When starting as a freelance producer, you will make mistakes, and it’s okay.
This week Bryan Fellows, a freelance producer for Nascar, Nat Geo, and Disney+, shares how he overcame his mistakes from starting out as a freelance producer. In this episode, he talks about his career pivot, getting started in producing commercials, and the tools he uses to streamline his workflow.
Watch to avoid easy mistakes when starting out as a freelance producer.
Key points:
1:36 – How he started
4:18 – Wanting to Direct
7:10 – Starting own production company
15:01 – Pivot point to producing commercials
27:22 – Getting started into the commercial world
31:37 – Learning on the job
36:48 – Turn around expectations
39:30 – Bidding on a job
45:41 – Favorite tools
Links
Links:
Episode 6
Where Spot
Video Village
Hot Budget
Movie Magic
Set Hero
Studio Binder
Frame IO
Wrapbook
Notion
Website
Instagram
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
It was really, really a tough pivot for me because I was so invested in this company that I bled for and laid my life down for to a certain extent. I fought for it for so many years. My name and who I was and the work that I’d done was so closely connected to that that I felt like getting rid of it or letting go of it would just be heartbreaking. Because I had all these dreams, and I had to let go of those dreams and realize, “Okay, if I want to do this, which is different, then probably the fastest way is to work for somebody who already has that contract.”
Speaker 2 (00:00:34):
Welcome to the Practical Filmmaker, an educational podcast brought to you by the Filmmaker Institute and Sunscreen Film Festival, where industry professionals talk nuts and bolts in the steps they took to find their success today. On today’s show, we talk with self-taught producer Bryan Fellows as he recounts his experience, software, and mistakes that got him producing national commercials for companies like T-Mobile, NASCAR, and DoorDash. Find the full transcripts and more at thepracticalfilmmaker.com.
(00:00:58):
I’m your host, Tanya Musgrave, and today we talk freelance producing with commercial producer Bryan Fellows, who has worked with companies such as T-Mobile, NASCAR, Chevrolet, DoorDash, and Nat Geo. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:01:10):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:01:10):
We actually got a chance to talk with you near the start of the pandemic, but it was with two other producers for our small companies during COVID episode. That was episode six.
Speaker 1 (00:01:22):
That’s right.
Speaker 2 (00:01:22):
That was at the very, very beginning of this podcast back when it was titled There to Here. The thing is, when it’s a group, we’re never actually able to delve that deep, so this’ll be great. Let’s start with how you got to where you are now.
Speaker 1 (00:01:38):
How did I start? Well, early on I got a really great opportunity due to some connections that family had to work at a television station really early. I mean, I’m talking 15, 16 years old. I had an internship, and it allowed me to see the inner workings of what would go on at a typical broadcast station. Now, this was in broadcast TV. This wasn’t in “film” or commercial filmmaking. It wasn’t in any of those things. It was purely just broadcast. But it was cool because I was able to literally sit behind directors and producers and audio engineers and all these different people and just watch what they did. And as a 15-year-old and even younger than that, I would just sit there and I would literally take notes. It was great because after they were done recording a segment or after they were done recording a show, I would go up, and I was the annoying kid asking, “Why did you push that button? Why did that lever move a certain way?”
Speaker 2 (00:02:38):
Curiosity.
Speaker 1 (00:02:39):
Yeah, and it was great too because I’ve thought about this actually a lot now in my career, and it’s a different place and I’m doing different things, but there are college kids and younger that are coming up through the ranks and they’re asking those questions and they’re curious just like I was in a different way. Because technology back then, we were so separated from technology, not like we are now. Now we can just jump on our phones and make a video, post on YouTube, make a TikTok, whatever it might be. None of that was accessible at the time, so being able to be in a backseat or a fly in the wall, if you will, to that kind of work going on was super exciting and super interesting and not something that was tangible to most people.
(00:03:22):
So that was an amazing opportunity, and that led to me essentially PAing, running cables, pushing road cases through event halls, and that kind of thing. One day during a show, there was a camera that was unmanned. I saw the opportunity to jump on and try my hand at it. I remember at the end of the show the director was like, “Who ran that camera?” Because he knew that nobody was supposed to be on that camera. And then that led to being a camera operator.
(00:03:50):
So it was kind of a slow journey all within the broadcast realm. I knew early on that the more specialized I got, the more hireable I was. I had essentially a summer job at this broadcast institution. I would get called back every summer, which was awesome to run camera and eventually run jib, which is more specialized and only a few people could do that. And so, that was a cool thing. Played some video games which allowed me to get good at the joystick.
(00:04:17):
And then I had my eye on directing. I went to college with the hopes of doing this, and always had this, whatever this was, being in the film, being in the entertainment industry of some sort. My eye was on broadcast because that’s all I knew at the time. Nothing else was tangible. Film seemed so far away. Of course, at that time, technology was starting to shift. A lot of people share a similar story to me. Just due to my age group, the accessibility of cameras that were deemed film, even though they’re in the digital realm, started becoming accessible. I mean, the RED ONE came out, which was a huge transformational thing, the 5D Mark II in a simpler way, but a more tangible way.
Speaker 2 (00:05:01):
Accessible too.
Speaker 1 (00:05:02):
Yeah, and accessible, exactly. And to shoot in a way that was more cinematic than we’d ever been able to do in the past, at least at that level. That was super exciting. And so, at that time, again, I was still in the broadcast realm, had my eye in directing. I was in college, it wasn’t going great. I wasn’t super interested in what I was doing, and I was kind of hopping around a little bit between majors, not really landing, because the digital multimedia or fine arts degree that I was going for really wasn’t teaching me the things that I wanted to learn. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who can relate to that.
(00:05:35):
I’d been doing that summer job, essentially working a broadcast, and same organization reached out, said, “Hey, we’re starting a new station. It’s in the Latin realm, it’s going to be all Latin programming. We’re looking for directors. We knew you had an eye on that.” I had done some training, obviously, with some directors before then and knew the ropes generally but really didn’t have an opportunity, there wasn’t an opportunity for me. And so they said, “Are you interested in that? We know you’re in college.” Said, “Well, forget this, I’ll do that instead.” So I ditched. I completely ditched college. I think I was three years in. Honestly, at this point, it’s so far past me that I don’t remember how many years of college I did. Not even anywhere near a general degree, oddly enough, because I hopped around too much. I had my hand in a few different pots.
(00:06:26):
So I left to do that. It was awesome. It was awesome. I was a freelancer. I got brought in a lot though for different projects. I wasn’t getting paid extremely well, but it was exciting for me and it was kind of-
Speaker 2 (00:06:38):
It was experience.
Speaker 1 (00:06:38):
… the launch point. Yeah, it was the launch point. But as I said, the technology was changing, and even though I was doing so many cool things and it made up for the financial aspect. I was getting to travel. I was getting to go to different countries. As I mentioned, it was a Hispanic-speaking network, so there was a lot of countries that I was able to go to, Mexico, and I was able to go to Puerto Rico and Columbia and all these different places. It was really fun, but I really had this desire, I think I always did, to start my own outfit, have my own production company of some sort.
(00:07:12):
I got my hands on, I think it was a Canon T2i at the time, and then a 5D Mark II and started working my way up that line. I thought, “Well, I can create some videos with that, you know.”
Speaker 2 (00:07:25):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (00:07:26):
And so, I started my own company. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I figured out a process to do that legally. I created the company-
Speaker 2 (00:07:35):
Legally.
Speaker 1 (00:07:36):
Yeah, yeah. A whole new ballgame. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a partnership early on I created with a few other friends of mine from college. We sought out to change the world and do amazing things. It was maybe a year or so into it where we were struggling, using the resources and the connections that we had had from other previous work experience, which it wasn’t much, college connections, et cetera. We were trying to make it. Some of those guys were in college still while we were trying to do this. We could clearly see that each of us was going a different direction, and so slowly the different members of this collective started disbanding. I decided to keep the company and to keep moving forward. It led to so many different opportunities. I did a lot of smaller corporate projects, local projects, and those kinds of things. I have a religious background, and so a lot of the projects that I was involved in had some connection to a church or religious organization or even a non-profit of some sort. There were smaller projects, but there were such great opportunities for me because it allowed me to play in this realm where I didn’t know what I was doing, but the stakes weren’t super high.
Speaker 2 (00:08:49):
I know, you have low stakes, you have a lot of opportunity with a higher role, with a more-
Speaker 1 (00:08:54):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:08:54):
… control role, so yeah, it’s actually a-
Speaker 1 (00:08:55):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:08:56):
…. really advantageous place to be.
Speaker 1 (00:08:59):
It was a training ground. It was kind of college, if you will, for me. I made a ton of mistakes, I mean, missed deadlines, didn’t follow through. I mean, across the board. Didn’t know what I was doing financially, I mean, all kinds of stuff trying to make it. It was great, and I actually am glad that I made those mistakes and in the realm that I did, even though at the time I look back at it now as low stakes, at the time they were high stakes for me because this is literally all I had. This is how I was paying my rent, it was how I was feeding myself. Most of the meals were pasta and ramen noodles, but it was still keeping me alive.
(00:09:39):
But I look back at it now and I think, “That was great that I made those mistakes though, because even though it took time and there were a few times where I was making the same mistakes over and over, I started to learn from them.” I surrounded myself with some great people. I made some awesome partners early on, people who I knew from college and from other places along the way, people I’d meet along the way, different projects, that I would bring on board as freelancers and partners in crime, if you will. I met some great friends. I mean, we worked together.
Speaker 2 (00:10:11):
Yeah, that is where I met you.
Speaker 1 (00:10:14):
I remember a long plane ride to Hawaii where I think I talked your ear off the entire time, and you were like, “I just want to sleep.” So we had some-
Speaker 2 (00:10:21):
Well, I was trying to figure out, “Who is this guy?”
Speaker 1 (00:10:24):
Who is this?
Speaker 2 (00:10:26):
“Well, who is this guy because I’ve got to work with him for the next two weeks.”
Speaker 1 (00:10:28):
Absolutely. Absolutely. We had a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (00:10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:10:28):
I mean, traversed around Hawaii together, and then a lot of other projects ensued after that. But it was that, it was meeting people along the way, which a lot of those people have become very, very dear friends of mine who continue to this day even though we’ve gone down our different paths. I learned so much. I mean, I remember still being in the event space, doing other things too, but still being in the event space because that was closer to broadcast. I remember getting myself into projects that I probably didn’t have any business doing or I didn’t even have the skill or I didn’t know all the gear that we were trying to use. I mean, I remember literally selling projects before we even knew, myself and the team members that I brought on board, even knew how to do that thing that we were selling ourselves, that we were experts on. Yeah, stupid, right? But at the same time, I knew that even though we didn’t know how to do those things necessarily, maybe halfway or sometimes not at all, we’d figure it out. The best fire under yourself is the pressure of, “Oh crap, I’ve got to do this. I have to literally deliver in some way.” Sometimes it didn’t quite work, but most of the time it did.
Speaker 2 (00:11:52):
I want to know a story of when it didn’t.
Speaker 1 (00:11:55):
There’s so many. I remember being on site doing projects. In particular, one time, we sold this whole idea, we were going to bring in an LED wall and it was going to be this whole production. We didn’t know anything about LED walls. And then so we bid out, we won the bid on it, we had a number quoted. I remember myself and one of the guys I was working with at the time, we literally flew to China. We bought an LED wall in five hours, turned around, flew back to the United States and were like-
Speaker 2 (00:12:27):
My gosh.
Speaker 1 (00:12:28):
“Oh man, this is the largest purchase we’ve ever made, and I think we have the money to cover this. We also don’t know what we’re doing.” We checked the box on the order form that was the shipping route, literally via ship versus flying it because the cost was lower, and then we were trying to save money. So we cut it really close because literally the day that we were supposed to truck this gear to the event was the day that the ship landed. And so, we picked up the gear, never have tested this ever, brought it on site, and we figured it out on the fly. It did work, and it did come together. There were a few frantic Skype calls or something with our Chinese counterparts that had made this thing.
Speaker 2 (00:13:08):
That’s insane.
Speaker 1 (00:13:09):
But so many stories right, so many crazy things.
Speaker 2 (00:13:11):
No, but I want to know when it didn’t work, Bryan. When the wall didn’t-
Speaker 1 (00:13:18):
We need an hour.
Speaker 2 (00:13:18):
Not the wall, but when did it not work out, one of those risks?
Speaker 1 (00:13:21):
Well, I’m racking my brain trying to think about moments where it didn’t work, because a lot of times, we pulled it off somehow. This isn’t really the same, but I can remember a time where I didn’t deliver, and it was bad. I mean, I literally had to pay money back because I didn’t deliver a product. And that hurt because I didn’t have that money, especially as a small business owner. I wasn’t trained in business, I’m just figuring this out on the fly and learning as I went. When I didn’t deliver and I had to pay back the money that was paid to me, when you’re a small business, you borrow to pay the next thing. It’s that motion where you use one project to pay for the next, and then that next project pays the next thing.
(00:14:13):
That was rough. I remember it was really, really rough, and I had to scrounge to make that work. Those are the lessons, the lessons of not backing things up. I mean, I remember there was a lightning strike once in the middle of file transfer between hard drives and we lost everything we’d filmed that day. I mean, there’s so many of those things, having to go back to the client and say, “We don’t have this. We were not smart enough to back it up multiple time.” There’s so many different stories. And so, slowly along the way, I started learning these things and gaining the experience that has really led me to where I am today. There was some pivots along the way because I’m definitely doing something different than I was doing before.
Speaker 2 (00:15:01):
Tell me about that pivot point, because I know that from these particular projects where we work together, much smaller, much more the indie, I guess, compared to national commercials and that kind of a thing, the show that we were working on ended, and then you know, went your way and I went mine. The next thing I know, you’re like, “Oh hey, I’m working on this big thing.” I’m like, “How did he get over there? What happened?”
Speaker 1 (00:15:30):
Well, that’s a good question. I remember there was a Veggie Grill incident, a conversation happened at Veggie Grill, and I’ll get to that in a second, that you and I had actually.
Speaker 2 (00:15:38):
Oh yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1 (00:15:40):
Yes. That was actually a very pivotal conversation, so thank you for that conversation because it helped me.
Speaker 2 (00:15:45):
What did I say?
Speaker 1 (00:15:47):
It was all Veggie Grill, we had good food. It was the inspiration that we needed. No, I mean, like I was saying a second ago, all these different projects, it was teaching me something in the background. Maybe I wasn’t cognizant at the time, but I was slowly learning processes and how to do certain things. I had a really incredible opportunity, and you were part of this, for a number of years to travel extensively internationally and do a lot of projects for essentially NGOs, people who were in the healthcare realm. There was a religious element to some of that and to follow stories in the field. The filmmaking side of it, obviously I was learning a lot because this was a very structured process. We were delivering 30-minute episodes over the course of multiple seasons. I’d never done that before, so this was all new, and trying to create that process and one that would work.
(00:16:47):
It was rough at the very beginning trying to get that process to be fluid. I take this from a friend of mine from college who instilled this in me. I had to do a little trial and error too before I was able to really realize how important this was. But he always said, “Your time is more valuable, and you can’t do everything at once, can’t do everything yourself. And so, your time is more valuable.” So using the analogy of somebody who needs to mow their lawn, he’s like, “Well, you can mow your lawn and you can waste the two or three hours, or you can pay the kid down the street 20 bucks to mow your lawn, and now you have those hours back. Since your time is more valuable because you can make more money and do more things from business perspective during that time, it would be better to use that 20 bucks to pay the kid versus spending the two or three hours.”
(00:17:37):
There’s pros and cons on both sides, right?
Speaker 2 (00:17:39):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (00:17:40):
But I realized early on that friends, people, coworkers around me who are excellent at what they do would free me up to do what I did best. And even though I could do everything to a certain degree, I can run audio, I can edit, I’m never as good as somebody who was just an editor or just a sound mixer or just a DP, or what have you. It was hard to let go because I enjoyed all those things. But as I started to slowly let go of some of those things, and you can’t do that fully as a small business because you do wear all those hats to a certain degree, the more I let go, the better it would get, the product. Over the course of the show, I started realizing that. It used to be that I would edit it, I would shoot it, I directed it, I produced it. And then we had people who were facilitating some of that as well, but I was also involved in all those pieces.
(00:18:39):
But the more I let go and let an editor take care of the editing, then I would just manage and et cetera, all these different pieces, then it started to flow better because I really couldn’t do it all myself. That show ended, and I was at this pivotal point of, “What do I do next, first of all, because I’ve learned so much when it comes to the craft itself at that level? I’ve also had a lifetime of education from purely the fact that I’ve traveled around the world multiple times over and seen so much and talked to so many different people and learned from so many different cultures and experience that I’ll never forget because it was pivotal for me, and I gained so much just from that, purely, what do I do?”
(00:19:30):
I really wanted to jump to that next level, get to the next rung on a ladder. And so, we sat down at Veggie Grill. I remember asking you, “What am I from a title position, whatever?” Because I wore so many hats for all these years, starting broadcast, now in this corporate indie, whatever you want to call it, realm, this smaller tier production realm. What am I best at? I remember us narrowing it down, and I think you said, “You’re a line producer.” I didn’t really know what that meant at the time because at the time the very specific roles weren’t identified because we were all doing everything in that phase of life and phase of my career. But I started thinking, “If I could get into commercials, that would be really cool. I’d really love to work on Nike commercial or something of that level, Coca-Cola commercial. But I don’t know if they would ever call my little company of me. How is that even possible?”
(00:20:46):
It was really, really a tough pivot for me because I was so invested in this company that I’d bled for and laid my life down for to a certain extent. I fought for it for so many years to make it, and I felt very attached. My name and who I was and the work that I’d done was so closely connected to that that I felt like getting rid of it or letting go of it would just be heartbreaking. It was really hard to let go of the idea of this production company. I wanted to get to the point where I would have this staff and this office and all these things, I had all these dreams. I had to let go of those dreams and realize, “Okay, if I want to do this, which is different, then probably the fastest way is to work for somebody who already has that contract.”
(00:21:40):
But I didn’t want to go full time anywhere. I didn’t fully know what line producing was. And so, I knew that I had probably 75%, maybe 80% of the knowledge it would take to produce at that level. Saying the word producer reminds me of the fact that I realized that when it’s all set and done, even though I love gear and I can talk shop all day with those that play with gear all day, I enjoy the ins and outs of all these different facets of production, really what I’m best at is, first of all, talking to people, because I’ve already talked your ear off today, and I love coordination. And so, it seemed to fall under producing, that that was really where my talents lay.
Speaker 2 (00:22:28):
Yeah, I think I’d have to add to that too-
Speaker 1 (00:22:33):
Yeah, please.
Speaker 2 (00:22:33):
… because now that you’re talking about Veggie Grill, I do remember one thing that I did pick out, and that was just that you take care of your people. I-
Speaker 1 (00:22:41):
You did say that, I remember.
Speaker 2 (00:22:43):
I remember being in the Philly-
Speaker 1 (00:22:48):
Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (00:22:49):
… Airport. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I remember being in the Philly Airport, my flight had gotten canceled, there was a line two miles long. It was snowed in. I knew that I had to get on this flight to, I think maybe Ohio. I don’t even remember where I was, but I remember you being-
Speaker 1 (00:23:06):
I don’t remember.
Speaker 2 (00:23:07):
… international. You were already eyeballs deep in another project. I remember I was just like, “Oh man, there’s no way.” Because once you get production brain and you’re deep into a project, it is very hard to split your brain and manage something else that’s part of a different project, and anything regarding logistics, it’s just like, “Okay, I got to do this first. Nuts to you, but I got to do this first.” But I remember specifically in the Philly airport, I was just like, “It’s okay, I’ll just pop a squat over in that corner,” because you’re in your twenties and it doesn’t matter and your back doesn’t hurt and you can actually stay a full night on an airport floor and be sort of fine the next day. You’re just like, “Absolutely not. One second.” You came back and you were just like, “Go to this hotel, get your rest. You will be much better for me if you are able to sleep, take a shower. Let me get your flight worked out.” And everything was worked out. I was just like, “Oh my gosh, okay, this is okay. All right.” And I felt much better about going off and doing that job because, number one, I knew that I was going to be able to sleep, but it was also very nice knowing that I had somebody looking out for me. But in any case, yeah, I remember talking about that now.
Speaker 1 (00:24:32):
I do, I do remember that. I remember that instance very well. This is the thing, I didn’t realize. I mean, since I was five years old playing with my Legos, I’ve always wanted to be in this industry in some way, whatever it meant. This is what I was meant to do and I always wanted to do. But it’s taken me quite a while to figure out that producing was really what it was. I thought it was DPing or directing or you name it. I mean, there was so many different roles that I really enjoyed. I thought because I had so much interest in the gear side of things that that’s where I was ending up. But at the end of the day, throughout all of this that I’ve mentioned, the through line is that I like putting it together. I like putting all the pieces together, picking the people, bringing the right team for this specific project, a team that would fit that project. I like gathering all the rental orders and all that stuff. I like the logistics of the hotels and the flights and all those pieces of the puzzle. And so, producing was what it was.
(00:25:41):
It took a while. It wasn’t overnight, obviously, jumping to the commercial realm. But as I have done multiple times of my career, I got in deeper than I should have early on. But it was exactly the way that, at least I work best, is getting myself so deep that I have to figure it out. I have the pressure on me now of I have to either win or I completely fail and it’s going to be really bad. But I think all these years of working on smaller projects, working for religious projects for example, all these different projects that I’d done that now looking back the stakes were not as high as they are now, they gave me so much training. And then the last 20, 30%, I figured it out.
(00:26:27):
One of the biggest parts of that is budgeting, because I was the guy that failed math so many times that I was in remedial math in college because I never passed the entry level math exam. And so-
Speaker 2 (00:26:38):
I hate math.
Speaker 1 (00:26:38):
… they wouldn’t put me into math class. Yeah, exactly. I’m a creative, I don’t do math. And here I am, now I spend half my days working up budgets, Excel, and what have you. But yeah, it’s so crazy. Age also helps. I know that’s weird, but it really does. I think the older you get, the more honed in on what you want, what you care about, and the stakes matter more. And now I care about learning, and I care about getting better at this specific honed-in craft that I’ve settled on.
Speaker 2 (00:27:11):
Yeah. I mean, I know that it doesn’t happen overnight, but you had mentioned getting onto a set with somebody who had already had the bid. Let’s split that hair. How did you get that gig?
Speaker 1 (00:27:30):
I’m trying to remember what the first one was, and I honestly cannot remember off the top of my head right now what the first one was. But I used the biggest superpower that I have, and that’s I can make friends with a rock. So I got to know people. It took a lot of time, and some of those relationships were right away. And then some of those relationships, it took time for it to pay off. I do remember, actually, I did a small project, a guy who I’d met, he said, “Hey, instead of meeting me at my office, why don’t you come down and meet at this co-working space?” I said, “Okay, cool.” So I went down, instead of going to his office, I went there to the co-working space. He introduced me to some people, and these were people outside of my circle. I didn’t know these people at all. And they were at the beginnings of getting into the commercial realm.
(00:28:22):
It was massively, massively helpful for me because I became very good friends with a few that I met there and to this day have been cost collaborators. But I started learning the world of commercial filmmaking through them. Not only getting to meet some key players, but also I started getting into groups online. I mean, literally there are Facebook groups online that are full of directors and producers and DPs and varied-
Speaker 2 (00:28:52):
Name a few.
Speaker 1 (00:28:55):
There is a group called WheresSpot on Facebook. There is a group called Video Village on Facebook. These are all invite only. But once you get into some of these groups, you start seeing, “Oh, this person’s commenting multiple times, and this person is, and they seem to be doing this thing.” You start putting the pieces together. In the commercial world, it’s not as big as people think, as most worlds are, right? I mean, I’m sure the narrative world is that way as well, though I’m not as tapped into that. So it’s cool. I started meeting people. I would go to conventions or meetups. I know there was a meetup at NAB. Cine Gear hadn’t been a thing, it didn’t exist before, but it started. That was another way to connect with other filmmakers in different places. It was just putting yourself out there saying, “Hey, this is what I do. I do this one thing,” and seeing what happened.
Speaker 2 (00:29:54):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:29:55):
Slowly I would get called and would be brought on projects.
Speaker 2 (00:29:58):
[inaudible 00:29:58] or something else?
Speaker 1 (00:30:00):
Yeah, I actually got in as a producer-
Speaker 2 (00:30:02):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:30:02):
… and sold myself that way. I luckily had had in theory years of experience doing producing, even though it was at a very much a smaller level than where I was trying to head, a lot of those skills paid off. Like I said, the rest I learned on the job. I made some mistakes, but I learned on the job. There were a couple key people that I can think of. Seth Haley was one of them. He was the first person I met at that co-working space. There was another guy who I met, his name was Chris Fenner, down in Atlanta. I took a chance on a job that I knew that he was going to be part of as the DP. It was a job I did for free purely because I knew that I was going to meet him and that there may be some connection there, and I hoped for the best.I kept doing that, meeting different people who I would take a chance. Even if it was lower pay or what have you, it was the chance to work on something that maybe would lead me to the next thing. In turn, those people and others took chances on me. Chris was the one that brought me into doing branded content for NASCAR. I never would’ve even had a chance probably at that point, but he saw something in me. A very small project that we did together and was being brought on as a director for some of this branded content and said, “Well, I’m going to bring this producer in.” I learned and BSed my way through and learned on the way and just kept going from there.
Speaker 2 (00:31:33):
Nice. All right, let’s talk about some of that learning on the job.
Speaker 1 (00:31:37):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:31:37):
What’s an example of something that you learned that you had done weirdly at first, like for instance budgeting, all of those things.
Speaker 1 (00:31:48):
Well, yeah, I mean, I didn’t know that there were standards for some of this stuff. There are standards for all of it. But when you are in the indie world, you make it up as you go and fly about the seat of your pants and it sort of works, and that’s how I approached it. It’s funny, I remember some of the early agency jobs that I did, I had budgeted a certain way. It was this convoluted Google Sheets, some were Excel-looking thing that I’d created, and it worked for me, all calculated, and that was great, but it was very convoluted and it made sense from my head, but it didn’t make sense to anybody else. What was interesting is I didn’t realize that there were standards early on. Nobody called me out on it, so I just kept going.
(00:32:36):
But I learned. I never worked with crews more than five to 10 people, maybe if that. They were all friends of mine for the most part in the early days. And so, we figured out what pay was going to be and went from there. And I made mistakes there too, but it was interesting learning, well, what does a gaffer get paid? What does a key grip get paid, sound mixers, et cetera? There’s kit fees. Well, I didn’t know that, and I had to learn all this. I just in conversation would start picking those tidbits up from people, start learning those processes. And some of that was shared to me through some of these newer connections I had made. They were guiding me through some of it. So I build out this budgeting program, I guess you’d call it, or template on Google Sheets, and it served me well for a couple years until I started realizing that in the commercial realm, well, there’s AICP, and AICP has a certain way to bid. There are different budgetary softwares out there that you can have access to as archaic and frustrating as they are. And luckily there are some new alternatives that are on the horizon there. Then I started playing with that. I didn’t know how to use any of those programs, nobody had taught me.
Speaker 2 (00:33:49):
What are some of those programs that you came across?
Speaker 1 (00:33:53):
Hot Budget was one of them. There’s Movie Magic. I mean, there’s multiple different standard programs that everybody uses. Somebody at some point in history created these things, probably decades ago, and I don’t think they’ve been really updated since. And so, it’s extremely buggy and they’ll crash your program, your Excel program, or however it’s built, and it’s very frustrating. But they do the job and they do it in a way that is standardized, so that when you’re submitting a PDF budget to an agency or a production company, everybody knows what that means, everybody knows how it’s supposed to be laid out, and there’s a consensus among everybody that this is how it’s supposed to be.
(00:34:37):
It was now so great to have all that knowledge. Now I can work on projects that I probably never would’ve been able to early on, even early on in my commercial career, because if I hadn’t gotten these opportunities, I would’ve been laughed out of the room. I probably would’ve been let go pretty quick because they would’ve realized I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. So I’m glad that the process was somewhat gradual and that nobody fact-checked me early on.
Speaker 2 (00:35:10):
You had mentioned a couple of new options that might be on the horizon. What are you seeing?
Speaker 1 (00:35:14):
A producer and good buddy of mine, Jens Jacob, he’s from Sypher Films, he’s created new software. He’s an entrepreneur at heart, he’s a fantastic producer and done some really great things with some awesome filmmakers that some of you probably know, but in his entrepreneurial side has always had multiple other businesses and ventures going on. And one of them has been in the budget-making software-making a realm for filmmakers, because he realized in the same way that I have that this is so outdated. I think producers that are our age versus maybe those that have been around for 30 or 40 years, they just are so used to it that they wouldn’t change necessarily. We’re of the age of technology and building computers and all those things, and so when it’s not sleek and updated and fast, responsive, connected to all the things, it doesn’t make sense to us and I’m sure for those that are coming up through the ranks as well.
(00:36:14):
And so, he started a budgetary software called Green Budget that is in its infancy, going through beta stages currently, but really just light years ahead of what’s out there based on the same principles, on the same structures for not only commercial filmmaking but also narrative and otherwise. There’s other software out there too that has nothing to do with budgeting but that I use that are maybe a little more up to date that has helped me in other ways producing as well.
Speaker 2 (00:36:43):
Gotcha. One of the things that you had mentioned a while ago, you had talked about delivering. I did have a question on turnaround expectations, because you were involved with different types of projects as the producer, so a lot of the time those turnaround times were up to you… Not up to you, but you were heading those.
Speaker 1 (00:37:05):
They were looser.
Speaker 2 (00:37:08):
Yeah. Yeah. So what are the turnaround expectations for commercials versus some of the other projects that you did?
Speaker 1 (00:37:13):
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. Typically, we get anywhere from a week to two weeks. Usually two weeks is about standard lead time to put a commercial together. My role from the get-go, and it depends on the production company or agency that I’m working for, every agency is a little bit different, every production company’s a little bit different the way they handle it, the ultimate route for me and the way I like to work is, and this all goes back to relationships, obviously, the closer I am with the leads in these different places will change how I’m brought into a product, but my favorite is if I’m brought in early enough that it’s actually in the bidding phase. And then I’m actually brought in a week or two weeks prior to that two-week mark.
(00:38:00):
The reason I like that is, first of all, I’m already getting my head around the project versus being thrown in and saying, “You have two weeks.” So that’s nice even if I’m not moving forward on any of the processes or the logistics of making it happen. The other thing is, and this is the bigger part of it, is I get to be a voice in the budget phase and the bid phase. I’m always going to take that bid that I get, final bid that’s green lit, and then turn it into a budget. But if I’m brought into the bid phase, I can speak into not only errors, because that happens. On the agency side, they’re not in the trenches like I am, and so depending on the logistics, depending on where this is being filmed, there’s so many different variables that go into it. But based on those specific variables, I can quickly say, “Oh, wait, no, you need to budget more for this,” or “This should be shifted.” or “This shoot really needs to be two days, and so you need to budget appropriately.” Or whatever it might be
(00:39:00):
So speaking into those things drastically helps because then it doesn’t screw me over later. Because once I’m on board as a producer and it’s actually green lit or moving forward, I get handed something that is either going to be rough and I’m going to have to somehow figure out a way to make this happen. Or if I’ve been able to speak into it, it’s set up for me that I can do it in a way that’s going to be appropriate, it’s not going to be as much of a hassle to negotiate with vendors, or make happen in general.
Speaker 2 (00:39:30):
How do you quote for a job that comes your way?
Speaker 1 (00:39:32):
You mean bid on a job or quote my own time?
Speaker 2 (00:39:37):
Both actually. Yeah, let’s go for both.
Speaker 1 (00:39:42):
Bidding on a job, a commercial job, it’s such an ambiguous answer, and it’s the answer that I would hate if I was on the other end of this, but it comes with experience. When you understand the roles that go into making a project like this, you understand how the variables of this specific project that you’re working on, how they will play out in a day on set or even post, though I’m not as involved in post typically on most of these projects. Once you have your head around that, you can start making pretty educated guesses on what it’s going to take, and always buffering.
(00:40:22):
Something I like to do on the budgeting side is I like to put money in places I can forget later, because it always helped me. On top of that, I always have contingency and so forth baked in. But I like buffering, either rates to be just a tad higher than they should be, kind of padding it, or sticking money in line items that I’m never going to use for that project. Because sometimes I forget about it and then when I’m going through with a fine-toothed comb and I’m like, “Oh man, I need an extra 500 bucks, where am I going to find that?” I find it. “Oh yeah, I put that there for a reason.” And that’s great, and I can scale that money for later.
(00:40:59):
So it’s hard to give you, “Oh, you need to do this, this, and this.” I mean, unless you’re able to look over my shoulder and watch me do what I do, I can’t really give you an exact answer. But I will say that it comes to experience. The years of doing what I have done, I’ve been able to get to understand, generally speaking, these different roles and what it takes to accomplish those roles. And it’s been so beneficial because there are producers out there that are amazing at what they do, but they’re just business people. They don’t have that background. They haven’t worked as PAs or haven’t worked as camera ops or what have you, and they don’t have even the technical knowledge. If I’m working on quotes with vendors, rental companies, et cetera, I can spot errors or I can spot things where I’m like, “You don’t really need this. It could work better this way.” I mean, I can talk shop with gaffers and DP whereas some of my counterparts can’t. And so, I count that as a benefit.
(00:42:04):
On the flip side of your question, how do I budget or how do I quote for my time? It really depends on the job, and again, it goes back to that ambiguous answer of it comes with experience. But I now am at a point where I know how long a certain job is going to take roughly. You also get to know who you’re talking to, the agency, the production company, et cetera, and how they’re going to react to certain numbers. Some will be totally cool with, “This is my day rate, and even if I work 20 days, that’s fine.” Sometimes I know that that’s not going to fly with an agency. Maybe they don’t have that much overhead or that specific job they low bid it, and so they don’t have that leeway. Again, this is all helpful to have the knowledge of the bid early on. And then sometimes it becomes a project rate versus a day rate, because at a certain point, it would be ridiculous to pay me for 40 days of work, or whatever it might be. I’m just throwing a random number out there. And then it becomes a day rate… or rather a project rate, sorry, a project rate.
(00:43:12):
I say that that project rate is always based on a day rate, but at a certain level, it becomes just a number that’s going to work. It’s going to work for them, it’s going to work for me, and I know that that’s going to be acceptable. It also comes down to, here’s another factor, just a personal factor, it comes down to how much that I need to live on and how much I have projected in a certain year that I want to make and then know that that means X amount of projects at a certain rate or a project rate that’s going to equal up to that sum. And so that is helpful.
(00:43:47):
There have been times where it’s actually been more lucrative to take on jobs where from a project rate standpoint it’s over, let’s say, a campaign. Well, I should say, every time probably I would make more if it was my day rate every single day throughout the course of a campaign or a commercial. It would always be that way. But there is a security though that sometimes you have to take advantage of. For example, I’ll take this year as an example here. This year I knew that I had two campaigns, two big projects I was going to work on. Even though I probably would make a little bit less doing it that way, bidding myself or quoting myself for that full campaign as one chunk instead of it being per day or it’s just going to be this commercial and then it’s going to be the second commercial in the campaign, it’s going to be the third commercial, et cetera, there is a security in knowing that over the course of these months I’ve got work and I have money and a consistent paycheck coming in.
(00:44:53):
And so, I go back and forth with clients where some parts of the year, sometimes I’m doing that, where I’m filling in the gaps the rest of the year with just freelance producing where every job is its own thing. Sometimes I can stack jobs, I can do multiple jobs at the same time. It all helps to equate to that end goal of what you’re trying to achieve. Every few years, I’m trying to ratchet that up. Let me see if I can achieve to a different level and get there. You don’t always every year, but sometimes it works out, and it’s setting goals for yourself. It also helps me determine which projects I’m going to take because there is that financial goal along with creative goals and other goals that I might have, I can balance out.
Speaker 2 (00:45:39):
Gotcha. So now we’re going to talk about some tools of your trade. I know that you had actually mentioned some of the software that you used. What gear or gadget, though, or resource or software is an old reliable?
Speaker 1 (00:45:54):
There’s a couple of the tools. SetHero is one that’s really great. It’s actually another friend of mine developed that software that makes call sheets and a few other pieces of data for your time on set. It’s geared a little bit more toward narrative, but it’s a fantastic tool. It’ll send out your call sheets in a really effective way. There’s StudioBinder. That’s a similar product that’s out there. It’s a little more broad, and so it allows me to do what I do on the commercial side a little bit better than Set Hero does, but it’s a great product. It’ll text out call sheets and email out call sheets at the same time, which is really neat. I can track on there who’s opened the call sheet and viewed it, who’s not.
Speaker 2 (00:46:34):
Knowing who to hound.
Speaker 1 (00:46:37):
Yeah. Those are really, really neat pieces of software. And there’s other things that I’ll do too for scripting, et cetera. Both sets of software will do that. Frame.io, it’s the standard now for engaging in the back and forth when it comes to editing and gaining feedback from clients, gaining feedback from all the parties involved in the post production side of things, whether it’s the editor, your sound mixers, the people who are doing your score. Just MoGraph, you name it, color, anybody who’s involved in the post production side. It’s so invaluable. It’s the best way to share clips with different people, share it to clients. It’s just amazing. So huge supporter for Frame.io. And it’s so integrated in both Final Cut X as well as Premier and I believe to DaVinci as well.
(00:47:25):
And then I also still have my company throughout all its time even though I work essentially just me as a producer. And then I also have my production coordinator who works for me now who has been the greatest asset in the last several years to not only being able to keep me on track, but also goes back to what I said way back at the beginning of our call, how my good friend said, “Well, stick in your lane, let some of the other people do the other things.” She’s amazing at details that I’m not and does a lot of the paperwork and the very fine-tuned logistics. What’s really awesome at working with her is on some of these bigger productions that we’re working on, there’s just no way, I mean, I would be buried from 5:00 AM in the morning till midnight every night. One of the first things that I told her when I first hired her, as I said, “I want to be able to go to bed at night and spend time with my wife. I want to be able to not work on the weekends.” And she has been invaluable to making that happen since I spend most of my time on Zoom meeting with clients and dealing with the back and forth of agencies, et cetera.
(00:48:34):
So with my company, sometimes agency or production company doesn’t want to deal with the headache of the paperwork and payroll and all of that that goes into it, even though most of the time they have a system in place. And so, I have a payroll company that I use called Wrapbook. They’re new to the game and have been awesome, very, very streamlined, modern, all the things that you’d want in this day and age. And so, they’ve been invaluable to what I do as well to keep all the finances in order, as well as QuickBooks and some of these other very standard business software.
Speaker 2 (00:49:07):
Nice, nice, nice. I mean, some these I feel like counted for the next thing, which was your favorite new gadget or software that revolutionized the way that you work. I don’t know if you can think of any others, but yeah [inaudible 00:49:21].
Speaker 1 (00:49:21):
I mentioned Zoom a second ago. I mean, we all now know what Zoom is, especially the pandemic has really made us remote. I work half the time at home, half the time from my office. Zoom has become very invaluable to quickly being able to meet clients, do casting, even though I will say, being somebody who has casted in person in the room and casted via Zoom, I do really miss casting sessions. There’s just something that’s just not the same. But it is nice that it’s quick and easy and I can do it in my house.
(00:49:54):
But Slack has been really awesome. And then a lot of my partners in the Chicago area, being my home area that I work in, though I do a lot of work across the country and even internationally still, I would say probably it leans more toward work that I do locally. And so, I always use the same people for locations. And now that COVID is something we have to worry about, there are COVID testing protocols and so forth that are in place, so a lot of these vendors that I work with all the time, I’ve got them integrated in Slack as well. And so, it’s so easy for either myself or my professional coordinator to be able to easily send them a message and do away with half of the emails because there’s so many emails that we have to deal with already. And so that’s a really a nice way for us to communicate and connect.
Speaker 2 (00:50:43):
The question that I wrap up every single episode with, what questions should I have asked you?
Speaker 1 (00:50:51):
Whoever you are that’s listening to this, if you’re a student specifically, it’s tough in a conversation like this to give the nuts and bolts in a really tangible way, but I’ll give you a quick 30-second snapshot of what my production coordinator and I do. We go through an intake questionnaire that we’ve developed, and we have software that we use called Notion that we keep a lot of our data in. We do an intake with either the production company or the agency that we’re working with to gather all these little tidbits of information that we might need, whether it’s how do we pay people, is there a car that we can have on file from you guys that we can use on your behalf? All these different things. How is insurance being taken care of? And then we have developed a Google Drive, and you can do this in Dropbox or there’s plenty of other ways you can do this, but we’ve developed a Google Drive folder structure that has folders deep into it for various things.
(00:51:49):
Every single time we have a new project, we then copy that folder structure and then rename it as that job. That’s part of our system. And then as we’re starting to get files, we’re starting to get either it’s crew information or logistics information, locations, cast, et cetera, it’s all filtering into this organized system, and we rename every single file in a very organized fashion. My production coordinator has been very essentially helping me do this, but there’s a specific way that we name it with extensions to it so that it’s very quick for us to be able to see. And then we have a process at the tail end of every job, because our job starts in pre-production, obviously it’s running things, making sure that time on set works, and then there’s the wrap that happens. We’re then taking those files and receipts and all the data that we have and putting it into a new section, what we call wrap. And there’s another set of folders in there that then is passed on to that agency, production company, et cetera, our client essentially, that they take and put into their records. All these files that are coming in then are put into our system in a way that’s easy, accessible, and it can be grabbed at a moment’s notice for whatever we need it for.
Speaker 2 (00:53:04):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:53:05):
So I don’t know, that’s a little tidbit of information, I don’t know if that helps anybody.
Speaker 2 (00:53:06):
That’s great. That’s absolutely great. How do people find you-
Speaker 1 (00:53:06):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (00:53:07):
… or follow your work?
Speaker 1 (00:53:12):
Yes, you can check out my website that’s now two years old and I need to update it. It’s bryanfellows.com. Bryan with a Y if you’re wondering. And then for whatever reason, my Instagram is fellows, that’s F-E-L-L-O-W-S, 031. Don’t know what that means-
Speaker 2 (00:53:28):
That 031, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (00:53:30):
… but I came up with it, I’ve stuck with it. So you can check out work there. I’m less active on Instagram these days because I am trying to be more present, but I do every project try to at least post about the project or what have you in my stories, not so much on the feed. So if you look underneath my name, a little profile information, I actually have folders of BTS folders on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (00:53:53):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (00:53:54):
You can go back and you can look at different sets, BTS of those sets that I’ve been on and see the kind of work that I’ve been part of.
Speaker 2 (00:54:01):
Very nice. That nice. Bryan, you have given some great insight here with some-
Speaker 1 (00:54:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:54:07):
… great tangible resources. We really appreciate it. We have a lot to chase down now.
Speaker 1 (00:54:12):
Yeah, no worries. Well, my watch is telling me I need to stand up, so I better do that.
Speaker 2 (00:54:18):
Oh my gosh, we don’t need to talk about the back injury that I had the other week. I guarantee you, it is because I do not stand up enough.
Speaker 1 (00:54:30):
I hear you.
Speaker 2 (00:54:31):
In some ways, I want to divulge this just because it’s so utterly ridiculous. Okay, all right, really, really quick, I’ll just tell you because it’s hilarious in a horrifying sort of way. Our job is not wrapped around movement as much these days, unless you’re on set. And so I was just like, “Okay, I’m going to stretch out my back, right?”
Speaker 1 (00:54:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:54:59):
Okay, so imagine, if you will, at the chiropractor, there is this bed is a table that will hinge down from your hips. It’s not the [inaudible 00:55:10] chunk table, it is the one that will just passively stretch your lower back muscles, right?
Speaker 1 (00:55:16):
Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:55:16):
In any case, I was just like, “Okay, I’m going to do that, but on my own.” And so, I have my elbows just on the side of the bed and I’m letting my legs dangle so I can stretch out my lower back. Something spasmed in the way that back spasming has never spasmed before in my life.
Speaker 1 (00:55:38):
Oh no. Oh no.
Speaker 2 (00:55:40):
I could not go up. I could not go down. I could not put my weight on anything else. And then I’m like shaking there, I’m shaking on my elbows because I’m just like, “Okay, I have to move.” This is 20 minutes of this, it’s ridiculous. I finally lower myself onto my knees. When I tell you, the red hot pain that was like-
Speaker 1 (00:56:04):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (00:56:04):
… radiating through my lower back, it was insane. I’m using my chin on the edge of the bed to lower me down to my elbow. I’m wrapped on the side. My phone is not within reach. I don’t have an Apple Watch. I don’t have Hey Siri activated. I don’t have anything to contact people. I am pulling the bedspread down to get my phone. It was the most pathetic site that you could ever imagine. So I’m getting my phone, and I’m just like, Reddit. Back spasm, can’t move, help me. I don’t know what to do.” And then I was just watching these videos. I’m just like, “What is this? How do I help this back spasm? Is it a spasm? Is it a slip disc? What is it?”
(00:56:53):
I also just casually kind of texted my roommate and was just like, “Hey, when are you headed home? Not to alarm you, but I can’t get up. I’m on the floor.” Oh my gosh, just so I wouldn’t traumatize her when she was running through the house, I heard her running through the house and up the stairs. I’m just like, “It can be a traumatizing thing seeing your roommate’s legs on the ground.” Before she reached the room, I’m like, “Hey, what’s up?” She’s like, “Oh my gosh, do I call 911? Do I get an ambulance here?” I’m like, “Absolutely not. $7,000 to tell me I have a backed spasm, no.” We call her nurse friend and she calls her ortho friend. It was a two and a half hour ordeal.
Speaker 1 (00:57:43):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (00:57:44):
So dumb. What actually fixed it was a ball, it was a racketball that just loosened all that stuff up. But oh my gosh, people, especially if you who don’t move-
Speaker 1 (00:57:52):
Exercise. Exercise.
Speaker 2 (00:57:56):
… I do not kid you, do not skimp on this thing. We talk a lot about balance and boundaries and all of that fun stuff and all the emotional stuff, but physically, it is a thing. Move, go to a trainer. Start exercising so you don’t end up on the floor for two and a half hours. I don’t know what I-
Speaker 1 (00:58:13):
You’re 100% correct. You’re 100% correct. I mean-
Speaker 2 (00:58:19):
It’s ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (00:58:20):
I moved a lot more when I was in other roles. But now, essentially, producer is essentially an executive role, right?
Speaker 2 (00:58:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:58:30):
We’re sitting on a computer, we’re on Zoom meetings all day, we’re on the phone all day, that kind of thing, except for the few days that we’re on set. We’re not on set, even close to being the number that a crew member would be, for example. And so, I never was one to exercise. I was typically a thin guy for many years. But at 36, I will say, exercise, it is extremely, extremely important, and [inaudible 00:58:54] a lot of other-
Speaker 2 (00:58:54):
You’re an asset. That’s the thing, your body is an asset, and you need to invest in it. I actually did start with a trainer, not because of that, but way before, part of me in my head was just like, “Hey, I was working with a trainer, why did this happen?”
Speaker 1 (00:59:08):
I know.
Speaker 2 (00:59:08):
But it is a big deal, invest in your health. We are old. We’re talking about-
Speaker 1 (00:59:14):
I know.
Speaker 2 (00:59:15):
I’m talking about pain.
Speaker 1 (00:59:17):
We’re talking about back pain. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I actually had an incident, I don’t know if it was a post-COVID thing or what, but I had super fast heartbeats. It was like a-
Speaker 2 (00:59:27):
[inaudible 00:59:30] heartbeat.
Speaker 1 (00:59:32):
I don’t know. It was weird. I had this super anxious feeling. I’ve never been anxious in my life. I mean, I shouldn’t say that, there’s a couple very extreme times in my life where stuff is going really wrong, but really not something that I deal with. I’ve never really dealt with anxiety. It’s funny because I was telling my wife, I’m like, “What is this?” She’s like, “Well, you’re anxious. You’re having issues of anxiety.” I’m like, “This is what this is? I don’t even know what this is.”
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
That’s anxiety attack.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
It was so bad. It was so debilitating-
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Oh, no.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
… to the point I couldn’t do anything else. There is multiple times where I was literally just sitting there crying to my wife like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I had multiple conversations with friends, and the only thing that was a through line with everybody was exercise. Get out there and exercise because it will help. I got really serious-
Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
… and I went out there and I started exercising again, and it hasn’t come back. I’m getting my trends for my Apple Watch and stuff, the rapid heartbeats as well as just in general, the level the RPMs, are going down just from getting out there and exercising a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
I can let you go, but this has been great. If you enjoyed this interview, follow us right here and on Instagram, ask us questions, and check out more episodes at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. Be well, and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.