The Growth Stages of a Creative Business (ft. WulfenBear Media)

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Dario00:01Alright guys, welcome to another episode and today we got Bear Prendeli from Wolf and Bear Productions. Or what do you guys… it's just Wolf and Bear Media. Media, media. I've been screwing up the names of all the production companies lately. I gotta stop this trend. But I like your website. It says, where classical meets metal. Which is something you would expect from a name like Wolf and Bear.

Bear Prandelli00:08What's up guys?

Kyrill00:17Maybe we should ask Dario on that.

Bear Prandelli00:21No.

Kyrill00:31I was not expecting your name to actually be Bear when you see…

Dario00:34I wasn't expecting it either when I reached out to him. And his brother's name is Wolf too. Like I don't know if I told you this.

Bear Prandelli00:37Yeah, now it's for real.

Bear Prandelli00:44Yes.

Kyrill00:44I was like, there's no way, but I mean, it's kind of on trend with this now.

Dario00:46Heheheheh

Bear Prandelli00:50Yeah, we have some pretty interesting parents, so it definitely makes for a good icebreaker.

Dario00:54Well you gotta break that ice now. Well no no, Karel, I wanna hear the story. Like you can't just say my name's Bear and leave it at that.

Kyrill00:54So what are you gonna name your kids? Ha ha ha.

Bear Prandelli00:56I'm going to go to bed.

Bear Prandelli01:01Oh man, uh, yeah, right.

Kyrill01:01Yeah, so how did you get into video?

Dario01:04How's an Italian with a name like bear and wolf come about? That's what I want to know.

Kyrill01:08Yeah.

Bear Prandelli01:08So, yeah, there is a story to that. So, back in the 80s, before I was born, before my brother was born, our dad hitchhiked across America, ended up staying with some natives in Washington who let him hang out with them for a week or so, did a mushroom ceremony with them, spent a week with them in some sort of sweat lodge, kind of fell in love with.

Dario01:44that's cool.

Dario01:55Yeah.

Kyrill01:58Wow.

Dario02:01I just want to know how hard it was to convince your mom to go along with that because I can understand the guy saying it's like in it's like in Seinfeld when George wanted to name his kid seven and his and his wife or fiance was totally against it

Kyrill02:10Hehe

Bear Prandelli02:12Yeah, I don't have that much info on that. I know my mom didn't fight too hard though, so.

Kyrill02:21It's like, it's almost like, like when I, when a kid says he wants to be dragon, you know, and be called dragon almost sometimes. And it's like, no, that's, that, obviously dragon's like a little crazy, but yeah, but bear and wolf are very, you don't see that too often. People being named that. So it's just seemed like a no brainer for your company name, I guess. Just.

Bear Prandelli02:28Yeah.

Dario02:40Wolf in there.

Bear Prandelli02:42Yeah, we didn't give it that much thought. We started putting stuff down on a list and it was like, ah, this one's kinda right here. Might as well just roll with it. Yeah, there weren't that many options on the list when we were coming up with names and when we threw that one out there, I was like.

Kyrill02:53What's?

Dario02:58Well, I can imagine like bear wolf media. Man, doesn't have the same vibe. Wolf, yeah, that kind of flows a bit better. Ha ha ha.

Bear Prandelli03:04I don't know. Yeah, if it flows well.

Kyrill03:06You know, usually when you're starting a business, a lot of people say don't name it after yourself because then it's kind of limiting. You know, it's like, oh, they're always gonna want that person's name doing the video or the photography for their client. But Wolf and Bear, it's like, it's kind of like a power name, you know? It's like, it is your names, but it could also be an umbrella name as well. So it's kind of like a, it's unique. It's unique given the story.

Bear Prandelli03:29Cedric cake.

Bear Prandelli03:33Yeah.

Dario03:35I remember seeing it for the first time and going like, okay, these guys probably love metal. That was like my initial impression. I was like…

Bear Prandelli03:42Yeah. Well, it's kind of funny. You brought up the word classical meets metal, and my brother came up with that little slogan, and it really is partially because I'm like the metalhead. I love going out to shows. I play in a band. I go to as many local or big concerts as I can. And then Wolf is very, he's into jazz and blues, and he…

Dario04:11What?

Dario04:16You're imagining class like you just hear ch How could you focus?

Kyrill04:19Tick, tick, ting! Hehehehehehe!

Bear Prandelli04:19Well, yeah, not so much for class, but like, you know, he showed me some of his old essays and all the stuff that he would hand in was written on a typewriter. Even now we have, it's not in here, but it's in the other room. We have the typewriter. He still loves to write on it. You know, anytime he does treatments for, you know, little stories or essays or short stories ideas that we have to film, that's usually all done on a typewriter.

Dario04:49I know I heard Christopher Nolan and Tarantino still do that, but I guess it makes sense because they're so into like the old school of filmmaking that, but that's cool. That's cool.

Bear Prandelli04:59It also, it kind of forces you, I think one of the things that we try to apply in a lot of the ways that we work too is, you gotta be in touch with what all the new stuff is, all the gear, all the new whatever, but at the same time, if you're forced to sit there and physically type everything out and you know that any mistake you make is time spent erasing it, that's money, just like shooting film, then you think a little bit harder about what you put on the paper.

Dario05:28It's also less distracting too, right? You're not gonna get, you know, Instagram notifications coming up on the typewriter.

Kyrill05:34Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no distractions. And it just leaves you in the moment, like laser focused on the task at hand, which it really is an art, you know, when you think about the old school style of doing things, that's why a lot of people like to go back to it because of how undistracting it can be to really focus in on what you're doing.

Bear Prandelli05:34Yeah, that's very accurate.

Dario05:36Hehehe

Bear Prandelli05:57Absolutely, man.

Dario05:57Undistracting is not a word. Ha ha

Kyrill05:59I know, I noticed it as soon as I said it, but I'ma make it a word. Less distracting.

Bear Prandelli06:01Hahaha!

Kyrill06:16It's not a port, it's not meant to be portable. So I don't know how your brother took that to class all the time. Like textbooks alone were heavy.

Bear Prandelli06:16Yeah.

Dario06:22Ha ha

Dario06:27Oh my god. Does he actually? There's no way there's no way he brings it because that thing must weigh already 50 pounds. Like I can imagine like you're already over the limit.

Kyrill06:30That typewriter…

Bear Prandelli06:34No, no, no.

Kyrill06:38over the limit for the baggage fees like the baggage fees like a hundred bucks for just that alone.

Bear Prandelli06:43Yeah, try busting that out on Southwest Airlines while you're sitting there next to everybody else. Make everyone real happy.

Kyrill06:49Tick tick

Dario06:52It's pretty cool, but okay, so it's you and your brother How you guys must have a really good relationship? No

Bear Prandelli06:52That's cool.

Bear Prandelli07:00Yeah, I mean, we do, we do. We've been pretty close ever since he was in high school. I think we both shared a lot of common interests in film and photography. And even though we have different musical tastes, there's also a lot of crossover. So just anything that has to do with the arts and kind of creative stuff, there's a, I think we just have a lot of appreciation for the same stuff. And so…

Dario08:10I totally agree.

Kyrill08:11You're describing a lot of the stuff with just Dario and myself even. I mean, we've been doing this for so long to the point where it is very similar to that type of relationship as well. It's just like yesterday we were on a shoot and we were in the midst of filming on like two ends of the room and I look over, he's like switching over a battery and he did it in a way that I didn't like. And I'm just like, strap that battery, but I'm like saying it quietly.

Bear Prandelli08:15Hahaha

Bear Prandelli08:22Yeah, yay.

Dario08:37And you know what? And you know what? I knew what he was saying, but I just didn't like how he was saying it, so I still didn't do it properly. So just to irritate him more, I played stupid like, what are you talking about?

Bear Prandelli08:44Hahaha

Kyrill08:46I knew it. I knew that's why he did it.

Kyrill08:56And it's just little things like that, right? It's like, it doesn't affect anything, but oh man.

Dario08:59I was like, I was like pretended I was like the photographer was close. I told them like Vincent go see what's wrong with Kira What's he talking about?

Kyrill09:06Hehe

Bear Prandelli09:10Dude, so we'll be on shoots sometimes and the way our dynamics are, depending on who's hiring us, if it's a shoot where we're just both cam-opping, we're both shooting, then usually it doesn't come up. But if it's something where we're kind of producing it as well, I'll typically take more of the director role at that point.

Kyrill09:10Yeah.

Bear Prandelli09:30and shoots like that, Wolf just, anytime I go near the camera, he'll just slap my hand. He's like, get out of here, it's not your job. Go, get out of here, I don't wanna deal with you. Yeah, I feel like you have to get used to having those dynamics though, and the longer you're working with someone, the more you kind of just have that telekinetic back and forth where you can read each other. So we've definitely gotten there. I mean, we started 2017, so we're going on eight years now. And…

Dario09:36Hahaha

Bear Prandelli10:01It's gotten easier as time's gone on. We've really figured out how to communicate properly to each other and kind of know what the other one is needing in most situations so that we're not, you know, stepping on each other's toes or making it difficult for the other one to do their job.

Dario10:16Did you guys like know right off the bat like what your positions were gonna be when you started the company or were you guys like doing everything? Like you guys both wearing the same hats until you guys naturally fell into your own positions.

Bear Prandelli10:24Mm-hmm.

Bear Prandelli10:30Oh yeah man, well so I had been freelancing in the creative space for about two years prior to Wolf moving out to Arizona. So I've been in Arizona nine years, we started the company just over seven years ago now. He followed me out here when I moved to Phoenix after having lived in Northern Arizona for two years. So when he moved out here I already had a…

Bear Prandelli12:55keeps the back of house super neat and organized so that we're never missing something or finding ourselves without something on a shoot. And I make sure that on the client side that all that communication's being done effectively, promptly, projects are being produced on deadline. So.

Dario13:18We definitely have a similar dynamic where like wood equipment, keros on top of that. If I'm in charge of it, it's a mess. But then on the other side, it's like our Google drives a mess of keros in charge of it. So I don't let them near that stuff. The thing that irritates me the most is like, I'll go into a folder and I'll see like, the duplicate folder just like worded differently. And I'll go and tell like, what the hell is this thing?

Bear Prandelli13:26Yeah.

Bear Prandelli13:31Yeah.

Kyrill13:32Hehe

Bear Prandelli13:33Ha!

Kyrill13:42hahahaha

Bear Prandelli13:43Hahaha

Kyrill13:46That might be a backup one, that's all that it is. No, no, that was more so like back in the day, but like it's interesting hearing your story and your dynamic because there's a lot of similarities with Dario and I, and also that you guys pretty much learned the industry and the craft just by doing it, you know, yourselves, right? A lot of people that we've talked to, they've either worked at other companies, they've worked in the industry, freelancing for many years before jumping into it.

Dario13:49Oh my god.

Bear Prandelli13:50Yeah.

Kyrill14:17Like a lot of like really big companies are because they have like people who worked somewhere else for like maybe 10 years, then jumped into it and then had like a good foundation, good connections and solid backing to get started. When you're starting this in this industry from scratch, you're learning how to do it. But also you're trying to run a business at the same time. So it's kind of like when you think about it is really is the wrong way to start a business like this in this industry, like typically the best way.

Bear Prandelli14:45I w-

Kyrill14:47is go out, freelance for a bit, learn by yourself, maybe go work at another company for a few years, figure out if you even wanna start your own business from doing it, right? Because I feel like a lot of people might do it and then think, oh, I don't wanna actually run a video production company. This is a little bit too crazy. But when we started, we didn't know. We didn't know what we were getting into. It was kind of, yeah. I know, I know.

Dario15:05That's like so many businesses though, Kirill. Like think about how many, like if you're like an entrepreneur, for example, right? Like a tech, uh, entrepreneur, you're not going to go work at Facebook for a bit. You'll just go to like an incubator and just kind of get your bearings from there.

Kyrill15:18Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. So it's like, it's an interesting career path. That's all I'm saying that you don't see it too, too often, at least in our space.

Bear Prandelli15:27No, and you said, you know, kind of, that's the wrong way to do it. I mean, we did everything the wrong way, you know? Like everything. I think part of it was a mix of like cockiness and arrogance and sheer stupidity and willpower, you know? And it's funny, because like I look at how we started and I look at where we're at now, and where we're at now came from like,

Kyrill15:36Yeah.

Bear Prandelli15:56a couple years ago looking back and being like, okay, maybe I should humble myself and realize I don't know fuck all about anything. But when we got started, it was just like, I just know I wanna do this. We wanna make films, we wanna tell stories, we wanna just like, and we don't, both of us were kind of at a point in our lives where we didn't want to be working directly for someone else. I had just spent, not enough time directly in the video production industry,

Dario16:48You're not vested enough. Like, you have no stake in the matter.

Bear Prandelli16:55closest friends who, you know, was one of the reasons I moved to Outer Arizona in the first place, just kept pushing me. He's like a very entrepreneurial type. He's like, just get your LLC, just get your LLC. Just get set up as an entity, just figure that part out, and then figure the rest out later. And that was kind of the start of it, you know? Yeah, when I look back, it's like we were definitely a lot cockier when we started, and we knew so much less. But I think that journey…

Dario17:45We had a similar thing with this podcast. Like when we started and we started talking to actual companies, like people that knew what they were doing. I think Carol and I have to reach up and say, we'll go, wow, we are really far behind in this race. Like we thought we, we thought we, we thought we knew something, but Jesus, wow, we weren't doing anything beforehand. Like, what were we doing?

Kyrill17:46Yeah, I know what you mean.

Kyrill17:59because like we learned so much in that one hour.

Bear Prandelli18:02Hahaha

Kyrill18:07Yeah, it's like, it was that realization that we were, man, we've talked about this so many times, but it's like, yeah, like that realization that we were just two freelancers basically working together for many years, it wasn't really a business. And we, talking to other people on the show made us realize like, wow, so this, that is what a business is like. That is how you do it. And then, yeah, just a thing. And then 2021 was just focused on converting it into an actual business at that.

Dario18:27Yeah.

Bear Prandelli18:37You know, it's funny, our timeline was kind of similar because it was like 2017 through like 2019, beginning of 2020, felt almost like just how you described it. It's like we're just two guys who are kind of, we're a company, but we're really just showing up and freelancing every shoot. And then for me, I think the big shift came when I like started to wrap my head around, like,

Dario18:55Yeah.

Bear Prandelli19:06It was kind of hard to get a solid idea of how do we price ourselves? How do we charge for these services? How do we make sure that we have a really solid workflow all the way from concept to creation and final delivery rather than just kind of going in blind. I mean, like, oh yeah, I know that we're going to go shoot this thing and we need these shots and really figuring out how to do proper pre-production.

Dario20:01I feel like there's different shifts you go through because the first shift might be where you realize you're just a freelancer, right? But you want to become a business. Then the stage after that, it's like, okay, you are a business. For us, for example, I feel like we're in that stage. We're a business. It's me and Kyril, but it feels like it's still on the cusp of going back into freelancing. I feel like the next stage would be like, okay, we're…

Kyrill20:02Yeah.

Bear Prandelli20:12Mm-hmm.

Kyrill20:24Still two guys.

Kyrill20:28Yeah.

Dario20:31a business that has employees and you know, to have employees, you need to have like some type of consistent recurring income. So that means that you kind of have your grasp in the industry, right? And then there's probably going to be another shift after that where it's like, okay, we're just a small business. We should go to becoming like a bigger, I feel like there's always like stages you want to move on to after you, you know, accomplish one, right?

Bear Prandelli20:42Mm-hmm.

Kyrill20:57It's like a game, it's like leveling up, you know? Leveling up the character.

Bear Prandelli20:57I think, yeah. I think it's, you know, I think it also depends on your goals, because you guys are, you said you're in Canada, right? I don't know how different it is structured there, at least for us over here. You know, we've kind of opted to stay as a two-man team in terms of how the company's organized as an LLC. But we just crew out depending on what kind of per,

Dario20:59Yeah.

Dario21:08Yeah.

Dario21:26That's what we do too.

Kyrill21:27Yeah, exactly.

Bear Prandelli21:27Yeah, yes, yes. So it's, for me at least, I've found that unless we were at a point where it was like, okay, we're making X amount in revenue a year and now it makes sense, it almost gets so expensive to have employee employees and as nice as that would be to have that, then you guys know how the video industry is. Unless you're just busy all year round, you're gonna have times where it's like this and like this, I'm like, if I have an employee, I'm paying them to sit around and do what? You know?

Dario21:52Yeah.

Bear Prandelli21:57Like…

Dario21:58I think the good, like the, I think traditional like a company with traditional type of employees where it's like, you know, whatever, like for our industry kind of doesn't work. I think the skeletal approach to that definitely does work because we've seen and heard from a lot of companies that do have like a small team. So like we're of the same mindset as you, to be honest with you, like two people, but I feel like lately I've been thinking about a bit more and it's like.

Kyrill22:30couple people, like a couple.

Kyrill22:54Well, the other thing is like bringing in other people, they're gonna be invested in the business more so than if you're just hiring a freelancer, and they could bring something to the table that maybe you didn't even think about, right? I mean, look at how it is with you and your brother. You each bring something to the table that really helps add to the business. Like when we're talking about employees in our industry, we're not, like as Dario said, we're not looking to just hire just a shooter, just an editor.

Dario24:08Who's the fifth person? Because I'm thinking about it right now, it would be me, you, I would think a project coordinator, and an editor. Like, who would you want on top of that?

Kyrill24:18And then like some other kind of hybrid person that kind of just…

Dario24:21Wouldn't that be like kind of like the… Because the project coordinator I would kind of see as like a producer in training, no?

Kyrill24:30I would say maybe not just a producer, maybe if not a third producer, maybe a shooter that wants to produce, a shooter that is looking to get into producing maybe or something like that. I felt like that, the fifth role, is a little bit more flexible. But anyway, it's not so much the specific roles, it's just I felt like in terms of a size of a business, no more than five, I think, is kind of good. It's like a good solid base in terms of a core team. And then you just…

Dario24:36Like we eventually want them to grow and-

Dario24:52Yeah, five would be good.

Kyrill25:00expand out depending on what you need. That's what I've always felt is like ideal.

Dario25:03Yeah, that's a good number.

Bear Prandelli25:05It's funny, we, kind of similar to you guys, we've stayed away from bringing on an employee simply because of the sheer cost of what we have to match versus being able to work with contractors, obviously keeps their costs low, which means we can reinvest in the business and the gear and all that stuff. We just got really lucky too though. I mean, we had two different editors that are their best friends.

Dario26:15Like a synergy, right? Like we have a similar thing with Indigo Events. They handle all of our photography work and then with Audio Process who also is a sponsor of the show. Anytime we need audio people, I always ask them. And then even for like grips, gaffers, MPAs or equipment, like there's a Canada Film Equipment. We just use them exclusively for that really, so.

Bear Prandelli26:22Yeah.

Bear Prandelli26:38Mm-hmm.

Dario26:40I get what you mean, like there's synergies you build with different businesses that you're kind of, it's almost like a plugin.

Kyrill26:46You're like dipping your toes into it. You're developing key partnerships that help fill those gaps or those needs that an employee typically would, which is the smart way to go about it right now, because they also wanna work with other companies as well, develop their portfolios. And it's just funny that you mentioned that it's another team of two. Like, are you guys gonna next find like a team of two?

Bear Prandelli26:46Yeah.

Dario27:01Yeah.

Bear Prandelli27:02Right.

Kyrill27:11Cinematographers that always work together or a team of two. I don't know.

Bear Prandelli27:14Yeah. Yeah, well it's a lot of that, you know, because I noticed that same type of energy between a lot of the other businesses that we work with. You know, we're lucky enough that Phoenix is a, I would say right now, it's a very collaborative market. You know, it's a small enough market where everyone kind of knows each other. It's a big enough market where, you know, everyone tends to be staying working around the same time.

Dario28:22Golden number.

Kyrill28:25I would say two, like I've heard from other people who've had businesses where there were three partners where it's a lot more unstable than two because a lot of the time sometimes two of them would be making most of the decisions and they would always overrule the third one that will cause like some problems in the business. In terms of like people that are actually like running the business itself, I've heard that it's always good to have a good even number like either two or four.

Dario29:08We have seen the opposite too. Yeah, like even one other, yeah, like was a captive creative is three partners. And I like how like with three, you can also kind of just focus, you have, you can cover more ground more easily because everyone has like a domain to focus on. Like you could have person that, like let's say for ours, it could be person focusing on the creative side of the production, person focusing on the marketing and person focusing on like the sales and other business aspects.

Kyrill29:16Oh yeah.

Kyrill29:22True, true.

Kyrill29:36Yeah.

Dario29:36That's a really good way to break that, like break roles down if you have three partners now.

Kyrill29:42Yeah, I think that definitely is one aspect to it. And like I said, it really depends on what kind of partnerships you have. I mean, don't get me wrong, even partners of two can also fail very easily. We've seen that happen before. So it's all about being with the right people and everybody knowing what their roles are and then being very open and having that kind of relationship with your partners.

Dario29:54Yeah.

Bear Prandelli30:07I'm curious to ask too, so with you guys, how is it that your guys' roles end up breaking down? Because I know with, we talked a little bit about myself and Wolf and our secret weapon too is that we have Chris who is our creative producer slash script writer slash producer, she's amazing and having brought her on even though she's still just a contractor, kind of.

Kyrill31:03It's kind of like how you described it, where Dario handles a lot of the client relations and the outreach and a lot of the business development aspect, yeah, mainly sales. Dario handles mainly the sales aspect, whereas I handle a little bit more of the creative. And like you said, also the production aspect to make sure that we're executing the projects. Basically, he's bringing in the projects and overseeing, and then I'm helping execute them based on what the briefs and…

Dario31:11Sales.

Kyrill31:33but what the briefs are. So that's kind of like the main aspect. And then obviously, like probably as it is with you guys, there's gonna be a little bit of spillover and other aspects where we do one thing, we get feedback from the other. There's a lot of feedback going back and forth between us. It's not like we try to leave ourselves, like we leave ourselves to do the tasks initially, but we always look at each other for feedback to kind of help improve things as we go.

Dario31:45Yeah.

Dario31:56Especially for development of the project itself. Let's say it's something where there's, like it's not just hired gun type of work, like we're creating an actual story for it. I'll often be like the client's eyes when we're doing the creative. So, like, Kero might develop the creative angles, but I'll go like, no, I just know they're not gonna like this, so I'll kind of guide it into a direction where the client will approve it.

Kyrill32:36Yeah, we kind of like code, we kind of co-directed a little bit, like, but Dario kind of just handles more of that aspect, uh, a bit more because, uh, he's handling more of like the producing aspect with the client relations, but like a lot of the time when him and I tackle a project together, we're both like discussing like how we need to do it and, and things like that.

Bear Prandelli32:36Yeah.

Dario32:55We have like, we've started to develop this thing where like, it's basically like, I'll be like more involved on like, you know, obviously the onboarding of like, bringing the client in the pre-production, but then like the torch kind of gets passed to Kerala, especially like from like pre-production to post. So like during pre-production, I'll get passed on to Kerala. And then like, we're both collaborating on the production and then during post, I usually let Kerala handle that. And then.

Bear Prandelli33:33Yeah, yeah, it's very similar with us. It's definitely similar dynamics, because once we get to post, that's almost entirely myself and Chris, and then Wolf will just get eyes on it when it's like, okay, it's almost there. Is it ready to get color graded? Okay, cool. Yeah.

Dario33:48Heh heh.

Dario33:52What's the market in Arizona like?

Bear Prandelli33:56Shifting, let's say slowly shifting. So for the past decade or so, it's kind of become a very, very commercial market out here, which has been, I think, good for work, and good for where we've been at, where we, like we were talking about when we started this company, we were so inexperienced from a business owner standpoint, and from a, like we kind of had to build our entire network from scratch. So.

Bear Prandelli36:03commercials and ads and kind of work with clients on campaigns. But we've really kind of shifted from doing as much of the hired gun work and working more on, you know, being a more active, creative part of that process with our clients. So we love doing that work, but we want it to be story driven. We don't want to just be showing up and just shooting. We really like to have a little bit of the reins and guiding where the campaign goes alongside the client.

Dario37:02You know, you mentioned you would love to go and film like a narrative for like a month or something. We actually had a guest come on recently and he mentioned that like it was great for him to go and do all these TV shows. But he noticed that his corporate business suffered a lot because of that, right? Because again, if you're out and you're unavailable to your clients for six months, well, what are they going to do? They're just going to move on. Right. And you can't really get those clients back once they've signed with another agency. Right. Like, they're just going to.

Kyrill37:08Yeah.

Kyrill37:31Yeah.

Dario37:33the client-sworn consistency, right? It's kind of like a double-edged sword in a way. It's like you get to cross something off your checklist. Oh, I did this, but then it's like, ooh, my business is really gonna suffer.

Bear Prandelli37:44Well, I think it depends what your long-term goals are, right? So for us, I think that we always viewed the end goal is to make movies. The end goal is to produce our own stuff. Five years down the line for me, I wanna be producing my own documentaries. Hopefully, have one of the two of us have sold a script or something like that.

Bear Prandelli39:53But you're right, it's like you get to a point where it's like I was getting client phone calls and I'm having to be like, okay, half an hour on lunch, I gotta reply to all these emails and then back in there, you know, and you're doing, when you're pulling like a 14 hour day, that's exhausting, you know, and it's easy to lose track of stuff.

Dario39:59Hehe. Yeah, yeah.

Kyrill40:08Yeah, especially.

Dario40:08So your long-term plan is just to go into producing documentaries, like directing, shooting, all that stuff, right?

Bear Prandelli40:15Yeah, I mean, I think being a good business owner and kind of being entrepreneurial is a very good quality because it's shown me how to balance a budget and manage a crew and like, have my head not just thinking about, oh, I'm the director, I need to direct this thing, but not having any context as to what all the other roles on the set are actually doing to support your role. You know.

Dario41:38Do you work with a lot of agencies or you direct decline a lot of the time?

Bear Prandelli41:42It's about 50-50 both. So we get about…

Kyrill41:45Hmm.

Bear Prandelli41:51I'm trying to, probably about 60% direct to client and then 40% agencies. And we've kind of.

Dario42:31Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're on the same page on that one.

Bear Prandelli42:31Um, yeah, yeah. Just, which is funny because I see so many of these like ads for guys on social media who's like, guaranteed $3,500 monthly retainers. I'm like, you're gonna go fucking crazy, man. You're gonna hate that in a little bit.

Kyrill42:32Yeah, we have, we know.

Kyrill42:43Yeah. Hahaha.

Dario42:47I don't know how they do it.

Kyrill43:16to get a discount on all the services, right? So right there, you're gonna be working, that's a part, that's a part of it. I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. So firstly, they're looking for a discount in their eyes. That's what they're looking for, right? And so you're gonna provide say 10% discount as an example on like say 100 grand budget, right? So you're gonna lose 10 grand right there, but yeah, it's nice to have 90 grand in work that goes forward. But,

Dario43:19No no no, it wasn't discount. It was part of it. You're getting to the, okay, okay.

Kyrill43:45The other costs that you don't realize is the inflation that you're gonna get hit with as well. At the end of that, that 10% really becomes like 20% at the end of the day, and you have to be on call.

Dario43:54But that wasn't what they were talking. Okay, so the benefit to the client. No, what you're saying, Kyril, is what the production company would pitch as the benefit to the client. The other company we were talking to that does retain is they mentioned that what they're providing really is availability to that client. Because let's say that client wants to work with you, but you might get busy, then you kind of, it's a order of who comes in first, right? That was the benefit.

Kyrill44:05Yeah.

Kyrill44:22Yeah.

Dario44:23But yeah, you brought up good points with the inflation that wasn't mentioned when you do these pitches and also the discount, right away you're losing money. You do get consistent income for the year, but at what cost, right?

Bear Prandelli44:37It's not worth it to me to end up presenting the client because the one month where they inevitably ask me for like 20, 30% more, but then you've got this relationship where you're relying on them for your monthly security, I'd rather take the risk and not have that security because I don't want to resent my clients, you know? And I don't want to create an opportunity in the relationship where

Kyrill44:41Yeah.

Kyrill45:00Eh.

Bear Prandelli45:04I can start to resent them over something financial when it's like the easy solution for that is just pay me my rate and we will provide the services at the top level of quality as you expect them. And that's it. So, you know, it's different for everybody. You know, like I said, this is what works for us. I can't speak for other people. I don't wanna like totally go shit on a model because that's not what we do. I just found that for us.

Kyrill45:41You brought up an interesting point there. Sorry to chime in, but I like what you pointed out there that a lot of people also don't talk about is what is your relationship with that client gonna be when you do jump into the retainer model? Nobody really talks about that. What you described is a really good ideal situation in our industry where a client comes to you and consistently comes to you to hire you for your services because they genuinely wanna work with you. That's a good dynamic right there. They see the value.

Dario46:41You know, you know, you know, like, Barry, you might not know this, but we've all we've only found out of the guests that have come here on the show, only a couple have gotten working retainer models with clients and the ones that do have a working one. It's basically it's so specific to that particular client. Like, again, they've already been working with them for years, so they already know roughly what they're spending on a yearly basis.

Kyrill47:01Yeah.

Dario47:08and how much it works they got to do with them to the point where it just made sense for both parties. So it doesn't… So like these ones that people pitch where it's like, oh, you know, for like 3500, I like again, we don't see that working at all. But like it has it's so case specific to get a retainer model working. So there's so many different variables involved, right? And again, there's so many different ways you can go about it as well. Like I remember someone mentioning that they basically have like a bucket.

Kyrill47:12It's like a given. Yeah, it's like a given type relationship, yeah.

Bear Prandelli47:13Yep.

Kyrill47:21No, not at all.

Kyrill47:39Bucket, yeah.

Dario47:39Yeah, it is a bucket system and basically out of each quarter, they would just pull money out of that bucket, right? So if they ran out within the first month, because that's a busy quarter, then it is what it is. And then the client can either decide to pull money from another pocket, put it in there to continue doing work or because over the course of the year, there's like different periods where the client would be busy, right? They can like relocate, reallocate funds to that specific quarter.

Kyrill48:03Yeah.

Dario48:06That's another option we heard, which is interesting and it kind of makes sense. So there's no need to go like every month we have to create this much amount. It's basically dependent on whatever. Right. And then I think they also had it at this level where it's like, if they don't use up the whole thing, then the client gets that money back, which is another thing that does make sense. And it's like, if we need to use it, it's there. If we don't, you get it back. Right.

Kyrill48:14Yeah.

Kyrill48:31It's like buying a $100,000 gift card at the beginning of the year. It's like, it's a gift card model. It's the gift card model approach. Ha ha ha. Ha ha.

Dario48:34Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically what it was. Yeah. Yeah, it's a gift card model. Yeah, that's what it is.

Bear Prandelli48:37Yeah. So, we've, you know, like I said, I'll never fault anyone for finding a model that works for them. For us, that just doesn't make sense, you know? So the direct to client, clients that we work with are pretty much all on either, you know, if they just find us in their first time, then obviously it's just a project per project. We tend to…

Kyrill48:49Of course, of course.

Bear Prandelli49:05I prefer working with clients where we're sitting down, you know, October, November, talking through the whole budget for the year and being like, what are we doing in January? What are we doing? You know, what's Q1 look like? What's Q2 look like? What's Q3 look like?

Dario49:17That's what I wanted to ask you. You said clients with an annual budget. Okay, are you? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead

Bear Prandelli49:20Yeah, and can I, hold on one second, can I, 30 seconds, I just gotta grab the charger for some reason this one isn't working. I have two chargers for the laptop, so I apologize guys, give me a second.

Dario49:28Okay.

Kyrill49:30Yeah, don't worry. We'll be back right after these messages. Dario, that's essentially it. It's not the retainer model people want. They want the gift card model. That's what it is. We got a name for it finally.

Dario49:30Nowhere is nowhere is no-

Dario49:34Hehehe

Dario49:41Gift card, gift card.

Dario49:45We gotta like trademark the…

Kyrill49:47We should patent that, yeah. Like, it's like, oh my God, as soon as that takes off, all those like sales gurus are gonna be like, yo, you want them to pre-buy, you want them to pre-buy, like that'll be the next big thing. Yeah. The gift card approach to video production. Should we actually go and get real gift cards and just like get them out to clients? It's like.

Dario49:58You guys, you guys heard it here first, okay? We came up with it.

Dario50:10And you know, we got to bring we got to bring the square machine, you know, the thing you just tap it every time we go to a shoot, they just tap the card.

Kyrill50:15Guys, we just give people 25 laps dollars, instead of a Starbucks gift card, we just do it. Shroot bucks, the Shroot bucks, exactly. Yeah, you know what? That's what we're gonna start doing. We give clients like, here, here's a thousand laps bucks that you can use towards your next project. Next April Fool's, we're doing that. That's what we're doing.

Dario50:21No, yo, what's that thing in the office? What's that thing in the office? The Shroop Box? The Laps Box? Ha ha ha.

Dario50:37Oh my god.

Bear Prandelli50:39Hey.

Dario50:42Oh my God.

Bear Prandelli50:44But yeah, Dario, sorry, you were gonna ask a question.

Dario50:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you mentioned you've you like working with clients that have like an annual budget for I'm assuming just video creation right video content not marketing but

Bear Prandelli50:59Yeah, typically we're working with the marketing department kind of hand in hand, but you know, I like to say like…

Dario51:04Yeah.

Bear Prandelli51:13Um, it depends, so…

Bear Prandelli51:19Actually both of the well so the one the two that we have right now that we have that kind of relationship with One of them was completely we actually got cold reached out to by someone who followed our Instagram page Loved what we did reached out to us. I was like, hey, I'm the brand manager for this big company Can we can we have a conversation and through talking to her? I realized like she had been kind of following us for a while. She had a negative experience with another company in town

Bear Prandelli53:30And so, I think it's 50-50. We've had a couple of these relationships like this. We had a similar relationship with a substance abuse center, it's a treatment center, where they kind of had like a, it wasn't a retainer, but they had kind of a monthly maximum that they could spend on video production, interviews, testimonials. And so we kind of knew like, okay, throughout the whole year, we're gonna…

Kyrill54:06Yeah.

Bear Prandelli54:23And I also don't have this same checklist of like, we were talking about retainers, like we tried that in the beginning. And that's what I ended up finding with us was that some clients, when you're doing a good job for them, they don't complain, but just like, oh, it doesn't matter that this one month we weren't able to get that 10th video, we ended up with nine. But then you get some clients where it's like, if they don't count 10, it doesn't matter the quality of the other nine, they're asking for a discount, they're asking for money back, they're asking you for.

Kyrill54:41Yeah.

Bear Prandelli54:52to show up for another day to shoot, you know? And I just don't like running into that. You know, whereas if I look at, you know, client A and they're like, hey, my budget for the year is $160,000, and I'm like, cool. I know that roughly, for what you're trying to accomplish, we can get X amount of shoots out of this. And let's leave a little bit of wiggle room for the unknown, you know, for the one project that's gonna need a more thorough audio mix, the one project where…

Kyrill54:56Yeah.

Bear Prandelli55:21you know, we're gonna send it off and get six different versions of it at different lengths cut together, so the post-production's gonna be higher on it. So, that's kind of the way that we've gone. And you know, we fell into that a little bit, and once we started working with clients in that manner more, I was like, oh, I gotta do this more. Because it is, it ends up being that same, like, you end up having the same result as what the retainer model promises, I think,

Kyrill55:29Yeah.

Kyrill55:51Yeah.

Bear Prandelli55:51consistent monthly recurring revenue. It's not as guaranteed for us, but it is, it's big enough projects, and it's more room to play around, I feel.

Kyrill56:04It's an understanding between you and the client. It's kind of like a promise to work with you type approach that you've kind of taken care of. It's almost like basically making the order at the beginning of the year and then just kind of like, here's our intention of what we're gonna work with you this year. We've kind of done that with one client except the difference is that we actually have budgeted in like just one simple contract. It's like, here's the five videos that we're gonna do for you throughout the year.

Dario57:10Are you are you signing them on? Are you signing them on for the whole year? Or or is it just like? For this month, we'll do like this, you'll do a contract on a monthly basis and it'll incorporate all the. Yeah.

Bear Prandelli57:18It's not a, uh…

Kyrill57:24Yeah, I'm just trying to think on the contract side of things, how that, how that works.

Bear Prandelli57:25Sure, sure. On the contract side of things, basically we scope out what this campaign was gonna be. And then there's kind of a, you know, there's a list or a section where we talk about all the deliverables that they can expect. And it is very clearly specified in the section above that, that it's like, this is an estimation based on the schedule that you gave me, based on all the meetings we've had, based on all the info. It's like, this can fluctuate.

Kyrill59:03So are they like, so they signing with you from the beginning, like the thing that we're just trying to understand is like, obviously like that's how it works from the project to project side of things, which is normal for every business. But it's like, because you're having these conversations with them at the beginning where they're saying, here's a hundred grand for the, or like we have a hundred grand to spend with you for the year. Is it like a contract that you sign saying like, we're gonna spend this much money with you this year? They're not giving it to you right away, but they're going to or something. Also you are doing.

Bear Prandelli59:30Correct. Correct, correct.

Kyrill59:32a contract. So it is kind of like you are kind of you are kind of doing the gift card approach. Like you are doing it.

Bear Prandelli59:37It's, a little bit, it's the acknowledgement that everything that they've scoped out should cost about that much. It doesn't mean they have to spend all of it. They're also not getting any of it back, right? They're not giving us any of it upfront. It's just like we've scoped it out and this is what we think it's gonna cost. It could be more, it could be less, depending on all these factors. And it's not like they can't leave. Like our contracts,

Dario59:38haha

Kyrill59:49Oh, okay.

Kyrill59:58Okay.

Kyrill01:00:05Oh, so it's not locked in. Yeah. Okay.

Bear Prandelli01:00:07No, because for each of these shoots, like I said, there might be some months where we're doing three shoots for the client, there might be some months where it's just one big one. It's more just about, you've acknowledged that this is what it should cost. If it goes over that, we're gonna have conversations about it ahead of time. If it stays under that, then there's no conversation needed to be had.

Dario01:00:27How are you invoicing for that? Hello curious on that.

Kyrill01:00:28You guys are, sorry, before you ask that question, I just wanna make a note. It's almost like you're doing it, the approach of like how the sopranos do business. There's nothing written, but there's like a good understanding that you guys are gonna do a lot of work together. That makes sense, that makes sense. Oh my God, so yeah, you're essentially going with that approach.

Bear Prandelli01:00:30How am I what?

Bear Prandelli01:00:43Well, I was born in Italy, so you know.

Dario01:00:46And he is Italian too! I can imagine him showing up like Furio. Give me $1000.

Bear Prandelli01:00:51We do business with a handshake here, you know?

Bear Prandelli01:00:57Yes, but what are you doing?

Kyrill01:00:59Give me one video project. Ha ha ha.

Bear Prandelli01:01:06I mean we are you know the enforceability side so you asked about that so the way that The way that that's done is we're very strict in what? Basically if they we have all this stuff Scheduled out ahead of time right so we kind of know when all these shoots are gonna happen well in advance Since they've kind of committed to this they can cancel us on us at any time

Dario01:01:40Wait, wait, what? So it's a it's basically like a 50% deposit, essentially, is that what you're saying?

Bear Prandelli01:01:46Kind of because if we've scheduled stuff out and it's already on the calendar and then all of a sudden I got to cancel a whole bunch of shoots You know, whereas I could have been guaranteed X amount. Let's say it's fifty thousand dollars Worth of work over, you know the remaining three four months in that contract If they cancel on it, they're allowed to terminate they if they don't have to stay with us But because they've agreed to that budget number Because they've agreed to work with us for the year

Kyrill01:02:03Yeah.

Bear Prandelli01:02:15If we got all those dates on the calendar, they cancel on us, they owe us half of the remaining balance. Wherever we're at in the budget.

Kyrill01:02:20Oh, so you're booking it in that initial, like at the beginning of the year, you're booking off all these rough dates and then you're getting them to agree to pay a deposit kind of thing.

Bear Prandelli01:02:30Yeah, and we're kind of, yeah, we're having very, I mean, it's a different way of working with a client because I'm having constant, constant conversations with them and in a sense, you know, we're talking about like doing this because we don't want to be W2 employees. In a sense, you do kind of become kind of like an extension of their company as well. You're learning so much more about them. You're on more meetings with them, more calls with them. You know, I'm…

Kyrill01:02:34Ahem.

Kyrill01:02:50Yeah.

Bear Prandelli01:02:57constantly involved with these clients on I think a deeper level than we are with clients who will just like maybe reach out to us for a one-off project. The flip side is you get a lot more buying on the creative side. And like I said, it solves for us the problem of like worrying about financial security throughout the year, while still if we need to being able to walk away. And still being able to be a little bit more flexible with.

Kyrill01:03:50Mm-hmm.

Dario01:03:56Okay.

Kyrill01:03:57Nice. Wow. A lot to unpack, but honestly, thanks, Bear, for jumping on the show. We already hit the one hour mark. And… And like… The… Ha ha ha.

Dario01:03:59Yeah.

Dario01:04:05And we have to record another podcast in like 20 minutes. So we have to, we got to like cut. I hear go to the bathroom. We got to make another tea.

Bear Prandelli01:04:05Oh yeah.

Bear Prandelli01:04:09Yeah.

Kyrill01:04:13Yeah.

Bear Prandelli01:04:14Yeah, well I'm gonna go make more coffee, because it's, what time is it by you guys? Is it 10.30 there? Okay, yeah, yeah.

Dario01:04:1910, 1040.

Kyrill01:04:21I haven't had any coffee yet. I basically like woke up maybe like 15 minutes before the episode. And then I'm like, all right. I had a late soccer game yesterday. So like when I have that, I'm really tired the next morning. So yeah, gotta do it.

Dario01:04:26Jesus Christ, that 915, what are you doing, man?

Bear Prandelli01:04:27Ah, dude.

Bear Prandelli01:04:34Blame it on the soccer.

Dario01:04:34Well that's… yeah. He's just trying to relate to you because you're Italian. We know you don't play soccer. Hehehe. Okay. Hehehe.

Bear Prandelli01:04:40It's alright, I get it. I get it.

Kyrill01:04:40Hahaha! Handshake? We'll talk again? Hahaha!

Bear Prandelli01:04:47We'll talk again.

Dario01:04:50Okay, let's just cut this recording and then so everyone bye, we'll see you on the next one. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe. There we go. Now it's an official ending.