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Do Your Narrative Projects Attract Client Work?
309 Plays1 year ago
This must-listen episode welcomes Nate Barr to help you navigate the very difficult path of using your own original narrative content to attract client work. Nate knows what he’s talking about too, with over 20 years of experience in all aspects of content making from producing narrative films, to operating his own creative agency, to leading the client side of many marketing initiatives for brands. The insights and tips Nate generously shares are critical for any production company owner balancing the desire to make work for clients and for themselves.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Crossing the Axis' Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
You're listening to Crossing the Axis, the podcast that explores the commercial side of film production with your host, James Kevlis.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome listeners and thank you for tuning in again to the show. This episode is supposed to be another in a series of client side conversations where we hear directly from decision makers at brands and agencies about how production companies can bring the most value to
Meet Nate Barr: Brand Storytelling Expert
00:00:45
Speaker
the work. But the reality is for this conversation, I anticipate we're really going to be talking much more than that and covering all sides of advertising, commercial work, and just so much more.
00:00:57
Speaker
That's because we're joined by Nate Barr, an executive producer and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in all aspects of brand storytelling and content.
00:01:07
Speaker
Nate has owned and operated his own production company slash studio slash creative agencies. We'll unpack what that means here in a bit. He's been a business director at big player ad agencies. He's been on the client side of many marketing initiatives as a creative leader for major corporations.
00:01:28
Speaker
And on top of all that, he's even known for narrative film work as an executive producer with movies like Your Lucky Day and Just a Kid from Seattle and the wild alien love documentary, Love and Saucers. Highly recommend everyone go check that out. I think it's available everywhere. So this really will be an episode where we talk about the full spectrum of the film business. Without further ado, Nate Barr, welcome to the show.
00:01:58
Speaker
Thanks, James, and I love the intro music. Really got the juices flowing there, so. Yeah, cleanse the palate. It's the state of mind, right? Exactly, exactly. Thanks for having me.
00:02:10
Speaker
When I think about you and I do that intro, I think you have like the EGOT of advertising. I don't know if there's a name for that, but you seem like you've done so much in the advertising world. And I've been able to see you go through a lot of that journey and just have had so much respect for you and what you've done. And I want to unpack all the parts of it. But before I get into that,
00:02:36
Speaker
I have to ask, do people think that you look like, and we'll tell everybody to go to LinkedIn and check you out, you know, about the comedian, Nick Bargazzi. Has anybody ever said this to you? No, no one has said that to me. Do you know that comedian? No, I don't know. Nick, I'll tell you who's who. I'll give you a second guess. Do you have a second guess of who people think I look like? Because there is someone who have who they've people stopped me on the street to say I look like this person.
Collaboration and Commercialization in Seattle
00:03:04
Speaker
Goodness, you're putting me on the spot here. No, I'm not going to guess. That's okay. Okay. Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad. Oh, I do see that. Yes, that works. There's a bit of that going on. I'll take it. I'll take it. Sadly, there's a more successful Nathan Barr, who's a composer in Hollywood, a music composer for film and TV, and then already someone who looks like me, he's also more successful.
00:03:30
Speaker
That's okay, though. I'm happy with where I'm at. You're in good company with Nate Margotzi. He's a comedian. I saw his Netflix special probably only a few years ago. As soon as I saw him, I thought, that looks like Nate Barr. He has got one of the funniest bits. You have to check it out.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's a bit where he has the name Nathan on his Delta flying record, Nathaniel on his driver's license, and he goes by Nate and he tries to book a flight and senators get involved. It is highly recommend you check it out. It's the three Nates. You'll love it. Great. Great. I've got homework for after this. Yeah. Okay. So we're talking about business, right? Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, thanks for, you know,
00:04:10
Speaker
the kind words. Certainly, you're right, I've kind of touched all sides of this, some intentionally and some unintentionally. So I'm excited to dive in and hopefully shed some light on, tell some interesting stories and shed some light and help people with questions that they might have.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the first story that I wanted to get into is how you and I first met. And my recollection is that it was around 2013 or so. And I was doing the, I was the director for the cities of Seattle's office of film and music. And we were film commissioner essentially. And we decided that we were going to make a strong move toward commercial production. That was really my intro. We were doing all kinds of commercials and stuff like that before, but never really
00:05:01
Speaker
you know you run one of these offices and it's about you know bring movies and bring a episodic series to your town and they get all made and we were struggling and it was really difficult and losing a lot of projects but everybody loved commercial work and all of a sudden I realized that how many jobs and how much money was in commercial and how well we were doing in Seattle in commercial and so I just got
00:05:22
Speaker
gathered a bunch of people, including yourself, I believe, and said, Hey, what if we actually were intentional about growing the business from a commercial point of view rather than a narrative point of view. And you, you and many others said, Yeah, that's the ticket. That's what play into your strengths.
00:05:38
Speaker
And we invented the commercialized Seattle campaign, which was monumentally successful. I mean, we scored a bunch of big productions, spent all the instead of money, which meant we brought in a lot of jobs and money. And New York Times wrote about it on the. Oh, wow. Yeah, there was a front page of the business section. It was creativity online. I mean, it was. But the reason I say it was so successful is because you helped inform that. It was just like you were there. You were just so
00:06:05
Speaker
honest and direct about what we needed to do and it gave great clarity. And that's how I think of you. I think of you as one of these people who just got real clear intention and just goes after it. I admire your adventurous spirit and your risk taking. And is that where you
Nate Barr's Career Journey
00:06:22
Speaker
remember us meeting? Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, I know that we've both been around the industry here in town for a long time. And I remember that. I remember that round table. And I remember, yeah, the tough kind of
00:06:35
Speaker
The city has been trying to get the film incentive raised with the legislature here. It was a really interesting conversation. At the time I think I was running Oh Hello and doing a lot of lottery work.
00:06:59
Speaker
How would you describe Oh Hello? Because at the time it was, you know, when you did Oh Hello and Superfad, it was, I almost didn't know what it was. Was it a production company? Was it a studio? Was it a creative agency? Was it an ad agency? What, how do you describe it? Yeah. So Oh Hello was a, um, I would describe it as a small, uh,
00:07:19
Speaker
creative studio. Oh, hello was born of myself, Dan Brown, who's another director here from kind of, they grew up in the Seattle film space and Ty Tran.
00:07:30
Speaker
And the three of us all worked at Digital Kitchen together. That's right. You're a Digital Kitchen person. Yeah. I mean, DK is where it all started. In so many ways. Yeah. I mean, DK was really transformational in my life and in my career, being there at a time when literally After Effects was in beta. Desktop animation was
00:07:56
Speaker
only barely a thing. People were still doing animation in like Henry's, which most people will not remember, but essentially like flames and smokes and huge server-based real-time graphics platforms.
00:08:11
Speaker
And there just wasn't that creativity and motion graphics. And I mean, obviously, in the last 20 years, it's evolved multiple times over. But being there at DK, at the infancy of desktop animation, I mean, it was incredible. Just the people who were there, I mean, Palma Theis was really just...
00:08:33
Speaker
visionary leader. He was a legend. As a business opportunity, he had an ad agency, a small ad agency actually, before he pivoted his business more toward, he saw this opportunity for motion graphics and design. And there was that moment where there's an opportunity to really be one of the first to market doing that kind of work.
00:08:57
Speaker
But the people that were there, Andre Stringer, Vince Haycock, Danny Yount, I'm sure I'm forgetting, Rama Allen, these guys are now
00:09:12
Speaker
huge in the main title industry and ECDs at the mill and just industry titans and leaders. I started there, believe it or not, when I was 19 years old. I was very young and I fell into this. What role did you fall into?
00:09:34
Speaker
I came on as a production assistant and I was going to community college and was a little bit lost. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I didn't really want to be in school. I went for about a year and a half and then was like, this isn't the thing for me right now.
00:09:56
Speaker
I'll get this good good story here is I was actually working at Best Buy retail and Rob Sanborn who you probably know also long long time Industry vet here executive producer. He came in and I sold him a camcorder and a TV and a whole bunch of stuff and
00:10:19
Speaker
And we just immediately clicked and I got to give him the credit for it. He was like, you shouldn't be here and we're hiring a PA at Digital Kitchen. You should come in and interview for the job. And two weeks later I was there. And so, yeah, I mean, life is funny that way. It does give you
00:10:48
Speaker
give you these opportunities and you have to jump in with both feet and just go for it. I had forgotten that you were a digital kitchen alum, but it makes total sense now that you would come from that. It fits with the character that I know you'd be. One of these days, someone's going to do a family tree of digital kitchen and all of the people that have risen from it. I can't wait to see that. All the studios that have started from that and all of the fantastic work.
Founding Curator Pictures and Industry Changes
00:11:16
Speaker
The thing about Digital Kitchen is that there was a culture, a fabric of the company that was just
00:11:29
Speaker
so singularly focused on the quality of narrative and creative storytelling and the craft and not cutting any corners and not going, you know, the bar was so high for all of the work that was being done. And I mean, I can't stress how important that
00:11:52
Speaker
that culture is and how transformational that's been for me for that to be really kind of settle in at the core of who I am and how I approach work as well. And that really has affected me for my entire career. So I do owe it all to my time of decay to getting me kind of down the right path and setting the foundation.
00:12:18
Speaker
And then like, like most people when they're working for something like, uh, an agency like digital kitchen and they think, Oh, I could do this myself and better. Why am I doing it for them when I should be doing it? Is that what happened with you? Well, so what happened, you know, I w I went to super fad for about four years after, after DK and, um, and was, was a producer there and continued to, to.
00:12:42
Speaker
you know just get better at my craft and again work with Will Hyde and another team of incredible creatives and after a few years there I started to you know being in my early 20s and early in my career just three or four years is a long time to be anywhere and so I started to kind of get the itch to
00:13:05
Speaker
Okay, well, what else is out there? How can I continue to challenge myself? But that was the thing, in Seattle, there was nothing. I think Seattle is probably a pretty typical regional market in that there are some clients here, there are some big
00:13:22
Speaker
There are some clients that have budgets and clients that you aspire to have their work on your reel and all that, but it's the typical story. When they have money, they're going to go out of town and the small projects will stay in town.
00:13:42
Speaker
Needless to say, there weren't a lot of studios doing national level aspirational creative work. I'd been at both of them. I'd been at DK and I'd been at Superbad.
Leading Content at Amazon Halo
00:13:53
Speaker
I was like, well, where do I go from here? Right around that time, Dan and Ty were two young, really talented designers and designer animators. They'd left DK as well and they had started
00:14:12
Speaker
putting together a reel and freelancing, doing some work with T-Mobile. They reached out to me and they said, hey, what do you think about
00:14:24
Speaker
you know, joining up with us and let's start something. Yeah, exactly what you said, right? Like, we can do this. We can cut out the overhead. We can make all the money ourselves. And I was like, yeah, hey, let's see. Well, I mean, the advantage is I think I was 24, you know, incredibly young and naive. But also, I mean, it's a great time to go for it, right? Like, I think I was newly married, but no kids and very little, you know, low risk. If it didn't work out, it didn't work out.
00:14:53
Speaker
regardless it would be a learning opportunity and and so yeah so i i dantai and i jumped in and yeah started started oh hello yeah and then okay now where did you go after that after oh hello so so um we we ran oh hello for about um five years
00:15:12
Speaker
And so at that point, between DK, Superbad, and Oh, Hello, in the work, we talk about how did we define Oh, Hello? Oh, Hello was really, being that we were all DK alumni and also had worked at Superbad, we'd always modeled after those type of studios. Studios that were, I think, design-driven production was probably a common descriptor at that time. I don't know if that's still used or not, but essentially,
00:15:39
Speaker
design first animation first you know really poppy yeah poppy and in the the.
00:15:47
Speaker
this core skill set is more based in design and post production. And any filming or live action would be an element that would be captured to be incorporated into post. And so we kind of modeled it in a similar way. Dan was a really passionate, aspiring director. So we definitely, top of our list was shooting things. And Ty was an incredible, and Dan as well, both were incredible After Effects animators and Cell animators.
00:16:16
Speaker
And so we had a lot of really great animation work on our reel as well. So we had a really eclectic style that was, I think, pretty unique. I mean, very unique. I remember. I thought it really turned heads. I mean, it really did. It was kind of like, wow. And I love that you said national level work. When you saw it, it felt like national level work. It didn't feel regional. It felt like it was from any other big market.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that that's why it worked really well for the time that it did, is that all three of us were very ambitious, all three of us had a very high bar for anything that we wanted to, any projects that we took on, we definitely had a very high bar for that. So, yeah, it was a lot of post-production, but toward the
00:17:05
Speaker
You know, five years is not a long time, but unfortunately, you know, a lot of creative businesses and partnerships in particular, you know, people have different ambitions and split up. So, well, five years felt like a long time when we were in it. I know it's not long in the grand scheme of things.
00:17:21
Speaker
We definitely had an evolution of starting more in cell animation and more on the animation side. And then I think probably around the time when we met, we were deep into shooting a lot more live action work and incorporating that into our creative process.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah. Right. And then that's when you started going to the bigger houses, right? After that? Yeah. Well, after that, so that was about, you know, 10 years between Oh, hello, DK and super fad. That was about 10 years that it's been in post-production. And, um, after, after being more involved with live action work, I, you know, I.
00:17:59
Speaker
I'd done a lot in post, and so I was really itching for, okay, well, what does my evolution look like? And if I'm going to get into a new studio or if I'm going to do something else, what does that look like? And so I jumped over and
00:18:18
Speaker
was a partner at, at the time it was called Academy, and then they transitioned in under the name Society. And they were also a small, you know, just a couple, David Holm and Harry Kalbom, two guys, also very high, creative bar and very,
00:18:37
Speaker
aspired to great things and had that same goal of doing national level work here in town. And they were, when I came in, they were wanting to build a more traditional production company model, you know, rep a roster of directors, but be the young, hungry, scrappy, go out and shoot on 5Ds, you know, doc style work. Like that was kind of at that time when there was doc style work was exploding and you could shoot for
00:19:04
Speaker
nothing and be able to make, again, this is everybody, these are businesses, right? So it's like everybody wants to find, okay, how do we maximize our revenue and our profit margins on these projects that still do work that we're really creatively proud of?
00:19:25
Speaker
Were you doing creative development during that time too? Were you writing story scripts and pitching that part of it?
Balancing Narrative and Commercial Projects
00:19:34
Speaker
A little bit, but not so much. There was actually an incredibly talented illustrator and animator named Colin Hesterly, who was there at Academy with us at the time. And we pitched an animated children's show to Nickelodeon.
00:19:56
Speaker
I believe we were developing some short, kind of short film concepts and stuff, but nothing, you know, no original content that we were like.
00:20:07
Speaker
selling as a, you know, pitching down in Hollywood as, you know, as a feature or episodic or anything like that. You know, we did have close ties with Lynn Shelton. She was, yeah, rest in peace, Lynn. She was definitely kind of part of the society family. She was wrapped on the roster.
00:20:31
Speaker
Uh, I, Megan Griffiths as well. We worked with working. And so we did have, we did have some connections to the, the indie world, uh, as, as we were kind of launching that, that business model, but that was, um, yeah. And that, so that I imagine that was a little bit of your. Entrance into the narrative stuff that you, I mean, you became an executive producer somewhere around that time. I mean, it was, yep, exactly. I mean, and Lynn and everyone.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, so there was a short stint at Academy. I was only there for about a year with those guys. I learned a lot in that year around that business model and repping directors.
00:21:18
Speaker
But I realized I wanted to go out and do it on my own, which is how then I launched Curator Pictures in 2014. And that was the third production company that I had ownership in or that I helped found. And that was also a roster of directors.
00:21:47
Speaker
in more of the traditional production company model as far as going after live action work.
00:21:56
Speaker
I want to make sure we come back to the topic of narrative versus commercial and how they live together in a business because I have some feelings about that and what I've seen work and what not work. But I want to come back to, I want to hear also where else you've gone because you've worked in the big agencies and big brands now too, right? You've had all of that?
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, so after Curator, being a small business owner in a creative industry is tough.
00:22:34
Speaker
it lived through quite a bit of change from the advent of red cameras. That was obviously in the early 2000s, but that spurred a huge change. Their continued technology continued to lower the barrier to injury for everyone as a director. Everybody's got stuff up on their Vimeo page, and a lot of it looks incredible. What that did was
00:22:59
Speaker
You know, from the positive aspect was that it really democratized creativity and brought a lot of voices to the creative realm that might not have been there before. But what the negative
00:23:16
Speaker
is that it drove pricing it was a race to the bottom and that race to the bottom continues to this day i mean there is just there is there's so much competition out there and it's so hard to differentiate yourself and.
00:23:34
Speaker
Unless you can establish strategic value to your clients, you become a commodity and that's a tough
00:23:50
Speaker
That's where I started to find myself and I didn't have the finances or the energy to kind of, or the vision, to be honest, to kind of navigate my way out of that and see a future where the business would really be profitable. So yeah, your question was around big business. That's when I started to transition into the big agency world.
00:24:18
Speaker
I did that for a couple years before then jumping over to Amazon for the last few years. Yeah. Well, I want to, what you talked about just now about the strategic value. That's kind of like my critical mission for this entire show is how production companies can get better at figuring out how to do that. Because unless you do that, you are subject to the commodification of this whole thing. But if you can figure it out, at least
00:24:47
Speaker
to some degree, figure it out, you can start to build your way out of that. And I wonder if I'm so curious to, you know, to go from, you know, this career legacy of kind of going through the ropes and the
00:25:01
Speaker
Struggles and the you know, the glory and all that to realizing what's happening to you and then being on the other side and seeing how the value that you currently did that open your eyes and all that kind of stuff like when you went over to Amazon for the past couple years and yeah, did did you How did that influence your your former self? Like what would you have told yourself differently and what would you say to somebody now? I mean, I would say, you know, you can't
00:25:31
Speaker
you know, you can't force, you can't, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen, I guess. And I think that going back to like that, that the importance on great, a great narrative and great creative, like, you know, what was instilled in me all the way back at the beginning, that has been the through line throughout my entire career, is always going after, always doing the best work possible, never settling for,
00:26:00
Speaker
For me, that's always been really important is to never settle for the easy
00:26:08
Speaker
corporate work, you know, and and that's in and I know that that sounds that's not might sound callous or Insensitive because there are a lot of shops that just do Microsoft work that just do you know, like 75% maybe or more of their book of business is I have paid many of my bills doing yeah No, and there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's definitely and I have as well. I have as well I mean, that's that's I
00:26:32
Speaker
There's work that you do that you don't put on your reel that pays the bills, and then there's work that hopefully you are lucky enough to get that you can really flex your creative muscle and use that to then sell forward and get more clients with.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I can't. I don't know. I got lost there. Well, I guess I was asking about the idea of strategic value, right? Like the idea that how in some ways it's about honesty and asking questions that get to the heart of the business case and feeling comfortable enough to talk to clients about that.
00:27:20
Speaker
and knowing how to do it and getting clients to, this is my, I'm projecting now how I approach it, but tell me if I'm right or wrong or if you see it differently, the, you know, that you get, you get, you got to disarm them, you got to disarm a client and get them to reveal things that isn't in, you know, the,
00:27:42
Speaker
RFI or whatever, you know, they get them to reveal things. And and then you can start to find the that that strategic value that I think you were talking about. And did you see that when you were on the other side? Did anyone do that well? Or did no one do it? And you're like, wow, they really are missing the boat here. Yeah, you're not hiring all these people, right? You were. I mean, you were tell me more in Amazon specifically. That's what you were.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, so at Amazon, I came on to lead first party content. I'll give you the name and then I'll explain a little bit more. First party content for Amazon Halo. And Amazon Halo was a health and wellness device, like a Fitbit kind of activity tracker that you'd wear on your wrist. But then it came with a companion app where you'd look at your activity score, your sleep score, and it also had some really incredible computer vision features in it as well. So, you know, you could
00:28:39
Speaker
We were Working toward features like imagine it tracking you while you're working out and giving you feedback and that type of thing So there was there were some really cool things There's a verge article that kind of outlines a lot of what was coming so you can you can you can read there if you want to get the full the full background but When I came on this was you know, Halo was They had just
00:29:09
Speaker
basically gotten the insight from customers that they really wanted content. We had a business development team that was going out and licensing third party content from brands like, you know, Orange Theory, you know, workout content and also written content as well. Like, you know, think about Noom and articles in Noom that kind of help you build habits. Halo has had a lot of that psychological kind of foundation as well about habit formation. And so when I came on,
00:29:36
Speaker
There was no studio. We were looking to define what the look and feel of Halo's first party fitness content would be.
00:29:48
Speaker
really quickly within 45 days, we were, you know, when I first came on, actually, I thought we were going to be filming one quarterly shoot and capture, I don't know, 50 workouts or something like that. And then I came on and there was, you know, surprise, extra budget that, and they said, well, let's just, you know, we're going to have to build a catalog, catalog of content anyways. So let's get going. Let's, let's build out a studio. So, uh, if you've been down to Pacific grip and lighting, which I'm sure you have,
00:30:13
Speaker
We took over the entire facility there. We worked with a fantastic production partner in IMI and Paul Filinson there and quickly ramped up a crew and kind of concepted a set design, built that out, cast trainers, and our very first, I mean, we're racing toward, I mean,
00:30:38
Speaker
literally, you know, 45 days to do all of this. And our very first shoot day was with Russell Wilson. And so like, you know, we couldn't, we had very little margin for error on that. And, but then that, you know, once we started filming, it was we were on five days a week, we were filming content, and we filmed over 2000 workouts in a year and a half as well as
00:31:01
Speaker
tens of thousands of these kind of modular assets that would be used in a in a more kind of computer vision forward you know more tech driven format so really cool and and also developed an original sleep
00:31:16
Speaker
Sleep content like sleep stories long long format audio content to help people fall asleep and social content And so we we built up it went from went from about I think 12 crew You know on the on 45 days in and and sadly when when halo shut down a month or so ago I mean we had probably close to 50 people down at the studio. We had both stages We had yeah, it was a it was a pretty pretty well-oiled machine just yeah
00:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, I remember seeing it around town. And I even got to be in on some of the customer-focused stuff with advertising for a bit, too. That was really fun. I was really bummed to see the whole thing shut down. I thought it was going in a very interesting direction.
00:31:59
Speaker
It definitely was. Obviously Amazon and other tech companies, they make a lot of bets. Not all bets are going to pay off and all bets have a runway, financial runway and timeline runway. And I think that that's unfortunately when
00:32:22
Speaker
We were still trying to find the right market fit with it. There were a few different iterations that we tried. And with the current economic climate, we just ran out of runway. And that's nothing that anyone did wrong. I mean, the content was fantastic. There is obviously a lot of really...
00:32:43
Speaker
talented and genius engineering work going on behind the scenes. But to get back to your question around my role there in hiring, it was a little
Breaking Into Big Clients
00:32:55
Speaker
bit unique because it wasn't a marketing team. That's one of the things that drew me to that role. We were part of product. That's part of the monthly membership. You're paying a monthly membership for the app.
00:33:07
Speaker
For this content and so getting to work with product managers and engineering and and then also working side by side with the UX and UI teams and brand design and acting as a creative service for Marketing and GTM. I mean we were we really kind of were doing it all. It was a pretty unique
00:33:27
Speaker
unique situation within Amazon that we had. Our main production partner was IMI that helped us with a lot of that production service work. How did you end up with them, by the way? Just curious. Yeah. There was a test that was filmed before I came on when they did a
00:33:50
Speaker
Like I mentioned, the business development team was out licensing things, and our ECD Sean Olenkamp at Halo, he shot a small test, I think maybe a week-long test just to kind of throw some money at it and say, okay, well, what does this, what our content look like, and how low can we get the cost per asset, and is this really feasible for us to be doing this on our own? And IMI was involved in producing that test.
00:34:17
Speaker
And how they got in on that was a relationship, I think, with Molly Woodruff, who is the producer on the marketing side at Halo at that time. But then because of that relationship and it going well on the test, we continued forward with them to continue building the production operation. And they were a fantastic partner the entire time.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah. So you don't have to answer this question, but as you're thinking about what's next for you, are you going to, are you really into the content piece product kind of thing or you want to stay with big companies? Do you want to, you're going to make movies and what are you going to do? Do you know? Yeah. You know, what's funny is, is that I, I actually have never aspired to, to make, make movies or feature or feature length. That's no, that was never actually what got me into this. I, I loved, you know, I've, I've always been,
00:35:19
Speaker
someone who is very curious and I love learning and I love kind of building things. So I love the build. That's my favorite part of all of these businesses and companies where I've worked is the build. I actually get kind of bored after the build, to be honest. Because the build is where all the hard work and you're just going full speed ahead and it's like late nights and you're just like, okay. And that's where the magic happens. And then it kind of comes to fruition and
00:35:40
Speaker
I love building teams.
00:35:48
Speaker
Um, you see it start paying off and then, and then when then it starts going and you're like, okay, well now I'm bored. I need to do something else. Um, yeah, we're both goal oriented people in that way, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but so, so what I've always, um, you know, whether it's been.
00:36:05
Speaker
design and animation, or repping live action directors in commercial work, or being on the agency side at Sid Lee, or Hornell Anderson, which became Sid Lee in doing built environment work, branded spaces for clients, or at Halo on the product side. I mean, I'm fortunate to have a really big breadth of experience.
00:36:31
Speaker
But it's also a challenge because, yeah, what do I do? Where do I go from here? What do I do? And I think that I, in an ideal world, you know, this wasn't the time, you know, this wasn't my choice for timing to be kind of in limbo at the moment. But I really enjoy leading creative teams, whether and so I'm looking, you know, kind of looking in both at big brands or, you know, so much of my career, my success and fulfillment has come from doing small things on my own in partnership. So I'm also,
00:36:59
Speaker
I'm kind of keeping, you know, I've got a little bit of a runway, um, financially on my side. So, um, I, I would love to, to extend that as long as possible. And I'm hoping the kids and a family and that's always, uh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm biding my time as much as I can afford to and hoping that the universe, uh, drops, drops a few options for me to, uh, uh, select from.
Fostering Creativity in Production Companies
00:37:26
Speaker
and trying to manifest some of those as well through just a lot of conversations with people and reconnecting with folks that I haven't had time to talk to in the past. Yeah. Well, I want to take this opportunity to talk about narrative and commercial together then because to put my cards on the table,
00:37:48
Speaker
I know so many fantastically creative, smart, entrepreneurial people that have tried to make movies and not had success. I know some that have, but many that deserve it and just didn't get it because it's so hard. Then there's always the dream. I've been on so many of these
00:38:13
Speaker
in these companies where there's this romance around if you're a production company, you make commercials, you do industrials, whatever, you're an advertising agency, but there's always this thing lingering that they want to make movies and they want to be part of a real art or something like that.
00:38:30
Speaker
And there's always a dream that these worlds can live together in the same company. And I have shared that dream as well. But in my years, I've come to the other side of it where I actually don't think they work well together.
00:38:45
Speaker
I think that they actually fight each other. They take different parts of your brain and energy to make happen. I think that film
00:39:00
Speaker
The long shot for films to be successful is so extraordinary that it's not a good business move. It takes a lot of effort to get investors to invest in it for a non-business purpose, you know, return, if you're being honest about it. And the other bigger part of it, though, that I believe is a conflict with running a commercial oriented. And by the way, I say, you know, this is the commercial side of film production.
00:39:27
Speaker
as the name of the of the show and the mission of the show. And that's by design, because I get people coming up to me all the time. Hey, help me make my movie, introduce me to rich people or whatever like that. And I just kind of I don't know how to do that. I can't help you. And so I want to make it real clear, like we're only talking about the commercial side. We're not going to be talking about it unless we have these kind of conversations where can they live together? Because the biggest issue I see is if you're running a client oriented business,
00:39:57
Speaker
The hero in your work is the client. It should be the client. You have to come to terms with that. And when you run a company that is building its own narrative side and it has scripts and is doing its own projects,
00:40:14
Speaker
I think you exercise a muscle that makes you the hero, that makes you the center of attention and not the client. And I think it's unconscious. Sometimes you may be conscious. I think it's subtle, but I think it's limiting to your client-based work. I think it's a distraction from that. So I don't know. Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with it? Do you want to? I mean, you could point to examples. Caviar. There's all kinds of people that
00:40:44
Speaker
have done it, but they're the exception, not the rule. Yeah, I actually do agree with that. I think that I would add to that that most great directors are, not for this to be taken the wrong way, but they're very selfish and focused on their vision. And that's what makes them great directors, right? They have a very clear vision in their head.
00:41:13
Speaker
And they're very, very unwilling to sacrifice that. And that is the opposite of creative service work. You know, as soon as you, I mean, that's a lesson I learned early on. It's like, at DK, so many, we had some, the true artists, right? I mean, the work was art. But as soon as you start getting paid for it,
00:41:37
Speaker
It is no longer art. It's just work and you have to be okay with that. So I think that, yeah, I think it is a distraction. I don't think that you can really do both well because you have to be, yes, you have to be customer obsessed. That's my Amazonian term that I'll throw in there. Customer obsession is big at Amazon.
00:42:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I think to build a creative service company or design studio or a production company, you have to be obsessed about the customers. And that comes through in your relationship with them and how you provide service to them. That comes through in the work and really listening to, listening intently to the brief and understanding what needs to be
00:42:28
Speaker
what they're looking to achieve and bringing the best work to the table. So you have to be obsessed with the client and it's not about you. And so yeah, I do wholeheartedly agree with that. And yeah, you bring up Caviar and I know Pulse Films. There are some companies that have flown in the face of that. And I think that
00:42:50
Speaker
I think that it is rare. I think that it comes probably with deep, deep pockets where the business side is secondary, to be honest. It's the music videos and the films. That's really what they're going after and the money is not even a thing. They build an incredible reel based off these
00:43:11
Speaker
you know visionary directors and then at some point years later the money starts to come and they say okay sure yeah i'll do i'll do tv commercial um but it's not it's it's not the money is not a thing so i think that that's probably how those companies can do it and i none of the conversations i've had i've never had a conversation where someone has said a client for instance has said
00:43:34
Speaker
I hired you because of the narrative work you've done. Unless it's some exceptional director, huge name. But outside of that, just based on the narrative work, that doesn't get clients. And so oftentimes, you're like, well, we're doing narrative work because it's going to draw client attention because of this narrative.
00:43:56
Speaker
whatever creative writing chops that you have or some other kind of skill and specialization you're bringing to your story that will work for the client side and it doesn't. Clients have never said, that's why I hired you ever. Well, I think you also have to understand how the business model works. Sadly, as a production company for commercial work,
00:44:20
Speaker
You're at the end of the line. It starts with a strategy. It starts with a campaign strategy. And then from that strategy, it generates creative concepts and commercials or whatever those elements that need to be created. And then writers and art directors and creative directors, creative teams build those out, whether that's on the client side or whether that's at the agency side.
00:44:46
Speaker
And then once they have those kind of sold through and worked through the entire pipeline, you know, that that process takes months and months and sometimes things are scrapped and redone. I mean, that's that's where that strategic work. That's where all of those decisions are made. And then and then they're looking for they're looking for a director. They're looking for a production company who can take their idea and say, this is this is a fantastic idea. You know, you spend months doing this. We love this.
00:45:11
Speaker
and here's how I can spin this and add my unique twist to it, or here's what I will bring to my special sauce that I will add to it. But they're not looking at, they're not typically looking at your work for the narrative. They're looking at it for your cinematography, kind of your eye, how you, your shot selection, editorial pacing, all of those things that,
00:45:40
Speaker
make something feel unique in a commercial respect.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. Just, just how do you make, you know, there's, there's millions and millions of commercials out there. How do you make your work stand out and be unique? What is that? You know, what is that crap? Like, what are you bringing to your, your craft there? And that's really how, how you stand out as a, as a commercial director is taking, taking, um, uh, a story that's been written so many times and sold for so many products and then, but, but putting a spin on it that is uniquely you. So, and there's lots of ways to do that.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, the solve that I take on this because I never want to destroy anyone's creative dreams of making features or any kind of narrative film documentary, whatever it is that might be outside of the regular client based work. The solve that I've kind of arrived at is you should as a company owner
00:46:32
Speaker
Create opportunities
Balancing Creative Ambitions with Business Needs
00:46:34
Speaker
for your team or for you even to go off and make those things And maybe even keep a spot for you in the company like you you are guaranteed We will come back and maybe even supply some level of base salary for them to just have something to go forward But you're you're creating space for them to go out make their thing or you go out and make your thing you do it separate from the company and
00:46:59
Speaker
And then you come back to the company and go like that. That's the way I can see it working, but then having it in one house, I think is just too dangerous. Well, I know, you know, so two, two stories on, on that one is, uh, as you know, world famous had, I remember they had, uh, monthly assignments, right? Like there's that kind of an idea, right? Like everybody has to do something creative and it's not a feature, you know, but it's an opportunity to, um, to force some creative thinking and, and, uh,
00:47:27
Speaker
And yeah, maybe that's not going to directly lead to winning a client or work, or maybe it will. Maybe the client thinks that that's just a really creative way of thinking about things. It's just a fun thing. And they like that from a company culture standpoint, they want to work with you because of that. So I think that's one thing that comes to mind. The other thing that directly is when I started Curator,
00:47:57
Speaker
I mean, my directors were not on staff, you know, they were they were freelance and I was out hunting hunting work for them. But I gave all five of them $10,000 each at the beginning. I mean, I put $50,000 of my money when I started curator, I said, Come back to me with short form, short film ideas. I want I want to I want to
00:48:17
Speaker
Create you know as we build this real and as we're starting to build commercial work I also want us to have passion projects out on the website as well that showcase, you know our storytelling ability and One of those became love and saucers Which is that which is the feature that you talked about it started it started as you know Brad finding finding this character through a
00:48:43
Speaker
weird podcasts that he was listening to and then going out and we were going to shoot a short film with him. And then Brad called me after going out and filming and said, you know what? Honestly, I feel like we could probably shoot a feature. I said, great. I own a C300.
00:49:00
Speaker
It's really just like kind of travel time. Brad was invested in doing it. And so we shot it on like basically no money at all, but managed to then get it sold through or pushed through for distribution. And yes, we did not make very much money on it at all, as you might expect, but it was still an achievement and something really, really cool to work on.
00:49:25
Speaker
So when you were doing that, were you, I don't know this, was curator also after client-based work?
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, we were working with agencies. We were a direct-to-client. We're doing, yeah, kind of doing it all. So let me ask you this, then. If you're inviting this opportunity to make this narrative kind of non-client work, and then you find this great subject and you go to film it, even though it didn't cost a lot of money, the time and energy and focus it demanded, was that
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah. Was that a payoff? Was that a net gain for that same time and energy and focus could have been spent on business development or a client? Is there a loss or net gain from that experience for you?
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely an opportunity cost to doing it, right? Even if it's not hard dollars necessarily, or even if it's very low budget. We did our best to work it in around when we had downtime. And so my role as executive producer, I was doing all of our business development and going out and hunting work.
00:50:37
Speaker
So I didn't actually go on the shoots. The director and the staff producer, a curator, they went and captured the content. So it wasn't taking away. It was basically when there was downtime, they would go do it kind of in transition while I was hunting the next thing. So we managed to kind of work it into the rhythm of the business and in a way that didn't detract from regular operations.
00:51:03
Speaker
Well, that's great that you did that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and, but we also, you know, I think it's, if you want to do that, you also have to, um, it's so easy to let those types of personal projects or, um, passion projects kind of fall by the wayside, you know, it's the same thing, like, you know, updating your website or, uh, or cutting a new reel or, you know, like you have to treat those like regular projects or else they will never get done. Right. And so I think that it's, it's really important. Um, you know, it was really important for us to, to work on those, those.
00:51:33
Speaker
you know, those independent films and dedicate, you know, make them real projects and dedicate time to producing them. So you're saying net gain.
00:51:42
Speaker
I would say financially, very small net gain, experience and company culture. And honestly, yeah, clients love the idea too. The clients loved that we were investing in creative, even if it didn't directly speak to the projects that we were pitching on with them. The fact that we said, hey, we're out shooting these films or we're funding passion projects about some crazy guy who,
00:52:11
Speaker
gets visited by aliens like that's an interesting thing to talk about right and they and and so so there yeah I would say that I would say that game yeah and you're saying it was a sales benefit that there was yeah there was some there was some sales benefit I mean I think that anytime you can you can you can promote what you know
00:52:37
Speaker
what inspires you and what kind of pushes you creatively and be authentic, I guess, would maybe be a good way to reveal your authentic self to your clients.
00:53:00
Speaker
It's a relationship business when it comes down to it. I think that authenticity and your clients seeing that and saying, hey, wow, Curator and Nate, they're not just out here trying to make five bucks off
Client Relationships and Communication
00:53:15
Speaker
of us. They're actually in this. They're honing their craft. They're doing some really cool, interesting work on their own, and we like that. I think that's the same
00:53:26
Speaker
Same reason I think that, like I said, with the World Famous, the assignments, right? It gives you a little bit of a window into the culture of the company. And yeah, there is a sales benefit to that. It's so fun that you brought up the assignments at World Famous for the listeners. World Famous was a production company in Seattle. They're now an ad agency. And so they made that switch. In fact, that story is told in this podcast. I think it's episode 20 or 19 with Alan Nay.
00:53:53
Speaker
But they did this really cool thing where they just had a creative idea, and then they would pull it out of a hat or something. And then they would all, everybody would be in charge of making something with it. And they just put it up on the website, kind of warts and all. And I actually did a, I used to host these monthly gatherings. Do you remember the happy hours I used to host? And one of the very first ones I did was with Tony Fulchum, who was at World Famous at the time, one of the co-founders of it. And he did the business of the assignments.
00:54:22
Speaker
and talked about the financial benefit of doing the assignments. And I think that's actually still in mind. You can still find it. I'll have to take a listen and see if it aligns with what I just said. What I loved about that too is that everyone had to do it, right? Even in people in non-creative roles. So I think that's just a great window into the culture of the founders there.
00:54:49
Speaker
The only challenge that I would add to that is I do think that there is, I just kind of stomped on the idea a little bit, but if you decide that this is a part of your company and your business and you are doing it,
00:55:07
Speaker
And you do use it as a conversation piece with potential clients that you'd like to have. I think it's critical, and I've heard this from clients even, that when you show that off, that you talk about how it can affect them.
00:55:23
Speaker
Like you have to take that next, not like, Hey, look what we did. And then have a conversation. I think if you're looking at a sales approach, a little bit more direct and honest is the, Hey, look what we did. And I think this would be an interesting thing to do with you. I have some ideas I'd like to share it with, you know, like, I think that in terms of business development, that there is a one more step that needs to be made. I don't you, you've been business development, many of your efforts. Would you agree? You know, I think that the only thing to be careful of is that I am,
00:55:53
Speaker
I'm sure this is a hotly debated topic and I don't know where you sit on this side of the fence, but I am not a person who advocates for spec work.
00:56:06
Speaker
I would just be careful to not say, Hey, we shot this short film. And look, it could, we could even like, look, your spot could look just like this, right? Like, that's, like, that starts to get in that kind of spec territory. And it's like, just, if you're gonna spit, put the effort and time and money into making something.
00:56:26
Speaker
It should reflect the most important thing is it should reflect your true kind of creative flavor and sensibility and what you can bring to the table. Don't try to wrap it up in a way that feels commercial. I think that that's a losing game to do that.
00:56:47
Speaker
I'm so glad you clarified that. Yes, I agree with you 100%, not the suggestion of making something for the biz. You're making it for yourself. You're making it for the things, the reasons you want to make it for. I just think that if you're sharing it, there's a, there's a
00:57:04
Speaker
There should be more than, once again, more than making it about, hey, look, we made this thing, look at us. I think there's, you know, even if it's a, you know, drama, you're like, hey, our writing chops are really expressed in this in ways I'm super excited about. And if you're ever looking for something with this kind of tone,
00:57:24
Speaker
oh man it would be so much fun or that kind of idea. Or look at like say you had just a really interesting cast and so they get it they're like wow you're really good at casting really interesting characters in your piece or say it's some
00:57:40
Speaker
really unique filming technique. I mean, you know, drones are not unique anymore. But I mean, like, first person FPV drone footage, you know, when they're flying through the bowling alley and stuff like that, right? Like, like, or is there again, it comes back to you should be Yeah, you could say
00:57:57
Speaker
And then you take that and you go to Nike and say, hey, look, I think it's smart to make a connection if you're going to show that work to a client and also smart to be choosy, be very intentional about
Evolving Opportunities in Production
00:58:14
Speaker
what clients you're even showing it to. Know that you need to understand that your client might not care. They might be like, why are you even showing this to me? This has zero relevance to the project that we're talking about and in fact is completely off-brand. You'd have had a better chance of getting work and not showing that to me. I think that's important too is understanding your audience.
00:58:41
Speaker
and understanding the relationship that you have with your client too, and knowing when they'll appreciate that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, speaking of getting clients, I want to ask you one more question. And that is about how do companies, production companies, break into a Amazon? So you have Amazon, and then you have all. I mean, there's so many worlds within Amazon, or a Microsoft, or anywhere else. You've worked with T-Mobile.
00:59:09
Speaker
What advice do you give or could you give to, you know, production companies that are trying to get into these things? How do they how do they do it? What's they don't have the they have good work. They've done some stuff. They think they have a specialization. They think they have an expertise. They want to talk about it.
00:59:30
Speaker
But LinkedIn doesn't seem like it's going to work. What do they do? Yeah. Well, if you sign up for my 1999 course, I'm just kidding. No, this will not surprise you to hear. There is no magic bullet. It takes a lot of effort on a lot of time.
00:59:52
Speaker
And it takes, quite frankly, it takes luck and it takes being at the right place at the right time and having those conversations. But what I will say is, you know, there's a lot of things that you can't control. But what you can control is I'm a firm believer in planning a lot of seeds and networking, networking, networking, networking, having, you know, having real conversations with people. And like I said just a minute ago, it's like this is a relationship business.
01:00:22
Speaker
The reality is they can work with a lot of different production companies and a lot of different creatives can provide a very, very similar product. And so they are going to be, you need to differentiate yourself through either your craft or another way to differentiate your customer obsession and your customer service and your reputation.
01:00:52
Speaker
and your personal brand. I mean, I think that that's how I have had a lot of success because, quite frankly, I approach business relationships like personal relationships. I don't go into meetings saying, hey, here's my business card. What work do you have going on? I keep in touch with people throughout the year and talk to them about their
01:01:17
Speaker
personal life if they share share those details with me and you know i try to come out of the empathetic with them with whatever is going to whatever i know is going on at the microsoft rams on like layoffs or something like that you know
01:01:33
Speaker
Basically, they're a human on the other side of it. And so creating those connections, while it might not pay off immediately, those are the things that will stick around long-term and will continue to bear fruit over time. Because that's the other thing about this industry, as you know, James, is people jump around a lot. And one day, there'll be a one agency. The next, there'll be at another. There'll be across the country at another agency. There'll be client side.
01:02:03
Speaker
And whenever they're there, if they remember you as someone that they actually want to have a conversation with, they're much more apt to make an introduction for you or think of you to send you a brief for something or an RFP for something.
01:02:20
Speaker
focusing on the relationship. And yeah, it's, it's not easy. It really is not, especially in this day and age where, you know, email is, has been eroded. The impact of email has been eroded by spam bots and LinkedIn doesn't seem like it's always the best place and no one is doing networking events like they used to. And so how you get your work in front of people, how you get yourself in front of people is increasingly challenged.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah. I will say to pair with that relationship-based approach, you do need to have that doesn't make up for, that doesn't excuse or reduce the importance of having a very polished website and showing in the work. Because that first meeting that you're going to get with them, you're going to send them the email,
01:03:15
Speaker
You're going to send them a reel. You're going to send them a link to your website. You're going to send whatever you're going to send them. They need to see. And this is, you know, when I look at reels for people, like you need
01:03:25
Speaker
you need to see the craft and the work. You need the work that you show to be memorable and to catch them and say, okay, this person's got, they've got something different. Or they get it, right? It's not just a commodity creative place. There is something special here.
01:03:49
Speaker
You do need to showcase your ability and then on top of that, be humble and be relationship. That's where I found success. That would be the advice that I give.
01:04:04
Speaker
have great work or have polished work, even if you don't have a deep, you know, if you don't have a deep reel a lot to show, you know, pick the best work that you can, the work that you feel like really showcases who you are and your strong suits and then, you know, and start planting those seeds and tend to your garden of sales and eventually they will bear fruit and then you'll start to grow that, you know, build that reel and yeah, it's, there's no,
01:04:34
Speaker
Uh, the only shortcuts are, yeah, are getting lucky timing or yeah. Personal friends or, you know, like that, that type of thing. Like it, like any business, right? Right, right. Well, we have a bunch of people that have gone to LinkedIn to see if you look like Jesse from Breaking Bad.
01:04:52
Speaker
And they're going to be hitting you up. What do they say to you? They're like, oh, Nate's going to be doing some great stuff here soon. And we want to be in his radar. Do they email you? Do they LinkedIn you?
Conclusion and Future Opportunities
01:05:07
Speaker
What do they say? I heard you. Yes. All the above is good. I do check LinkedIn fairly frequently. So you can send me a message on there. My email is listed on there.
01:05:18
Speaker
as well, I believe. Definitely don't be shy, feel free to reach out. Love to look at people's work and we'd be happy to give some feedback and give back to the community and hopefully help someone achieve their dreams and goals as well.
01:05:38
Speaker
That's exactly how I know you, Nate. You've always been that way. And I really appreciate you saying that and offering that out there. It's not often we go over an hour on a conversation, but I said it from the beginning. I mean, you're like an egot of advertising. You've done so much, so there's no way I was going to let any of it go. And the conversation around narrative and commercial, I think, is very interesting. So I'm glad we spent a little time on that.
01:06:01
Speaker
Listeners, I hope you've enjoyed the conversation and have pulled away some insights about how to run your company, how to grow business, how to talk to people, dispelling things that you thought or reinforcing things that you felt. This has been a fantastic conversation. Nate, any last words you want to say for the listeners? Anything that we didn't touch on?
01:06:25
Speaker
No, I would just say, yeah, thanks for having me. It's been, it's been great to chat and, uh, excited to see new generations of fantastic creatives come out of the Northwest and Seattle and, and, uh, yeah, around, around the country. Yeah. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. I'll circle back with you when we see what you do next. And maybe we'll have a follow up podcast episode or something like that. Thank you very much for being on the show. Thanks, James.
01:06:55
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Crossing the Axis with James Keblis. If you're interested in joining the conversation or have a topic you'd like covered, please drop a note at keblis.com. That's K-E-B-L-A-S dot com.