Building Video Production Teams with David Siciliano

Kevin: (00:00)
Welcome David, thanks for joining us.

David: (00:01)
Thank you very much.

Kevin: (00:02)
So today I’m really excited to have you on the show because you’re one of the few people I know that strikes a very powerful balance between very creative and also have worked in so many different areas of, of video production, whether that’s fictional filmmaking, whether that’s, working in agency world or freelance. Um, you, you bring a lot of, uh, very organized, precise mind to things, but then also a very perfectionist, artistic approach even though those seem contradictory, right? But there’s a constant curiosity there and always trying to refine your process. And so I thought it would be really exciting to have you on because then we can talk about your process at these different places that you’ve been in the past in different roles and see what we can glean from that, what might be helpful for our audience.

David: (00:50)
Yeah, that sounds good to me. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as a freelancer, been called powerful before.

Kevin: (00:54)
I’ll–you know what? That’s sad.

David: (01:00)
Yeah.

Kevin: (01:02)
So why don’t we start off just a brief couple minute overview of just, how you even got into the video world and how that transitioned.

David: (01:11)
Absolutely. Uh, I mean I did a lot of it growing up to be honest. And then I dropped it. I did the Lego Studios. It was like a stop-motion thing you could buy for like six, six, seven, eight year olds. You like use, the Legos, you moved their, their body parts and then a camera like takes pictures. You can put so much together.

Kevin: (01:29)
Oh my God. Here I am with action figures and a camera…

David: (01:31)
It’s basically that just with a brand on it, like an official piece of work. And that was fun. So I started there and I got a camera and you know, DV tapes and I happened to take a camp with my mom actually at editing camps in the summer where I learned Avid and all these things.

Kevin: (01:47)
I didn’t know that about you. I forgot to even say that we’ve worked together for two years. I did not know–Learning Avid with your mother in middle school.?

David: (01:56)
Yeah, it was like 14 or something. Um, yeah, really random. Great skill to know. I just did it for fun. I did a short film, whatever, but then some kids came to school and they were better than me at it and I just kinda dropped it.

Kevin: (02:06)
Who was better in seventh grade?

David: (02:08)
Oh, I don’t know. I mean it was middle school, I was probably just really self conscious. I got into acting and left it and then got to New York as an actor and had an agent and kind of got burned out by it and hated it. But on the side people were asking, you know, I was producing, some theater type stuff and then someone asked, Hey, would you ever produce a short film? So I said, well, sure. It’s basically the same thing, right?

Kevin: (02:27)

Sure.

David: (02:29)
I just rolled my eyes. So I tried that and then I remembered, Oh yeah. I have a lot of these skills that could be fun. And I just kind of casually, uh, I made a short film, I applied to a couple of jobs and got one because of a friend and then, and then, yeah, just it just took one zero to 60. And everyone was like, Oh, you have this skill, great. We’ll pay you this much money to do this for this many weeks. And from an acting life was like, Oh my gosh: First of all, this is fun. I have these skills. That’s great. Super marketable. I’m on the supply side of demand, which is really nice. And then I had an honest conversation with myself, that I hated acting, didn’t like that lifestyle and don’t like doing it. I don’t even really like theater that much. I prefer film. I’ve always preferred film. These are all things I’ve been interested in forever. Why not? Why don’t I give this a shot and then we’ll just, you know, from there. Got job to job to job.

Kevin: (03:14)
Cool. We’ll get into that in detail. But what, what cracks me up is, you know, for anyone who doesn’t know, I also started as an actor and did that for, for 10 years. But I’m like the opposite of your, your prognosis of it. For me it was the traditional actor thing of: I want to be playing some role, that I’m never getting cast as so I’m going to make my own film and sort of back into it that way. So the difference seems like I was going, “okay, I’m gonna make this thing. And then realized that i like the technical aspect of it, but from you it’s, people actually asked you for your services, which is a different thing.

David: (03:50)
Weird experience as an actor, too. I was one of the few people got picked up by a big agency. They actually, the other agencies called them boomerang agencies, the big three or four who take a young actor and they throw them in everything. And if they win, they win. If they lose, they drop them in six months. And I just didn’t know that. So like I went from being like, Oh my God, this top three agency signed me. I got zip from it. They treated me terribly. I will not name them. They lied to me. It was an awful experience. My self esteem was, you know, in the toilet. And then, and then, and then having people be like, Oh yeah, we’d love for you to edit this thing or great, can you shoot this interview or can you produce this thing? And being like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I can, I can do that. Is that something you need? Oh yeah.

Kevin: (04:25)
So was editing or producing the first thing, and then you transitioned,? How did you acquire all those skills as you went? Because we’ll get into like your formal, where you worked–things like that. But how’d you apply those skills?

David: (04:37)
Producing was first. I was producing theater. Things that I could help them with and would give me something to do while I was trying to be an actor. And then I learned a bunch of producing skills, like budgeting and coordinating and line producing and all that kind of stuff for theater festivals, a few plays, whatever. And then, when I started getting into film, it connected me back to editing cause I then was like, “Oh wait, I know how to edit. I’ll just edit this thing that I’m producing.” And producing a bunch other people and watching editors and remembering, like, I know these skills, so why don’t I go try that? See what I remember. Of course everything’s changed cause we’re not on DV tapes anymore. So I had to kind of, I had to catch up. But um, yeah, it connected me back to that. And then once I was editing, I wanted stuff to edit. So I, I picked up a camera again and I was like, all right, I know this stuff. Let me see what I’ve missed. So there was some catching up to do, but it was the producing that was the connector for me from the actor life that I had that I was not enjoying. And not even into. Back to the things that I have always done since I was a kid and just never thought of it.

Kevin: (05:37)
Very cool. Okay. So, so let’s see. Some people hire you for short films, where in the fictional world, everyone needs help, and they’re like, Oh, I’ll hire you for $5. You’re like, “actually, no, I made $5 million”

David: (05:50)
God, I wish!

Kevin: (05:50)
So you said you had a friend who transitioned you into, you started applying for producing jobs specifically. So where did you up and sort of what role did you fill in?

David: (05:58)
Totally. I had a friend from when I was an actor who was a producer at Vayner– Vayner Media. She was at Vayner productions, their production wing. It’s like the sister company, uh, and I was looking,–no– I was making my first short film, cause those skills had been sitting on the shelf for many years. I just produced a short film and thought, wait, I used to do this, let me try this again. So I was looking for a DP for my short film and then, uh, asked my friend Glo, I guess I can say her name. She used to work at Vayner –Glo Gambino. Um, “Hey, like, do you know what DP’s?” And she gave me some references, and she was like, “by the way, it’s cool to see you producing film.” I was like, “yeah, like I would love to get hired for, for it. That’d be great.” “Oh, did you need a job? Like we have openings, we need a post producer.” And I said, “well great, I just edited this short film, I’ll come in and interview.” They said like, “how is editing the short film?” I said, “yeah, great. We shot in 4K, I use the proxy workflow or whatever. “And I said, enough words. I think that they were just like, “Yeah, sure. Great!” So they hired me and then I was a producer for Vayner for about a year. A little less than that. Um, and yeah, that’s how I got to Vayner. Just really random.

Kevin: (07:02)
Well that’s great. Well let’s, let’s pause there for a second, sort of dig a little deeper because just what you mentioned, I wasn’t even thinking this, but you’re going to be brought in and interviewed and hired and things. And so, they ask, “okay, what skills do you, do you — they’re listening for those vocabulary keywords–right? So from you putting it over on them, what, just kidding. But what would you, if someone, if a company were looking for someone like for just even a more of a generalist position, if not like a post- producer, what kinds of things would you say? Say editing, for example. How would you approach that, as a company, to make sure that you’re not just getting the keywords and just feeling impressed by like, “Oh, they know the jargon, great!”

David: (07:44)
Right, right. That’s a good question. I mean, I would definitely say I would make sure you see samples cause it doesn’t really matter what jargon they know or what words they use. Vayner really should have asked to see some stuff I produced. Um, and they didn’t really ask for that. They just wanted to make sure, and I understand they took my friend’s reference, which was a good reference. I mean it wasn’t lying about anything. But I would say: always see samples to make sure that they actually can edit stuff. And then make sure that they’re fun to work with first and foremost. But I dunno, I guess that’s, that’s as far as I can think at the moment. The jargon stuff isn’t really as important. I think there’s a misunderstanding that you want to hire people with the stuff or who lknow how to talk about things. I don’t think those things are as important as someone who just makes good stuff like makes the content good. Um, so not the person that has, that owns the Arri cinema camera that cost $60,000 or whatever. And, and you know, not necessarily the guy who can talk really fancy about film, but somebody who actually has made some nice stuff and is a nice person.

Kevin: (08:45)
Yup. Yeah. You want to work with people who are, who are great. Right. Exactly. So I’m sure that worked against you.

David: (08:56)
Here we go! [laughing].

Kevin: (08:57)
I should only interview people I don’t know, so that we just keep inside anything to a minimum. So moving on then! Once you’re at Vayner–we have the video production process. You have, you know, ideation and strategy. You have pre production to actually put the plan of action, you have production actually capture it and then you have post production, right. The bottom line, which is what I’m working on now, which is what we do and color correction, it’s like one small part, it’s like a third of it. Why? Why am I downplaying it? Ok, It’s a big part of it. But what specifically does a post production supervisor or producer do? And then specifically in that context at Vayner, what were your responsibilities?

David: (09:37)
Totally. Oh man. Post-production supervising–post-production in general– is, is the making of the film. Um, like the pre production and the production and all that stuff is great, but it all is just becomes raw material for post production. And that’s, I mean I love so much, cause that is where everything actually happens. Where you put everything together, it’s where it becomes whatever it is you’re making. It also becomes where you discover what you shot, which might not be what you had envisioned, but maybe something better you don’t know. Anyway, so that’s where all the magic happens. At Vayner my responsibilities were overseeing the, with two other post- producers, all the editors. We had anywhere between five to 15 editors at any given time depending on like how much work was needed. So my job was to oversee, with the other two post producers, how many projects they were editing, who gets to edit what. And then when we were editing a project, I was kind of the creative producer for it. So I would, I would talk to the agency side of Vayner and they’d say, this is what we’re trying to do–what our strategy is with this campaign. Here’s what we shot, here’s what we want it to look like. That’s all great. But they’re not film people–totally cool. So my job is to translate all that to the editor and then see what the editor, and he’s like, look, this shot doesn’t accomplish what they’re doing. So I’d say, “okay, I think I understand what they want to do with this, with this piece. So why don’t we change their idea a little bit this way? And then I’ll tell them why.” And so that was my job. It was really challenging, but it was really fun cause you talk to a client or, or someone from the marketing side who really wants to accomplish this thing and I think a certain way is going to do it or they don’t quite understand something. And so I have to figure out between that side of the, of the relationship to the technical side of relationship, how are we going to make this work into something really good.

Kevin: (11:19)
Right. And then you’re also dealing with, I mean I’m impressed your’re non name dropping, like, “Oh when I worked on a Superbowl commercial”… but when you have clients like that that are sinking tens of millions—

David: (11:32)
I’ll tell, I’ll tell a story. I was working on a world series commercial. So we did that project. They did a bunch of tests, test videos, like they had focus groups and they had animatics, which are basically an animated version of the commercial they want to shoot. They, they made it on a computer. So it has like stick figures or drawings. Right. Um, and they had, they had a music track in there that one of the creative directors (who’s not a post production person, he’s a marketing person) put in there. He put a song he liked from an obscure band that he liked and it’s a great song. So he put it, he put it in the test case video. That video did really well. That’s the thing they’re going to make. They spent all this money, they shoot this thing, they had to hire, you know, this like team that specializes in cameras on robotic arms that they programmed and super slow Mo. It’s this crazy whole shoot. They like rebuild an alley outside in Long Island City and like put fake snow. It was great whole thing. We shoot it and they just, they couldn’t find any music they liked and they kept saying, “you know, we really liked that song from the animatic, the the test video.” So okay, I will go look into that for you. Right. Cause they’re the marketing side and I’m translating to the technical side. So I look up the band, we get in touch with their lawyer. They are asking for a ton of money. We had no money for music. We were just going to hit stock music, right. Built into the budget. They wanted–it was in the six figures. I don’t remember the exact number, but it was more than a hundred thousand dollars. And uh, and um, yeah. So I freaked out. I freaked out. I was like, “ah, this is all very, our budget. I don’t know what to do.” And so I went to the client. I told the marketing side of Vayner like, “Hey, this is what the answer is. It’s a lot of money.” And I said, “all right, well we’ll talk to the client.” So I talked to the client face to face, and they didn’t even blink an eye. Just, “yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever .” They waved their hand, “that’s fine. Whatever it is.” And it was in the video and the commercial’s really a lot better for it. I mean, it’s a great, it was a great little piece for, especially for like something that could be so dumb–it was like a fun little piece with some great music that you don’t usually see for that brand, which is also something I was always trying to do–trying to push them to like be a little edgier or push brands to do something a little more creative than just what everyone’s seen before because it’s more fun that way for everyone. Um, yeah, I’m gonna use this kind of like edgy song from this weird band that they found and it was great. It’s great for it. Bang, great sound, great commercial. They just threw the money. It was nothing. Didn’t even blink an eye. That was crazy. Yeah.

Kevin: (13:44)
Oh my God. That’s like everyone who works in smaller boutique land is just like having a stroke right now.

David: (13:50)
I know, I was freaking out. I freaked out for several hours, just like, I don’t know how to solve this.

Kevin: (13:54)
So when you get those kinds of situations and you’re communicating, how do you translate that then when you are speaking with the sort of strategy marketing people, the agency? “We got this cool idea” and then the technical like you were saying with with an edit, “okay, well we don’t have the shots” but they, you know, that’s like number one editing, right? Like what do we actually have, and is this actually telling our story? And when you don’t have that, how do you then go back and approach that? Who’s first? Is it the marketing people?

David: (14:27)
It was really fun. That was actually the part of the job I liked a lot. It was also the part of the job that eventually made me not have that job anymore. I was like, I think I’m going to try and move more towards the creative side. But it was a really fun challenge for a while. I mean honestly, what would usually happen is they’d say, “we really want this.” I’d say “that’s not in the footage we have. We’ll try to figure it out.” And we’d look out, we look at it. And most of the time it was using the skills I learned as an actor or as a director or as a producer from any other creative background. And just trying to think outside the box. And usually it was in my experience, it was finding one, maybe, maybe two moments you’d think, well maybe one, maybe two moments that did something close to what they were asking for that made the client feel like we were doing it. And sometimes that’s all it’s needed. Like sometimes like, you know, it’s, “Oh, this feels like it’s going really quick.” Right? Well you only have 30 seconds for this commercial, right? So I can’t slow anything down, but we can add one moment of stillness, like halfway through. And then that, for some reason, will make the whole thing feel like, Oh, it’s a lot slower now. But we only changed one thing. So a lot of the time my job was that: “what’s the one or two things that we could do that will fix it, fix or accomplish whatever the client wants to accomplish without it–without needing new footage, a whole new idea, re-cutting everything… And generally it was just one or two things that we could change–like something at the top or something in the first 10 seconds that like lasted, you know, that carried through the rest of the piece. So that was fun.

Kevin: (15:45)
That’s cool. That is the big challenge, right? Like I’m trying to do this all the time whenever we’re working with color footage. What is the vocabulary that’s been built up around that? Brighter, darker, more contrast, less contrast, more saturated, less saturated. And I think beyond that you’re just like, yeah, it’s just not in people’s vocabulary. So how you communicate or how you interpret that cause they may, you know, a client may not want something that’s more saturated. They may just like the more orange hues, a different luminance value, or whatever it may be, but being able to transfer–to translate that shared language together. That’s the challenge, right?

David: (16:25)
That was a part of the job I really enjoyed–was trying to optimize this, optimize the process. Like we would, um,

Kevin: (16:30)
Ya, tell me more about that. That’s something I know we geek out on all the time.

David: (16:32)
You know, in advertising and marketing, there’s never enough time to finish the things and you know, there’s always short timelines and that’s always fine. So it’s always trying to find like where, how can we be working better, how can we be working more efficiently? Um, and I suppose for sort of Vayner we have an editing team, but then we have to kick it over to color. At a certain point we got to send it out to get sound design from the studio and get mixed. Is it going to–do we need surround sound like there’s lots of lots of different elements of it and using a ton of different vendors. We had one sound studio we used all the time in Midtown that I loved. I loved the guy though, Dave. And, uh, I would ask him, “next time, what do you need from me to make this go better so that you can do better work?” And he said, “we did half the day sound design, half the days I’m mixing. Like it’d be great to have a full day to design and a full day to mix. I think it’ll make the work better. “So then next time I made sure from the get go we have one full day for design and one day for mixing. That is adding time. But we can mix while we color. I tried to make the timeline work so that we can give him that extra few hours because that specific sound designer wanted it and thinks it’ll make the work better. That was always, I mean, that’s fun. Same with the shared language. Trying to gently use words, the same words and describe things the same way with clients over and over again on multiple projects and I found that like if there’s ever a reason to find a freelancer and really maintain that relationship, even if the first project isn’t as good as you wanted it to, I just think that’s like the way to go. Like you use someone they seem like right. Their work is great, the flow is great. You work with them and it was a little tricky. You’re not quite sure you got what you wanted the projects over though. You’ve got to move on. I don’t think you bail on it. I think you try one more time at least and you go okay this time, last time I had this problem… Be direct. Give the feedback. This was an issue last time or we didn’t quite get this the first time around. I just want you to be aware of that where it’s do one more project and figure it out. Cause it’s hard. You’re talking about something that isn’t made yet. So you’re making it together. That’s going to take like a shared language. It’s going to take a relationship. It’s going to take, getting to know how each other work and how your other vendors work together. Um, so that was fun. Yeah,

Kevin: (18:24)
That’s a good transition point. You mentioned the keyword, ‘freelancer.’ I’m looking at my notes here. It’s a very different approach that a lot of clients, companies, creative companie–whatever it is–you’re always looking at it. Okay, well I need to build out this team. We just talked about the very large agency world of, “Oh yeah, $100,000 for a song. Yeah. Cool. Whatever.” Right down to, okay, well we’re a really small team. Maybe we have like one in house person who shoots and edits everything and then you need to add a freelancer to help out with a specific project for whatever reason. Or maybe you’re looking for an ongoing freelance relationship so that you don’t have to pay salary benefits and deal with just a more complex team. So when you–we could go at this a couple of different ways cause you are freelancing, as well as working in other companies like –it’s always part of a creative’s portfolio and in a way or or uh, that’s the right word for it. Lifestyle. So looking at if you were to be hired, let’s say, um, let’s look at a couple different scenarios. Okay. So like we just, can we say that we just worked on the Master Card thing? So we just worked on a Master Card project, and you’re coming on as a freelancer, you know, at a different place than just being directly hired. Cause the larger the company, the more in between people they need to communicate for the larger teams and the larger teams. So we could look at a couple different scenarios. One is, you know, if you’re a production company who is looking to deliver for a high end client who’s much bigger and you need to fill out your, your ranks. So looking at how you know, how to look for freelancer, what to look for, what have you, and how to build a strong relationship like that you mentioned, because the relationships over time will save you time. It saves everyone time and it, and it makes for happier. And then the other situation–you’re a company and maybe you have a small content team and you’re looking for to fill that out in some way. So specific question wise,: if you were looking to join a company as a freelancer, how would, how would they find you?

David: (20:29)
I have a website, that’s my name.com. So David Siciliano dot com. I mean that’s the number one way. I don’t, I don’t know how much work actually’s from the website. I do know it gets traffic monthly, but most of the time it’s word of mouth, which I like a lot because I trust those clients a little bit more than a random inquiry. Um, but um, I’ll always answer, um, any inquiry.

Kevin: (20:50)
So say people don’t have a connection though. Like they don’t have word of mouth and they wanted to find someone to help fill out their team. Where would they typically go from a freelance perspective? Like any membership groups or any of that stuff? Like where are they?

David: (21:04)
Yeah, a program called uplift. Uh, I was on, um, I was on, was it task.com. I have some more regular work now, so I’ve, I’ve downgraded all those subscriptions, but there’s, there’s a lot of different avenues where you can find people. Um, again, I say always make sure their portfolio is good, that they do good stuff and then make sure you have a conversation and that they seem like a cool person. I was, I was on a bunch of different platforms like that. Um, Facebook groups are huge. I got a ton of work through Facebook groups. Actually, there are several regular clients, even a couple of friends that I’ve met through Facebook groups, people posting jobs there and um, and me replying and getting hired and then becoming great friends with them or working with them consistently. I mean those are all really good places to start. I liked being friends with people who would get those inquiries and they would recommend me. And now that I’ve been in the industry for a while, I do that a lot and I like that. I think that’s, I don’t know, I think that’s a nice way, to go. I would say like if I had advice to a company who is looking to build up their team or didn’t have a team, I guess both scenarios I would say like instead of trying to find specific people for specific roles, I would talk to someone who’s more of a hub who can connect you to people. Like, I mean that’s, I think, I think the post-person experience at Vayner was like, is now in my DNA. Like I think of it that way. Cause some companies don’t have people like post-purchase or someone who’s kind of the, the, the gateway to the post-World. I think that’s like the way to go. Even if you don’t have a post producer, talk to someone who can connect you to the people you need for your project. And you can tell them like, we’re working on this thing and we kind of have this need going forward. Like what do you think? And they might give you recommendations like, Oh like maybe, yeah, maybe find one or two editors and an assistant editor and a colorist that like you can work with continually. Like let me give you some names and you can interview some people. Um, as opposed to putting a post out for, we need an editor, we need a colorist, we need assistant editor. I said like find a hub, whether it’s an online service, a person, whatever, find a hub who can give you X, who can help you navigate that complexity for you as opposed to trying to navigate the complexity on your own.

Kevin: (23:02)
Right. Yeah. Cause you may know, “okay, I need this to look better or I need this project to be better,” but you don’t have necessarily the technical knowledge to even know what to look for necessarily. So I love that hub idea of “find the person.” Now, where would people look to find that? You mentioned groups, just asking around for recommendations, right? Like on social network?

David: (23:40)
All those types of platforms definitely I think are okay places to start. I find people who have great resumes have worked on awesome things. I mean I’ve, you can find people, you can find like legit working people on those platforms, which is cool.

Kevin: (23:56)
Okay. So now let’s switch that and say you as a freelancer, you’re, you’re vetting companies, as well, right? Just like a company would not necessarily take all the work of every company. And same thing with your freelancer once you’re past the desperate pace. So what would–what are some red flags from companies that you would see or from producers from a production company or anyone looking to hire you? What are you looking for? For like, yes, these people can be solid, or…Okay. Maybe I’ll, I’ll pass on this one.

David: (24:28)
I’d say the number one thing I look for is being articulate. I look for people and clients who articulate about what what they want. Um, there’s only so much I could do. Being articulate about what they want includes, “I don’t know what I want.” Right? Right. Yeah. So I look to people who can either say that or tell me specifically what they’re looking for. And if they can’t yet, I’m happy to help them workshop that. But I need them to ask me, can you help me workshop this? Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s basically I look for a nut shell. Like I’m looking for, “Hey David, like I would like to make this thing, here’s the amount of time we have. Um, time is always a factor. Here’s the rate or what rates can you work for–articulate about the structure and the goal. Um, if they don’t articulate their structure and the goal– totally fine. I ask questions and then if they answered the questions and it gets further, that’s a good thing. If it starts to be like, I don’t know, like maybe this, maybe that, blah, blah, blah. Then I started to go into producer mode and I go like, “okay, cool. What are your goals? Like what’s the campaign like? What, what are you trying to accomplish? How are you trying to accomplish it?” And when I start getting there, I start to feel like, okay, now they’re hiring us to produce services. I start to get confused about what that request is and then I go like, “I’m not sure I want to be confused.”

Kevin: (25:38)
And there are a lot of freelancers– I’d say the majority of them, especially in creative positions–where they’re, they’re doing that as their position because they don’t have that producer mind or they don’t want to deal with it. Right. So quite often I feel like people will bring on a freelancer as the solution to their problems. But if you don’t have the clarity to direct them and know what slot fits in, it’s dunzo, but the freelancer will most likely want your work. And so they will say, “You got it, buddy! No problem”

David: (26:07)
This takes me back to the hub thing, like I have been hired to be an editor on a project and I do what they want, but then they don’t like it because they didn’t actually need me as an editor. They needed a producer to help them figure out what they wanted and then make something else. And if they’d hired me as a producer instead, that might’ve been better. So now I just always come a come to any new client as producer brain. What do you need? And if it’s not me as an editor or as a cinematographer, I say, you know, I’m not looking for producing work right now, but it sounds like you need this kind of thing and I pass them on or I’ll take the job if it seems like a good fit. Um, but that’s the problem: a lot of freelancers don’t think as a producer because they haven’t been producers. They’re editors or just photographers. Totally fine. Um, but then the client might hire them and they might not like the work, but the editor did the best work he could. He thought. And it’s a weird confusing thing. There’s no post-mortem, no feedback. And then they both said go separate ways and both feel really sour. And It takes you back to the hub. You find a hub person or a hub place that can help you navigate that complexity for you. And generally that looks like a producer. If you don’t have a team, if you do have a producer then great then you know, then they make sure when you’re looking for freelance or you have a really clear idea of what your vision is and what you want to accomplish and then you’ll hire good people. Okay. Cause they’ll know you need to do X, Y and Z? And the person I’m hiring needs to be able to do X, Y and Z.

Kevin: (27:20)
Right. It’s clarity up front, like at anything else. And what are those expectations? And now now as the conversation goes on, what is a production company? What is a creative agency? What’s a boutique agency? What is it like a media agency and where all those things fit together? There can be a lot of confusion of, “Hey, I need a video or I need an ongoing marketing campaign video campaign. Who the heck do I turn to? Do I hire a freelancer? Do I go to a larger agency? Do I go to just a production company? We should come up with a hypothetical situation here. So say that I’m a small to medium sized business. I have a designated marketing team, maybe no, no one fully on production, just marketing– and Christmas is coming up. We want to have a video campaign highlighting our, I don’t know, Swiss cheese making, I don’t know, whatever. But I’m like, we will show that Swiss cheese being made in the most beautiful way as it sits in the basement for five years or however you make systems. So how would I determine which person to go to?

David: (28:44)
One of the main factors, is the producer, right? Number two after that is a creative director or creative of some kind.

Kevin: (28:55)
You go producer first?

David: (28:56)
Always producer first. You need a structure. You just need structure.

Kevin: (28:59)
This is so very much you. The first time we worked together I was DP’ing a project he was, David was producing and I just told him this like a couple weeks ago– but it was a low, I mean it was LOW budget project, Here comes the shoot, I’m getting ready. And from the moment I signed on, I was getting these spreadsheet templates and schedules tight up to the minute. And I was like, okay, this is great. And I still use a lot of that. But then, I was like, this is someone who, I’m aligned with, because creatives, you don’t have that a lot of time. So what you’re saying is find a producer who–

David: (29:42)
Structure, yeah,

Kevin: (29:43)
Get the structure.

David: (29:44)
Because if you have a structure then you can play in it all day long. Right. And you know how much you can play, you know, how little, you know what you can, where you can put. Structure’s everything. So I say get a structure. So if you’re, a marketing team, great. Even if there’s creatives in marketing team, whatever. Just I think the very first step is you get a producer who can lay out a structure for you, whether that be a freelance producer or would you look for a company that has a producer in it that to then manage? Um, yeah, I mean I think it depends on the scale, of course. I think like if you, if you were looking to make a lot of projects and you have the money for it, I think, yeah. Like get a look for a company or a person that has a network, um, who’s pitching, who’s framing themselves as a company. But if, you know, if like if you can’t afford like a big production company, then find the person or a small one.

Kevin: (30:24)
We call this the boutique agency–scales as they go.

David: (30:30)
Just find a freelance producer, and maybe bring them on staff. If you think you’re gonna make a lot of it or not. I think it depends on the, on the scale again, but I think first and foremost is get in touch with a producer.

Kevin: (30:39)
Which is counterintuitive. Everyone always goes for, I need a camera man. I’m making a video, I need a camera. And then they get this footage and they don’t know what to do with it. They don’t like the story. It wasn’t crafted before. So the producer adds structure. Then the producer does …

David: (30:54)
Well then, then you get a creative person and the creative person, as much as the producer provides structure, you need the creative to be the ideas person. So you just need both. Like you need one person who’s gonna help give you a structure and gently guide the process along and the other. And they got the bumper rails on a bowling lane if you will. And then you need an ideas person. Um, I think that’s the two places to start. Um, sometimes the ideas person might be someone in the company in the marketing side, which is excellent. Then I would say, make sure your director, who’s the third person I would get, um, really understands film. I say this only because a lot of companies that I’ve seen or worked with have their ideas person be in the marketing side of the company that’s making the video and that’s great, but they don’t know film. So you want to make sure that you have someone at the top of the video production part that understands how film works. Who can translate it. Um, but like maybe you can’t afford all those people. I still say get a producer first.

Kevin: (31:44)
Look at you. I have to ask that question. If you can have two people say, (I’m giving you that producer because normally I want to ask if you have one person, because if you just have a producer, you don’t have a video). How about we do two people and then one person.

David: (32:05)
I say producer for sure. Um, and then I say a DP cause the DP typically if you’re, if we’re talking to marketing…

Kevin: (32:13)
Director of photography,

David: (32:13)
Sorry Director of photography. Yeah. A DP, if it were in the, the video marketing world, video marketing is images. And a DP is able, as a visual storyteller with a camera, right? So like you bypass the director all together, make sure you have ADP cause the DP will be able to do that. Um, so I say producer and a DP. The producer gives the structure and makes sure the process goes well. They’re, they’re functioning in the story realm too, in the strategy and all that right there. They’re the room that everyone gets to play in. That’s, that’s how I’ve always described it. The producer, creates the room for everyone to play in and the people in the room play. You need the producer there to be like, “We only have a couple more hours to do this. “You know what I mean? Um, or, or just to know like do we have license to shoot here? Like if you just hire a DP, the DP is not gonna necessarily ask, “Hey do we have license to shoot here?” And then you could get screwed. You can make this whole video and spend a bunch of money on it and not be able to use it because someone’s like, “Hey you can’t use my place in your video. He didn’t ask my permission or whatever.” Cause I just think producer–always–and then as DP. If I was going to pick one person. That is a really tough one. I mean there are people out there, me being one of them, you being one of them who are one-man bands who understand producing, who understand directing, who understand cinematography, editing. I would say get one of those, but I would just make sure you’re asking about like what’s your experience producing content. Like you know, the legal side of it and then the managing side of it. And then the creative side of it because like you just–especially in marketing and advertising–I just really think that there needs to be a good solid, safe structure for it to be really successful. That’s it. I’m really passionate about that point.

David: (33:50)
That’s great because it’s counterintuitive to a lot things that I’ve encountered. So many people and a lot of the digital agency marketing world or media buyers and people who are managing the ads who also will include creative in their services. What I see a lot of now is, “okay, well the one person’s can be the editor and we’re going to have them use stock footage and put some cool templates on and some texts and animate photos and you know, that’s going to be how we use video because we don’t have time or money to shoot it. ” What are your thoughts on that kind of setup? Just cause obviously we have the creative snootiness of just like, “Stock footage, my foot,! But like do you see that fitting in anywhere and and what are the pros and cons?

David: (34:34)
Yeah, totally. I did something like that for Mountain Dew. They did a campaign, they did three videos. They were testing out a new, a new voice to try to target the Southern audience a specific way. So they did huge shoots and then they wanted to do a third video. And like you, they were like, “we don’t really have any footage, this third video, can you stock footage?”Here’s the idea.” And like, the idea was really fun. It was a bunch of random random clips that was like, “here’s doing the dew here’s not doing to dew.” And it was really funny and really fun. And the editor had a field day. I loved telling, I was like, “Hey editor, here’s the project. You can do whatever you want.” And like, they just loved it. That was great. Um, but uh, yeah, but, but there’s also limits like that worked for that idea, but that’s not gonna work for everything. Stock footage is expensive. Um, really expensive. Stock is more expensive than shooting something depending on how much you use for sure. So I just think like, you know, stock footage is good for like, if you want to get consistent quality, it’s expensive. But like if you didn’t need to do that, you can get, there’s some free options. It’s just, it’s kind of a mixed bag. It’s just, you’re not sure you’re going to get what you want. I just think it’s worth it to spend, pay a day rate for a DP and then you don’t have to license the footage for certain amount of time. You don’t have to deal with the legal side of it. You don’t have to do the hunting and searching, like just craft something. Um, and, and you never know, especially in video, you can, there’s them video making is magic, right? Like if you think you can’t get like a shot of someone on the moon, like you don’t know that. Like, maybe you can, you don’t, I mean, you can do a lot with a blue sheet and an editor who knows how to use the blue screen. I mean, I don’t know.

Kevin: (35:58)
Oh yeah, we uh, we were talking about this, because I was on a shoot. I took time off of the business and went two days to make a fictional film with some friends. And we were shooting an office, like a detective’s office. And when we first did the location scout, we saw that it was, it was the director’s department and it was a small studio in Harlem. And I’m like, “guys, you can’t, you just can’t do this. We cannot do this relative to every other location we have. But I’m telling you, we put up a black screen in the background. We use the lenses that sort of blurred things out. We created some smoke, we got some cool lights and practicals and things. And it’s like my God, that was a detective’s office! But you’re right, you have that creative ability to turn something into nothing. Even if you don’t have a lot of resources, they’d be take a quarter of an office, like a street corner, right. Whatever you may do and you can turn it into something. And this is something also that I find with stock footage cause I’ve, I’ve been asked to color and work on a lot of projects where it’s like, “okay we have the interview talking head kind of stuff and then a bunch of stock footage. What people don’t realize with stock footage is that it may look good on its own and some doesn’t. It’s amazing how much stock footage isn’t white balanced or anything. But then when you put them all together, you’re going to have completely different feel. So you still need someone to match that stuff. Otherwise it looks like, “Hey I took all these different clips from different times of day in different everything and it just looks like a mess.”

David: (37:20)
As an editor, when I work with stock footage, I have to find a library that looks all the same, which can be really expensive because people know you’re looking for that. And then I’ve had clients, I’d be like, “Oh, but can we get a shot of like this thing?” And I’m like, Oh my God, this looks so different. And like, it’s the kind of thing that like you might not care, you might be like, Oh, it’s fine, it’s close enough. But like the average person, while they might not point out like, “Hey, this stock footage all looks different,” they just going to be like, eh, this feels a little, I dunno. It just doesn’t feel… eh. You know what I mean? They’ll know.They just won’t be able to put words to it.

Kevin: (37:45)
Yeah! The subconscious, ‘eh.’ I like that. Forgive me if I’m going to talk about business for one second, but that’s something that with color, it’s very hard to quantify color where it’s like, “Oh yeah, well clearly it gives us these returns and whatever,” but it’s that subconscious, ‘eh.’ It’s, “wow, I’m watching this and all of a sudden something doesn’t feel right or like, that doesn’t match. Or like it just doesn’t seem cohesive.” And then you add that to a company or a brand or, or especially fictional projects–I mean, my God, you know, it’s everything. But creating that visual cohesion so that you don’t trigger people’s, eh, cause the moment they feel, ‘eh,’ they’re going to feel, ‘eh’, , about whatever you’re talking about. You know?

David: (38:23)
And yeah, I think the consumer is getting really smart and I think consumers, I mean we’re used to media now. We consume tons of content. It’s more TV shows made than ever before. I mean, and we’re not even at a saturation point. We watch videos all day long. We see advertisements all day long. I mean, consumers know what things are supposed to look like. And so if it doesn’t, they know. That’s it. Especially when it comes to color. I mean, you can shoot, you can tell me if this is an advertisement. You can choose something on an iPhone and a color is, can track out the person, make the background blurry so that it looks like it was shot on a camera. I mean, you can technically do these things or you can shoot on 4k. You could have a really nice big file. You could pop certain colors and give it some depth. The depth of field , meaning making the background blurry. It’s a lot of work. For a colorist, maybe not.

Kevin: (39:04)
It is, but that’s, that’s what’s interesting is: I realized when people think of color they think of the color grade. You think of all these fancy cinematic things, but I’d say 90% of our work is fixing things. Yeah. Like if it’s an iPhone, yeah, you can make that look really cinematic and you can match that to a cinema camera. Will it be identical? There might be some qualities you can get 90% of the way there. And quite often when you’re putting together videos, it’s like you have to sew footage from 50 different sources. Or what I find is the most common is the lighting conditions or where they’re shooting, especially for a more documentary style or brand film–A lot of those kinds of pieces. You know, you have the lights coming from the windows, you have some awful fluorescent lights above you. You have like a lamp. Then it’s too dark on top of all that. So then when you try to push that footage, everything’s just like this orange wash or whatever it may be. And that’s where color comes in and it’s more ,in a lot of ways about fixing, where they don’t have a DP like you’re talking about–when they don’t have all these great things. Fixing that and making it look cohesive for sure. So now we are ending the near ending the near of our time, here which stinks. We’re going to have a round two at some point, I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but we’ll have it. So in the meantime, you have your toes dipped in the businessey waters and in the creative waters. Do you have any creative projects you’re working on or coming up with what we’re excited about from, yeah, the soul stirring parts instead of just all the business shlock, which may be relevant for our listeners, but it’s,

David: (40:34)
Totally, I mean, I, my job is great. The job I do to make money. It’s great. I like advertising. I like video, social video, all that stuff is fun. But the creative things that feed my soul are the most fun. Um, I’m working on right now in post of a short film called, “Flunky Ball. ” We shot it this summer. The director/writer works over at Vayner where I used to work and then I work at Fullscreen now. Fullscreen media. We made it together. Yeah. I’m looking forward to that. We’re almost done with the first pass. We should hopefully be done soon and we’re going to send off to festivals and had, uh, has really nice production values. I’m really excited to see how it turns out.

Kevin: (41:04)
Oh, it does> Well, how did they get that David ? Relationships? (He shot it.) [laughing].

David: (41:11)
Um, yeah, no, it was fun. That was a, that was probably the biggest crew I’ve shot. And then, and then it’s been fun as an editor it’d be like, Oh man, this is so much more fun when you have more things to play with and it looks a lot better. Then I’m editing a really fun project called, “Class,” shot by one of my very favorite DP’s that I edit for sometimes. By a new film company.

David: (41:34)
These two guys out in LA, I think? Called Goose Mango films. Um, w I’m editing it with them.

Kevin: (41:39)
It’s a very LA name. I unleash my New York judgment upon it. No offense Goose Mango.

David: (41:46)
They’re fun. They are two guys, they’re great. It’s a really funny film. It’s dark comedy, which I like a lot. We’re almost done with that. It looks really good. I’m editing it with them. They’re not editors they’re… It’s hard to describe our relationship. But they’re basically coming up with a structure and then I’m being the editor on it. So I’m like making it clean and making cuts clean or, or continuous or, uh, helping them think differently outside the box. It’s been really fun experience actually. I’m really excited to see what we, the three of us come up with. Um, so yeah, those are the two products I’m really into. They both have great production value. Um, some good acting in it. Good stories that I’m excited about. It’s been a while since I’ve had one, let alone two of those. Like, like really good like this, this, this is a good little thing. So I’m excited to see where they go. We’re working on this right now.

Kevin: (42:27)
So if there’s, is there anything on this topic in the wide world, whether that’s advice to anyone we talked about yeah. Or change that you want to see in your basic realms… Is there anything like that that comes to mind now as we get ready to sign off here?

David: (42:44)
Yeah, I think, uh, I think what I would, yeah, I um, I think with the democratization of video, which is a great thing, I think the temptation is like, “Oh, we can do this more in house or like, we can do this ourselves or like this, this is becoming easier so we’ll just do it.” I had a friend working with a new startup and they, they felt that way and he actually shut down the product, the, the video they were making for their product. Because it was a tech product, and he said, it can’t look this bad. Like I know you guys think you can do it, but like we need a professional crew. And I just think that’s true. As accessible as video making is, it’s always worth it to hire at least one person who knows, really knows what they’re doing. And then to build on that–repeat relationships are always going to improve your content every time. Even if the first video is just awful and make another one with that person. I just think like that’s the way to go because maybe they learned completely what you wanted by how much they didn’t get it the first time and that’s no one’s fault. Maybe it’s just whatever. And the second time they nail it, I don’t know. But building on the relationship is always going to make your content better. There’ll be more excited to work for you. They’ll probably put more attention to it cause they know you’re gonna help feed them. I mean, just keep working and keep your relationships growing. Yeah.

Kevin: (43:56)
That was fantastic. I put you on the spot there, but you’re like, “Well, actually my friend, I’ve been thinking about this midnight every day.” Well, thanks so much for joining us and if people want to find you, do you want to put any social on…

David: (44:10)
David’s Siciliano dot com or @Sicilianod. My last name is S. I. C. I. L. I. A N. O. Like the pizza. There you go.

Kevin: (44:18)
Excellent. Yes, and I can say Barber is like the haircutter, right? We all need that embarrassing thing. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, David. Till round two. Thanks for tuning in and listening to today’s episode, the visual impact podcast. If you like what you hear, I encourage you to subscribe. We’re on all the major podcast platforms and also encourage you to touch base on social. Subscribe to us there. Our handle is @vybrary on all the major platforms. Until next time, look forward to that. Bye. By–