Tag: personal

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Lessons from the Shipping Industry. Yes, really.

Container Ship

In the 1950’s the ocean freighters were heading into bankruptcy. It was too expensive and slow to move cargo around the world by water. The merchandise waiting at the docks often got spoiled or stolen.

The shipping companies, did what they usually do to lower costs. They fired a lot of people, and focused on making the ships faster, bigger, and more fuel efficient. That worked for a while, but the costs kept increasing and the shipping times didn’t improve substantially.

A good idea.

Then, someone had a great idea: What if the cargo could pre-loaded, so when a ship arrived, it would take hours, not days to load and depart? Bingo! The shipping container was born.

An even better idea.

A few years later, someone else had an even better idea; what if the shipping containers could have all the necessary parts to build a product, and the time from A to B could be utilized to assemble that product? Bingo again!

Today, all the necessary parts to build a car are loaded into a shipping container. The ship arrives, loads, and departs. While in transit, the cars are built. Three weeks later, when the ship arrives to its destination, complete cars get off to the dock and the empty containers are replaced with fully loaded ones. Brilliant.

Now, how can we possibly apply a similar approach to video productions?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this challenge. The first step is to identify the most complex or time consuming processes, and then find ways to simplify them down to the least amount of gear and steps.

So buying a faster computer, a larger monitor or hiring a faster editor are just temporary solutions. What if we could blend some pre-production and productions steps? Even better, what if we could replace post-production all together?

This is a timely issue for me, as this week I am starting pre-production for a new online course for LinkedIn Learning.

The topic will the “1 Person Crew productions.” I’m used to travel and work alone, but for this course, for the bar has been raised. A lot. I need to find ways to do everything myself: shoot the story, capture behind the scenes footage, and produce valuable educational content, essentially at the same time. I’ll be producing short-form documentaries with real people in active locations, so I need to be respectful of their time. Not an easy challenge, but a very exciting one.

How am I going to pull this off?

I don’t know (yet).

My wife insists that a Vlog, could be a great way to document and share some of the ideas, tests, and challenges I’m dealing with in preparation to the 1 Person Crew online course.

I’m not so sure. I’m not young enough or thin enough to start vlogging. Even worse, I don’t have a mustache and I don’t wear tiny hats or striped shirts.

If (with an IF the size of a billboard) I go this route, I’d like to keep everything as RAW as possible, in other words, people would see my unmade bed, unshaven face, a crazy collection of cables, and a very unorthodox, but effective, workflow.

Why would I even consider doing this? I honestly believe that anyone interested or involved in run and gun scenarios (documentary, education, weddings, corporate, red carpet premieres, product launches, sporting events, music videos and even short films) will get something useful from my experiments (and public suffering). Let’s see. I might test the idea this week and see what happens.

Here’s an article, and a couple of related books, in case you want to know more. The “Minimalism” documentary is also worth watching because these people TRULY live with the bare essentials.

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Marketing in 5 Steps.

Seth Godin

For the past six (or it’s been seven? eight?) weeks, I’ve investing my time reading a lot, writing a bit, but mostly thinking. I picked some marketing books that would inspire me to think more creatively, to look for new ideas, to imagine bigger dreams and set new goals. Then I’ve been trying to bring those ideas down to earth, connect the dots, and make something happen.

Today I’d like to recommend three excellent marketing classics, all by Al Ries: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, and Focus.

There’s another book that I enjoyed very much a few years ago, but this time has felt a bit “slow” or perhaps dated: The Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim.

But there’s a fifth book, SO good, SO timely, SO jam-packed with useful and actionable ideas that it deserved writing a blog post, the one you are reading. That awesome book is “This is Marketing” by Seth Godin.

Almost every day I’be been going out for very long walks. The first chapter alone is so good that I also bought the audiobook version, and this is the only book I’ve been listening to.

Let me share some Seth Godin’s gems:

“The marketing that has suffused our entire lives is not the marketing that you want to do. The shortcuts using money to buy attention to sell average stuff to average people are an artifact of another time not the one we live in now. “

“Good marketers don’t use consumers to solve their company’s problem. They use marketing to solve other people’s problems.”

“People like us do things like this” is how each of us understands culture.

“Begin by organizing a tightly knit group, by getting people in sync. Culture beats strategy so much that culture IS strategy. “

“Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.”

Priceless. Straight to the point. And very true. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:

The 5 marketing steps suggested by Seth Godin.

  1. Invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling, and a contribution worth talking about.
  2. Design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from, and care about.
  3. Tell a story that matches the built-in narrative and dreams of that tiny group of people, the smallest viable market.
  4. Spread the word.
  5. Show up. Regularly, consistently and generously. Organize, lead and build confidence in the change you seek to make. Earn permission to follow up, and to earn enrollment, to teach.

Why is this book so impactful to me? Because Seth’s advice is precisely what I’m hoping to do with THIS website. I’d like to connect with other creative people who emphasize story over gear. To find interesting people who do amazing things and help them reach wider audiences. To build a small tribe where we can safely share our experiences, good and bad, cool techniques and time-saving tricks, so we can grow together and spend more time doing creative things and less fighting with cables and firmware updates.

It might take a long time, and I might not be able to achieve it, but I can promise I’ll give you my best. One more, for the road:

“We don’t need to rely on the shiniest, latest digital media shortcut. We have even more powerful, nuanced, and timeless tools at our disposal: we tell stories, stories that resonate and hold up over time, stories that are true because we made them true, with our actions, and our products, and our services.”

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On Cooking and Filmmaking.

Most nights I feel like I’m eating at a Michelin-rated restaurant.

During the past year, my wife has been testing new recipes and the results are both stunningly beautiful and delicious.

This got me thinking on how similar two seemingly different crafts, cooking and filmmaking, really are.

Sometimes tackling a complete video production as a 1 Person Crew feels like running a restaurant by yourself. Possible, but borderline insane.

But the key question you should be asking yourself is “WHY am I doing this?”

THE DIFFERENCES

If you have a restaurant serving multiple “sittings” each night, and striving to offer safe food, prompt service and an overall good customer experience, you most likely need a team of people working with you. Most likely you’ll also have a huge overhead and anxious investors expecting to see great reviews and even greater profits. 

But what if your goal isn’t running a restaurant, but to improve your cooking skills, eat healthier, prepare dishes that are hard to get by where you live and/or simply have a relaxing time with your family or friends? Then you don’t need a commercial kitchen or a team to cook. You can do this alone.

I truly enjoy working “lean and mean” on short projects, learn as much as possible, and apply those new skills to the next project.

Working as a 1 Person Crew offers several advantages, including more intimate conversations with your subjects, the ability to work extremely fast, and forcing you to prepare well in advance, as more often than not, there are no opportunities for retakes (or blaming anybody else for the screw ups!).

THE SIMILARITIES

Seeing how much time and effort it takes my wife to prepare even a simple meal that will be consumed in a short period of time is mind-blowing. And that’s not including cleaning  the mess afterwards!

My wife needs time to find the right recipe and buy fresh, seasonal ingredients at a fair price.
I need time to write the script and shot list, determine a “look and feel” for the project, and test my gear.

She needs enough time to marinate the dish and to actually enjoy the prepping time.
(Lounge music and wine work great, by the way).
I need to allocate enough time to scout locations, get permits, props and go over any logistical challenges.

She needs plenty of time to cook, which often requires following many steps in a specific order and having the right temperature and amounts.
I need cameras, lenses, lights, microphones, monopods, and some sort of plan, or recipe, so I have enough footage to work with in post.

MY VIDEO GEAR
Amazon

The finished meal is often enjoyed by others within minutes or sometimes even seconds.
After days and days of prepping, location scouting, shooting and editing, and running like a madman, I might have a 2-minute video that most people won’t watch until the end.

So, unless someone is really into cooking or filmmaking, few realize how much time and work is behind each meal or video production.

The funny/sad thing is that, as a cook, you don’t have time to get attached to the finished product. Whether a dish is uneatable or it’s an art piece, you have to start from scratch the next day. Same goes with filmmaking. We can’t spend 10 years making sure our video is “perfect” before getting it out!

Final Thoughts

The best dishes are the ones tested and improved over time. The only way we can master any technique is to consistently practice and do our best to improve ourselves at every new opportunity.

Salud!

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