Transcript
Speaker: All right, we are back with Crossing the Axis, the biz side of video production. I'm Max Keiser, your host, CEO of Pipeline, the all -in -one project management software for video production companies like yours. You can check it out at videopipeline .io. But that's not nearly as important as
Speaker: who my guest is today, Cole Heilborn of Portside Productions. Cole, welcome to the show. Hey, Max. Thanks for having me. How are you doing?
Speaker: I'm doing very well, thank you. Cole is unique because he not only runs his own production company, not only does his own podcast, which is very popular on marketing, but he also is currently producing a documentary film. And I thought it would be really great
Speaker: To have an episode where we talk to somebody who is managing to do what so many of us want to do and that that is not only be doing commercial and corporate work, but also be pursuing those creative projects that are probably longer form.
Speaker: definitely quite a bit more expensive and yet at the same time really are labors of love outside of the commercial and corporate world and I thought who better to talk to than Cole who's in the midst of a documentary production himself right now. But let's get started by finding out a little bit about Cole. Cole tell us about Portside Productions.
Speaker: Yeah, so Portside, we've been around for six and a half years or so. We're a video production company based here in Bellingham, Washington. Yo, Bellingham! That's right. Shout out to all of the local few, but
Speaker: awesome filmmakers who are based here. Yeah, so we're a video production company. We do work all over the country. We specialize in outdoor commercial and film production. So we work with brands and agencies in the outdoor and kind of sports world to create a variety of content. But generally the common themes that tie them together are it's story focused. It usually revolves around some sort of a story, whether that's
Speaker: an individual story or kind of a brand story or something like that. So we're really interested in kind of finding those stories and as cliche as it is, like that's why we do the production work. That's what gets us excited is finding those stories and being able to figure out ways to connect that story to a brand's goal and then figure out how to make it all come to life in the film format.
Speaker: And there also you definitely have a little bit of a lean towards the outdoors as well, wouldn't you say? Yes, that's kind of that's kind of where we find ourselves, both, you know, during the day and during the weekends.
Speaker: But we're okay with that. I think if we could continue to do work in the outdoor industry for the rest of our life, we'd be cool with that. This is me saying it now. We'll see how I feel in maybe 20 years. But that's where
Speaker: Me personally, in our crew, that's where we enjoy spending our time. That's where we enjoy recharging and getting new ideas for projects is outside, whether that's skiing, on the bike, fishing. So yeah, outdoors have definitely played an important role in my life. And so being able to work in that industry has been pretty awesome and I consider myself pretty fortunate. And tell us about how did you get into video production in general in the beginning?
Speaker: Oh man. So the whole like production company thing kind of started by accident. I didn't really know that this was even a thing that one could do. But I fell into kind of video and filmmaking really in the outdoors. And it's kind of come full circle, you know, now 10, 15 years later. But I got started,
Speaker: making videos with my friends up on our local mountain bike hill here in town shooting edits. For those folks who are familiar with the action sport edit, I made a ton of those with my buddies back in high school when we were riding old mountain bike clunkers and hardtails trying to throw our best whips or just
Speaker: acting goofy up on the mountain. So a friend of ours had a camera. At that time, I was in front of the camera, not that I was there by any quality of writing, but my friend would shoot and we just kind of run around the woods with this. It was like a little VHS, had a little like one to 10 optical zoom. I think it was 480p. And so we just made a bunch of mountain bike edits. So that's kind of how I was introduced to the camera.
Speaker: Wow. And you know, Cole, in the best sense of the word, I just want to tell you, Cole is a hustler. I mean, Cole will make things happen. And he's a great example of, I think a common theme in the show of the successful folks I've talked to is that no one confines themselves to a certain set of rules of how things are going to work, how work is going to come in. There's just a constant
Speaker: reminder to everyone, you've got to think outside of the box, work outside of the box. Cole is such an example of that. For instance, one of the things Cole does is he produces a podcast called Backcountry Marketing. Cole, can you tell us a little bit about the podcast?
Speaker: Yeah, happy to. Your comment about no rules is interesting because that's a daily confliction I have with myself as I'm trying to figure out how to run the business because there are no rules and that's both liberating and extremely frustrating sometimes.
Speaker: But the podcast, uh, yeah, this is kind of a weird spot for me. And I, I'm usually on the other side in your seat, max asking the questions. Um, but yeah, it's called the back country marketing podcast. Uh, we publish an episode every Wednesday. So far we're up to 80 episodes and the podcast interviews, I just sit down and chat with leaders and folks in the outdoor marketing industry, whether that's, um,
Speaker: On the agency side in the brand side freelance side, and we just chat for about an hour or so, you know, usually we'll, we'll kind of have a topic of focus that we dive into, and the goal is for the podcast to be educational so
Speaker: We're talking about an issue or a discussion or a problem that this individual is facing or experiencing. And we're kind of talking about how are they navigating this particular issue. So some of them are some of the episodes are more tactical. You know, they're they're how to do SEO. I just recorded one an hour ago before we jumped on this call. And it was an interview with a gentleman from a sunglass company. We talked about the five steps to building community based marketing.
Speaker: Other podcasts are a little more personal focused where we talk about whether it's things like mental health or figuring out ways to recharge or the work -life balance or symbiotic relationship between the two. So it's kind of a platform for anyone in marketing, anyone in the outdoors who's looking just to kind of continue to learn and continue to hear from some pretty just interesting and real down -to -earth people. What led you to want to do the podcast?
Speaker: really my own curiosity. Again, kind of like the production company, the podcast just kind of happened. The roots of the podcast are kind of born from really my own naivety about how the world of marketing worked. When I started the production company, again, kind of by accident, I didn't know how the world of marketing worked. And I realized pretty quickly on that if we were going to
Speaker: a production company and sell our services. I needed to know who the people were that I was even trying to communicate with. So that encouraged me just to start reaching out to folks in marketing positions, buying them coffee, buying them beer, trying to just learn. And that kind of continued pursuit of learning is what introduced me to marketing.
Speaker: And then a few years later, eventually a friend of mine suggested, hey, why don't you start recording some of these conversations you're having with folks, turn it into a show. At that point, we were already pretty ingrained and focused in the outdoor community. And that's a lot of the people who we are chatting with. So it made sense just to kind of dig our whole dig ourselves into the backcountry world.
Speaker: Listen to how intelligent this is, will you please? Because this really truly is. Here you have a situation where, you know, like all the rest of us production companies, we want to have better relationships with the types of agencies that create the content that we're interested in. And so Cole goes and creates a podcast where he has a reason to call these people up and create relationships with them that is beneficial to them and himself. This is, this is,
Speaker: absolute gold. I hope everyone listening to this is realizing it and now you know why Cole is on the show and why I call him a hustler of the highest order in with all affection and love and impressed because this that is just a brilliant awesome idea. But
Speaker: Let's not talk about the podcast right now. I want to talk about the other side of it because we create our commercials, we create our corporate films, and it's amazing. It's a lovely craft. It's a lovely thing to do. It's better than 99 % of anything else any of us could be doing, but we also want to do other stuff. I myself have produced a documentary and a feature film, and I know that there are just times when you
Speaker: have a yearning to create something from within yourself and put it back out there that is not perhaps going to be a corporate piece or commercial piece and that is where Cole finds himself. Cole, tell us a little bit about this documentary and what led you to wanting to create it.
Speaker: For sure. Well, I think anyone who's in the world of filmmaking, we get into it because we love stories. We love finding and telling stories. And so as we get into the commercial world, to pay our bills and to keep our creative dreams afloat, so to speak, I think we all have these projects on the back burner that
Speaker: we would love to be able to make happen. And I've got a notebook full of ideas of films that I would love to make. Some of them I try to pitch to brands to make into a reality. Other times, other things that we just take on for spec projects because it's a worthwhile endeavor. So one of those,
Speaker: One of those projects that we've been working on for the last four years or so is a documentary film in the mountain bike world. If you don't know Bellingham, the town that both Cole and I live in is sort of like the aspen of mountain biking.
Speaker: Um, without, you know, it's funny you say that max, because I think everyone here who lives here would say it is. And there's definitely people outside of Bellingham who would say it is also, but if you go to any mountain bike community, they all think what they have is, is, is, you know, the best in the world. So take that with you, take that with a grain of salt. Okay.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, so we're working on this film. Um, unfortunately I can't tell you too much about what it is, when it'll be out. Other than that, I can say, um, you know, we're kind of working on our marketing and publishing funding for it. We do. We have funding for it, which, which was a big hurdle. And how did you do that? And how much did you get? Um, yeah. So, uh,
Speaker: That question kind of forces me to back up the last like four years and kind of give the overview of how the project came to be and where we're at now. So I had this idea for this film. It was kind of based here in Bellingham about our mountain bike.
Speaker: community and you know for like a year or so it was kind of just like one of those projects on the notebook that I was like oh one day I'd love to be able to make this. A friend of mine Evan Pollack was working on his own documentary called Brewing Ham and after crewing on his project for a couple days it gave me the kick in the pants and I was like you know what
Speaker: I've got this idea for a film. I want to make it happen. I was inspired to see Evan out there making his film happen. And so I said, let's just let's let's dive in. Let's let's figure this thing out. So I took the idea that I had. I started reaching out trying to understand the story. So I was reaching out to the local community just
Speaker: having conversations over cups of beer, trying to kind of understand the story that I thought was there. And in doing so, I started to record those interviews. And then over another period of six months or so, I started to shoot some B -roll because I knew that if I was going to take this idea and try to find money to put behind it,
Speaker: from someone who had never made a feature documentary film, I needed a reason for people to actually be interested and kind of stop and see the potential value in a project like this. So I spent about a year kind of exploring the story, piecing together a concept trailer that was kind of a two minute
Speaker: pitch essentially of what I thought the story could be. And I spent another six months or so kind of shopping this trailer around trying to find folks who would be interested in supporting the project. And I got really close. This is like February or January of
Speaker: 2020. And I actually, I had some really successful meetings with REI. They were really enthusiastic about the project. We were actually starting to talk dollars and cents we are going over contracts and agreements. And as we are kind of working through the signing phase.
Speaker: COVID happened and shut everything down. And unfortunately that also meant our project got shut down and we never were able to get the funding that was tentatively being lined up. So that was a major bummer. That was three years in and I almost had the funding that we needed. So I took a few months, I think like most people then to kind of reset and ask some deep life questions of is this what I actually want to be doing with my life? The answer was yes.
Speaker: And fortunately, through all of that, we ended up forming a really fantastic partnership with a mountain bike company of Freehub Media here in town. And so we have been, since then, last year and a half or so, we've been co -producing this documentary film. And so our partnership is kind of working hand in hand to bring this thing together.
Speaker: Wow. That's fantastic. And so they, they are, they're funding it though. They're, so they, they're leveraging some of their connections to bring funding to the project from other industry partners. And what, you know, I, honestly, I really do like to talk numbers for folks. So roughly without, you know, getting too specific, I thought I understood it was about a couple hundred thousand dollar film. Is that about right? Yeah. Our goal that we're still kind of working to is about 300 ,000.
Speaker: Three hundred thousand. OK, great. And then what do you think? Where would your distribution be for it? You know, that's a great question. That's actually something that we're kind of developing right now with our partners. So I can't speak too much to it. But, you know, ideally it'll be everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's amazing. And how do you find time to to balance the two, the commercial work and the documentary work? Yeah.
Speaker: I think anyone who's probably started down this path of trying to make a feature film you've realized, you know you have an idea of how much work it'll take at the beginning, and then you get into it you're like oh shoot, I really underestimated the amount of time, it would take, I definitely find myself in that camp.
Speaker: It's taken so much more time than I ever thought it would or could. I mean, at this point, from the initial idea, I'm almost four years into it. And it's only been the last year and a half, year or so, that we've actually been shooting footage. So from a time investment perspective, it's been a substantial amount of time. And especially this last year, as we've been in production underway,
Speaker: It's taken a lot. It's taken a toll definitely on my own ability to operate and run the commercial side of the business. I've turned down a lot of jobs. I've turned down a lot of really high paying commercial jobs, a lot of dream clients that you look at the project at hand and you're like, this is amazing. And then you start to think about where this could go from there. And sometimes I still kick myself a little bit for some of the projects that haven't worked out.
Speaker: So I've definitely been learning a lot of lessons this last year or so about time management and how to produce this documentary film, which is a huge focus and really is, I don't wanna say is the focus for our production company, but it's a massive focus and a massive goal of ours to get it done without like sabotaging or pumping the brace completely on the commercial work. So,
Speaker: I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. It's kind of a daily practice of taking some of the lessons learned and trying to figure out how to do it better the next day. Yeah. What would you say the symbiotic value is of the two? In other words, what are you taking away from your day job and bringing to the documentary and vice versa? Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think, so as a director, and as a producer, this is no different than a commercial project, other than that, it's just way bigger, and we're way more personally invested. So I think this project, because of its scale, has definitely encouraged me to really refine, like, it
Speaker: It's a daily practice of trying to refine my skills as a director and figuring out how to pull all the pieces together in a format that's a feature format, which is so different than a two -minute commercial or a 10 -minute short film.
Speaker: So that's definitely been kind of a roadblock to work through of like, how do we think about story in a much bigger, larger format? And so that's kind of forced me to expand our storytelling resources, whether that's working with writers or
Speaker: trying to continue my own education about how to tell longer stories and tell engaging, interesting stories. From the producing side, it's been a year or so of trying to manage cashflow and manage budgets and make sure that we have enough money
Speaker: for the rest of the project that could be still a year away and not spending everything today. So that's been a lesson as well of just trying to, yeah, figure all that out.
Speaker: Yeah, so I produced a documentary for PBS about 15 years ago, 10 or 11 years ago. And so I definitely know where you're actually directed as well. And the biggest challenge that I was running my production company at the same time and the biggest challenge I remember were just
Speaker: was just the way in which the two different timelines of the projects conflicted with one another. In other words, everything in the commercial world is like now, now, now, now, now, and you got to get it done quickly, you got to do the deal quickly, and it's got to get out quickly. And at the same time, you're trying to manage something that has like, and so your timeline in the production world is generally two to three months tops.
Speaker: And then you go over to your documentary land where your timeline for the entire project and least in my case was about two years sounds like yours is even longer. And like you say the money management is so different as well right because it's, it's.
Speaker: In our case, our documentary was Verite. We didn't necessarily know when everything was going to come together for the finish of the documentary. And so in the same way, we had to keep the budget really under tight constraints and controls. But more, it was just managing the two different timelines. And in the end, when we finished the documentary, it was actually quite successful.
Speaker: But we decided not to keep trying to pursue making documentaries because it was too hard to do both and that corporate and commercial gave us a good livelihood that was predictable and that the documentaries were just so hard to bring into fruition and so hard to know what was going to happen. So we chose that route for yourself, assuming if the document, I'm sure the documentary is going to be successful.
Speaker: Do you see, I mean, from where you're standing now, do you see that you would say, you know what? I just want to be making documentaries now that I kind of know a little bit more about it. Or do you consider that you want to keep doing the hybrid or do you think you might do what our company did, which was to say, you know what? We're going to leave documentaries to somebody else. We're going to focus on this aspect that allows us to see our kids every night and do, you know, kind of go with a more like traditional path. Totally.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, if I have any control over where port side goes in the future, I think, which you do because you own it, but there's a lot of variables outside of my control. But yes, I think I see a place where
Speaker: What we're doing currently is what we're doing in the future. It's just maybe refined and a little different and structured differently. I think the work that we want to be doing commercially and for clients is this type of a film. We want to tell stories that mean something that are impactful that
Speaker: are engaging and hopefully encourage people to do something. And so whether that's the 30 -second format or if that's the feature format, we're all in. I think we would just do it a little differently.
Speaker: I think from a process and from a people management solution or perspective, I've learned a lot of lessons. One of your episodes earlier was about operations and how to streamline and run a business. One thing I've been learning a lot lately is
Speaker: how do I work with multiple people? If I'm busy, you know, off working on this film, like, how do we not let, how do we add to what we're doing and not let that film take away from what we could be doing in the commercial world? And so learning how to work with people in that manner has been a really interesting challenge and one that I've been sorting out as well.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's that's awesome. And once again, I got a hats off to you because you've kept what your documentary is about in the same zone as the work you do on a day to day basis. I think that's so, so smart. It really will feed each other. Our documentary was like
Speaker: kind of in a totally different realm and I think that also caused it not to be a great fit going forward so what you're doing again is so smart because you're developing your niche and I personally believe niches are really important as long as you love them you have to love them you can't feel like you fell into it and you're like I don't know I just found myself doing because that's kind of what happened to us and we were all really sick of our niche after a while and we had to let go of a major
Speaker: moneymaker because we had fallen into this niche of making Muslim rights films and while that was kind of cool and I've got nothing against it, it became very narrow very quickly and so we just needed to get out of that. I love that you've pursued the niche
Speaker: that you love and that you developed over the years. One of the things I wanted to mention was when I was doing my documentary, we got about $150 ,000, $175 ,000 for it, in other words, to produce it. It was for PBS, so there was really no money on the backside. We were just happy to get paid to make it. But people constantly say, how did you get the money? How did you get the money? And I just said, the key, and it sounds like this is true for you too,
Speaker: You've got to find people for whom the making of your film is advantageous to them as well as it is to you. That's the critical ingredient. People are like, I'm going to go hit up a bunch of dentists to make my movie. I'm like, unless it's a movie about dental hygiene and they have something to gain from it.
Speaker: I don't know that that's a great way to go because we found our our folks that wanted to make our movie who were they needed the movie made quite honestly and that didn't mean we gave them editorial control and it didn't mean that we gave up our rights to it or anything but they needed a movie like this to be made we were a conduit for that so it's about hunting that would you say that's true for you as well
Speaker: Oh, I mean, for sure. And that's, I guess, kind of why I feel like this documentary and our commercial work are symbiotic because it's just a larger form of a commercial project. Your comments about finding the right audience of a sponsor or an investor who might be interested in helping your film come to be a reality, I think
Speaker: That's so true, especially I'm thinking of a company like Patagonia. I'm sure a lot of folks have seen the films that they produce and they're all made from, I guess I should say a lot of them are made from independent filmmakers who have these stories
Speaker: that align so well with Patagonia and their values and their mission. And so it really is a symbiotic relationship. And I'm sure they get hit up all the time for film projects. And most of them probably aren't a good fit, but the few that are, those are the ones that are green lit and, you know, the filmmakers now trying to figure out how to make it happen.
Speaker: Yeah, and I mean, I think it's not that much rocket science. It is something very different between fundraising for a narrative and fundraising for a documentary. Totally. In other words, fundraising for a narrative. I mean, if you're making a slasher movie, look, it's about making money. OK, that's what it's about. And so you're going to try to get people that want a good return on their investment. Maybe they like slasher movies, but it's really different with a documentary where, you know, none of us are going to make a ton off of a documentary documentaries.
Speaker: they really just don't make that much money, typically. It is more about wanting to tell a certain story, but it also opens that door to you to say, okay, this is my story. Now, who would benefit from this story being told that has money?
Speaker: And you'd be amazed at how willing those folks are to listen to your pitch, because they're looking for other ways to tell their story and you might be coming along and answering a major problem in question for them, but do it really early.
Speaker: don't go make your film and then try to get the pickup. Don't go like shoot a trailer or something like that. Absolutely. That's how we did it. We made a little trailer and then we shopped that trailer around and literally within like I think two or three months had $100 ,000 because it was such a hot topic and so many people want it. Obviously, you've got a market that is quite a bit more hard to get to and get through because there's so many people wanting to make films in that zone.
Speaker: But you managed to do it because you found folks that had simpatico needs and desires with you. But don't you think it's also so critical? And this was true in my case too. They also do want to have a say, they want to be at the table of creating as well. So you don't want to do anything like, you want to get these people on boards pretty early on, wouldn't you say?
Speaker: Yeah, and I think that's for the best. If you get early buy -in, maybe your chances of finding more support, financial support is better. Maybe it certainly allows the partners to start to plan their own initiatives and it no longer just becomes about
Speaker: this one film that they can slap their name on, but now they can start to consider all the other different avenues that they can start to market and how they can start to organize around this film. You know, you think about all of the marketing potential around a film and its premiere, like there's event marketing, there's different activations, there's different nonprofit give back opportunities, there's
Speaker: There's cut down social versions. There's so many different ways that a film can be used. And it's just, from that one pillar, tons of other pieces of the puzzle can be created if you have enough lead time and you have everyone kind of talking early on.
Speaker: Yeah, and here's where the other thing I would say is here's where running a production company really does help you to get that money raised because people that run successful production companies are deliverers. They're people that get the product to the end user on time and on budget.
Speaker: And your track record of doing that means a shit ton to the people that are thinking about giving you money to do this documentary. Because what they see is someone who is on a daily basis, perhaps at much lower numbers, I'll give you that, and definitely not as speculative. But you're a deliverer. You're someone that produces something and finishes it and gets it done and turns it in in a high end fashion.
Speaker: That matters humongously to these folks that are considering giving you money. Wouldn't you say, Cole? Yeah. I mean, your reputation is everything. And, you know, hopefully, I mean, I feel like with anything in the production world, you know, you're kind of always playing up one project at a time. And maybe you bite off a little more than you can chew here and there. Hopefully you don't.
Speaker: swap yourself. But yeah, you kind of have to have that foundation of trust, I feel like, in order to ask for a bigger piece of the pie. And hopefully, you know, hopefully you can deliver. Hopefully it goes well. And then you kind of keep moving up the ladder.
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, let's just look back at like, if you're so if you're someone sitting home right now thinking about you've got a documentary, and I'm not going to, we'll talk about narrative in a totally different podcast, but talking about documentary, you're sitting there thinking you've got an idea for a documentary that you really want to do, I would say here are some simple things to look at that we can learn from Cole on on what's going on here. And the first one is, you know, pick something that is representative of
Speaker: of your brand your niche things that you're interested in that you love and that you know and that you sort of, you know, every, every production company has something that they do exceptionally well, does it fit within that is really one of the first questions. And the second question is, is understanding.
Speaker: do you have someone, can you find someone that fits that story that would benefit from you making this film? And the third is a bit of confidence that you should get from the fact that as a successful production company owner and deliverer, you probably have a good chance of convincing these people to do something with you. Because they might look at it, as Cole said, as an extension of their marketing budget, as an extension of their event budget, and so forth.
Speaker: The more you think along the lines of what they need, the closer you're going to be to getting your story told. And I think that's what really this whole thing with Cole represents. And I can't wait to. When the hell is this thing coming out, Cole? Hopefully it'll be out this summer, next July.
Speaker: That is fantastic. I cannot wait to find out more and to see it. In the meantime, again, you can tune in to Cole's podcast, Backcountry Marketing, or you can just check out Portside Productions stuff. I don't know what the URL is, but it's Portside Productions. Pretty much will get you there via Google.
Speaker: Thank you so much, Cole, for joining us and being willing to share and get on you for pursuing this passion project on top of everything else that is demanding about being a production person.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you, Max. I appreciate the conversation and I enjoy listening in to you guys's episodes. It's encouraging to know that there's people out there who are trying to force these conversations about the video or the business of video production, making them happen, because I don't feel like there's a whole lot of conversations out there about them. So I will see you guys. Thank you. And but again, I would say, folks, just be a cold.
Speaker: Because if you are, you will be successful because it's just a degree of saying no rules and just being wide open to trying out different things to be able to pursue our passion of what we all love doing. But thank you again, Cole, for being here. And I look forward to having everyone back on the next episode. So talk to you soon.
