He blew up the Death Star - And Taught Me This Life-Changing Business Lesson! EP #369

G', day, guys. It's Dan. Welcome to this episode 369 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. And we've just finished our weekly VBA elite call. And I want to start doing some post call episodes again because I feel like they're probably quite valuable given what's happening inside our group, our paid program, as our premier program. And, and maybe some of this might resonate with you. It might feel like you're not alone. And actually that was one of the big topics for today's call was the fact that we are like a family. You know, we're there to support each other regardless of what's going on in the market, in the industry, at home, you know, with kids. And I think that's something that isn't talked about enough.

It was spurred on by the fact that I lost a really good friend at the weekend. Bruce Logan, asc. And you may or may not have known Bruce. He was instrumental in the revenge of the great camera shootout with Zacuto and KESSLER Back in 2012, when, you know, camera technology was at its infancy of changing. There were all these different cameras, you know, the A7s, there was the FS100. Actually, A7s was, wasn't even out then FS100, there was the Panasonic GH series. And the camera test was really to test everything from Arri Alexa down to, you know, the cheapest camera.

We all shot the same studio scene, but Bruce was the DP who, who lit the whole scene or started with the whole kind of the camera test. And off the back of that became really good friends with Bruce and myself and Mick Jones and Steve Wise and Jens Zakudo. You know, we spent a lot of time together during those periods back in 2012 onwards, going to nab and hanging out in Zacuto's HQ in Chicago and go to Cine Gear. And it was a real kind of, you know, blow to lose Bruce because, you know, if you didn't know him, he blew up the Death Star. Like everyone knows Star Wars. Everyone knows that scene, that 1977 scene when VFX were done for real. And the big lesson I took away from knowing Bruce was just how humble he was. He shot the first Tron movie, he shot a bunch of big films. And in that period, through Steven Jens, we got to meet a lot of Hollywood greats, you know, hanging out with Oscar, Oscar winning cinematographers and learning about how they did things. And I feel that, you know, that that period's shifted a lot. We seem to Live in such an immediate society where everyone just wants the results now and they don't want to learn, they don't want to take the time to learn from people who've gone before. And I think that's quite sad. I feel that that's a real loss because there's so much to be learned from the traditional way of doing things. Then you can add your own flavor, then you can do your own thing. But I was fortunate enough to become very close to Bruce and he kindly agreed to come and shoot a project for me in the UK for Sony Lebo Ms. I'm going to post that on YouTube this week with all the behind the scenes. And I learned so much being the DP under his direction, not only about lighting, but about direction, about how to operate. And he put me, really put me through the ringer. You know, he was expecting acting a lot. So to have this kind of Hollywood great, you know, the guy who blew up the Death Star, directing a film that he'd written from for me and for Sony, was. Was very special.

And it was a great project. And I said, I'm going to post it on YouTube this week, so I'll probably send an email out that shares that. But yeah, it was. It was at the last saw Bruce in 2022, in September. I was out in LA at a business event with Sam Ovens and he now runs school, of course, with Alex Hormozy, and we had dinner. And the thing that I always remember at Bruce is how when we said goodbye, the hugs were always very special, very kind of warm and heartfelt and he was in a good place. He'd recently got married and it was just great to see him. And then I last spoke to him a couple of months ago, just when the LA fires were happening. I sent him a couple of messages and then he had a short illness and passed away. And. Yeah, so, you know, I just wanted to kind of pay my respects to Bruce and what an impact he's had on my life and mixed life. And I know Stephen Jens at Zacuto. We've all kind of connected again and we're gonna make an effort to do more in person, get together more. Life is so short, and I think it's a shame if we just kind of don't make the time to connect. Which kind of comes back to the purpose of this episode today was sharing that story with the guys in Elite and just emphasizing the importance of having a space, wherever that is for you, where you can share what's going on, share the wins when things are going well, share the challenges and the problems and things that aren't going well and get different perspectives, perspectives that aren't just your husbands or your wives or your partners, but are from other creative business owners, people in service based businesses dealing with this stuff every day. And you know, for the most part, as I am in a couple of different masterminds and I'm in a couple that I obviously run, you know, there's definitely a challenge in the market globally, no matter what industry you're in. As a lady at my gym called Julie who works in a shipping company and she was sharing that they'd been to a conference in Sydney a few weeks ago and that they had been sharing that almost every industry they worked in was down. People were shipping less stuff. In Australia, for example, it's a big hardware store called Bunnings. It's like the equivalent of Home Depot, I guess, or, or, you know, B and Q in the uk and they would normally bring in, you know, five containers of, you know, a particular watering can or a particular garden tool and they're now bringing in one container a week. So everyone is feeling the pinch. Some industries are unaffected. And maybe if you're a freelance videographer, you're busy as ever, but if you run a production company, there's certainly more constraints on budgets. There's more constraints where people are maybe not putting stuff out of house, they're keeping it in the house. There are situations where people's budgets are more sensitive. And so what we have to do is we have to adapt. We have to work a way of reforming our business despite the constraint. And that's really the job of a business owner is to work at, well, how can I still offer my service in a way that makes sense? And for some people, they'll just get out of the industry, they'll just sell their gear. I did an Instagram post on this recently. Um, actually if you're not following me on Instagram at Den underscore Lenny, please come and give me a follow. And it got a lot of, a lot of comments about the fact that there were so many camera systems up for sale on Facebook Marketplace. You know, Alexa's going for a song, Red's going for under ten grand. And I think that, you know, it's a, it's a signal that the market, the industry is changing.

There isn't as much work around and that's filtering down. And so if you're in the corporate world, what we're noticing is people are just taking longer to make decisions and we just Easter break and there's just delays. And so, you know, I think we have to just accept this is the year that perhaps, perhaps breaking even at the end of the year is the goal. Survival taking jobs for survival. Not massively ambitious growth plans because there's just a constraint in the market. So your job is to find the opportunities to find ways of still servicing your audience. Maybe that's breaking down projects into smaller chunks. Maybe it's reducing some of the scope of your post production. Maybe it's not shooting log and raw and processing those files and then doing a heavy grade. Maybe it's just, you know, shooting in a hypergamma and giving it a quick color match and then getting out to the client because good enough is good enough and if they're paying 20 or 30% less, don't be giving them the gold star service. You know, you don't fly first class on an economy ticket. It doesn't matter if first class is empty, they're not going to bump you up.

So I think it's important that we just accept the reality but also build our businesses despite the constraints. And so we, we're going to be, we've been looking at our product offerings. We're making some changes there. We offered our part regional scholarship. I think we had five applications for that now. So we'll be running through them this week. And then the other thing that I'm going to be doing for a small number of people of the right fit is I'm going to be opening up some one to one coaching. Now I haven't done one to one coaching outside of my elite program.

For about six or seven years.

And that's something that I actually would like to offer to the right people. I want to do some work closely with some businesses and so if you are interested in some one to one coaching with me, we will go very deep into your business and we will fix whatever problems you have and come up with a roadmap and a plan to help you grow that business over the next six to 12 months. So I'm going to be putting together some details on that over the next couple of days. So if you are interested in some one to one coaching then please drop me a DM or, or you know, send me an email@denleny.com or you can email me den@the video mentors.com both get through if you're interested in that. I'm going to be doing some one off coaching calls and then some blocks of probably you know, 12 weeks or so because I think that if we're going to do some work together, we have to have a bit of a Runway to be able to work on the various issues you might have in your business.

So yeah, if that's something you're interested in and you're keen to get some one to one support, I'll be offering, I'm not sure quite how many spots, but I can't imagine it'd be any more than about five, just given my, given my time constraints. And we're also looking at different ways for anyone who's interested in joining our Up Level program, perhaps with an extended payment plan. Because we know that getting support from the right people and being in the right environment ultimately will help you grow your business. But we also, we're also conscious that there can be some constraints. So if you're as serious about that, we still have the option to apply for the scholarship. I'll probably be making those decisions at the end of this week. We only have five spots and we have five applications, so I don't necessarily imagine everyone will be a right fit. But this has only gone out to my email list so far and spoken about on this podcast. So there's a very good chance, if you're on my email list, you know what we do, you know the kind of impact we have.

But the one thing I wanted to be clear about is that those scholarships, there is an option for a payment plan on those scholarships as well. So we are well aware of the constraints in the market and we are doing what we can to support filmmakers who want business support, who perhaps don't have the cash to pay in full right up front. And we have options where you can pay over a period of months and still get access to those, those people in up level and the coaching and all the support that we deliver in there. So yeah, it's, it's definitely a time for reflection and adaptation. And as always, we will always be here to support you say this is episode 369, we're always in your corner. But the one thing I do want to leave you with is that thinking about a problem, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, if you're not implementing, if you're not being held accountable, then it's largely a wasted exercise. It's a passive pastime. You can sort of soothe the wound by looking at a YouTube video going, oh, I should, I should do that thing, I should implement that, that one strategy in my business, I should do that. But if you don't do it and you're not in an environment where you're being held accountable, there's a very good chance you won't do it. And you end up spending time and effort on the wrong things. And I've had calls with people recently and I see them posting on social and it's all just fluff. It's just, it's none of it's going to move the needle because they don't have enough pain yet to understand that. And if that's you and you know who I'm talking about, then, you know, get in touch. But I'm not really pointing the finger at anyone specifically. It's just a general feeling that the filmmakers often try and figure out their problems by patching up one or two things in their business. And for you to grow a sustainable, consistent business, you need a number of frameworks in place, a number of steps that have to be implemented in a certain order. Otherwise you're going to expend an awful lot of energy. Anyway, like I said, got a few options on the go just now. Look out for your emails. We'll be putting emails together this week. The one to one coaching will be first come, first served. And as I say, you know, I'm probably only gonna have space for five clients and if that's something you've been thinking about or you'd like to work with us, there's gonna be an option to do a one off call and there's gonna be an option to do a sort of block of work with us as well. So yeah, check out your email for that and please do follow me on Instagram. En Lenny, until next week. See you then.