Mastering the Leap from Freelancer to CEO with Tim Arch! EP #337

G', day, guys. Welcome to this week's episode. I'm going to jump straight into this. I'm back on with Tim Arch from Arch Creative. It's been a couple of years since we spoke and Tim is going to share today how he has transitioned his business from very much being the freelancer for hire into the producer who hires the freelancers to run projects on his behalf. Check out this episode. It's full of absolute gold. Everything from purchasing gear and not purchasing gear to managing teams. Jump in. Enjoy.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

Hey, Timble, it's great to have you back on the show. It's been a hot minute.

Yeah. Some 200 odd episodes ago.

I think it might be 210. Episode 124, how to start Running Around Like a Headless Freelancer. So for the listeners at home that have not listened to the other 210 episodes, have you stopped running around like a headless freelancer?

I have, Dan. I have. I now have headless freelancers running around for me.

That is awesome. So we're here in April of 2024. You and I have been working together for a wee while now. How's business looking today? Where are you at with Arch Creative?

It's, yeah, looking pretty good. I had a bit of a crisis of confidence which we might touch on a little bit later at the start of this year. Kind of still coming out of that logistically and cash flow wise. But overall it's just been an improvement year on year.

No doubt in no small part due to your help and the rest of the VBA helping out. But yeah.

Well, thank you, Tim. I mean, you do the work ultimately, but I love the. The fact that you're so vulnerable and honest about the crisis of confidence. I had one just, just last week actually. I just lost my confidence all of a sudden and probably created by a few different things. And I think it's really important on this podcast that we talk about the realities of running and growing a video business because things are not always smooth sailing. And in my own journey, I just, you know, I just found myself. I think what's happened is we're coming to the sort of end of a, end of a, end of a kind of run. Well, it's actually the end of a quarter. Sort of tricked into the new one and I find if I don't take a week off every 12 or 13 weeks, I just get really burned out.

That's.

But tell me about beginning of you here.

That's some great advice. Just there. I've just come back from a week away.

Mostly tuned out. I turned my Facebook ads off for a week and didn't have to deal with much email at all. So yeah, just out in nature, riding bikes every day, hanging out with the kids and yeah, feeling a lot better about things coming back from that.

Yeah, it's, it's easy to get caught up, isn't it, in the doing. Because there's, there's a never ending to do list in a video business and any business that you know, you can as the business owner, as the founder, you, you can be. There's always something to be thinking about.

Yes. And always you're always wondering, am I thinking about the right thing at the right time?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me about beginning of your year. What was happening for you and how did that impact you and affect you?

Yeah, I mean, typically partly due to my own fault in not doing a lot of outreach towards the end of last year and most years due to. We tend to get fairly busy towards the end of the year typically and January. A lot of my clients acquired in January, but I'm not doing anything else to at the moment. Haven't been doing anything else to fill that gap. But we usually do well enough out of the run up to the end of the year to float us through January.

But things have been even more quiet than usual and also been dealing with some very late paying clients, which has been a new frustration for me. Typically, usually my clients are pretty good at paying on time, but for whatever reason, these last couple had a couple of late payers which kind of threw everything out. And yeah, like I said, I'm still kind of playing. Feel like I'm playing catch up on the cash flow situation. It's just at the moment it's like, yep, next week the next invoice will get paid and then it'll be okay. But then all the money runs out again very quickly because, because of the catch up situation. But yeah, one more invoice and we'll be, we'll be good.

There's been a lot of, there's a lot of people in the VBA with free cash flow issues just now and there seems to be a pattern of bigger clients not paying invoices in the tail end of the last quarter. I've got a Bit of a theory that the financial directors and all these big companies have been holding off paying so that the numbers look stronger finishing the quarter and they're now starting to trickle pay in this quarter. But it's been a real, has been a common issue I think with, with, with a lot of people in the VBA just now. And I don't think it's just in the vba, I think a lot of people are finding clients paying late and it's, it's, it's interesting and I don't know why it's suddenly happening but you've had like two or three and these are like government clients, right?

Yeah, yeah. Clients who I don't usually have any issue at all with. And yeah, for whatever reason process hasn't been followed or.

Yeah, yeah, entirely sure.

You know, I remember working in a very, very big company in the UK doing about 50, 60 million a year and I, and I was always like, I took this job because I wanted to experience a proper full on sales company and just put myself through two years of like hard and fast. It was a retail environment and I was in business development so I was still pretty much, you know, helping the sales team to translate. At the time it was all a bit tapeless, you know, this was back in 2008, 2009, helping cameramen. Yeah, all of that stuff.

But it was like, I remember the managing director, something some days just looking really stressed and like, hey man, what's up? And he's like, oh, we got, we got payroll in two days time, I've got any money in the bank. And like when you got 50, 60 staff.

It seems to me that what I got from that was my cash flow issues never go away. And I think what I learned from that is cash is, it's called cash flow, not cash sit in the bank. So the cash comes in, the cash goes out, the cash comes in. You invest in new services, new technologies. You know, it might be a new monitor, might be a new camera that's going to make life easier and then there's always a lag. And so if you're not deploying the profits in the business back into the business with like premises or staff or whatever, you stay still. But it's like, yeah, it gets stressful because, you know, you're constantly working and you would think that as your business grows that it would get easier and I would argue that it actually gets harder because even though there's maybe more volume of cash coming in, the invoices are bigger going out and you've done some big sort of 30, 40k projects where you're paying five or six or seven people out of that, and that can deplete quite quickly.

Yeah, it disappears very fast when it comes time to pay your crew.

But, yeah, it kind of gets to the point where like, 30, 40k invoice, three or four years ago, I'd be over the moon. I mean, I'm still over the moon about them, but I just don't jump out of my chair anymore.

Isn't that funny? Like, you know, when you're a freelancer, like, the thought of making 10 or 15 grand a month, it's like, oh, my God, that's an insane amount of money. And I remember having the same conversation with myself going, hey, if we could just get to 40 grand a month, that would be just epic, you know, I think at that level, we'd have all our needs met, we'd have tons of cash. And we got there and surpassed it and it was like, oh, everything's just got more expensive. There's just more expenses. And when you start running ads, you're up to kind of thousands a month in ad spend.

The sky's the limit there. You've got to.

And it just becomes. Yeah, it just becomes this kind of like, ongoing machine. But I guess we're doing that because you've got to keep filling the front of the funnel, which is kind of partly what happened to you late last year is you had this run of very big projects and some great cash flow. And I think what happens is we get comfortable going. Well, there's tons of cash coming in, Christmas is coming. I can take a bit of time out in January. And I think what, what. What screwed you was just the two or three payments, not. Not coming through when they were supposed to.

Yeah.

Completely out of your control.

Yep. And I think because they were delayed, I had that kind of false sense of comfort, you know, of having money owed to me. It's like, yeah, it's sitting there.

That's coming in, that's fine, that's coming in, that's fine. And then, yeah, when it did eventually come in, there was so much catching up to do that it all disappeared very quickly. And there's. Yep. Right, when's the next one coming in?

You know, I was just talking to a friend of ours, mutual friend of ours, Alana.

And she was talking about a podcast she'd been on, and they were talking about the council.

Gardener syndrome and the council gardener syndrome. I might have got this a little bit wrong. So, Alana if you're listening, sorry. But basically it was like all business owners at some point stand in and out of a window and look down at the council greensman or greenswoman on a ride on Moore, just cutting the cricket oval, cutting the grass. And I think that, that the essence of the story is at some point we all just go, oh, God, you know, is this worth it? It's just. Would it not just be easier? Like, my. My dream is just to not have to do this anymore and just sit on the ride on more with a hat on and headphones and cut the grass. And I love that analogy. And I had a similar experience where on Easter weekend, you know, we often joke about in the VBA that like, Easter week, Easter long weekend's great, everyone's off and you take time off from work, but you don't switch off from work. So you might be physically present with the family and the kids. But it took me to, like the Monday to really unwind, and I went to.

Mitre 10 to buy some timber to fix up our chicken coop, which is always all open and. And I was in there and, you know, if you've walked into somewhere like that and it's like a trade place and you're not a tradie, you feel a bit intimidated. You got to kind of like, you know, try and try and seem a bit like more trady than cameraman, you know, and. But I met this lovely guy and he's like, what you have to meet? I said, well, I've got this situation, showed us some pictures. He went, oh, you need this and that. And the next thing, a bit of timber here. I said, you couldn't come from. He's like, yeah, no worries. I said, oh, you must be on like double or triple time today. He said, well, I don't know. He said, to be honest, I ran a building company for 30 years and now I fill in on weekends and public holidays at the hardware store. Finding timber, helping people with solutions, and cutting up timber or lumber, if you're in the US listening to this. And he said, and I absolutely love it. No stress. And I went, that's it. That's the equivalent of the. The lawnmower, man. It's like something that doesn't require any thinking. No pressure, because, man, this, this running a business thing is. It's full on, eh? And then on top of that, you've got a wife and three kids.

Yes. Taking up a lot of time, however. Yeah, I. I've also been speaking to Alana recently and she. Yeah, Relay that story to me too, and ask me what my lawn, what my equivalent, standing out the window staring at what my equivalent job is.

And would you reckon it is?

I don't actually have one.

If you did have one and you were to think of it now.

I honestly can't think of working for, just working for anyone else.

No. Let's imagine that you are completely taken care of financially and you didn't have to worry about Jen or the kids in any way, shape or form. No mortgage, plenty of cash. What would you do with your time to kind of feel like you were contributing to something? Because I think we all need to get out and build something.

I think would have to learn how to use a shovel properly and help out on whatever local mountain bike trail happened to be closest at the time.

That's your lawnmower man moment.

There you go, then.

So when it, when, if, if you can get this to kick off and take care of all your financial needs, when you do that, you can just build mountain bike trails. It's just, it's a great purpose, isn't it? Just like, it's funny, I was out yesterday and the rain had stopped and like we've just moved to 2 acres, tail end of last year. So I'm learning to kind of deal. Yeah, you know what, there's actually a good point. We could dig one in, but I. It stopped raining and I got out in the lawnmower in between calls and I just did a quick 25 minutes round the, the grass and I was like, oh, God, that's. That is so satisfying. And I got up this morning, I went, well, my lawn looks amazing. It's like, it's true. It's like these simple pleasures. There's something creative in it because I'm. I'm looking at the route I'm going to take and the lines I want to cut and I want to get some shape. Yeah, I thought, I thought it was a great analogy. I'd never heard it before and it made total sense to me when Alana told me about it.

So what's. Tell us about arch Creative in 2024. What do you do? Who do you do it for? How's the business changed since we last spoke, maybe 210 episodes ago?

Yeah, yeah. It has happened globally since then. I think we're right in the thick of some very large disruptions around the world.

Doesn't that just seem like an entire age ago?

It does, but in some ways it doesn't. I still feel like we're still kind of Feeling the long tail after effects of that.

And talking about how.

Yeah, the start of this year has been quieter than usual. It's not just at this level.

You're hearing reports of it being like that at the Hollywood level. A lot of the freelancers I know are not working as much.

One.

Gaffer that I have a lot of respect for and have worked with occasionally is telling off all his. He's going through all his gear and going, what do I. What is surplus to needs? What. What's. What's my absolute minimum viable lighting kit? And I'll just get rid of the rest. So, yeah, it's. It's hitting everyone at all levels, but then you've got other people who are chugging along just fine. So I think I'm. I'm trying not to fall into that mindset and just going, well, it's still, still video out there that needs to be made. Our clients still need us to, to help out on things. Just trying to shift my. Away from the. The smaller jobs and.

At the moment and yeah, really kind of pursue the larger jobs.

It's a. Makes it feel a whole lot more lumpy. It feels like there's not a consistent flow of work going in. But it's a. In other words, in other terms, it's kind of. I find that much easier to concentrate on one or two large jobs at a time than 10, 15, smaller jobs.

It was a real turning point, wasn't it, last year around about, I think, August, September time when you won a couple of. Well, you didn't win them. They were repeat client events.

Yeah.

And I remember you just put in.

A competitive quote for them, but, yeah, kind of having done them before for us for a few years, had. Had built that relationship and knew. Knew what they were after.

So I remember one particular event just being especially cool because it was a sizable job and you put an entire team on it. And like, I think Jen had something else. You couldn't literally go and do the event, so you have to stay and look after the kids. And so you were forced to crew the entire thing up with contractors. And it went swimmingly. And we had a great. You know, one of the great things about the VBA is you've got access to all the guys on uplevel and the guys and girls on uplevel and they, they basically. I think half of them crewed up for you. And I think it was a really interesting turning point for you because you went, oh, I just did a pretty massive job and didn't have to go and physically be there. And the client was thrilled.

Yeah. It certainly had me reconsidering whether I continue the lease at this office. I certainly need some place away from home to work out of, but do I need 200 square feet of that? Square meters. Interesting. But just recently we being away for a week up in Bright, a place we love to go at least once a year.

Floated the idea of a permanent on site van.

And I was thinking, well, actually that would be a lot easier to work out of than a tent if we were trying to work remotely, which could mean we could actually take more holidays. Especially if we kind of, if we go up for a week or two at a time and kind of split our time between us. My wife can work remotely too.

And you can stick Starlink on it.

Yeah.

And like be completely connected anywhere.

That's an even better idea because my own reception up in Bright isn't that great. Being in a valley, it's okay. But yeah, certainly if I want to do any video upload or download then something like style, that's a great idea.

You know, we did that, we had a, we had a VW camper that I used actually as a mobile office and I, when I was in Sydney, would often get in the van and go and record a podcast or drive to a lake and just sit and work. And it's like with the way you've structured your business, it's completely location independent. And since removing yourself from having to go to the productions.

I think it's a genius idea. You know, there's some great.

Great van manufacturers. Get a nice sort of five berth sunliner or something.

Yeah, no, we'd look at a, a permanent, like a permanent cabin.

Ah, okay. Yeah, like all right, like literally away. Okay. Yeah, cool.

Yeah.

That vision of you getting some sort of camper van at the front of the house. An RV.

For anyone listening. I think, you know, we sort of skirted over the fact that you've gone from, you know, being a sort of busy freelancer to now running, you know, high five figure jobs over a, you know, two or three day period and not having to be on set to do anything.

What's that been like from a point of view of the emotional side of being a filmmaker? You know, I think a lot of people, we feel like the client, we need to see that we need to be there so the client sees us. And, and that one particular example I'm thinking of is that, you know, you physically weren't there for the shoot or the edit. It was all outsourced and you were just the production company who organized the whole thing. And like for anyone listening to this, he's like freaking out going, oh, surely the client would want us to send you. How did, how did you manage all of that? How did you sell that to the client? How did you deliver it on the day?

It was always going to be more than a crew of just one. But I have attended previously this particular event and I've done other events that are completely remote.

Where, yeah, I've attended maybe in the first instance, but in following years I've put in less and less of an appearance. This particular awards night that we're talking about the year prior to that, I.

Put in a.

Put in a bit of an appearance and came and set up a time lapse camera at the start and said good day to all my crew and the client and then went and had dinner with the family.

I love it.

So they're so many of me not being there. They can see that I've put in all the, all the run sheets are there. They can see that I've put in all the forethought and planned it all out for them. And just having a good network of freelancers that I can rely on to represent us fairly and give the client as close to the same experience as I would give them.

I'm sure that makes life at home a lot easier. I know you've got three young children, your wife works and I think something that comes across. What I've realized about the vba, that elite particularly is the majority of members are who have young families. There seems to be a. I just noticed this recently. Virtually everyone's got kids or it's at least, or at least in a serious relationship, bought a first home or about to have kids. And.

It just struck me, it's like actually everyone's in the same boat and that's kind of. It's evolved that way. I'm not sure how, but I think one of the things we focus on a lot is how to get that balance right between building a business, being a husband, being a father, being a wife, being a mother, you know, father, etc. Brother, sister.

How do you manage all of that? I mean, you've got a lot of responsibilities at home. You and Jen completely co parent the kids, like down the middle.

How do you manage that on a practical level? Because I'm sure there's people listening to this going, how do you run a business and still be around for the kids and your partner?

Yeah, you could call it being lazy no, it's a lot of discipline to fit everything into four days a week, nine to five. I've kind of built the business around not having to be on set, everything. I still go do things when I can or when I'm interested, particularly interested in a project. Any clients who are listening if I'm not there. I still love you. I still love what we're working on. It's. I have just recorded enough events in my lifetime to not necessarily have to be there in person myself to do a great job for you.

No. And I've probably got commitments at home with a particular at my current life stage. I've got a couple of kids in primary school and one in one starting kinder next year. They've started to have activities after school. It's just the way I've built things. Not having to be on set every single time we have a shoot means that makes life at home a lot more logistically feasible. Get to spend a lot more time with the kids. You're not going to get these years back. So yeah, if I can like, like I said before, considering whether I need the office or not, absolutely need somewhere away from home to work out of. So I've got that separation.

But yeah, it's, it's just the way I've built things.

Yeah, you make a good point about, you know, you don't get those years back and you know, business is like a child, isn't it? You kind of, you got to feed it and look after it. If you ignore, if you, you know, if you, if you neglect it, it kind of starts to, to fade away.

People who might be listening to this just want to clarify that you basically run your, your business four days a week. So you've, you've built your business so you can run it four days a week. What are some of the things you've had to do outside of just discipline to.

How'S that impacted the kind of clients you go after, the kind of work that you do? There must be some challenges there. Can you talk about them?

Yes, I feel like I've run out of time a lot but.

There'S tools available. Like I'm not afraid to obviously outsource all the production work when I need to. I'll bring on at the production, like at the production management level. I'll bring on freelance producers when necessary and yeah, all the editing's outsourced. I've got, yeah. Got a small team that I'll. That I go to for that. But on top of that, a lot of the AI tools are making the admin and the marketing kind of side of business a lot easier to manage. It's a lot easier to scale yourself up and get a lot more done. Yeah.

In the given what kind of tools are you finding useful? How are you utilizing AI to streamline your workflow?

Yeah, I've got using a custom package built in relevance AI.

With a couple of agents built in that, that are helping with outreach. Like I will say okay, this week or this month I'm looking at the, shall we say looking at the events industry that's going to be my focus on, on who I want to outreach to. So using some tools built into that, that tell it this is the industry I'm looking at in this geographical area.

Give me like I'll start the week saying give me a list of the 20 biggest companies doing that and who the. And it will go away and come back to me with all the, the key kind of marketing contacts and pre written suggested cold outreach emails that often it will find the email addresses too.

That's very cool. I was, I could spend all week.

Doing that, typing out those, finding those 20 emails and typing out those, finding those 20 email addresses and typing out those emails. Or I can get it done in, in two or three hours.

You know, chat GBT relevancy, all these tools. I was on their chat GPT last night and it's just that there's just new tools coming online every single day.

It's incredible.

Having been away for a week I feel like I'm in catch up mode now just as to what changes have gone on. But yeah, highly recommend carving out some like an hour or two a week just to dive into these tools and to keep on top of them.

I know you and some of the other lads have talked about, you know, using chat GBT to assist with scripting and I think from what I understand what's, what's really powerful about ChatGPT is that if you feed it like a research interview or some kind of content that is relevant, you could take a previous video from a client or let's say you did a pre production interview, feed it in. How are you finding chat? How does ChatGPT support your script writing process? Because I know some of the lads in up level were asking about this last week. It seems to be a common pain point where writing a script is this like really cumbersome and challenging part of the production process. But I know you've been playing around with lots of tools and using different tools to try and refine that Process. How are you using AI to assist you with the script writing process.

Similarly to how a lot of people are using it to summarize meetings? A lot of our script writing comes after the fact, but we'll, in terms of a lot of the work we do is more kind of doco style, interview based, but it certainly sped up the process of finding the key points.

Like we can feed the program a transcript.

And tell it, these are the kind of ideas that the client is looking for. Find the five best representations of this and then if you've got using stuff like Resolve, where you get your transcript out of that and then you just go back in and search, you can either feed chatgpt a time coded transcript or you can feed it a straight transcript and then just go back to Resolve and.

Search for the words that it's coming back to you with. That's it certainly speeds up the editing process.

There. And even prior to that, when you're looking at your questions, what kind of questions you want to ask, if the client's having trouble with coming up with their line of questioning, then it's very easy to.

Feed this program the area of interest and get it to help you come up with some questions.

One of my favorite things to do in ChatGPT is, you know, we've got the Ask framework, which is a process within the VBA that we use to interview an existing client and ask them a bunch of key questions about why they use this, what business they're in, some of the challenges they've had in the past and how you make them feel. And what I've seen work really well on Chat GPT is taking that transcript and saying, can you write me 10 FAQs about working with my video business based on this transcript? And I've done that four or five times now on calls and it's never, never not blown me away how well it articulates that. So I think if you're not using AI and you're not using ChatGPT4, I believe 4.5 is on its way and it's like a whole leap farther than from 3.5 to 4. Um, in terms of contextualizing.

Yeah, with those, with those Ask interviews I've been taking, the ones that I've done, pulling all the, cleaning them up and pulling all the bits, all the relevant bits out and then feeding that into the agents I've got in relevance and saying, yeah, when you're, when you're drafting these emails, draw upon this to kind of get the, to, to talk, talk about what we do.

That's so good. I didn't even know you were doing that. That is genius.

Yeah. So rather than. Yeah, don't have to copy it every time. It's just there.

Yeah. So it sounds like relevance AI is like part of your team is like a kind of virtual team.

Absolutely. It is. Well, it's multiple virtual team members. Yeah, it's agents for writing. Agents for writing, cold email outreach, agents for researching industries. Agents for script writing. Yeah.

Wow. Wow. And what about in terms of. I know you're not editing as much anymore, but in terms of post production, are there any AI tools there that are either emerging or in place that are really helping speed up workflows?

I haven't delved into what's come out with DaVinci Resolve 19 yet. It's definitely interesting to see the more and more AI being built in, but I mean even with it's been around for ages using plugins like Izotope for noise reduction, I don't play with the buttons on that. I just use its knowledge too.

My favorite go to on that is Dialogue Denoise. Yeah, just chuck it on everything and maybe tweak it. And it always cleans up the audio and makes it sound terrific.

Yeah, you barely have to touch it.

Yeah.

But yeah, most of our, most of the AI I use in pre production is yet is in whittling down those interviews, finding, finding the gems that we're after.

And then taking those longer form like four or five minute clips and then feeding them through something like Opus Clip.

And getting those suite of social media clips like your 20 second clips. Oh really?

So tell me about that Opus Clips.

Did you say Opus Clip? It's very similar to. I can't remember the name of the guy who presented to us in Queensland last year. But.

But oh yeah, splashio.

Splashio. It's very similar concept.

Yeah. Okay.

But yeah, I think more AI Reliant, I think splashio, they use more.

Yeah. Splashio still have a human do the work and I've tested both and I'm back using splashio because I just found that the AI tools didn't quite hit the mark in the intonation and understanding the context of what was being said.

Yeah, fair enough.

And what I love about splashio is that he's a human that will take out pauses and zoom and put in zooms and add emojis and they're like contextual emojis and I think that the AI is not quite there yet.

Have a look at Opus Clip. It's worth A look, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how.

I mean, I think AI is only going to continue to strengthen. Yeah, but we've had a. Well, we've had a few conversations about it, haven't we, in the group. And it's like it's not going to take over because it doesn't. It's not able to think contextually in relationship to the outcome of a project.

No. Yeah, look at all the. Yeah. Yet. Which is why I think it's important to stay on top of it. Especially if you're worried about it taking a job, then the best thing you can do is try and understand it better and, and understand ways in which you can use it to your advantage.

But if you think about any tools, you know, there are incredible, you know, tools for almost anything.

Dyson Vacuum Cleaner is probably the best vacuum cleaner on the planet in terms of what it does.

But you still have to pick it up and operate it. You know, you can have the greatest.

Makita tool set once they work out a robot vac that can tackle stairs.

Yeah. But all the robot vacs do one thing quite well. They're quite good at scanning an area and cleaning it. But they don't empty themselves. They don't clean themselves. You still need to. And even if there's a docking station, you still need to empty them. So I guess where I'm going with this is.

The tools that we have are phenomenal, but a human operator still needs to direct what it does and where it goes. And I don't know that AI could distinguish between certain things and take the whole Tesla self drive. I watched the documentary about Tesla self drive and there had been a bunch of accidents in the US where it had thought something static was not an object it had to avoid. And it just, I think a few cases it drove directly under a part truck and decapitated the roof because the AI and the sensors perceived it as a bridge, not as an object that created an accident. So I feel like, and it's just my sense and from talking to everyone in the vba, that the AI tools can be utilized to help us work faster, work smarter. But I know we, you and I have both played around with testing, writing Facebook ads with AI and it just always falls pretty short of, I think that the subtle intonation of what you, Tim Arch, would say to a client on set, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I.

Think it can get you to a point, a certain point much quicker. But yeah, you definitely need to take over the reins and get it the last 10 I think so the way there.

But I think our industry's evolved with technology so much over the last 20 years.

Oh, you were talking earlier about trying to sell solid state media to camera operators.

Yeah, I mean P2s by S cards, that whole tapeless thing was it the Sony had the XD cam discs. People were freaked out by these, you know, laser writing things that wasn't tape. And you know, so much has evolved and we're just coming off the back of nab. I don't know how much of that you've seen on YouTube.

You know Blackmagic again have gone out and just done an incredible job at providing incredible tools at really affordable prices. And I think from a business point of view, I saw someone write on a forum, how did blackmagic keep doing this and make any money? It's like, well, because it's volume. They build everything in the house. It's volume. And fun fact, blackmagic design are the largest consumer of SDI components on the planet.

I can believe that staring at a blackmagic device here with eight of them already.

I know, but I think what the guys at blackmagic have done really well is they've completely democratized the tool set so you can work more quickly, get into the game cheaper. I mean they've brought in some new tools that just make like even the atem. There's an ATEM plug in, Bluetooth keyboard. Now that's like the same button as just that 25 grand switcher.

Yeah. Even back, even down to their cameras. When it comes becomes a Choice between a $3,000 Canon or Sony DSLR or $3,000 specifically designed video camera.

If video is your thing, then yeah, it makes a viable option.

This is an A7S. It's actually 10 years this year since the A7S launched. This was actually the A7S that I got when I made that film for Sony way back then. That's been my webcam for 10 years. It's still awesome. And then I've got an A7R Mark 3 on its side as the, as a, as a second camera. And I was looking at it this morning and I've got an Atomos recorder on the top and it's pretty messy. And I was like, you know what, I've got the ATEM switcher on my desk. Why don't I just switch it all over to blackmagic and have it a lot tidier. And I think that's where Blackmagic have been very smart because you're buying a $300 switcher and then you're looking at your various Sony Canon bolt ons and then you go, well, maybe I should just like buy the three grand camera from blackmagic. And it seems to do everything and it's all integrated. So I think that that's, that's been the most exciting thing I think I've seen.

I was wondering whether I should use the Leica as a webcam, but that might be going a bit too far.

Well, it would, it would certainly, certainly look good.

But yeah.

Did you see anything at NAB on the feeds that caught your eye that you think is a really interesting product?

I think I'm still getting over the news that Nikon bought Red, but I haven't been following NAB that closely if I didn't already have the micro panel and not use it enough. That new.

Yeah, that new speed editor thing.

Yeah, yeah. Not the speed editor, the color.

Ah, yes, yeah.

Trackball color.

Yes.

Panel. I forget what they're calling. I think this new one's still called the Micro panel as well, but.

Right. Yeah.

Not sure if I'm going to be color grading on my iPad, but hey, if I'm working out a bright, then yeah, maybe that's.

Well, I mean, yeah, it's, it's so interesting. I mean the, the camera side of what they're doing. I mean they've been. I remember being a beta tester for their very, very first camera. They gave a bunch of. I mean, I don't, I don't want to say the word influencer. That's not what it was. But a bunch of people back then who, who had some kind of connection to cameras and remember getting us and I still got it, the very first blackmagic camera and everyone just laughing at it. And you look at them now and they've built this, they've gone out and built a camera with this like $17,000 camera.

That is like everything that was ever asked for. They've put on that camera.

Yeah, I think it's like 12k using like netflix series. It's definitely, it's a professional camera. Absolutely.

Yeah. They've come a very long way and.

Some of that one is, is interesting.

Yeah. And there's some of the smaller they've gotten. They've got like a box grand.

That's definitely a Komodo competitor or killer. Yeah, yeah.

You've. You've got Komodos, right?

Yeah, I've got the, the original Komodo. I would love another NX to complement it.

As someone who's been shooting on that for a while and obviously you've not a chance to look at the blackmagic yet. Do you think blackmagic are in a position where they're going to start threatening Red's market?

I don't know. I think. I think Red relies a lot on its. On its branding. It'll be interesting to see how that continues now that Nikon owns them. There's. I don't know, there's a. Certainly at that kind of price point, I feel like they. If you could buy a Red or you could buy a.

Blackmagic design for the same price, I think a lot of people are going to go, well, I'll go with the Red. Thank you. Yeah.

A little more market.

Yeah, But I don't. I think the. The new. That new square Pixis or blackmagic camera is a Pixis. Yeah, Yeah. I think it's quite a bit cheaper than even a Komodo. Yeah.

Would you know what Lensman it's got? Is it. Is it still Micro Four Thirds or the.

No, at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting times, man. I think the only other thing I saw was yet another dji, another dominant force, seemed to have released yet another type of gimbal.

New gimbal. Yeah. The RS4. It's just. Yeah, it's. I find DJI stuff is a bit like iPhone stuff. You don't have to buy the new one every year. No, the last year's one still works fine.

Yeah. And the amount, like every year they bring a new one out and I'm like. Makes me think how often have I used my last year's one in the last year? Yeah, yeah.

Instead of Freefly systems.

Still a thing, are they? Still. Is Morbi still a thing?

Freefly. Yeah. They. They seem to be focusing on high speed now.

Oh, that's right. I saw that. There was a comment, I think that.

Yeah.

Good friend Sean Herbertson comment. We did a bit of back and forth.

He knows that I've got a bit of a soft spot for high speed. In another life.

I would be going all in on high speed. But the price point is still. Even with that, that's kind of been come out as a lower spec, more affordable, smaller, more compact camera. Over the ember, which they released last year, which I think does a thousand frames at 5k, probably getting these specs completely wrong. Yeah. But this is a. Like a thousand frames at 2 1/2 K. Wow. That's still 25,000 US. That's a lot still.

That's A lot of money.

Not to mention all the extra lights you need to get into that kind of frame rate recording.

Yeah, that's right. Well, let's just finish with lighting. I mean.

You are personally responsible for me being lit currently by Nanlite. I think you introduced me to Nanlite about four years ago.

They're just a good light at a good price, like.

Yeah, it's absolutely right. They are ultra reliable.

They're probably all coming out of the same factory as your Apertures and everything else. Yeah, sure, I'm gonna cop a lot of heat for saying that, but no, I'm with completely un based on anything other than opinion.

Yeah, look, I've never used Aperture so I can't comment.

Yeah. If it's anything like the bike industry, like half the frames come out of the same factories anyway, so.

Yeah, yeah. But what, what I found with Nanlite is you, you can get a lot for your money.

Yeah. And they're like particularly over here, they're backed by a known distributor, so it's not. You're not ordering direct from some random shop on ebay, so you know, you can get looked after for.

I think Rodney Charters has done quite a bit with Nanlite. I'm pretty sure it's been a while since I've spoken to Rodney, but I think he's, he was doing a lot of stuff at Nab with Nanlite. They're just a great brand. They make really good gear.

Bowens mount, plenty of modifiers available.

Yeah, good, good, good quality gear for the price. And yeah, it's hadn't let me down yet.

So just before we wrap up, what are you finding? You know, I've been seeing a lot of FS7s, F5s up for sale on the various gear selling groups recently. What are you finding out there in the corporate world is the sort of go to standard for shooting these days. Is there a particular format, particular camera that you see?

Yeah, seeing a lot of FX6s and a lot of C 70s.

So still Canon and Sony, the two big players.

Yeah.

Don't know many people turning up with Komodos. No, but I mean it's also.

My clients don't care. What, no one asks what I'm shooting on.

No, no.

And no one bats an eyelid when a certain camera comes out.

Yeah, it's whatever. I bought the Komodo for me, not my clients. It's probably overkill. I'm sure I'm not using it to the utmost of its ability, but as an old school wannabe dp, I Love shooting on that sensor and I love shooting with cinema style zooms.

Yeah, it's like we're slightly more. I'm staring here at my BenQ 30 inch, which I think, did I buy that first and you bought it or vice versa?

Something like that, yeah.

And then, and then you got me into the easel. We got the easel 27 something or other. And like they're both amazing monitors and thank you for recommending them because it's, it's, it's so interesting. Now. Back in the day I had a TV logic monitor, a 30 inch RAID one, and it was like about $25,000 and I traded it with someone for a project that I shot for them, actually one of the distributors in Europe. And it's like it was a beautiful monitor. It was $25,000. And for two or $3,000 now you can get as good a a display as. I suppose where I want to leave this chat is in the space of 10 years.

The, the affordability of very high end equipment has come down by a factor I think of almost 5 or 10.

And there's really no excuse now. And the great thing is is that leave nab to one side. Your average client who's hiring you does not care what you shoot on. So as long as you've got something that's reliable, you can, you can actually spend less money in equipment and keep more money for, for kids holidays.

Yeah. And ultimately those are going to be a lot more fun.

I think it's a great place to leave it. Tim. Let's not leave it 200 episodes again. Till the next time we have a.

Chat, let's aim for under 100 for the next one.

Before we finish, I like to ask every guest my new thing. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you feel I should have asked you?

We run the gamut of cash flow problems. AI and as seems to be with you and I, we always end up talking about tech and gear at some.

Point which comes running and causes our cash flow problems Again because we keep buying stuff.

I feel like I have learned my lessons there. I've gotten a lot better at not purchasing the latest and greatest.

Well, I feel like.

Your gateway drug to me was.

The lights from Nanlite and then you got me into easel monitors, but I think I got my own back when I got you into Leica cameras.

Yes. Yeah, that is a rather expensive line of equipment. But.

Can we just spend buying less of it?

Can we spend a second just talking about the joy of shooting with Leica.

It is. Yeah. If you are at all interested in photography.

It is something else. Just that sound.

The way it feels.

And just get out of your way. Yeah, yeah.

I've found since I've got the Leica Q2 model and I remember, you know, having a conversation, you and I don't get the mono, man, you'll just be like, you know, you'll regret it. And I was like, I actually want the constraint. And since having it, I don't regret it because I can only shoot mono. I can only shoot at 28 miles and it's like I can't. I can't do anything but compose and look at light. And I'm finding that to be such a joy and it's connecting me back to photography and the art of photography.

Yeah, you're telling me. Switching to mono, it just, it does change the way you look at things.

Yeah.

And suddenly it opens up a whole. As well as. Like you just said, cuts off a lot of options. It opens up a whole lot of options too, that something that you wouldn't look twice at as a color photo suddenly becomes interesting in black and white.

I agree. Well, mate, it's always a pleasure chatting to you and thanks for sharing your story with the listeners.

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