did that once and apparently the security was like walking towards us behind us but we snuck into the elevator before he can get to us.

Dario Nouri (46:44)
Hehehehe… Hehehehe…

Kyrill (46:56)
But yeah, like most buildings, no one cares. They’re just like, yeah, just whatever, go through, no problem. So.

JD Gonzales (47:02)
Yep,

Now there’s always, in New York, it’s always someone’s job to just step in and tell you you can’t do that or whatever it is. it’s really, I mean, I’m so grateful for production coordinators and those people who know how to talk to these people and find the right permits and how to reach these people and how to talk to them and where to find them. I have no idea still.

Kyrill (47:10)
Ugh, god, I have…

Dario Nouri (47:10)
hahahaha

Kyrill (47:25)
Yeah.

JD Gonzales (47:26)
I have no idea. Like, this is, it’s out of my league. There are far more experienced people that I work with that I’m very happy to have them and let them do it. Yeah.

Kyrill (47:35)
Because also when you call

these ⁓ security guards or whoever is handling those freight elevators, sometimes in our experience, it’s like we get to the freight elevator and then there’s like, who do we call? Where do we go? There’s no way to do that. so we’re like running into the.

Dario Nouri (47:46)
There’s no one, there’s no one there.

JD Gonzales (47:52)
Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (47:53)
In all fairness,

feel like we’ve only used the freight elevator once or twice. That we’ve had to go through it. And that same building, I don’t know. I think I know which building you were referring to, Kirill. I feel like we had to do that one time and then the time after that we just went through the regular elevator that didn’t bug us. ⁓ I wanted to ask about, ⁓ okay, so New York City.

Kyrill (47:59)
Hmm. I’ve done it a few.

That’s one I was talking in general.

JD Gonzales (48:15)
We… Yeah.

Kyrill (48:15)
Yeah.

Dario Nouri (48:22)
must be like a pretty competitive space, right? Like, so how were you able to build your client list, at least through like the, like as a producer, not so much a cinematographer.

JD Gonzales (48:25)
Mm.

Sure, Yeah, they’re very tied together, of course, but ⁓ it’s, so building the client list is more, well.

Dario Nouri (48:42)
And I mean, and

I mean like more direct to client, not through like an agency or.

JD Gonzales (48:48)
One of the big things that I have going for me is the name Live a Little, like L-I-V-A Little. It does great on Google search rankings. ⁓ it’s catchy, it’s something that’s, you know, it’s like this is, I think I told you a bit, I studied graphic design in school as well. ⁓ And really, I really heavily focused on that brand upfront and making sure that the brand was something that.

Dario Nouri (48:57)
okay.

JD Gonzales (49:13)
you know, that it lands and it hits the way that I want it to and it feels like something different. And so I knew that a lot of those people were gonna come through the website. ⁓ And so what I did ultimately end up doing is I paid $3,000 for the ⁓ domain name, Live a Little. And that was something that had history already, something that like I knew would search high, rank high. And ⁓ when I… ⁓

In Denver, was top of the list for top of Google search rankings. And that was without any Google marketing period, nothing, zero.

Dario Nouri (49:50)
I will say your

website does give off a more higher end vibe, like more agency vibe. Because when I looked at it, I’m like, OK, it seems like an agency.

JD Gonzales (49:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, and I do sell that way as well. It’s like as a boutique agency, working direct to client. ⁓ And it’s something that I will always offer to people. And the reason I do that especially in New York is because there are laws around taxes. So when I’m speaking ⁓ with other companies and things, it’s something like, I can offer you ⁓ payroll and production services ⁓ for…

And do the same the same job for you essentially so I can still I can be your cinematographer like so In New York you have to be on W2’s we cannot do 1099’s here they have to be technically employees of your company if you’re if you’re hiring people and So yes, so if you’re hiring people in New York, you cannot send them a 1099 unless they have a company

Dario Nouri (50:46)
really?

JD Gonzales (50:53)
And if they have a company, they also have to have insurance that has them with workers comp. And most people are not going to have that. So you can see like, I’m sure maybe you’re counting the dollars already of just like, this can get. Yeah, exactly. So my thing is like, I’m very quick to tell people I can be your production team and your crew without having to have the production manager and coordinators and all of those big things. ⁓

Dario Nouri (51:01)
interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

Kyrill (51:05)
Chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken.

JD Gonzales (51:23)
between us. So there’s no middle people ⁓ and I can handle the payroll for the entire crew. I still manage the production team the way that I normally would, even as a cinematographer. It’s just with extra producing work on top of it. And then with clients, ⁓ a lot of them, they want to do a lot of things in-house. They want their own people to be part of the directing team and whatnot. And I know that that’s gonna end up being a little bit of extra work for me if they’re…

⁓ if they are directing and maybe don’t fully have the video production experience, but that’s part of what you’re paying for. That’s part of my job is to work with people and help them meet their goals as best that I can. that’s why that’s my direct to client offer always. Yeah, as far as specifically finding them, as far as networking and things, a lot of that does end up being…

⁓ being word of mouth and also like through the website and that’s generally enough for me ⁓ to, I don’t know, meet what I need. yeah, and then, yeah, yeah, but there’s a lot that’s happening in the future and a lot more that I’m working on and how to get out there. I spoke a little bit on my applications before this.

Dario Nouri (52:29)
interesting.

JD Gonzales (52:41)
That’s definitely being run through my production company building these software applications. I didn’t talk about this on the podcast, but ⁓ But basically I’ve yeah, go ahead

Dario Nouri (52:50)
Yeah,

I was gonna say you can go a bit into it, our listeners don’t know about it.

JD Gonzales (52:57)
All right, if we have time, right? Well, ⁓ yeah, I’ll quick.

Kyrill (53:01)
We can do it quick.

Dario Nouri (53:02)
Just give him like a bird’s POV

JD Gonzales (53:05)
Sure, ⁓ so I’m building, I basically have two different applications that I built. Dario, I showed you one. ⁓ Kyril, I haven’t showed you this yet. But it’s basically a scene design application. the reason that I built these is it shows my expertise, it shares my expertise in this field. ⁓ That’s not totally the reason why. Honestly, I just kind of built it.

myself because I wanted to and I was like, oh, this is really great and actually really useful. And then I just kept going for, you know, many, many hours. But one is basically being able to set up blocking for characters and say when they go from here, go to here, when they go from here, go to here. And doing that from a top down blueprint overhead sheet style. And this is something that can be used for corporate, it could be used for for films, it could be used for larger commercials.

And, but then you can also, you know, when you start keying your key framing your cameras and things, you can also turn that into 3D. And so as you do it in top down 2D view, it’s all actually mapped to a 3D view as well. So ⁓ once you feel like you have your top down, then you can go into the 3D view and say, okay, now here’s the actual look of and framing of the camera. Here’s the actual, and this is called prep viz. If you want to check it out, at prep viz.com. ⁓ But.

⁓ So in the 3D view, we can change the focal lengths and whatnot. ⁓

Kyrill (54:32)
feel like I know this

prep viz pro, is that you?

JD Gonzales (54:36)
⁓ No, it’s prepviz.com. I’m not sure what PrepViz Pro is, but now I’m curious about it.

Kyrill (54:43)
Cause I feel like I’ve heard this name before. I don’t see the prepviz.com. Like is it P-R-E-P-V-I-S?

JD Gonzales (54:47)
Mmm

That’s it, yep. Yeah, so previs is essentially the same idea, right? Previs is very similar in how it works. ⁓ But what I’m trying to do is really gear this into specifically with cinematographers and production companies who are looking for, what’s the word? ⁓

Kyrill (55:14)
Mm-hmm.

JD Gonzales (55:21)
production, like who need this fast, essentially, and who are really comfortable with ⁓ more familiar design tools. ⁓ like, so this really fits into that process of like, what’s our location? What are we set? Like, this is our location. This is our blocking, this is our camera, and then this is our lighting. And doing things in that order and kind of automating that process in that order for… ⁓

like for the users, essentially. It’s like really like there’s a lot of little things with each tool and how it’s used so that you can create the spaces that you need ⁓ quickly and in it. There is a whole other side of it that, ⁓ I mean, as far as a cinematographer goes, it’s also like here’s the sun, it’s gonna be from here to here ⁓ on these days, so putting in a location and it tracks the sun.

for you on that day so you can say, here’s my location and rotating it, all the things that we would typically do on set beforehand. ⁓ Anyway, with Location Scout, but yeah, yeah. It’s…

Kyrill (56:17)
Yeah.

And what was

the second one that you were saying?

JD Gonzales (56:31)
So the second one is called Pre-Checklist, and it’s all about ⁓ gear lists. Gear list, resources, education, and something that I’ve been harping on for a while now, but it’s very quickly being able to make, to create gear lists and send out information, as well as send out invoices and create a website where ⁓ people can go and make suggestions to your gear list really quickly. And this is… ⁓

If you, it’s really hard to do this without just showing like a demo of how it works. And I know we’re just like kind of talking about it. But if we go in, you can basically see versioning of gear lists and resources and create that, you know, that Bible for your shoot day really easily and really quickly. And also be able to save that and reuse it multiple times, put your equipment list in it.

Kyrill (57:07)
It’s okay.

JD Gonzales (57:25)
you know, show prices, don’t show prices. So instead of having a, you know, working with Google Sheets or multiple Google Sheets or tabs and things on it, it’s really like, okay, I need to send, ⁓ you know, these categories to this person. And, you know, it’s like, so I’m just checking off these items and then press copy, send it in a text to that person and then check off these items and put a copy and send it to this person. And it’s like, and then this person needs prices, so.

then you could check all those items, turn on prices, and then send that out. And all of them have notes, you can attach files. It’s really like a behind the scenes, to help get rid of some of those redundant tasks that we’re constantly doing in the prep phase that end up eating a lot of time. mean, even if it’s 10 minutes daily.

for every day that you’re shooting. It’s probably realistically more like a half hour, like to an hour of just working through these lists that you have every single time that you just need to go through and check off. ⁓ But also it’s about being dynamic and flexible and making sure you’re not sending out information that isn’t relevant to this job. And so these lists are like fully easily customizable ⁓ for whatever project that it is that you’re working on. But yeah.

Dario Nouri (58:41)
The cool thing that I remember you mentioned when we initially talked about this was that you did all this with Claude code, right?

JD Gonzales (58:49)
Yes, yeah, yeah. so, ⁓ and with Claude, so with Claude going into that, I mean, I’m happy to talk about it more, but it’s one of those things that I really dialed in on and I doubled down on last year. was basically taught myself from the very beginning of what is an API, like how are we connecting, know, how do websites and things talk to each other? ⁓ Starting from scratch of I don’t know anything about this, like to,

I am, you know, to building out these entire 3D programs ⁓ with AI and Claude. And basically what I learned is that you really have to be specific. And it’s ⁓ similar to film and film directing. ⁓ And I think that directors would actually be great with ⁓ this and people who manage teams. It’s about being as specific and deliberate as you can about what you want it to do. So the better you know the tool, the better the result is gonna be.

So if I want a, you know, two different types of tools and it’s like, have a select tool that’s like, okay, I want this select tool to scale this box to do, uh, scale this box only. And when grabbing an anchor point, should pull from the opposite anchor point and scale it, uh, based off of how much I’m pulling at this, like toward this mouse. But when I use the other direct select tool, then it should grab just that anchor point and distort that anchor point. Yeah. And that’s like, that’s the level of detail I’m talking about.

And so if you know something about something like that, if you know about video production or your industry in it, it’s like you can absolutely start having things that help automate these processes. Like I see no reason that you can’t have your own internal system for automating paperwork and… ⁓

sending out documents and whatnot. It’s like, okay, here’s our onboarding process. Like, great, now it’s a website. It’s like, you go here, onboard yourself, unlocking that and sending that to people. It’s like, just gotta be, it could all be really easily streamlined. And I think that’s the bandwagon we gotta get on and be more comfortable with, at least understanding before we knock it. And…

I know, maybe you can say, I just want to say one last thing, like maybe you can speak to this, but with ⁓ video production specifically, there’s never enough time and we could always fill time. There’s always something to do. And so if we can save time, then we should, you we should be thinking about that because that is how we get the opportunity to have ⁓ more creative insight and create higher quality productions.

Dario Nouri (1:01:34)
Yeah, 100 % agree. I find it really interesting that we’re able to just create these tools that help us streamline our process or make our lives easier. ⁓ I know two people that, ⁓ like one of them, he lives in Montreal, so he had to, his website was in English. You might not know this, but Quebec’s got weird laws with language where like they got in touch with him and the government got in touch with him and said,

your website is only in English, you gotta make it in French, otherwise we’ll fine you $3,000 a day or something like that within like a week or something. So he used Claude Code. Yeah, they do weird stuff like that, whether it’s Quebec’s very weird province. They hate business apparently. ⁓ And basically use Claude Code to be able to convert his website from English to French. So he was able to add like a function that you take.

Kyrill (1:02:10)
to be based there, yeah.

Dario Nouri (1:02:30)
Click on it and it changes it all to French or back to English. And that probably saved them like A, a lot of time, B, a lot of costs if he had to hire out someone to do that ⁓ time cost. And then there’s another guy we know that basically ⁓ recreated ⁓ monday.com and another SaaS website that he uses into his own custom one. So he

Kyrill (1:02:39)
time mainly.

JD Gonzales (1:02:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (1:02:55)
He’s probably saving God knows how much a year because now he’s got his own version of that that’s customized to his needs exactly, right?

JD Gonzales (1:03:03)
Yes, yes. I too, I built a CRM for myself. So that is built into my system as well. And ultimately, all of this is on, I have it all living online safely. That is…

Yeah, it’s just part of the process now of like, if I want to automate a process and say, I basically built a CRM that can do a lot of automatic moving as well. ⁓ after, if this happens, then, you know, then do this and then send an email or notify me or.

Etc. And so this is just like a churn. it’s something that I don’t love right now. I don’t love doing that. Like I think that these companies that have been building CRMs for a long time understand it better. But for me right now, it’s been really beneficial and really good.

Dario Nouri (1:03:54)
I have a question though, because again, I haven’t well versed myself with Claude yet, but ⁓ like I noticed with these AI programs, like every couple of months to like a year, ⁓ one of them stops being popular. So everyone migrates over to the next one. like for us, like we started with chat GPT, then now we’re on Gemini. And I guess now we’re about to jump ship again to Claude. Let’s say you’re creating these programs and websites with Claude code.

If Claude takes a nosedive within the next year or so and you got to switch over to whatever the next one is going to be, are you able to do that or are you kind of like stuck within like Claude’s like sandbox?

JD Gonzales (1:04:37)
A lot of people work with multiple ⁓ different ones at the same time. So they’ll switch between Claude and they’ll use ChatGBT’s codecs and whatnot. Personally, I think our data is extremely important and we shouldn’t be using ChatGBT or ⁓ Gemini if we don’t have to. It’s like anyone who is willing to bow to the government and give them our information probably shouldn’t have our information.

Dario Nouri (1:04:42)
okay.

So, but then again, like, so just to confirm, are you able to like, with Claude, like, are you stuck in the sandbox? Are you able to like move out and like, let’s say in the future, okay.

JD Gonzales (1:05:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, can move. yeah, totally.

Kyrill (1:05:13)
Like take the work

you did there and put it in another place is what Dario’s asking.

JD Gonzales (1:05:16)
Totally. lives on my computer. It’s just files, right? So I’m basically uploading to GitHub. So it’s all just creating the information. It’s just creating the information and logging it. Like it’s not putting it anywhere in Claude online somewhere. Like it is, this is all on my computer. It is processing through their online MLM, of course, but that information, goes. ⁓

Dario Nouri (1:05:19)
Okay. Okay.

Kyrill (1:05:21)
⁓

OK.

JD Gonzales (1:05:41)
to Claude and then comes back. ⁓ So yeah, as far as me personally, like yeah, I’m gonna put that plug for Claude in there, obviously I have some hard feelings about it. But I do think that ⁓ there’s, okay, so as far as ⁓ where we should think about the future of these applications and these things, like you’re saying, wow, it’s really easy to make this tool to do this thing, right? And I feel that same way too. ⁓

I was also looking at Google incubators and other incubators and like, does that look like right now? And they’re not taking anything ⁓ for incubators for SaaS if they’re not incorporating AI into it, because ultimately that’s where the money is. ⁓ People will be creating their own standalone applications. As you can see, it’s already happening right now. And in the future, it’s how do we control those applications? And one of the big ways to do that is through MCP, which is a big part of also what I’m

what I’m creating in my apps, but basically being able to use natural language to control, ⁓ to create the output that you want out of it. So being able to take it to chat GPT, control your tool and have it do what you want it to do. So right now there are some MCPs ⁓ that are for like Da Vinci Resolve. ⁓ One of the things you can have it do is like you can have it transcribe everything, ⁓ import everything and transcribe everything and then. ⁓

Added in that’s like and that’s the future right there is is this full MCP network and the way corporations are using it right now is by Saying like an MCP is basically has like a bunch of different agents for a bunch of different reasons. So ⁓ Basically, it’s a it’s an agent that will just do the transcription right an agent that will just do like Importing into the timeline or adding it to the time an agent that does this but you have orchestrators and managers and they can all ⁓

talk, you know, it just orchestrates them to do these different things. And it knows who, which agent to talk to for these specific purposes. So it’s like, you’re building out your own enterprise that backs you, right? That is, that is what this is giving us. It’s giving us the ability to back ourselves with, ⁓ with other skillsets, with other, other things that can, that have these skillsets that we ourselves might not, might not fully be able to have.

and then be able to communicate that in a way that fits us to achieve the job that is in front of us. Yeah, so, yeah.

Kyrill (1:08:16)
It’s incredible kind of like where we are right now at this point where we’re able to not only do the main work that we have to do, also like creating, like learning new skills to kind of like create tools for ourselves to ⁓ basically do that one job almost. You’re learning like five other jobs to be able to do your main job essentially, right? Like that’s kind of where we’re at right now. And it’s incredible. mean, look at yourself.

Dario Nouri (1:08:38)
hahahahah

JD Gonzales (1:08:40)
Yeah.

Kyrill (1:08:45)
cinematographer, producer, director, owner of production company, freelance, ⁓ app builder, workshop host, you know, at this point, we have to do a little bit of everything or more than just the one thing in order to, I feel like, get ahead nowadays, you know, it’s, and I don’t know if this was the context initially. I know we have, but I know we have, but I mean, like,

Dario Nouri (1:08:49)
App builder.

JD Gonzales (1:08:52)
Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (1:09:06)
We’ve always done that, Kyo, like even at the beginning, we’re wearing different hats.

Kyrill (1:09:14)
I don’t think everyone does that, right? That’s the thing. Everyone kind of like…

Dario Nouri (1:09:16)
Just the big

agencies, right? But for companies like ours, think now we have enough opportunities to compete with the bigger people. At least on the internal side, I would say. That’s what it sounds like. You know, it’s interesting that we could probably look back at these older episodes from like a year, maybe like two or three years ago. And like when Chagy P.T. was like, everyone was on it. Like the main thing was like at the beginning, it’s like, you know.

Kyrill (1:09:29)
medium scale, medium to small scale, medium scale side, I guess.

Dario Nouri (1:09:44)
We’re able to redo our website copy and everything. It’s getting easier to write blog posts and whatnot. then a couple of months later, everyone’s scared their jobs going to go out. And then now it’s like, no, we’re just creating apps to help us run our business better. Like it’s, it’s interesting, like the ups and downs of like this AI train that’s been happening over the last couple of years.

JD Gonzales (1:09:58)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrill (1:10:04)
don’t know what the original context was for us to go down this route. Cause I remember JD, you were like, yeah, for context, I make some apps, you know, and I’m trying to think what that idea was initially. And we just went on a completely different tangent. That’s all good. It’s all good. I like where it went. was, yeah, yeah.

JD Gonzales (1:10:16)
⁓ wow. I’m, yeah, sorry about that.

Dario Nouri (1:10:24)
No, I want it to get into the Claude

code stuff, because I found out yesterday there’s also Claude design and people use it to create… It’s basically replacing graphic designers, essentially, from my understanding. But again, we’re going to look into it next week, because today’s Friday. Because that’s one thing that Kirill and I, for example, we know, or guess we think we know what our…

Kyrill (1:10:35)
Assets. Yeah.

JD Gonzales (1:10:37)
Mm-hmm.

Dario Nouri (1:10:52)
clients we want to see in our proposals, but him and I aren’t graphic designers. Like we can’t beautify products to a certain extent because we just don’t have that skillset. Right. And we don’t have time to learn like all this stuff. Like we, cause there’s so many other things we’re doing again, we’re wearing a lot of different hats, right? So it’d be great to have something just help us out with things that, you know, we’re not that great with. Right. So.

JD Gonzales (1:11:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyrill (1:11:15)
And sometimes

it’s also, ⁓ sometimes also the clients don’t even know what they want to look for, right? And it’s our job to kind of help also figure out what that is by creating new things and new elements and things like that, right? So that’s how it is. It’s almost like when you have a client call, it’s like, we want to create a video, but we’re not sure what we want to do. You know, it’s just in that kind of aspect as well.

JD Gonzales (1:11:41)
So when you do that, so I guess the big question is here though is like how do you stand out from everyone else if everyone’s using Claude design? And what is that approach, right? Like I said, I was like studied graphic design in school and I think that’s a lot of this is it’s so true that you get what you put into like into graphic design, into the look, into your brand. You get out what you put in, you know?

And that’s how we should be looking at these things. And stop, not think of anything that it gives us if you’re taking that design as the final outcome, but to be like, so this is standard. This is ⁓ what we would call first thought. That is a constant thing for, ⁓ we would use that as a criticism in film school. Which also, first thought can be a creative decision if you want it to feel like first thought.

but it’s like, this is the first idea that you had and then it wasn’t workshopped from there. So how do we get over that line and then make sure that it’s something that actually means something to us that is meaningful for people? And I think that’s the kind of nitty gritty that I love to live in is that how do we bring more story and context to literally everything? I mean, if you go look at my logo, it’s a hand-drawn word mark that I had someone create that we worked for six weeks on.

And that is also my slogan, a Little. You know, it’s the word mark. It’s Live a Little. It’s made to represent diversity. So there are elements of ⁓ like foreign, like of Arabic in there of just like, is, you know, like this is how we, ⁓ this is how I want to be represented. And so it might be something that you would see more in Dubai and it would fit in there than, you know, than you would see standing next to an American company and it’s not just Helvetica. And that’s…

Like that, think that also, like just having the branding and you guys initially commented on the website, that’s, you know, that’s the time and effort that went into it and the thought that went into it of like all these different colors. And that’s, and I get that compliment literally from every client who finds me through the website immediately. It’s like, Oh, I see it. Like, it looks like you guys take your work more seriously and you put this time and energy into your website. Like I’d love to talk. And that’s a very small and big thing that I think every company can do.

and also hire your designer friends. ⁓

Kyrill (1:14:11)
Yeah.

Dario Nouri (1:14:13)
I completely agree. I think you put a best, think that’s going to be the motto is like what you put in to these AI programs is what you get out. Cause like, ⁓ to those that are listening that are thinking Claude code is very easy to use. Like the people I spoke into about it, like when I spoke to JD here, like about how he actually created his apps and everything, it was a bit of work. Like when you’re explaining it, I’m like, okay, it’s not as simple as people make it out to be. Like you actually have to learn.

Kyrill (1:14:39)
No.

Dario Nouri (1:14:42)
quite a few things and need to learn a couple of things to be able to make it work. So it’s still is work that you got to put into it. And I think, yeah, like if it does get to the point where you could even give it basic prompts, they’ll give you something. It’ll still be very obvious that it’s not fleshed out. And I think it’ll be, it could easily be compared to like when chat GPT first came out or everyone was using it. Like after a couple of weeks, you can.

You can easily pick out like and see like, this is written by AI. Like it’s, becomes a little too obvious and it becomes very cheap looking. And I think the same thing will happen with these apps, these graphic design tools that are like outputs that you’ll get, like brochures or proposals, ⁓ even videos and photos will become very obvious that it’s AI. Unless you really put in the work, right? So.

JD Gonzales (1:15:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, I mean, I could just talk about that forever. You know, it’s, it really is like, it’s your perspective, you know, going back to what I was saying earlier, like this is what, what story do you want to say? What perspective are you putting into it? What are you, what is your thumbprint on this? Like, that’s, that’s what’s important.

Kyrill (1:16:04)
I think that’s a great end note right there to leave it at that, you know, that, you know, to really get people thinking, you know, it’s, it’s just a matter of like what you put into it. And it’s not just an AI. It’s like we were talking about earlier, you know, it’s, you could have the same experiences or know exactly what another company did to build their business, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to execute it the exact same way. It’s just another version of that essentially. But, but yeah. ⁓

I guess like we’re already a little bit over, but JD, I just wanted to say thanks again for joining us on the podcast. We’ve shared a lot of new ideas and, discussions and thanks for sharing your, your, ⁓ your experience.

JD Gonzales (1:16:45)
Yeah, thank you, Carol. Thanks, Dario. Appreciate you reaching out, and this has been fun.

Dario Nouri (1:16:50)
Thank you and before we end off so guys if you want to find JD go to Live a little so it’s live live no e at the end so live Ella live a little calm and then your socials same same name at live a little

Kyrill (1:17:00)
Levi Little.

JD Gonzales (1:17:08)
Uh, yeah, actually, so our socials are a little dead right now. It’s kind of a funny thing, but I think it’s live a little video. I think it’s live a little NYC right now. I haven’t actually updated my socials in a long time. I haven’t really needed to. Oh, can’t wait. I can’t wait, but you can follow me JDGonzalesDP on Instagram. I’m pretty active there generally. And then, um, uh, you know, if you want to watch a film that we made that also we put out.

Dario Nouri (1:17:14)
okay.

Well, you’ll have clips from this show you can upload there now. ⁓

Kyrill (1:17:24)
There you go.

JD Gonzales (1:17:37)
It was two years ago, but it’s still playing nationally on PBS, Snapshots of Confinement. You can find it on the PBS app. Yeah, and we won an Emmy for that last year, which is great. So yeah, yeah, cool things. Yeah, anyway, I do a lot of things, guys. Thanks for having me. Except the socials. yeah, I guess. Yeah.

Kyrill (1:17:44)
Awesome.

Dario Nouri (1:17:47)
Hey, congrats.

Kyrill (1:17:49)
Congrats. Nice.

Except the socials apparently. ⁓ That’s your next project.

Dario Nouri (1:17:53)
⁓ You gotta create an AI agent for that. Post

on your socials.

JD Gonzales (1:18:03)
Yeah, I got severe, I have like severe social anxiety. I just do not wanna do that. Do not wanna do that social media anxiety is what I should say, Social media anxiety, it’s like, man, just can’t do it. Someone has to do it for me, yeah. ⁓

Dario Nouri (1:18:08)
What do mean you do workshops? Okay, I was gonna say…

Kyrill (1:18:10)
He does So yeah, you have social media anxiety. Oh, that’s a funny way to put it. Yeah

Dario Nouri (1:18:21)
Hey,

are you able to create an agent that’ll post on your socials? Is that a thing?

JD Gonzales (1:18:28)
⁓ Yes, you can. It’s like you would put it basically have it send it to Loomley or some some app like that and then ⁓ fill in the verbiage on there and then it would schedule but also I mean that’s not true because there is also like an open source one that you can have. So yes, the answer is yes generally not directly with Instagram but through these third-party apps you can set it up.

Dario Nouri (1:18:32)
Okay.

Yeah, because I know there’s apps that do that, but I heard sometimes like Instagram or TikTok might like lock you out of your account because they think or I don’t know, it might the algorithm like downplays that type of content because it’s not actively done on the thing. So I don’t know, just thought I’d ask.

Kyrill (1:19:03)
I think it’s a bot.

JD Gonzales (1:19:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you know?

Kyrill (1:19:15)
No, no idea. Not lately. I’m creating the content, sorry. I’m creating the content, that’s why. Too busy with that.

Dario Nouri (1:19:15)
Kirill definitely doesn’t know, he doesn’t post on our socials. He’s got social media anxiety too.

JD Gonzales (1:19:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hahaha

Right?

Just making the thing. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.

Kyrill (1:19:30)
I have to make the thing for the social, so there. Anyways, thanks

again, JD. Thank you for joining us on the show and yeah, we’ll catch up again soon.

JD Gonzales (1:19:41)
I’d appreciate it.

Dario Nouri (1:19:43)
Alright, thanks.

Kyrill (1:19:43)
and

hold there, don’t exit the call yet. We will do the, what is it, the pause smile for the thumbnail, right Dario?

Dario Nouri (1:19:52)
Mm-hmm. Okay, ready? Three, two, one.

JD Gonzales (1:19:53)
Great.

Dario Nouri (1:19:58)
And good. Okay, so let’s cut the recording. Don’t exit.