Transcript
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to Unfiltered.
Speaker: This is a podcast for photographers and filmmakers from any sort of industry to come together and learn about
Speaker: all kinds of different things, anything that is creative or business related, this is the podcast for you.
Speaker: And we are really, really excited to be offering it.
Speaker: So just a little bit of a background and introduction for you.
Speaker: My name is Courtney Holmes, and I am a Sydney-based family filmmaker and photographer.
Speaker: I've been living in Australia for about 17 years now.
Speaker: I am originally from America, but
Speaker: I was born in Tennessee, grew up in Georgia, moved back to Tennessee.
Speaker: I'm at the point now where I've almost lived here as long as I lived there, which feels so crazy.
Speaker: But joining me for this podcast is Kylie Pertel.
Speaker: Say hello, Kylie.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: So Kylie is someone who is just crucial to me and my business.
Speaker: So I'm going to get Kylie to introduce herself and tell you guys about herself.
Speaker: Go.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: This is always the hottest part.
Speaker: Tell us about yourself, Kylie.
Speaker: Who am I?
Speaker: What do I do?
Speaker: I'm Kylie.
Speaker: I'm a Sydney family filmmaker and photographer just like Courtney.
Speaker: But I also wear a lot of other hats.
Speaker: Running my own business is really only kind of like a part-time thing for me.
Speaker: Like I love it but I also really get a lot of joy from the
Speaker: The other work that I do, which is working for Filming Life and with Courtney, I also work for another photographer doing admin because I'm one of those weird people where I love to organise other people but I don't love to organise myself.
Speaker: And so instead of fighting against that, I've kind of leaned into what my strengths are and one of those strengths is supporting other people, particularly photographers.
Speaker: And you're very good at it.
Speaker: Very, very good at it.
Speaker: So that's, you know, like –
Speaker: And I'm just lucky enough that, you know, we connected when we did and that I've managed to find this balance where I get to, you know, work with amazing families and make films for them and pursue that creative passion.
Speaker: And then at the same time I get to work with Courtney, supporting Courtney, supporting other photographers and then working with our members in the network and giving them support and sharing things with them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, it's really, you know,
Speaker: I'm very lucky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when Kylie talks about our members, what she's referring to is filming live, which is our other
Speaker: business, if you're not familiar with that.
Speaker: So Filming Life is the membership that we have where we started about five years ago.
Speaker: And it all really began before that with online workshops where I had so many photographers coming to me asking to learn how to make films.
Speaker: Just sort of, I guess that really just took off when I started shooting video and offering that to clients.
Speaker: And, uh, it kind of, that grew and that side of the business really grew and I've loved it.
Speaker: I really love teaching people about how to make, I'm so passionate about video.
Speaker: And so I love teaching people about how to make films.
Speaker: Um, there's so many different moving parts that kind of go behind that.
Speaker: And I really love, um,
Speaker: explaining that to people in a way that makes sense, especially to photographers, because we have all the tools there.
Speaker: Generally speaking, you've got the camera, you've got the lens.
Speaker: Um, so it's just a couple of more things, a little more pieces to the puzzle that you got to fill in.
Speaker: And, um, but it's just a really fun, creative thing to be doing to add into your business.
Speaker: And so filming life was born out of photographers that were starting to add video into their business, start making family films.
Speaker: And it has grown and grown and grown into, um,
Speaker: a place that we really love.
Speaker: We've, we've created a really great community of, um, like-minded individuals.
Speaker: I find a lot of times, um, and a really varied, uh, varied space for, um,
Speaker: not just photographers, not just filmmakers, but people maybe that come to us without a background in photography and some that come to us with a background in filmmaking, but they want to start doing it for families.
Speaker: So it's just, yeah, it's a really great place.
Speaker: We've got quite a few teachers that have taught with us and we have tons of courses all on filmmaking and business.
Speaker: And when Kylie was talking about the network, that's our actual community forum where we all connect with each other and we share our work together and
Speaker: We also had a podcast for Filming Life, which was all about filmmaking.
Speaker: And so you might be sitting there thinking, okay, yeah, so that's what I've been listening to.
Speaker: And now what are you doing?
Speaker: What's this change?
Speaker: And so I guess I just want to explain that a little bit.
Speaker: And so what that is, is really, we kind of wanted to open up our topics to being not just filmmaking.
Speaker: We will absolutely be covering filmmaking.
Speaker: Look,
Speaker: everything that I do is filmmaking related.
Speaker: So anything that you hear me talking about is obviously going to include filmmaking.
Speaker: But we really wanted to create a podcast that was covering both and can be kind of like the one place where you go to and you hear from people like yourself, people who are like us.
Speaker: And I think that there's a lot of
Speaker: people that I've connected with over the years, photographers.
Speaker: And I always sort of felt like, can I bring them on to the, how can I bring them on to the Filming Life podcast?
Speaker: They're not doing films.
Speaker: But I would really like for people to hear from them.
Speaker: And so that's kind of what this is.
Speaker: Because even though they might not be making films, they still have really valuable knowledge to share and impart to do with, you know, having a business or creativity and all of those sorts of things.
Speaker: It's not just...
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Stuck in one little niche.
Speaker: We're all very multifaceted people.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And that's what we want the podcast to reflect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And look, there have been so many years that we have sat here and thought we should really be doing like a retreat that included not just filmmaking, but photography as well.
Speaker: Like we all, I think we really sort of sat here and waited for someone else to do it and no one else was doing it.
Speaker: So we were like, you know what, I guess it's time for us to do that.
Speaker: And that's where we are now.
Speaker: And so that's
Speaker: That's what Unfiltered is all about.
Speaker: It's about really the sort of background behind your business, not just the business side of it, but the creative side of it as well.
Speaker: And the mental side of it, the mindset side of it.
Speaker: It's the soul.
Speaker: It's the brand.
Speaker: It's the business.
Speaker: It's everything.
Speaker: It's shooting and it's finding other people to connect with.
Speaker: And, oh, that reminds me.
Speaker: That makes me think about like –
Speaker: One of the things that I've loved the most about in-person retreats and workshops that I've done in the past is those connections that I've made.
Speaker: I just did a 10-hour trip down to Torquay, Victoria to do a shoot down there for family.
Speaker: I was making a family film and along the way, I hung out with and got supported by two photographers that I have met in the last...
Speaker: probably like eight years, I'd say, from past retreats and workshops that I've done where I've met them in person.
Speaker: And it's like, I can't even tell you how good that feels to just have those relationships and meet those people.
Speaker: And that networking is so important.
Speaker: And I think COVID really reminded us of all of that.
Speaker: It's like, once you couldn't do it, you were like,
Speaker: When am I going to be able to do it again?
Speaker: You just really miss it so much.
Speaker: And so that's really where Unfiltered is coming from.
Speaker: We are a podcast and we are an in-person retreat, which is all based in Australia.
Speaker: You're going to be hearing from Australian artists as well as international artists.
Speaker: We're going to be talking to people not just from here, but also from overseas and abroad.
Speaker: I want to say that with the understanding that I do really want to lift up the Australian artists that are really like killing it in their field right now.
Speaker: And I feel like no one knows about it.
Speaker: And so I just can't wait to get more of those people out in the open and just to share what's helped them along the way so that you can kind of
Speaker: Gain tiny little nuggets of information and knowledge that will help you in your business and at the very minimum make you feel a little bit less alone in your day-to-day life as a creative, as a photographer, as a filmmaker, whatever it is that you're over there doing.
Speaker: So, um, look, that's why, that's why we're doing this.
Speaker: That's why we've put this podcast together.
Speaker: Um, we, we wanted to continue doing the podcast, but we just wanted to open it up a little bit more.
Speaker: So filming life podcast is, um,
Speaker: um still available you can go and listen to those episodes great episodes some really great episodes there but we will be focusing our attention here and any of the episodes that we would have been putting out on filming life we will be putting out on the unfiltered podcast it's just going to be open to some more options and just feels a little bit better for us um in terms of what kind of content we can be putting out there and who who we can invite to be on the show yeah with that said
Speaker: We have an Instagram profile for unfiltered.
Speaker: And if you're listening right now and you're like, how can I find out more?
Speaker: Go to that.
Speaker: So it's unfiltered.au, our Instagram handle.
Speaker: Make sure you head over there.
Speaker: Give us a follow.
Speaker: Tell us what you want to hear about.
Speaker: Tell us who you want to talk, want us to talk to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: because we're going to invite lots of people on.
Speaker: And I truly believe Kylie does as well that, you know, we learn from each other.
Speaker: That's how we learn best learning from other people's experiences.
Speaker: One way is there's not only one way to do one thing.
Speaker: There's so many different ways.
Speaker: And it's so important to expose yourself to lots of different perspectives and lots of different ways of doing things so that you can figure out what's right for you.
Speaker: So head over to unfiltered.au Instagram handle, and then you can use that same
Speaker: unfiltered.au website URL to access our website, which tells you all about the retreat.
Speaker: And pretty soon you'll get all of our podcast show notes are all going to be there.
Speaker: So that's, that's where you'll go to, to get any of the links and things that we talk about here, just that direct access.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So we're really excited about this.
Speaker: Kylie, what are you thinking?
Speaker: How are you feeling about it all?
Speaker: I'm just, I'm really looking forward to the opportunities for connection that it's going to give us.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I know for me and I know for you as well, one of the things that we love about filming life is that
Speaker: the opportunity to connect with so many filmmakers and photographers from around the world, you know.
Speaker: There's so many different perspectives and while everyone all starts out the same, the variety of work that people make and the experiences that they have is just so rich and we want to be able to share that with even more people.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You know, we want to have our filming life family, we want to have our unfilled family, we want to bring it all together.
Speaker: And we want to give people opportunities to
Speaker: to connect and make connections.
Speaker: I know for myself, I think when I finally started to feel happy in the work that I did was when we started to connect and I wasn't working on my own anymore.
Speaker: I wasn't struggling on my own.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And working together in this kind of collaboration has just been amazing
Speaker: so rewarding and so fulfilling um and I think that you know even just that alone like we can learn a lot from that so if you're a photographer who's maybe not interested so much in filmmaking but you like the idea of it and then you've got a friend who's a filmmaker but then maybe not so much into photography like how could you work together like right how can you maybe
Speaker: You want to work with someone but you don't know how and you don't know where to meet them.
Speaker: We want this to be that place.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We want to be able to facilitate those connections between people so that, you know, even if it's not to work together and it's just to provide support and someone that you can talk to, that's what we want this space to be.
Speaker: We want it to be the place where you can make connections that you'll carry on together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For the rest of time.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And we really want to help continue to lift up the family photography and filmmaking industry as a whole.
Speaker: Just how can we as a collective make it better for ourselves and for our clients?
Speaker: Like what are some ways that we can sort of troubleshoot and brainstorm, you know, ways that as an industry we can grow and we can get stronger and we can get better together.
Speaker: Because, you know, it's just really hard when you're fighting against the current and you feel like,
Speaker: you don't know what you should be doing and you have no one out there willing to give you the time of day to talk about it.
Speaker: That's what we're here for.
Speaker: And so we're really, really excited about this.
Speaker: I think that this is going to be a great project for us this year.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: I am especially looking forward to hearing what you guys want to hear about because we're doing this for you.
Speaker: So I was just saying earlier, like it just feels like a little bit of a calling for us to be doing this.
Speaker: You know, there's just nothing out there happening like this right now that I'm aware of anyway.
Speaker: If there is, please tell me.
Speaker: I would love to connect with them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I must be living under a rock.
Speaker: But I just really want to get, you know, I just want to hear from you guys.
Speaker: I want to hear from you all about what is
Speaker: Like, what are the pain points right now?
Speaker: What are you struggling with the most?
Speaker: What do you need the most help with?
Speaker: That's what this is all about.
Speaker: That's what this is for.
Speaker: And also, if you've had a pain point and you figured out a way to get through that or some really great thing, let us know.
Speaker: We want you to come and tell us and come on the podcast with us.
Speaker: come and chat with us.
Speaker: Come talk to us.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like you might feel like maybe you don't, like maybe you're not an expert or you're not the best at this or that, but you know, everybody has something that they can share that is valuable.
Speaker: So if you feel like you've got something that you want to share with the wider community, hit us up.
Speaker: Head to the Instagram, send us a DM, send us an email through the website.
Speaker: Like we want to hear from you and we want to share your story and connect you to more people.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we will leave it at that.
Speaker: And I'm looking forward to... We've got some good episodes coming up.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Looking forward to recording some epic...
Speaker: podcast episodes with some really amazing, amazing teachers and instructors who just might be happening to be joining us at the unfiltered retreat.
Speaker: And so if you're interested in, in hanging out with us in person, come and join us.
Speaker: There are still spots available to buy your ticket to the unfiltered retreat.
Speaker: The dates are eight to the 11th of August, 2023.
Speaker: We would love to have you there.
Speaker: It's going to be one not to be missed.
Speaker: In the Blue Mountains.
Speaker: You know, it's going to be beautiful.
Speaker: It will be beautiful.
Speaker: Maybe cold, but beautiful.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Thanks, you guys.
Speaker: Thanks for being here.
Speaker: We'll chat to you in the next episode.
Speaker: Talk soon.
