Video Storytelling

Can you twist your, oh shoot. This guy will tell you. Just so that it's dead. I like to have the peak. Yeah. Centered on your nose. That is very particular. I mean the, the, the 40 people that watch this podcast. That's that, hey, you know what? They will start, they're calling out the orientation of the mic fly.

We're not doing our jobs. Right? No, that's just Eric.

Welcome to the marketing team of one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your host, Eric. And Mike, I'm excited today because we've got Taylor McMahon here from Weatherlight Media.

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for sitting on the crying couch. Absolutely. I haven't cried yet. It hasn't been that painful yet. I appreciate you having me here. Yeah, it's pretty comfy. I love the red shoes especially. Thank you. Well, we're gonna get you crying here very soon. Don't worry. Okay. Let's get in a little bit about video storytelling.

Okay. Because I think that. That's really critical to any marketing team of one out there that's tasked with, Hey, let's get some videos done. Okay, where do we start? Yeah. How does a video storytelling project start? I've done a video before, I've done a podcast before where I talked a little bit more about the technical side of it.

Your iPhone's great do lighting like this. Here's some tips on stuff that doesn't cost a million dollars to get a pretty decent look and feel with. What you're doing, sound, things like that. It's pretty amazing what technology can do for you now. Yeah. But I didn't touch a lot on the storytelling part of it, so that's where I'd love to learn.

And we can touch on some of the technical stuff a little bit later, but I'd love to start off with what are some of the basics and how do you go about a project when it comes down to developing the story, what's your audience going to latch onto? You know, what is it? What's the thing that's gonna get them to.

Engage. Mm-hmm. And, and keep their attention. So if you know who they are and what they want, then let's kind of like play into that, feed into that. It's that human engagement. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is going to like that. The emotional connection is what's going to be the thing that gets your audience to convert more than a fancy camera.

So, leaning into your story, leaning into what makes you a little bit more unique. What, what, what drives the passion for maybe the business owner or whoever the. Whoever the subject is that you're trying, I'm thinking in terms of like, there's a small business. I'm the marketing team of one. I do all the stuff.

Marketing. Yeah. Website, everything like that. Oh, and now you need to make videos. So I begin with identifying who's your audience? Who's our audience. That's where everything really starts. Right? I would, if your bosses have given you, here's the goal, here's what we want. You know, long-term effects. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, let's move toward that and figure out how to do that. This is an opportunity to do whatever it is that you wanna do. Mm-hmm. Figure out how you would approach this project. What fun can you have, and what resources do you have to make the video that you want? Uh, and hopefully they trust you enough after you pitch your thing to let you do it.

So they're gonna have tweaks. They're gonna say, can you incorporate this? It's the same thing as when we work with, with clients. Yeah. Yeah. Similarly, they have, they come to us with a brief, they have their goals. Sometimes it's already outlined. They just need a production team to execute. Mm-hmm. Sometimes it's ambiguous and they're looking for some creative input.

So I, I think the marketing team of one, the one person who's now been tasked with doing videos and populating their social media platforms, you gotta be intentional and make sure that you know exactly what you're doing. Uh, so that if you're just kind of putting stuff out there. As a way of like remaining relevant.

Your audience is going to hate you and not engage. If everything you're putting out there doesn't really do anything for them. Let's real. Let's role play a situation then. Okay. I am selling drills. Go. What do you want? I want a video. I'm selling drills. Oh, uh, alright. Let me see it. How's it work? Maybe it's, maybe it's an As SMR video.

That's my first thought. Ah, okay. That's the first thing I would do is like a slow motion. Maybe some, you know, sexy music. Of just like beauty shots of the drill turning on. Maybe that's one thing. Okay. Okay. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. Nice. Uh, however, that contradicts everything you've set up so far.

There's no story there really. It's just like pretty visuals that people haven't seen before, but it's enough to make someone hopefully say, okay, and stick around for more than three seconds. Where's this going? Yeah. Okay. You couldn't do that every time if you had 15 of those. You've I've, I've seen it all already.

You know, I don't, I don't need another slow motion, sexy drill video, but if you can get a couple of those, my feet is filled with that, by the way. I'm just saying. I mean, that's your algorithm is, is slow motion power tools. I can't get out of it. It's Wow. I sell drills. What do you got? Uh, alright, well, who are you selling them to?

How do you want your brands to be perceived? Right. What's the general vibe? Are you a no nonsense? Here's the information. Come by the drill. Or do we wanna be a little whimsical? Do we want to create a character? So, okay, that's gonna feed into kind of like, there are a couple different things that you can do when you're ever making a commercial.

Yeah. This is true for social content also. Yep. Uh, you know, be engaging. Be entertaining and be persuasive. And there are a number of different ways you can do that. And I brought the cheat sheet so I can tell you exactly the different ways homework. You can do that. This guy, he's a, so if you're entertaining, it's like, why am I gonna remember this commercial?

Yeah. Be entertaining enough so people don't forget about it. Okay. Or at least like they're gonna wanna tell their friends, Hey, I saw this really. F cool thing. It had a drill in it. I can't explain it here. You gotta see it, you know? Okay, good. Uh, how is it gonna keep my attention past that three seconds?

Well, I've never seen something like this before. Mm-hmm. Look at the way that the camera is rotating is the drill bit is spinning. Super slowly. Listen to the music. That's is, this is okay. You've got me. Um, but how is that gonna get people in the door? How is that persuasive? Yeah. Is it, nah, I think it's one element of many that you need to be persuasive if you're just on social.

Like, that alone isn't a commercial, but it's something that can. Be a part of a larger campaign mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That will ultimately, hopefully convert. Or like in three years when I move into my first house and I'm building the racks in my garage mm-hmm. And I need a drill. Oh yeah. What was that video that I saw that one time?

Who, who did that? Uh, maybe I'm not gonna go buy the DeWalt that mm-hmm. That produced that video, but I'm gonna remember them. When I go to the store, you know, I don't know. Something like that. Yeah. It's like a memorable thing. Now you, like, you're talking a lot about different video can be everywhere. It can be either just limited to maybe just on your website or it can be on your social, or it can be, um, a commercial that's on and where it goes will depend on your approach for how you're gonna produce it.

Okay. Also because people are engaging in different ways on different platforms. Yeah. You know, you wouldn't put that. 32nd slow motion, sexy drill video as like an OTT commercial on an Amazon streaming show, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You're not gonna spend $10,000 for six weeks at iHeart Media to put that on tv.

You're gonna need to pack as much information into that commercial, if that's your approach. Mm-hmm. As you possibly want. That is kind of just like flare that people are gonna see on social that's gonna get them talking. Okay. That's probably not gonna go on your website either. You know, there's different, like I said, different platforms will have different types of content, but for the commercial.

And again, Mr. Drill man, like what do you want? How big do we want to go? Mm-hmm. Am I the guy on your team who is just tasked with making social content or are we talking like full on campaign long term to get people in the door and spend more money on not just drills, we're just using the drill as the way to get people in the door, you know?

Right. Those are the questions that I would ask. That's good. Uh, but after all that, once we kinda determine the vibe. Your goals, things like that. And we won a 32nd commercial. Here are the different types of styles. Categories. Pay attention. This is a, this is the goal. Yeah. So, uh, the first one is like, you can create a character.

Some good examples of this would be like, flow, the progressive girl or mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or, uh, mayhem, Allstate. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. I guess you can also, like, are you in good hands? That guy could be considered a character also, although that also is, you know, comes in a tagline later. Yep. Yeah. Um. Another one.

You know, comedy, like I said, the first thing I thought it was like a funny, sexy drill thing, right? Maybe some funny music or something that could be considered comedy. Or you go full in on, uh, like what is T-Mobile doing right now with Zach BRAF and Donald Phase on? Mm-hmm. You know, where they have these old comedians from Scrubs doing something funny.

That's also kind of a combination with another one that'll come up later, which is celebrity endorsement, which, uh, you know. You don't need to stay in one category, you can feel free to combine. And those usually are the most effective because you're hitting a lot of different cylinders. Yep. You know, a lot of different triggers at the same time.

Uh, demonstration, oxyclean, infomercial, that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Here's how it works. That's usually the cheapest to produce, uh, because you can just have like the expert come in and show how it works. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, depending on what the product is, you know, maybe we can still be entertaining in, in a regard.

Well, yeah, that's one where you could combine that with other, like you're saying, like if you combine a few of these. A demonstration can also be like a two and a half minute, here's a product, here's how it works. Put that on YouTube, put it on your website, depending on what the product is. Mm-hmm. To give people a full overview.

But you can also make that a commercial, combine it with comedy, have Chris Evans come in and demo the product and fail miserably at it. I mean, yeah, you can do a couple different things there. Um, problem solving is kind of like demonstration, but it's also kind of those, those like those really exaggerated, like a woman opens her cabinet and everything falls out on her.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That kind of like, what problem do you have? A good example of that would be like a pharmaceutical commercial. Like, you know, do you have toenail fungus? Mm, yes. Something like that. Okay. Or I think, uh, what was his name? Kevin Neland. The comedian who, he had like a, a blood thinner thing, like there was a commercial with him.

Mm-hmm. And like Arnold Palmer in the golf course talking about this new drug they take because they have thin blood. You know, those, those types of things. Uh, part of that also is like. Facts. You know, what's the information? These are the statistics. This is the reason why the product works. These are the things that are, these are the things that are happening out there and how we solve these problems.

Just kind of baseline putting, factual, putting the consumer basically in the role of a lawyer. Commercial might be stuff. Experiencing also, yeah, these are the problems that, these are the cases that we've had. Here's the money that we got back to our, our clients. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If you have this problem, if you think that you have a, have a, have a, a case against the mesh or whatever it is, you know that stuff.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Facts, uh, where we tend to like, this is where my mind goes. This next one is Slice of life. You know, what is the most relatable thing that you can think of that this product can be applied to? So if the product is this salt lamp. Yes. What type of lifestyle am I living? That will require me to get one of these lamps, they, whoever is got behind the salt lamp marketing campaign and, and it might just be like a 32nd quick day in the life.

Mm-hmm. Like a yoga instructor. Mm-hmm. You know, and then there's a couple different cut-ins mm-hmm. Throughout the commercial of the salt lamp being aff flicked on, or being moved to a new room or doing your stretches or doing the yoga bowl thing. Uh, slice of life. Mm-hmm. Uh, another one of those can be like.

Nature made, you know, gummies, like they make you feel better, show the family, go in the kitchen. Mm-hmm. Those types of things. I'm thinking also about Hilton. So we, we pitched, we didn't get it. We pitched, uh, an idea from a brief we received for a Hilton that just wanted a series of lifestyle videos mm-hmm.

In their hotel. And that's kind of the same thing. It's a different type of slice of life, but it's the lifestyle that they want their guests to have and feel right when they're at their properties. Really like high-end luxury. Interesting thing about that pitch is they wanted you high-end quality video, but also someone on our team to be following with a social, with a camp, with a phone camera for social, getting the exact same thing with phones, so it can be also have kind of a.

Um, an entry level vibe to it. Yeah. More relatable. 'cause that is part of the lifestyle. I can make this on my phone. Hilton gets me, I can come enjoy this and shoot the same type of video when I'm here. I can be in these videos when I get there, but then for their like high-end media buys, they'll. They want like the high involved stuff too.

The big high production values and all that stuff. That's an interesting thing because that gets a little bit to the different styles of storytelling in a visual way, and that speaks to, you know, the genuinely authentic, the stuff that people kind of much, are much more relatable on a larger scale sometimes is shot with a phone.

I know that there, there's oftentimes you see. I, I hear reactions to certain types of videos, even podcasts and things like that where people are like, well that set is awfully nice and fancy. I don't know if I can really trust them. They look a little too high dollar. It looks too produced. Yeah. And that is a thing now where it's like young consumers, gen Z consumers, they don't wanna see things that are overproduced 'cause it doesn't feel real.

Yeah, it's not authentic. Yeah. I'm thinking about those nature made commercials I've seen recently that definitely are like in a really perfectly lit kitchen where everything is clean and the family is just so nice and perfect and smiley and, uh, yeah. You know? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, well, I've taken from that is okay.

Yeah. You got gummies. And make me feel better. I, I don't think I'm gonna feel like them, but Okay. Maybe I'll give 'em a try. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but yeah, there is something. To be said about being raw and authentic and, and showing, I'm a big proponent of this and a lot of people that I've pitched this to don't like it.

Show what's behind the curtain. Yeah. Behind the scenes stuff is be not, not just like behind the scenes of, of like the shoot, but also like, just be real. You know? Tell me kind of what's going on with the company. Give me, gimme some updates. Show me what the lifestyle really is. Not this manufactured, produced, you know, company culture that Right.

Hey, maybe this, maybe these things that you're doing are real. Mm-hmm. And they are great, but this isn't what I'm going to expect every day. You know, what's it really gonna be like? To engage with you and your product? My drill. The drill that we're, if, if the, if there's a really funny guy in the office who could just make drill puns all day.

Yeah. Put 'em on camera or write a whole bunch of them. Have him do a product demo in 30 or 60 seconds and pre-write a couple drill puns or drill bits. Yeah. Just did one and, uh, this guy, wow. And, and there you're having, yeah. You, you checking a few boxes right there. The last one is testimonials and those can go either way.

Mm-hmm. That's a lot of the stuff that we do. The documentary style stuff. Yeah. Where you do have like a user talking about how their life was changed after they used this product. Mm-hmm. The other side of that is, like I mentioned, the T-Mobile stuff, the celebrity endorsement, that's still kind of a testimonial.

Yep. Ish, because you know, sure you're paying 'em a lot of money to represent your product and your brand, but I mean. They are influencers in their own regard as celebrities. And that's like the final part is like getting an like another social media influencer. Those are your three, the testimonial categories or real users documentary style.

Okay. Celebrity endorsements or social media influencers who have, are already cornered this specific audience that you might want access to. And it's the same thing as doing in in media by how long are you. Uh, renting them for, you know, renting their, yeah. Their space for, but I have heard that this has kind of been the way that these social media influencers will do things these days is similar to what we talked about earlier, the product integration.

Where if, if I have a drill brand and there's some kind of like. Builder construction influencer out there who I want to use this drill. Mm-hmm. I'll send him a couple different drills. He'll make his normal content and he'll just use that drill and maybe give it a mention. I'm gonna be trying out this to Vault 3,600 today.

Mm-hmm. See how it works. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's it. But there's a separate channel that this person has where it is a product demo with facts talking about this new thing, here's how it works. Mm-hmm. So it's not so like the people that are going to that construction person. Because of the cool content they're making and the cool things they're building.

They're, I mean, if they start seeing a whole bunch of commercials on that feed Yeah, yeah. They're gonna unfollow. Yeah. So you have them separate. Yep. Makes, and then that way, you know, maybe someone does just want the facts, different audiences for different things, right? Yep. Yep. So my, my first job outta college was at a radio station.

Mm-hmm. Not as an on, obviously not as an on air jock. Oh, come on. I was producing video content for their six websites at Intercom. And that is what I learned in the radio world is, I mean. As a listener, when you hear the same annoying rapid ruder jingle, the third, fourth, fifth time, shut up. But by the sixth, seventh, eighth time, you're singing along and when you have a clog, you're calling rapid ruder.

Yes, you need to hear or see or be reminded of this name, this product, this brand, eight to 11 times. Mm-hmm. Before you are. It is very psychological. It becomes, yeah, so if you just produce one video and say one thing, one time, mm-hmm. You're not doing anything. Like if you're gonna be doing proper media buys on radio or tv, you need to have different advertising constantly in rotation, playing multiple times a day.

The different platforms you're on are gonna be. Showing me the media in different ways. Mm-hmm. And everything that you're making, no matter what it is, is going to have a story. Inherently kind of baked into it. Mm-hmm. And whatever the message is in that story, as the providers of this media, we have a lot of power.

You know, we get to decide what the message is and what our influence over the end user is going to be. How do we want them to act, think, feel after they see the thing that we've made? I think that's the first question that we should be asking ourselves before picking up a camera or a phone or whatever you're using.

And when you're making different pieces of media, maybe the answer to that is different on social media or on your website. Mm-hmm. Or on television or on the radio. The story is different, so long as they all kind of align within the same campaign. Mm-hmm. And you are kind of getting bombarded with. Maybe a, a slightly different message about the same thing from different places because you're learning something new every time and the audiences, if you're trying to appeal to a broader audience, they are gonna hit on a lot of different pieces of that story.

Sure. And it may not be presented in this format, but it's. Very forward in this format. Right. And maybe you're not being bombarded with it on four different platforms. Maybe it's not in my algorithm on this platform. Mm-hmm. But I saw it over here because the message is different. Mm-hmm. And I think that is when you approach anything that you wanna do, what are the goals?

What is the story that you want to tell? It's kind of hard to apply. My favorite is Dan Harmon's story circle. He kind of adjusted Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Mm-hmm. Uh, and he was able to essentially take the story of Star Wars. You have your hero who's. Feeling kind of complacent. Luke Skywalker, he is working on the farm and then he meets his mentor, obiwan Kenobi.

He's stressed into adventure. I think I reversed that actually. I think he's stressed into adventure by acquiring the droids Arch. Two runs away. Mm-hmm. Oh, snap. What do I do? Meets the mentor, mentor guides and teaches him about something new. There's a resistance. I can't leave behind everything. My aunt and uncle.

Mm-hmm. I gotta go back to the farm, even though he's been desperately trying to get away. Get out. Yeah. You know, go join the rebellion like bigs did. Uh, and then well, then he's forced to, you know, or Empire came and killed his family. I gotta go to be with you to Alderon. Mm-hmm. That's, you know, that's, that's kind of the basis of it.

From there in Acts two and three, he learns more about himself. Mentor dies, spoiler alert, and oh geez. And then he overcomes this great challenge and he's changed because of it. Yeah. Uh, Dan Harmon's story circle is kind of similar to that regard. Uh, with fewer steps. And he does that in every episode of community, every episode of Rick and Morty, he's able to condense that mm-hmm.

In a 20 minute piece of hilarious animation. And I think that like. It does take a lot of time and thought to be able to apply that to a 32nd ad or any type of campaign that you're running, but I think that that's gonna be the way that you engage with your audience the best is if you have something emotional that they can latch onto.

Mm-hmm. So you've got the experience of working kind of in a really wide range of projects. You mentioned creative brief. Hmm. People may not know exactly what that means about a creative brief, so I'd love to learn a, what's a creative brief, because that's where a project probably will begin. But then I'd love to know and help our audience understand what is it like to work with you at, we did a podcast about bottlenecks, marketing bottlenecks, and one of the bottlenecks is.

Um, capacity, and this is a perfect, you would be a vendor. Weatherlight would be a vendor that somebody who's tasked with making a video for their company, corporation, whatever. They would come to you and you would provide relief during that bottleneck. It would start with the creative brief probably, but then illustrate to us what that whole process kind of looks like.

Uh, okay. Well, a creative brief could also be kind of like an RFP that you're not having to bid on. Okay. Uh, or, or maybe you are, it's kind of similar to, to an RFP, depending on where it's coming from. Maybe the agency hasn't selected their vendor yet, or maybe they already know that they'd like you and this is what their goal is.

Mm-hmm. So the brief can either be a bunch of pages are just one page. Here is the overall concept and the goal for our brand, our brand, and our product. Okay. This is what we want to do. Uh, and sometimes it is that ambiguous. This is what we want, what you got. Give us a full pitch. Come in as a partner, provide your creative input.

Do everything that you need to make this project happen. Okay. Other times it's a lot more detailed. They might have a, a lot of other stuff already planned out. They might have a creative director already attached and they just need like a production support. Mm-hmm. They just need a camera and the equipment.

Um, but yeah, the briefs usually come from an agency and sometimes from the client themselves. If, if they don't have one, usually from like smaller companies that have like one person on the marketing team, they'll put together a small brief with some of the campaign goals or the ideas that they already have for things that they want to do, and they're looking for a quote or an estimate.

Okay. Uh, usually that's what briefs look like when they come from clients. When they come from agencies. The budget's already been set. Here's what we are able to spend on this. Mm-hmm. Here are the, here's the overall goal. And here's what we are expecting from you. Let's take two scenarios. Let's start at the lowest budget or the lowest level of production outside of.

The person in house with their iPhone. Okay. And then illustrate to me what it looks like for one of your larger, largest productions that you've done as far as the workflow. What's the process like? Talk about the behind the scenes, like, oh, and then I needed to hire this person, and then there was a sound person.

And then, yeah. Lighting and every project. Ha. Whether it's big or small, you know, three different phases. There's the pre-production, the production, and the post-production. Okay. And what goes into each of those? Is different for every project. Mm-hmm. It depends on what the overall goal is, what the budget is, and what, where, where the, the thing is going.

So a short video would be like basic case study. We wanna talk about this one thing that, like one project that our company did, we're gonna have one or two people talk about it. Two interviews at our location, some B roll of the location, all cut together into one, like 92nd to two minute package, you know?

Okay. One video. Uh, it's usually like me and one person, you know, a camera operator, myself as a producer and like a production tech to set up all of the, the camera and lighting and sound gear. Usually for like a, a day rate, like a single day for myself, for production tech, for all of the gear, for, um, and then the post-production time.

Is like, we try to keep like those single case studies under five grand. Okay. We try to try to be in that kind of general area. That's helpful. If we can knock it out in one day and edit it in two, you know, that's, that's a good place to be. Uh, the pre-production in that is engaging with, you know, you the marketing person to figure out what the messaging is, who are interview subjects, what's their background, what are we trying to get out of them?

And you know, my background is like a more of a documentary filmmaker really is. Uh, extracting those messages in the most natural, conversational way. Mm-hmm. So then we can make it seem really authentic and genuine when, when we're presenting these people to drive the narrative of whatever content we're producing.

Okay. Um, so that is what I would consider to be a smaller job, a larger job. It would be like a full scale commercial project where we're renting stand stages, hiring actors and have different departments. And I understand that five grand's a lot to, to spend on. Mm-hmm. This thing, especially if you're kind of new to it.

Like that's why it's so important to understand what your goals are, have your campaign plan kind of laid out and if you don't have it, we can help with that. Like that's why I call myself the creative director because what is it you're trying to do? I might have some creative ideas that might. Work with the general vibe of your company and what you're trying to achieve, how to engage with different types of audiences based on other information that you have.

But the, the illustration you made of the larger production company, what that tells me is that the knowledge and experience you have doing those large productions you've taken that internalized it. And as creative director. You have a lot of those skills or those people, or those staff in your head, and you can kind of handle a lot of it yourself, depending on budget size.

I kind of struggle with that. You know, I, I'd spent a few years in TV news and I wouldn't have the luxury of doing that. Mm-hmm. You show up at your location, your person is there and you gotta figure out on the, the moment, like, okay, what's the best looking thing that I have right here? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And if, you know, I, I will work a little bit of extra money in pre-production for that.

For that site visit. But if they come back and say, Hey, we only have this much, well, then sometimes that site visit doesn't happen. Hey, can you send me photos of the area we're gonna be shooting? Okay. And that might be enough. But yeah, on larger productions, you know, if you have the freedom to make whatever you want to make and this script calls for a very specific place, or you have a very specific idea, then yeah, that's why you have a locations team to go out and source.

If something has to happen on a bridge for whatever specific reason in your movie, you know, someone's throwing sticks off a bridge. Where are the best bridges? I'm throwing a stick off of a bridge. I'm flying a drone over this building I'm doing, there's a lot of regulations and things. Oh yeah. That you need to be aware of that People just think, oh, you'll just shoot that.

Put the drone up there. That's fine. Oh man, wait, there's an airport. Two miles away. You can't put a drone up next to an airport. Yes. Those things should be considered. And I worked those into my estimates when I quote a project, and I'll also tap in like a certain percentage for the service company fee.

Mm-hmm. Because I'm running payroll and there are other kind of overhead costs Interesting that I have to consider. And I didn't do that in the beginning. And that's like, I learned that like, you know, creative. Sure person over here, a filmmaker running a business for the first time. And I realized, hey, I'm not making a lot of money on this.

Oh, it's because there are all of these associated costs with running a business. Yeah. That, uh, I now need to start charging for. Well, and there's it's camera, you know, like there's wear and tear on equipment much more than people realize. I crashed a few drones. I had to get those things repaired. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's always gonna be that cost. That's always included in the calculations as well. It's like, I need to charge for equipment fees, you know, or. You know, there's so many little things and we own all of our own equipment, which is where, that is where Weatherlight makes its money is in like the gear rental.

Yeah. 'cause yeah, I will parse out crew costs. Same as you getting your car serviced. Yeah. You know, cost for the parts and labor. Parts and labor and then something else that will work into the budget or other production expenses, you know, are, are you. Are you paying for the license of the raw footage?

That's something else people might not know, is like, you don't get the raw footage from this project. You're, you're, you go to Chipotle, you buy a burrito, you're not buying all the ingredients for it. Right. Interesting. Okay. So there is a separate licensing fee that I will charge if you want usage of all of the raw footage.

Part of that, like, I'll be honest, part of that is also like we want to be the ones as a partner that you come back to if you want additional material from the, the project that we had. But typically that's how I structure my estimates and my quotes is like, you're hiring us to deliver this package.

Mm-hmm. And if you want the pieces of it for something separate that you can produce internally, well there's an extra fee for that. What should happen is if PE people should be coming to you with their needs. Their needs should include a video and messaging now, and this when I'll come work for you, that's just gonna be a standard entry on every proposal.

I know you wanted some packaging interested. Yeah. I know you wanted an annual report, but we think a video version might be a better way to go. Let's take your whole print budget. Yeah. And make you a commercial. Bingo. Yeah. Taylor, you've said a lot of great things here. We've learned a lot about a much deeper dive into video production storytelling.

You did a great job of outlining what it's like to work with a professional video production team. Film video production team. Film production team. Sure. I don't know, but I guess all of it, right? The videos, it's hard to have an original creative idea when you're by yourself. Yeah. It's always good to have brainstorm sessions and bounce ideas off people, and that's what I hope that I can be a resource for.

One of the other great things that we talked about too was just the scale at which these companies like yours work at. You can do small productions where it's a small group of maybe two people. But then they also can be 35, 85 people on board. And you've given a good range of what the different budgets are as well.

Yeah, we have the resources for it, for whatever creative idea that we can come up with together. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's make it happen here, whether it's graphics 3D animation or you know, it's in post-production or on set, if we need a series of different makeup artists to do special effects makeup. Got that too.

You've got all kinds of different things. Yeah. In your back pocket. That's great. Reach out to Weatherlight Media, everybody, if you've got any. Uh, no, no, no. Reach out to page design. Have them handle it. They'll call us. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Thank you. Little cross promotion there. That's a really great place to end the podcast.

Love the quote. Makes a lot of sense. I'm, I'm totally on board with that concept. Thank you for having me, Eric. It's been fun. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks a lot. Taylor. The couch is pretty comfy too, by the way. Thanks everybody.

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