How To Video Ep 1: How Do You Get Started in Professional Video?

This is an AI-assisted transcript of the audio episode. It may contain minor transcription errors.

Welcome to our first podcast of How To Video. We wanted to get started with How Do You Get Started with Filmic? Which I'd say most people want to make a living out of it or they have this dream and you and I have the joy of being able to call this our career. How did you get started John? Well I got started in a very very weird way actually.

So I was in graduate school graduating and what would you study? I was studying my Master of Science and Information System. Computers. Completely unrelated to filmmaking right? And it's graduation and my mom bought me a camera and asked me to record the graduation. Interesting.

It has a what camera was it? It was a Canon, the one that looks vertical. I don't even remember the vertical as in those that you were probably having. Yes you're probably having. Which is a big no no. This today to film vertically.

But back then that's the sound. Yeah it doesn't film vertically if film horizontally but. It's tape. We're talking about tape. It's DV tape. Yes.

So you did get to experience tape. I got to experience tape. I also got to experience Windows Movie Maker. Oh wait. Windows 98. And for those who don't know about the Windows Movie Maker this is not this is very rustic

editing tools. Yes this is the Guantanamo of editing software. Oh where everything is against you. And looking in perspective it's not as easy as today. So I even have to buy a separate card for my PC so that it will transfer firewire so it will transfer the footage right?

And then the way you transfer the footage is you play on the camera and then the computer will try to capture the playback and save it into a hard drive. So it had to be a lot of. Yeah it has to be a lot of. You're playing transfer. No such thing as compression.

No. You have a 5 minute upload. You have a 90 minute DV tape. You transfer 90 minutes. And if something goes wrong in the middle. If it goes wrong in minute 89 you have to start over.

Oh and this would happen I'm guessing not just once. So you got started by could you say I guess accident a little bit more of coincidence. And what was your experience doing it? What did you like? Do you remember a little bit about I don't know what did you like about it? Zooming in zooming out.

I guess it's coming from the computer person. Oh right. So the editing part it's mostly like I said you have to buy a PCI card and I mean that's the tech side of the whole process. And then you have to have the software and then you started to learn like hey you know you cut your editing and stuff like I guess that's how I got intrigued by that from the software

side. Interesting. And once you started editing what you filmed you realized you had a knack for making sense out of this data if you may. Yeah. So it's sort of like I learned by I started filmmaking by editing.

Editing the footage that I capture of course I don't know what I was editing. So your brain started shooting this is fun when you started importing it into the computer. Yes and also at that time I live in a very small town where there's really nothing going on. What do you mean about this little small town? It's Tupola, Mississippi. Tupola, Mississippi?

Well the stress was born actually. Ooh. Okay. But it was really nothing there and I have to occupy my time and that was it. That was if I'm not working my full time job and that was my… What was your full time job?

I was teaching IT, computer programming and computer networking for the University of Mississippi back then. Interesting and impressive and by the way for those who are listening and saying what does this have to do with getting started in film I think it has everything to do with filmmaking because maybe sometimes people have to ask themselves why are you getting into this. You know because it's I think both you and I have had this sometimes this frustration

that sometimes you want to help someone out and they're almost like no I know everything and deep down inside you go like wouldn't you want to like I wish I had somebody to mentor me into this. I didn't have anybody mentoring me. I was given a camera as a gift. My brother gave me a camera.

Oh there you go. So I was given a camera. It was a Panasonic. It was also a DV tape and it was handheld but get this. It had a fish, eye, lens adapter. So it was so it was shooting skateboarding videos all day.

No interesting enough what I got what I started doing was just asking questions to my family. Just making getting people into I don't think it was uncomfortable just having genuine conversations with them while I was filming them. I even remember like a girlfriend saying can you please just stop recording. For some reason I was just enjoying filming. So in your case you loved the editing.

In my case I loved engaging with people and filming. Little did I know that that would take on a documentary like Focus which to this day let's try to connect the pieces a little before we go full into pricing or how to get into the business. What do you do today that has to do with filmmaking? So somebody is hearing going like why should I be listening to these stories.

Well I think everybody got into filmmaking in a different way. But what is it today tell us about Lucky Studio and the video production here in Idaho. Which by the way we're at the foothills. We had a really beautiful scenery. This amazing hill overlooking the city of Boise and this happens to be our home. Yes Idaho yes Boise Idaho.

So Lucky 13 studio in Idaho tell us about that job today and so we start connecting the pieces. So Evan. Yes so as I've grown and you know starting from editing and now of course you're in a small town you don't have hardly anybody else that is in the industry. There's no industry in Tupelo, Mississippi about filming. I have to thank God there was an internet back then.

So I have to learn from the internet. And you know started to learn from the internet get to know a lot of people, talk to them. Because if they have job passing to Tupelo you know they will come in. I will volunteer to work with them. The one good thing about Tupelo Mississippi is that that's why Elvis Presley is born. So there's a lot of tourism.

So that's why people come. So that's why people that want to do a documentary about Elvis they're gonna come to Tupelo. Evan how did you go from filming your graduation to saying hey this might turn into something more. Well that's when I first started to work with the city of Tupelo. The tourism department interesting.

They always want the media to promote the city, to promote people to come in. And also my friend owns an advertising agency. One of our advertising agencies in Tupelo. So if you start in a small town it's kind of easy because you can grow to be well known. If you produce good work you know you can be well known pretty quick. Or I'm guessing also very social.

Today you introduced me to Dom. To Dom. And Tricycle. Tricycle here. Over the North end. Which by the way you seem very social.

We'll probably get to this later. But being human, being a relatable human is very key to filmmaking. Or at least I'm just gonna throw it out there. Something tells me that you might see this as well it's easy. But I'm seeing you're an easy person. You know I see how kind you were.

People were opening their doors. That must be a quality that made this easy for you. All the filmmaking industries are people. It's always about being good to people. Having good work experience with people. And when next time they have a gig they will come and come and if you do good work they will

come and rehire you. Just like me and you. I've been friends for a long time. Yes. Right. And when you have gigs sometimes you don't need me.

It's fine. Sometimes you have a big project that you need me and you're gonna call me. So that is the relationship that you still have to maintain. But sometimes people just have this mentality of if I have a gig. If somebody has a gig it means that I'm losing a gig. So I think that's kind of like a toxic environment.

Oh interesting. So there's an envy of a type. Maybe jealousy it's almost like if somebody else is doing well that's subtracting to me as opposed to saying hey there must be a pie for everyone. In psychology they call it the starving mentality. Like when you.

Careful with psychology. Careful with psychology because that's what I went to grad school for psychology. You did? Yes. I did not know that. I did not know you went to T.E.

So our backgrounds were kind of that's the last thing you'd ever think somebody went to the film for. Yeah it's always especially in a small town when you don't have much industry. To me it's really important to maintain good relationship and help each other out. I see that in your character and I think that's gonna be as we continue having this conversation I think it's a repetitive theme.

Sometimes it's not about your tools. It's about you. Yeah. And we'll get to this later about what happens when there's conflict and boy is there conflict and problems when there's filmmaking. Simply because of the nature of making a limited amount of time and making something happen

with limited resources. Which is time people's time. Before we get to that when was the first do you remember when was the first time you exchanged filmmaking for whether it was a nighting or an amount. Our podcast will continue in the next episode. How to video.