Diving Deep: Underwater Filmmaking and the Art of Entrepreneurial Storytelling | Armin Korsos

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Sparta, Tennessee. Go Volunteers! Joining me today, Armen Korsos of Kamanite. Is it just Kamanite or is it Kamanite Films? Kamanite Media?

Just Kamanite's good.

Just Kamanite.

Yeah.

All right. Perfect. Armen, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. This is great. Very excited to dive in.

Well, let's start with Caymanite. What is the origin story of that word?

So I was born in Grand Cayman to Hungarian parents, and there's a type of really beautiful sedimentary rock called Caymanite that you can find in the Cayman Islands. And for whatever reason, you can find Caymanite rock in Grand Cayman and in Hungary. Weird. And so my parents— I'm 100% Hungarian, born in Grand Cayman. That was like a really cool—

yeah, you had to name it that. You didn't have a choice. Yeah.

And, you know, naming a business, you have to name it something that's not like, you know, some random name that is in every city, you know, like it has to be something unique and easy to remember.

So Do you have a sample of kamanite that you can show us?

I actually do. Perfect. Yeah, so this was on my last trip there. We were filming a documentary, and here is a—

Wow, that's beautiful.

You could see it. Yeah, so it's got beautiful little layers in it, and this is polished, so it looks quite nice.

Yeah. So has that— has that sparked any interest in geology?

I'm interested in a lot of things. I mean, I, I find it fascinating. It's really cool. The, uh, the film we're shooting on one of the islands, Cayman Brac, it's just like a big cliff, and you walk up to the cliff and there's just like little, uh, uh, sections of the cliff that are Caymanite rock. And for whatever reason, through the millions of years of geology and sediment settling, you could see like beautiful Caymanite rock and people will, you know, take— get it out with hammers and chisels. Um, so I find it interesting. I mean, I'm not a geologist, uh, probably never will be, but I find it fascinating.

So very fascinating.

Yeah.

Okay, so, uh, I— you mentioned, uh, filming in the Caribbean. I'm assuming Is there underwater photography involved?

Not for this film, but underwater cinematography is obviously a huge destination in Grand Cayman. There's a lot of people go there for that, for sure.

Have you watched Last Breath that was recently released?

Yes.

Yeah. I— for one, the visceral reaction I had to the underwater dark was like, you know, I mean, like, I tensed up at my core. But the underwater photography in that film was just beautiful. I mean, it was beautiful to watch. You could watch it without the sound and just, yeah, crazy.

It's supremely challenging. We filmed a surfing film last year in May in Mexico that we actually just recently, in the last few days, the ink is still wet from this news, we got into Mountain Film Festival. And we were selected for Beyond the Short. Thank you. Um, Beyond the Short as well, and then we're waiting on a couple other festivals. But that film had quite a bit of underwater cinematography. Uh, one of my friends has a dive housing that he got custom made for his Sony, and it's so challenging. I mean, the amount of hours of filming we did for you to get like 4 seconds here, 8 seconds there, uh, where like the sun lines up perfectly with the wave, and then the wave is the perfect height. You're in the wave filming as the, you know, the wave curls over, and the surfer also has to hit that spot right at the perfect moment, like, and you're being tossed around by the ocean. Like, it's not like a studio situation. Um, so that featured a lot of underwater, uh, cinematography. That was— it just added so much, you know. Like, I think the, the surfers know, like, being in the water is, is a huge part of surfing, of course, but I think conveying that in a film is important. I don't think any surfing film will be the same if there's no in-the-water filming. If you're always from land, I think it's totally different.

100%, you know, 100%. All right, so, um, let's, let's go to your origin story. How did you get started in this?

Yeah, so we did a lot of crazy travel trips when I was growing up. Our philosophy was always the most frugal trip for the longest time possible. So we did quite a lot.

Did it involve tents?

Yes, lots of tents. So one of our— of course, tents. Yeah. If you're doing any long— frugal, you know. Yeah. So we did an 80-day, 12,000-mile road trip.

Holy cow.

That was like roughly Chicago to British Columbia, down to Mexico, and then back to Chicago, if you could draw the triangle. And we camped every single day of that. No, no hotel escape at any point. But I— my dad was always a photographer and he used photography to take photos for inspiration for his paintings. He's an oil painter. So we always had cameras growing up and he was always really good at documenting my brother and I growing up and we would bring cameras on the trips and I really loved, you know, all these national parks, like the, in the country are so stunning. And we went, you know, from north to south seeing all these beautiful parks. And that was so inspiring, especially at a young age when like, I didn't know anything about photography, but we always had cameras. My dad had a Nikon D50.

Nice.

From like, you know, it's like 18 years old now or 20 years old at this point. But digital SLR camera. And started documenting it. And then eventually we got little point-and-shoot cameras, you know, when they started coming out. And I had the original GoPro Hero 2 HD. And then I ended up making videos of these trips. And, um, by the time I was in high school, like, you know, it kind of came to the point where like sophomore, junior year, you have to kind of decide like what you're going to do for school, um, after high school. And a lot of my friends were like, these like trip videos are really good. And I had a lot of joy in putting together the stories and really putting a story together of the trip where if someone who watched it who didn't join us on the trip could get a really good sense of like what the trip was like, whether it's like a huge rainstorm or like a beautiful campsite or hiking or, you know, animals or what, what have you. And I was like, well, I think I like this the most. Um, And then I decide to apply to Columbia College Chicago, um, 'cause I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Um, and it just financially made sense if we're talking about profit, you know, school is very expensive and I managed to make it happen by living at home and commuting for 3 and a half years. Um, I say 3 and a half 'cause I managed to get some college credits from high school that allowed me to graduate early, which also financially made a lot of sense. And then, I actually had a few scholarships from portfolio pieces. Um, they had like, uh, you know, you submit a project and then they evaluate it how good it is and then they give you a scholarship. So my highest paid project at the time when I was like 17, 18 was that $8,000 scholarship I got for this video that I did on a photographer. Yeah. And I was like, you know, as a 17-year-old, like how much money do you really make working a minimum wage job in the summer? Like a couple thousand dollars. So when I got that scholarship, I said, oh my God, $8,000. Like, it was such an unfathomable sum of money. And that, like, it truly made me tear up because it drove down the cost of attendance so much.

Um, did— if you were to, uh, ascribe a value to that photograph or were to sell it, would you have priced it at $8,000?

Probably lower. I mean, it was— so it was a video. It was like a, a, a vignette on, like, an artist, like an artist profile video. You could say he's like a Street Photographer in Chicago. Um, I would've for sure priced it lower. I mean, at the time you're like, oh, if I could get like $300 or $500 for this, I'd be so happy. And the school gave me $8,000, which is amazing. And I was actually able to have school fully paid off within 5 months of graduating school, which is pretty unheard of. And I, I, I had a great time at school and I'm still reaping the benefits of the connections and the people that. I met there, but, um, I think I got out a lot out of it for the price I paid. I don't know if, you know, if I, if you were to ask me if that school cost me $150,000 versus $30,000, I don't know if it's worth $150,000. Um, yes, but depends on your financial background, of course. But I was very happy to get that burden off my shoulders and I graduated in December of 2020., and 2 weeks later, like first few days of the new year, I got my LLC, got my production company started and having my loans paid off within 5 months of that. So by like May of that year of 2021, loans paid off. I could see ahead and it's with such a clear vision instead of like, oh, well I could buy this equipment, but I have such a big financial burden on my shoulders with this loan. And I know a lot of people like choose to, you know, defer or do like the lowest payments, but I thought it was the right thing to do to just pay this off as soon as possible. And then I could like fully focus on my business. And a lot's changed then, but that was like a big first step, I think, of like, you know, not starting your business in the red, so to speak.

So you went, no, absolutely. I mean, I talk about it in the book, Profit First for Creatives, how, you know, I, I'm not— I'm in a lot of ways I'm anti-Dave Ramsey. I think Dave Ramsey's a little too dogmatic for my taste, but most of his financial advice has been centered around individuals and not businesses. And debt is a potential part of business. It doesn't have to be, but this idea that it is an anathema to avoid, I don't agree with him on. And in the book, I discuss like, but you need to understand it and understand that it is leverage and it makes things more risky. And, you know, if you're going into it blind and not understanding the commitment, and the impact that it's going to have on your business, you're going to have trouble. But there are, you know, and usually where I see that show up is people using debt to fund a nonprofit business. Like, it's kind of like, to me, putting your vacation on a credit card. It doesn't make any sense. Like, if your business isn't making money, you shouldn't keep putting more money on it and burden yourself with a future liability, you need to figure out how to make it profitable. Now, if you're investing in equipment or expansion or something that has a clear path to profitability, you're leveraging the profitability you already have, then debt can make sense. So absolutely, I'll get off my soapbox. Yeah. So going out of college, you had no question that you wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was never— okay.

Yeah, I, I think that came from my team sports background. I was a swimmer and water polo player in high school, and I got the chance to be the team captain for the water polo team, uh, my senior year with my friend. And we, you know, going to state and just taking a team, like the fundamentals of taking a team with each person as a unique ability, like this guy's left-handed, this guy's a fast swimmer, this guy's bigger, let's put him in the center position or a center defender. Or maybe someone has a really big wingspan, let's make him the goalie, you know, stuff like that. Like, I think I really loved the team element of taking everyone's unique ability and taking their skillset and like assembling a team. And we did that very successfully on a project we shot last year in June. Where we filmed a cyclist by the name of Phil Fox set a world record around Lake Ontario. Okay. He's what's called an ultra cyclist. So, he did the 500 miles in 30 hours without stopping. And, I'll get into that, the equipment a little bit later, but he does basically these bike rides for fundraising for Bike MS, for MS research. Okay. Which I love the story and I loved everything that he was doing. And we— I knew I had to put a really good team together to document this. And we ended up doing 2 camera cars, one with the camera arm on it and then one that was kind of the leapfrog vehicle. So if you picture like a constantly moving cyclist, someone has to leapfrog ahead and get the tripod shots. And I— the team I assembled, which was Jeremy, Chad, Payton and Max, none of them have had ever met each other before the trip, but I knew each of their personalities and I'd worked with every single one of them independently. And I knew like, this team is going to be great. And we clicked immediately, which obviously it's, it's kind of like a guy's bachelor party, right? Like if there's one bad apple, like, right, it could ruin the whole trip. And I knew like I needed people would drive and they understood the, the the project and the goals and like, this is going to be a lot of filming and not very much sleep and it's going to be crazy. And it's through Canada. We have to cross back to the US border and there's a lot of logistics. But the team got along so great and I'm happy to say like everybody walked away as friends afterwards and we've all stayed in touch and I'd pick the same exact team again for the next crazy trip like that or crazy project. But I think that's where to tie back. Like, I think I knew I wanted to start a company and pitch for projects and build teams from my team sports background. And I, there is a sort of a competitive nature to pitching for projects and, and I don't necessarily believe in the, I win the project, you lost it mentality. I think I do have an abundance mindset of like, there is infinite amount of money out there, infinite number of projects. Like, you know, I, I do have that mindset, but I, I, there is still some competitiveness to executing a project well and just like putting a really good team together. And even if there's no actual competition necessarily, there is in my head. And I think, you know, being like team captain, so to speak, directing that project was really special. And that's the mentality I bring to all of our projects is you have to pick a really good team to execute. I think that's the job of a business owner and a director and, and, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's interesting, you know, as a producer or director, you have that baked into the pie. It's kind of like, you know, a lot of businesses that start out, they start out as, as one person, and, you know, then they may add employees, uh, you know, down the road. But as a producer or director, even though they're not employees, you, you have that on you from the outset of building a team. And I think that that mindset is actually very helpful because, you know, you mentioned before we came on the book, Who Not How. It focuses on the thing that you need done and who is the best fit for it. And as an individual business owner where everything's on you, you don't have that same mindset.

Yeah, I think there is a difference between like a solo— what people call a solopreneur and a business owner. And while we haven't grown to the point yet of bringing on full-time employees, like I regularly lean on, you know, short-term contractors for projects. Sure. Just because like I have a finite number of hours in the day. And between the events we're hosting and my production work and, and, uh, the biggest challenge of the last year has been pushing through self-funded projects all the way to completion with very little funding, right? Like if you have $10,000 for an editor, like you could find someone within a week and give it to them and it's, and it's done within a certain number of time. But, um, I think pitching the passion and pitching a project when there's no money, it's, it's, it's difficult, but we're in the, the learning phases of, of, you know, pushing these self-produced projects and, and really pushing for the experiential in-person screenings and, and self-distributing the projects, um, instead of the old school way, I think, of, uh, only relying on film festivals and hoping for the best. And it's kind of a Hail Mary and let's apply, and then the projects kind of go to die, so to speak, and they get just published, you know, on YouTube or Vimeo. Um, so it just, yeah, I, um, with the, with these projects, like it's, it's easy to delegate once you have the funding. Um, but especially in documentaries when I think a lot of success is measured by, oh, we broke even. Yeah. You know, like docs is not the, I'll say this, like docs is not the way to make money. It is not, right? It's not the way to make it big or make like, it's definitely, you have to have a passion for, you have to have a passion for storytelling. I think the moneymaker is branded storytelling, brand films, branded series, episodic series, which I've seen the rise of quite abruptly in the past few years. But yeah, I think the, all the learnings from the self-funded projects really do carry over into the paid projects. And again, it comes back to picking the right people for the right project and seeing how each skill set can be leveraged into a certain project.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that Full Commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. I know you don't have, uh, a lot of tenure in the industry to necessarily have the experience of how things have changed, but, but that might give you a certain insight, uh, being relatively new to the industry How do you see things? You mentioned the old way of doing things, and I've just kind of been an observer over the years of like the business model of film and movie production and how frankly, from a layman's term, from an outsider's perspective, how screwed up it seems like it doesn't seem to be like That, that's not the most effective way. But, you know, then again, if, if your idea is just to sell subscriptions like Netflix, you, you have a formula that works and you just keep pumping it out and giving them what they want. That's not necessarily the creative element, right? Like, it's just, here's the formula, let's, you know, we're going to move this from 20th century Chicago to 19th century London, and it's the same story. But, you know, so how do you, how do you see, uh, things shifting in, in the industry?

I'm so glad you bring this up. Um, I've seen a lot of shifting. Uh, specifically, I didn't attend Sundance this year, but I had friends texting me from from the festival. And the kind of the verdict from this year is that there's no major documentary film acquisitions at all, which, okay, brings up— this is specifically to documentary, you know, films, but it brings up an interesting question of what we used to have is Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO, bidding wars late into the night to acquire big films. And what you would have is a film with, let's say, an $800,000 budget. They'd get into Sundance. They've had the, you know, they, they'll have the names on the films, the producers, whoever's involved. They get in, they get nominated, or they win. And it's kind of that exclusive club that 14,000 people submit films to Sundance every year. And very few get into the top 3 in each category, and even fewer, of course, win. But what used to happen is you'd make a doc for $800 grand and you'd get in, and then it would get acquired for $2.2, $2.5, or $3 million. You'd walk away with a big check, everyone gets paid, everyone's happy, and now your film is on a big streaming platform. The, the shift I've seen is that it's— they're, they're they're favoring episodic documentary formats because you can pump it full of more ads than a feature film length.

Yeah.

So it's very similar to, you know, like the, the, the Home Improvement shows or like the gold, gold mining shows on Discovery Channel. Like none of those are actually like, you know, it's, it's entertainment. Like it's not really a documentary film series anymore. It's more just entertainment. So But then that brings up the shift in the question of, well, then is it— does— do these festivals still have the same value as they used to? Because if before you could get— sell your film, then— and now that's not the case anymore. So now all you get is maybe a trophy or like, you know, like credits, like you could brag about it. Like, it's an interesting shift. And that brings me up to my, my next point about, I think the future is self-distribution, which I think is significantly more difficult. And it takes a very specific type of film to be able to do that. Specifically an entertaining film. Like, like I had a friend of mine working on like an Alzheimer's film, very serious topic. People are not going to go out on a fun Friday night and go watch a documentary film about Alzheimer's. Right. But no, if it's a film about cycling or surfing or it's kind of like a feel-good adventure film, those are perfect for self-distribution. And something we're working on this year is two films that are in post for us right now are 15 minutes runtime each. But how can you make a 15-minute film into a 2 or 3-hour event where people pay tickets and it's an entertaining night out and you could do a screening with 80 to 100 people that pay tickets and go and watch your films in person rather than relying on festivals. You're relying on self-distributing, and you could then partner with stores. Like, um, something we're working on right now for our cycling film is, uh, the Specialized stores in Chicago. A few of them have already agreed to in-person experiential events where we screen the film and we do, you know, like a rough structure could be brand intro, film screening, behind the scenes, Q&A, and then like networking, hanging out with everyone who's, you know, like-minded to you because they all came to watch the same film as you. So you probably have a lot in common with them. That model is very fascinating to me and interesting. And what we're going for this year with these films, because yes, the festivals are great. I'm very, very excited to go to Mountain Film, but I love the in-person, like, I'm doing this screening, here's the tickets, you came out, let's, let's, let's watch this film and let's— and I think films also need to be experienced in person. I think sending a link or just putting a link up online or, you know, putting the film up on Amazon Prime and someone pays you $6 to watch the film, right? Or you can rent or buy it or whatever the options are now. It's just not the same. And we're going for that this year.

It isn't.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and I, I, I think a couple of things came up to me while you were talking is like Sundance, like, you know, that, that didn't always exist. And Netflix didn't always exist in its current iteration. And it's this idea that you have to chase the way it was or the established thing. Well, in my mind, the problem with that is that those things squeeze out the profit. Right. If, if you can find a novel thing like these experiential events, like the cycling shops, that, that sounds like a brilliant novel idea of way to feature film, but also have the economic component that kind of fills in the gaps. And I think that's what I love about working with creatives is that like, well, okay, yeah, you can go the old, old model. Um, but it's, it's going to be much harder and it's going to not make you as much money. Um, yeah, 1 in 14,000 chance to win a prize. I mean, like that, that's not good odds.

Absolutely not. And I like my odds more of creating my own events and, and trying my luck that way. And that brings me to our community events that I've been hosting called Filmmaker Friday Chicago. Where 10 months ago I saw a gap in the market in Chicago for in-person events where filmmakers and creatives could come together and meet and network with each other. And for like 5, 6 months before that, I had the idea already. I had the name, everything planned out, and I was going over and over like, who would even come out? Why is there even another event? Like, am I— is it too competitive? Is this even possible? How do I find the venues? Who would even come? Right. And our first event, we were like, oh, let's keep it modest. 30 people, right? And then the 30 filled up in like a day or two. So we expanded to 50. By our third event, it was 150. By our fourth event, it was 240 people in person. And since then, we've had over 800 unique people attend over 10 months. And now we're regularly hosting 200-person events. And it's a mix of two formats. One is just networking only for 3 hours, 6 to 9 PM. The other one that I really, really love that's been really successful is panel discussions. So there's networking before and after, but the middle hour is a panel with industry professionals speaking about a specific topic. And we're lucky enough to partner up with the Chicago Cultural Center last year, and we're about to host our second event with them next Friday. On March 14th, and we have another event with them in April and more to come after that, of course. But if venues like that where it's a— like, we're in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. It's a 200-person private theater with a stage, with stage lighting, beautiful projector, and you could bring in high-profile guests and host a really meaningful conversation. And the people that attend could then they show up and network before, but then afterwards they can continue the conversation with everybody who attended as well. And I bring that up because that was a big hurdle for me to, I think, mental hurdle, honestly, not physical hurdle to overcome, like the, the, the doubts, right? Like, is this even possible? Is this, who would even be interested in this? And we just posted, uh, our RSVP link publicly to, for our next Friday's event. And we had 300 people RSVP in 4 hours and it's filled up.

That's incredible. And I think it speaks to— you talked about the fear of doing it. And I think that's that fear of every artist, to use that term very broadly, is that I'm going to put this thing out there and is anybody going to like it? Right? Yeah. And, but if it's something you're passionate about and it's coming from your soul, it's like, I don't have a choice. I got to put it out there. Right? Like, and maybe nobody will like it, but I don't have a choice. I got to put it out there. We've started a very similar— no, not similar, not as cool. We started here in Oklahoma City last month, a connection event for creative entrepreneurs. And it was just, we just saw the need for community. Like, you know, creative entrepreneurs, there's a lot of communities around creatives where it's more like a show and tell and it's, you know, but not people getting together for the purpose of like business, like, you know, connecting with people that, to collaborate with, to commiserate with, you know, and we're hoping, you know, if we get traction here in Oklahoma City to take that model to other geographies where we have a higher density of clients and prospects. So, you know, like, you know, potentially LA, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, something, you know, Boston maybe. But I think what I see talking to creative entrepreneurs is there is this longing for community, like, and it's, it's, it's a gap in the market if you want to call it that. But, you know, it sounds like you've hit on that.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I, I'm always urging people to start their own events if they see a gap and they feel a need. And I think our success with this event has been really simple, is I just created an event that I would love to attend myself. And it's the event I wish I had when I was starting out. And yes, to talk about profit, this is actually a zero profit venture for me. We don't charge tickets. It actually costs me money to run the events. Luckily, we have venue partnerships that allow us to, you know, join without paying a venue fee for the evening. But, you know, there's other costs that come up, of course. But sure, the, the network and the connections are invaluable. And it's, it's, it's probably my what I'm most proud of starting last year out of, you know, across all my different ventures and different business ideas. It's been incredible. And I think touching on even film is such a broad bucket that there's so many different subsections, like we're about to tap into the advertising world with different agency producers and how they produce really high-end commercials. We have High Dive is a very big agency based here in Chicago. They've done over 50 Super Bowl commercials since 2016. Wow. Like tapping into that, like that is, that's a crazy number, especially when you consider their, think about 120 or 150 employees. How are they able to compete with giants like DDB or Leo Burnett, right? Or these other, you know, other big agencies. But then we've also, our next topic next Friday is AI and the future of the film industry and how drastically this industry is gonna be changing and has been for the past, you know, few years. Because of this new development and what you need to do to stay on top of that wave and make sure you're not getting trampled, so to speak. Yeah. That's something I'm very vocal about. I think every creative should be using as many tools as they can to work as efficiently as possible, to therefore also make as much money as possible. I think if you're able to capitalize on that and pitch on more projects, and pump out more rough cuts for scripts or even, you know, quicken your video editing. I think all of that is all benefit. There's no drawback. So yeah, it's— the events have been great. We're excited to keep building it. We're doing at least one a month and the people I've met through it have been incredible. A lot of people have come up to me and said, I've been hired because of the networking that I've made with connections at these events and I've made money from it. So That is something that makes me so happy. You know, it's— and I'm not even involved with it. Like, it's not even my project. It's not something, right? It's just someone, you know, who I met at the event and they said, I love these events. I've been coming every month for 5 months. And there's nothing I encourage more. I think you should be going to as many events and meet as many people as possible because your network is your net worth and that's how you're gonna be getting work and executing on these projects. And it's been incredible. Credible to build it up.

Well, I think the thing that, that stands out to me in talking to you is that, uh, you're, you're an entrepreneur first and look at the world as an entrepreneur of like, here's a problem or a need to, to fix, uh, as opposed to, well, I'm a videographer or a producer or whatever skill you may have, you're not stuck there because when you approach the world from your skills, you greatly limit your opportunities because you're only going to see things through that lens.

And I think I read quite a bit of books, so I'm glad you mentioned Who Not How, but I have a whole list of like 15 of my top books that I love recommending to people. But the biggest takeaway from these books is you could read, read, read all these books and self-help, business, whatever, and prepare, but you will never learn anything from that until you start doing. And that was not preach something that I— yeah, and that's not something that I was born with. Like, I used to be so frightened of starting, right? Like, is that first step is so frightening. But I think this, this Filmmaker Friday thing and even dynamic camera systems, right? This camera arm subdivision that we started with Kamenite, that came from, I wanna film more projects that are fast-paced action. So basically this arm is useful for filming cars, cyclists, motorcycles, runners, anything faster than a walking pace. And we, this cycling project came up with Phil Fox and I said, you know, I've been thinking about this arm for, 2, 3 years. I've been seriously researching it for the past 5 months, weighing all the pros and cons. It's a substantial investment. I mean, with the travel case, the, the total amount is like $15,000 for this, for this rig. But when you weigh the realized and unrealized gains, meaning like actual profit versus how many days am I testing this and shooting with this that I'm not burning money on rental fees.

Right.

Also, never mind that the arm that we got, there's nothing like this in all of Chicago, actually the entire Midwest. There's only 10 of them in the whole world. We have the only arm like this from Minnesota to Miami. And that was important for us. I mean, it's obviously strategically as a business, it's super valuable to own a piece of equipment that is super rare and specialized. But also I bought it as an add-on to KMNIGHT for us to execute a project like this. So there's no way we could have filmed that project by hanging out the side side or the back of a car or do any of that. But tying it back to similar to Filmmaker Friday, I didn't know how to rig this thing up. I didn't know how to shoot with it. I didn't know how to anything. Like, that was our first project with it. And I think it's honestly the unofficial world record of longest, uh, black arm camera filming project in the history of black arms because we filmed for— of the 30-hour world record, we filmed for 24 hours. And it was 500 miles of filming. Just for perspective, most commercials— uh, here's a ruler— most, most commercials are one city block and you go all the way down the block and then all the way back. You do that back and forth like 30 times until you get that perfect shot. You're never driving on open roads for 500 miles through two different countries and international border crossings. Um, but that was a huge challenge that I was up for. I said, this is the right tool for the job. This is a huge challenge for us. We need to figure out a solution, the right tool for executing the visuals for this. It's safe from a business ROI standpoint. Maybe there's no direct ROI currently, but with the projects we're able to execute now, the way we're pitching for projects is way different now because we have this in-house, right? Like a client doesn't— if we're pitching for a brand series for a motorcycle commercial or a motorcycle brand, The client doesn't need to go then, then go find another camera car film company, right, to put together with us and then get all the action shots and make like— it's just too much. Like, I want it to be like, here's the creative concept. Yes, filming motorcycles is complicated, but we have experience with this. We have the equipment. It's all in, in the budget. It's all in the, in the pitch. And, and let's go do it. Um, so that was, that was another example of— and we actually got that in May, and we actually started Filmmaker Friday in June. So it was like back-to-back months of like 2 on paper relatively risky moves, you could say. But after we took that first step, we started really learning. Like, I learned so much on that Ontario world record filming project. Like, now it's like none of the equipment is new, none of it is like— I know how to troubleshoot everything. And it's the same thing with Filmmaker Friday. Like, we know the frequency of the events that work. We know what kind of events people want to attend. We know what the no-show rate is because it's an unpaid event. So No-show rates, 30 to 50%. So then you need to take a look at the venue and say, hey, I want this number of people to show up. We need to multiply that by 30 or 50% to make sure that we fill the venue. But none of that— you could never guess the no-show rate if you've never done events in person.

No. And I go back to what you said from the outset of this is that, you know, you can read all you want until you do something. You don't really, even if you learn a concept reading it, you've got to go. The example I use in my book is, you know, you can watch all the golf videos you want until you go to the practice range, you're not gonna get any better, right? Exactly. And yeah, I just posted on LinkedIn this week that, you know, I track the metrics on my book and only 6% of the people, of the books that were bought, now I don't know how many bought it and didn't read it, but only 6%, um, actually, uh, sign up for the free resources of the book. And so I'm like, well, that, that actually makes sense because a lot of people will say that they know that they have a problem or they have an opportunity, and they'll think a lot about it, but they won't do. And, and they get paralyzed in that fear of what if, what if, what if. But you can't answer the what if until you go out there and do it. And then you're like, you iterate. I mean, that's, that's the thing is, is act and iterate that, you know, and do it, fail fast, as they say.

Exactly. Exactly. And it's, I think also surveys have been a huge, huge thing for us too with these events is sending out surveys immediately after these events and really seeing like what's working and what's not and how can we polish this. Clearly the model has been working great. So it's very minuscule changes. Changes. Um, but you could never send out a survey if you've never actually launched the product. You know, like, you don't know how to improve. It's like version 2, version 3, version 4 of a product. Like, you know, clearly it's, it's like cars. Like, you're not supposed to buy the car in the first year it's launched because it's going to have a ton of problems. Um, you know, you got to wait until they iron those out and you don't have any recalls on it.

Armin, I feel like we could continue this conversation long into the evening, but our, our time is up. Thank you very, very much for your experience sharing, your candor. Uh, how can people find more information about Kamanite and you?

So on Instagram, if you search Kamanite, uh, it's underscore Kamanite. Our website is kamanite.us. Uh, my Instagram is Armin Creates, all in one. And then if you just search Filmmaker Friday Chicago on Instagram, it's Filmmaker Friday Chicago on Instagram.

Perfect. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and we'll replace Armin. Until then, ta-ta for now.

Thank you so much for having me.