Video Production Lessons for 2022

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Hosts0:00so welcome everybody to episode 34. it's the end of the year 2022 was a wild ride was inaugural I love that intro it's so like welcome guys it's been such a wild ride like oh my God so many stories dude can you believe like the last time we recorded an episode was back in March that we did one solo one started sprinkling them we started sprinkling them over like the course of like several months exactly well it it's because we got really busy with work this year right essentially we started doing the podcast when it was a little bit quieter uh or at least after we did this one major project in January we recorded probably what 15 20 episodes and then what's 33-14 19. 19 episodes then yeah so this is this is now technically this is now technically the 20th episode and it is the last episode of the year that we're recording right before the holiday break so happy holidays everyone and happy holidays to you Carol So today we're going to be talking about two different things firstly how 2022 went for us as a business and what we're planning to do in the new year you know up until now we've basically just been interviewing a lot of different production companies but we haven't really talked so much about us on the podcast first until the first episode that we really did remember or at least the first few we're planning on changing that going forward so we'll do more more solo episodes in 2023 . just so we could get a little bit better at this as well we're so good when we have other guests on but when we're on it's like it's been it's been a couple of months we're Rusty enough but we'll get into it we have like 52 episodes planned for 23. one a week if someone flops out on one of the given weeks we're gonna do a solo one then or if we just want to plan to do solo ones we'll plan to do solo ones either way because I think it's necessary I think it's good to have an equal balance of solo and guest episodes this way we can also talk about more specific topics because up until now with our podcast we've been interviewing companies hearing their stories which is great but I think what we need to also start doing is picking out different topics that are being shared on the podcast and kind of diving more into depth and kind of having a little bit of a discussion maybe even a debate here and there right um and there were a lot of different topics that we ended up covering with guests this year what was like one of your favorite uh uh things that we kind of learned from the show oh man I didn't prep for that oh he's just throwing that curveball on me I don't know we we talked about so many things I thought we were gonna focus more so on us now you want to go into what we learned this is this is the iceberg this is the Icebreaker test that me right off the bat I don't know let's see uh one that we've been putting a lot

Hosts3:02to use is uh improving your system processes so we we kind of just been fine-tuning the uh the the machine that is lapse Productions uh I think halfway through the year we just kind of looked at everything and started to say hey you know what what is like what is our what is a a our procedure for like say client intake for pre-production for production for posts like uh the sales what not we just kind of started looking into everything and fine-tuning it and just creating like a set of procedures to implement for each thing and obviously like it's developing as we go along um that I would say was the most important takeaway out of all the guests that we've had yeah essentially it was more so getting from uh from the sale to finishing the delivery finishing the video and delivering it to the client what did that look like and we essentially had to put it all in specific detail how we would do each step of the process and the next step was actually communicating that to our clients because I feel a lot of a lot of companies or at least when you're starting out not everyone walks a client through the entire process of how a video is typically created and I think one of the things that kind of helped us get started with that also was creating a lot of those blog series videos last year just to kind of get us to also Define it ourselves see what's a good way to explain it and then from that we were able to figure out how to properly communicate it to our a little bit a little bit that just really focused on very basic things I think what what really helped us was creating the checklist for ourselves

Hosts4:45yeah and for our clients especially so kind of explaining hey you know we're we're this is this is how we do things you know and this is a checklist and we want to make sure that you guys are all on board for for each step of the video process right so we're now moving into like you know even when you're closing off uh at the end of your sales funnel you could say like hey this is when you're in your summary I mean you could say hey this is like our our process for how we create our videos you know we just did the intro call we did like the The Briefing calls whatever we'll have in your process and now we're on the summary uh summary section like this is what we're doing this is what we're going to be doing with you guys and then once we move into that section it's going to be like this it's stuff like that that makes a big difference because once you until you define it kind of up in the air right you're kind of going you're kind of guessing you're going through the motion and then you're at the mercy of how your client works as well having a very clear system and approach for how you work and how you deliver the best quality work is actually much better for the client because that helps set expectations for them if you don't have a clear process how is a client supposed to explain when they're going to get a certain deliverable so say they need a video within three weeks what is our process typically like how can we accommodate that particular delivery than just saying yeah we'll get you a video by that time but when do you do the pre-production when do you shoot it when do you deliver the first draft the second draft and then the final draft or even with those things entail but but okay so that's one of them what did you what was your biggest takeaway

Hosts6:20the one biggest takeaway was that when you get into the process of creating a video uh it really showcase it really can highlight things that are missing within a business and that can help you really find good leads versus bad leads so when a climate guest episode that was from one of our guest episodes actually which one and I believe this one was with uh where was this I think this was a discussion with Judah from Black and White media where it was specifically that video can be the gateway to real problems in a business oh no okay yeah and what I liked about that is and I noticed this even with some leads that would come in and they would be asking us to create video projects for them and then you and I started asking very specific questions like what is the purpose of the video

Hosts7:08what are the key messages what do you want people to do when they see this video who is your target market if these simple questions aren't being answered by the lead then this is there's nothing you could really do for them at this point because they don't know what they want at this point yeah and you can actually use that to Showcase your uh not really superiority but your your your uh expertise in that situation we did that recently with a project where they came in and they wanted to do stuff ahead of time they're still waiting on stuff from their creative agency and I think after the second call I'm like guys I don't think I don't think you guys are ready for video I think it's way too early I don't think I should be brought on just yet and just because of that like they were super interested in like locking Us in for the project that I thought that was pretty interesting but it's also uh it also is is important to know like if you're if your lead doesn't know that information like you might have to you know stop wasting your time with them or just let them know it's like Hey listen I don't think you're ready yet come back when you are or but if you really want to do it go with someone else exactly and this is why you have to be

Hosts8:18very specific about your process where you need to know say for your business five particular questions need to be answered before you can even get into creating the video having that clear process helps make your life a lot easier and just makes it easier for your client ultimately at the end because if it's easier for you it's easier for them essentially they're coming too because they need an expert they shouldn't be managing it themselves that you should be the one managing the project at that point yeah there's a lot to unpack there because I mean you could turn that into like oh it's part of a red flag uh criteria that you should have you know like if they don't know these things then that's a red flag for you um or you could turn that into an opportunity as well to Showcase your expertise or I don't know yeah there's a set of like things that you should be on the lookout for maybe to ask them to help them come to an answer like for that lead for example they didn't really have like the objectives the metrics they were gonna check there were probably three other uh things on that list but that could be like a series of things that you now look out for whenever you're doing a project it's like okay what are your objectives how you're going to track this what's the purpose behind it and if you are essentially a yes company

Hosts9:28and said okay no problem we'll still help you make a video you're doing a disservice to them if you do that which a lot of companies are eager to do when they're starting out because obviously you're trying to find work as much as possible but if a if a client comes to you not knowing what they want and you just say yes to whatever request they do the end product won't do your client Justice and it will leave a bad experience in the end for everyone and that's not what you want you know the easiest way to understand that is to just think of yourself like a doctor yeah when you're a doctor and you have a patient come come to you patient says my back hurts you don't say okay sure here's some here's some Vicodin you have at it boss or if they ask you for Vicodin you know like and for my back pain it doesn't say sure here you go he says no let me check you out and if the guy says no you're wrong it's like oh there's the door you know that's why they have that saying that doctors make the worst patience and I've also I wonder if it's the same it's like would a video creator be the worst type of client technically probably not yeah probably not but um aside from that one of the biggest things that we also did this year was

Hosts10:38relaunch the podcast because when we first started cgc we started it in 2020 to just kind of get us out of that rut of not working for six months because of the pandemic and then we learned a lot by doing that and then in 2021 we basically just completely changed the business from from the ground up it really felt like we we turned into a business in 2021 yeah that's at least the foundation the foundation was set in 2021. it felt like okay now we're a business that's what I always think of 2021 as like year one for us even though we've been operating since like 2015 it feels like 2021 was like okay now it's a business exactly we don't tell clients that we kind of keep that on the down low yeah well hey we when you're starting uh something new you're not starting from square one you're starting from square one with the experience so you're never really starting from square one when you're revamping or relaunching something um a few other things that we did in 2022 the biggest goal I think we had was figuring out if we could get consistent work to come in because that is the biggest challenge for every Creator out there is knowing when you're not I don't think we figure I don't think we've figured it out I think I never said I never said we figured it out a hundred percent I said that was the goal of ours we're gonna figure out how to I don't

Hosts12:02think we figure out I think we just got lucky um but it was because of stuff we did in 2021 and that we kind of kept doing in 2022 which was focusing on and advertising right that's essentially what we did and we had a pretty consistent stream of uh what do we call them inbound inbound leads coming in inbound leads we haven't done any outbound to date I just I don't know how to I don't know how to do it I don't even know I don't know how effective it is like I think that to me is like I don't know well when you're doing outbound you're getting into the sales category where you're essentially calling hundreds of businesses trying to figure out if they're looking for a video or anything at this point right you don't tip to your previous Point doctors don't exactly knock on the doors of houses saying hey do you have a broken arm do you need a brain surgery or anything like that no they're at the hospital waiting for the people with problems to come to them and that is essentially what we're we're kind of we that's essentially what we've set ourselves up as as a business we solve problems with video so if a business is needing a specific problem they recognize that and in a way that qualifies them as leads already when they're coming to us because they already recognize that they have a business challenge when you're doing outbound you have to call a business ask them 10 questions to figure out what could potentially be that problem then you have to really convince them that that's the problem it's just a numbers game at that point who was it that does outbound uh V strategies I know by the booth has uh their sales guy James uh but I I don't know like for video like I guess those guys make those guys make it work but it has to be a numbers game at that point right like you need to have someone that's just dedicated to that 24 7. otherwise like you want people to focus on running the business and doing sales at the same time right I'm of the belief that it all depends on your business model and what works for you some businesses can Thrive really well on outbound leads because of the types of videos or content that they produce the kind of resources or team members that they have whereas other businesses it doesn't work for them necessarily right when it's sometimes smaller smaller teams it might be a little bit more difficult and again what works for one company does not work for any other company and that is one of the big things we learned doing this podcast is that you can pick any guest on our show if you try to replicate exactly everything that they did you will not get the same result because you as a business owner are different but you're not supposed to I know but but that's what's interesting because a lot of people think oh if I do exactly what that company did it'll work better it'll it'll work just the same for me not necessarily the case the only times that'll ever work in life is if you want to become a lawyer a doctor an engineer then you replicate what thousands or millions of them before you go to school study hard you know I wonder though if if it's a little different though because at the same time you're still competing with all those other lawyers especially for being a lawyer I would say you're basically operating almost as a business you're still going to be competing with everyone you're basically studying for years to end up at the exact same place as everyone else is starting it'll be square one as long as you're smart you'll figure it out in that situation or in any situation let's be honest um okay so what else did we do this year uh we did the SEO and advertising so we had the inbound stuff coming in um oh we started paying ourselves consistently that was new every month salary yeah it was nice yeah for eight

Hosts15:44years lapse was the was the baby that just kept sucking money out of us and never paying us anything but once you start treating it like a business it actually it actually is done probably you call those people like a squatter I just won't leave and won't pay lapse was the squatter we'd ever knew we had but that was nice uh it did it did like mentally it was reassuring and also it it kind of felt like okay um you're like a line item in a way so it has to be done no matter what that was nice damn Carol and Dario some major expenses for this business yeah an hour and now we're incorporating at the end of this month so we have to keep it consistently because now we got to do that we gotta issue t4s and everything and all that jazz which will be interesting um we also upgraded a ton of our gear that's that was new this year spent a good amount of change on that well I feel like everyone is always upgrading

Hosts16:41their gear but we did a lot this year the one different thing that we did was we were upgrading things that were actually necessary sometimes I feel a lot of businesses they or at least even Freelancers they upgrade their gear in things that they want or think that they need but don't actually need and we were kind of doing it as we went or trying to anticipate needs it's like hey we're doing more and more projects like these we need to have X Y and Z pieces of equipment to help us execute it let's get that you know getting a new cart getting new lighting equipment uh not necessarily upgrading cameras every year like a lot of businesses typically tend to do get what you need get started same with lenses things like that you know what a lot of businesses do like a lot of guests that come on they don't really own a lot of their stuff they'll just use Freelancers right which we're kind of Shifting towards doing now where um we started using bigger Crews on our projects we started hiring more Freelancers for key positions which I think is important to know because normally we would do a lot of the cinematography and if you had to step in as a gaff or grip you kind of did that too or a second cam up versus now like we're we're higher like we're focusing more so on the producing directing and trying to test out more cinematographers just so we know who's good for what type of project and whatnot so there's a big change so crew management has been a new thing um that's that's been a big shift compared to the past and instituting an etiquette and that has been a big thing

Hosts18:15that we learned this year is that you have to you have to Institute and etiquette onset that everyone can kind of follow because you're working with different Freelancers everyone works a little bit differently but you have to figure out what system you are operating on set or even just working as a team in general and you kind of figure that out when you're hiring people but it's important to also remind people at times because some people they work a certain way you don't know what's normal for them on other projects they've worked on they don't know what's normal for projects that you work on so you have to communicate that yeah even something is simple and we'll give some examples like you know we're in the corporate world so like just even having a policy of like listen you come on our set just we're all black like no graphics on your T-shirt something like that does go a long way because again you're in an office environment there's people there that are you know they were suit or dress every day like uh so they're not used to seeing people in casual clothes that often there so you want to give off like a pretty good impression uh yeah actually it's funny because we we're all black on set we all wear all black ever I've actually heard uniformal thing I've had I've heard a lot of people saying like oh everyone's wearing all black is that like your uniform so yeah it's the universal uniform of our industry at this point right yeah it's just so like if there's a reflection no one's popping up you know we're bright yellow yeah but uh that is a major one um dress dress code and uh the other thing would be uh you know phone policy like listen put it away put it away I feel like a teacher sometimes but it's like you tell them I had it like look if you're on set like unless it's a BTS picture yeah put it away please because people will look and they'll go why is that guy even here you know yeah and we're saying this because we did have one incident where that this did happen and it kind of like opened our eyes to this side of production because again we're used to killing me and maybe like a PA coming out helping us out yeah now we have bigger teams and everything so you know sometimes you bring on people that are used to dealing or working in like film or TV type of environments so like for example like they'll just you know for like a gaffer or grip they might set up the shot and then kind of go on their phone after it's set up but the thing is we're dealing in like corporate video production where you kind of need everyone to still be involved after they set up it's not it's not like you're making a movie where you do have to step outside

Hosts20:49just because you otherwise you would be interfering with the the chain of command because it's pretty hierarchical on those type of sets and environments but what we do it's different right like you still need to be involved like again we're dealing with types of shoes where sometimes it's very fast paced and running guns so like look if you said if you're a gaffer for example you set up the shot like stay there keep looking because you know uh if Carol or I our producer slash director we're focusing on a couple of variables at the same time dp's focusing on something else audio is focusing on something else PA is focusing on something else or they might not even know so like you kind of still have to be involved and like say hey you know what uh hold on guys I need to fix that light quickly something like that but anyways that's just something because sometimes you notice if you're if you're paying attention you also notice things that you wouldn't if you set it up and then leave right yeah uh even like if sometimes you're setting up for a shot it looks it looks great when you set it up but if you walked away then something changed where you didn't notice it you know then the whole thing kind of shifts at that point whereas if you're there keeping an eye out it's like oh something changed let me make this little adjustment or or whatever it might be it's it's I feel like it's almost like we're trying to explain this to like like a future crew member but I guess for the listeners out there it's more so keep an eye on your cruise let them know the on-site etiquette so again like have like a dress code policy that'll help you guys out less thinking once you have that it's like Hey listen everyone just wear all black or whatever whatever you want to decide even if it's casual it's like just basic nothing too bright and then I guess make sure you let them know Hey listen like no phones and please be involved the whole time because again I'm running doing 50 different things I need you to kind of focus on this obviously when you get into bigger projects you probably won't run into this because your your crew will become hierarchical again if you're dealing with project with like 50 people then like it's kind of like organizationally structured in a way where everyone has a specific role right but for projects like what we do most of us do where it's five to ten crew members Max everyone kind of needs to be involved the whole time yeah well every everyone is it's meant to be a cohesive unit and you're trying to make the shoot move efficiently right that's the whole point and this I feel like this is these are rules that can apply whether you're a small project or even a big project it it all depends but everything is also unique to your situation see what process etiquette and rules you wanna you want an Institute that will help move your projects forward what works for one company may not necessarily work for another one as we mentioned before but these are just some things that we've noticed at least for us on our shoots but you know that leads into Cruise again um you know we are kind of uh We've

Hosts23:37planted the seeds in our mind for bringing on like uh full-time employees or even part-time at the moment and man like when we actually sat down and did the numbers it's actually crazy how expensive that can get like I I don't know how other people are doing it like that scares the hell out of me because it's like okay for example if you want to bring on like we've been talking about editors for a while right so okay I actually spoke to one of our editors I was actually curious to to see how much something like that will cost and like a junior is going to cost you anywhere from 50 to 65 and then a senior close to 80 to 85 90 if you want if they're really good and you want to keep them happy right because cost of living in Canada let's face it is is uh pretty expensive but but editors they have the luxury of living anywhere at this point that's true that's true oh that's true yeah because one editor that uh We've uh reached out to lives uh where is it like like by Saint Catherine's even I I believe and I was thinking you could do even like us-based or like someone in Europe or whatnot well I Remember by the booth was telling us that they have animators all over the world doing projects for them and uh one interesting thing is like sometimes they would be finishing up a project uh in their hours and then they would go to sleep and then the other editors would be like picking up and continuing to work on the other side of the world in their North that's a good way to that's that's a really good way to do it but for us like you know we're thinking about bringing people on and just the cost is it's pretty high man like it's it's actually wild when you know Carol and I actually laugh because some you know sometimes we check out other people's websites and they'll have like 20 people on it and we know that that's not actually like how big their team is and it makes us laugh because it's like okay if you actually had that many people you'd have 2 million just in costs like I know I know it's like they're breaking it down the numbers just cause is like yeah you got like a million just in salary cause buddy you're not that big like it's just funny to see sometimes when we see something like that especially now that we are looking at like you know hiring someone but I think right now what we're thinking of is um maybe like having someone that's starting out as like a PA and hiring them as a part-time role and then having like mentoring them to grow into like a bigger bigger role that's kind of our goal right now but I would love to have uh like an uh an editor on board but again it depends on the projects the amount of projects we're getting like luckily it's been consistent but if we just uh keep if it's if it remains consistent remains consistent and it increases by like a couple more projects a month then I think it'll be easy it'd be easy essentially essentially the goal is to

Hosts26:18get our first hire in 2023. it's not a super ambitious goal but for any company that is fairly small and is looking to try to scale the point from I've heard like one one thing that I remember was mentioned on one of the podcast episodes is that going from one person to two people is in is very difficult going from two to three hard but easier but it gets a little bit easier as the team grows when you think about it right and so once we get that first higher then we can move on to the next then to the next and who knows sometimes uh the point of bringing on talent and other people onto your team is to bring in their skill sets their experience and their drive because you can't do everything yourself and that that's one of the things that you and I figured out this year is that we're we've been so used to doing everything just you and me for so many years that now even if we bring in someone to just even help move a bag it's like he's the Messiah oh another thing we did this year is we

Hosts27:20got ourselves a storage locker yeah that was that that's what we'll say oh my God you know what's funny is that we were basically storing gear half at mine half at his and then once we got the store soccer and put everything in there we looked at the final image of of all the gear set up and I was thinking to myself how on Earth were we storing all this in our places like I was trying to think I'm like how did we do it gradually we did buy a lot of things this year to kind of make it a little bit more unbearable I like that this George Locker has been amazing because like after a shoot we just go and we unpack it there and it's just so nice like there's something else it's just like away from home so you don't have to think about it when you get home all you have to do is just bring the camera bag inside and that's it but oh that was much needed we should have done that like a couple years ago man yeah well also with the pandemic we didn't really have money to burn just on storing gear everywhere right but anyway like amongst a lot of other things like

Hosts28:26that's most of what some of the major things that happened for the lapse team in 2022 and now I feel like this year we learned a lot and it's got us thinking about what we're going to be doing more so in 2023 and one of the things we already mentioned was getting our first hire continuing to uh improve our SEO and our inbound leads generation we've got to keep improving that keep working on it it's never something where it's like you're done you're ready to go yeah like our goal with that is basically we're just gonna keep doing what we did with it like I guess just focus like I mean SEO is pretty easy it's just very time consuming which sucks but it's very easy to do um so our plan for that is just keep pumping out like good blog posts uh we did a lot of the technical stuff I guess just put more money into advertising maybe improve our Google AdWords maybe improved like our Google AdWords uh and then I guess I wanna I want us to do a lot more content marketing like I mean like we have like we have the podcast which we we're kind of we're in the middle of just separating entirely from our our lapse branding it's kind of becoming its own thing uh for that like you know we're planning an episode a week which is pretty ambitious but I think it's doable and we already have like it's December 21st right now and we currently have one guest a week from the first week of January all the way to the third week of February and we're planning all of Canada this coming year like we're gonna get all the provinces connected uh and then none of it let's go I wonder if they have someone up there I'm sure there are I'm sure I didn't even think about that because I was going based on population sizes there's and I think it didn't even pop up there's probably like three cats up there yeah but those three cats are doing all the business you know they shoot for the other two people that live there exactly right uh so yeah we have we're planning uh do all the Canada at least just so we get that out so just so we can you know Canada first you know I gotta represent as they say uh and then we're gonna move on to the colonies and then maybe uh Europe and whoever else can speak uh English in other countries because I'll be cool hey guys listen we're at the end of the the

Hosts30:43episode right now we're again we're promising to keep these things short that's where we're also speaking a lot faster and we're cutting off each other just because otherwise we'll Ramble On and On I think this was pretty good this was pretty good uh so guys listen um we'll try to pump this out before the new year but kind of unlikely kind of unlikely I'm not gonna lie uh we might uh in which case uh Happy New Years and happy post uh uh Christmas or whatever you celebrate happy holidays uh if it's after the New Year well we all wish you a uh great start to 2023 um if you're listening to this and you haven't come on the show as a guest please do so if you have any questions you want us to ask future guests let us know directly or comment it down below or wherever uh we're pretty easy to get a hold of you just or if you have any questions the cgc logo into and the spotlight into the sky and we kind of just appear with our cameras with the microphone somebody called cgc man would look like it would not be pretty there's a reason he's behind the camera okay listen uh anything else you want to add before we tail end this I think that's a I think that's a good start let's let's just keep keep aiming to to do good work cool all right thank you guys we'll see you in the new year or or we'll we'll be in the new year with you all right take care