195 - Breaking Boundaries: A Journey from Newsroom to Global Filmmaking with Kim Brattain Media's Kim Brattain

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Kim Bratton, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the CEO and founder of Kim Bratton Media, found at KimBratton.com. You're in the video business, some So we're really looking forward to this conversation. Tell us a little bit about your backstory. We were just chatting about that a second ago.

Well, I started as a television journalist and was a reporter and an anchorwoman for most of my career and then decided to go into business for myself because I wanted a little bit more freedom with my life. And I was pretty much chained to an anchor desk, basically. So I started that and then, and it's, it's been quite successful. It was kind of rough at the beginning because going to journalism school does not prepare you for running a business. So I learned a lot of things the hard way, but, but it's been fun.

Tell us a little bit about your business.

Well, we really do a little bit of everything. We make documentaries. You and I were talking earlier. We've been to Cambodia and Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that has been super interesting and my journalism background has helped with that a lot. Our corporate is where we make the most money. One of our, one of our clients is Continental Tire and we have a lot of corporate international companies like that, but we do discount for nonprofits. So we, we have like 51% of our clients are nonprofits. It's not where we make money though.

Right. Robin Hood theory. Get from the rich to support the poor.

There you go. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that.

Good for you. So you've been, you've been, you've been in journalism in one way or another for a long time. What is it that gets you excited, gets you out of bed in the morning these days?

Well, people and their stories are super exciting. And I think it's, it's really kind of a privilege to be able to, to put video with it and, and. You know, make that story a 3-dimensional thing that we were talking can sell widgets or move people to donate money or help with the, you know, the medical crisis in the Congo. That's a privilege to get to do that. And that really kind of gets me excited. It's really fun to look through a lens, you know, and it like, it focuses. Looking through a lens focuses your attention and in some way actually gives you more understanding of what's going on, I think. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. But, but you're more than just a filmmaker. You, you own, you own a business that makes films.

And this is true. Yeah.

And there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the background that I don't think that many people are aware of in the film business, running films First of all, you've got a big capital cost in equipment, and then you've got to watch your budgets. How do you, how do you manage film budgets? Clients give you a budget and say, this is what we have, and you say, okay, we can do it. And now you got to bring it in on or under budget or else you're cutting into your profits. How do you manage?

Right. And, and you know what, we try so hard. We are so focused on customer service. I mean, we have a 5-star Google rating. And if, and if somebody's not happy with something, We will bust our fanny to make sure they are happy. And if they're not happy, I, I walked away from $4,000 last year because the internet failed, which was not our fault, right? Internet went down and the people were disappointed. And I said, you know what? You don't have to pay me. So I'm not great money manager as far as that goes. But, but I do think that my team is always telling me this. "Kim, you know, we have a budget for 3 days to shoot this. So let's stick to that. Don't say, 'Oh yeah, okay, I'll go do that,' or whatever." Just yesterday, we had a shoot planned for tomorrow, and they decided they wanted a teleprompter at the last minute. Well, our teleprompter is in Virginia with the crew that's shooting some HVAC commercials right now. So I had to hustle and rent a teleprompter. And they also decided they wanted makeup artist there, so I had to hustle and get a— so all of that was not in the pricing of it, but I think I'm going to eat that just to make them happy.

Really?

So how do you—

how do you— I mean, that's great, and I mean, I totally get the attitude you have because it's the same way I've run my practice, my professional practice, but You gotta make money. You can't—

Oh, we do. We do. And, and the, the, the larger national stuff, we make money, you know, and that's, that's, that's lucrative. And we don't, we have a really good team that's kind of scrappy and, you know, we can compete with Los Angeles here in Charlotte easily. Yeah. Or even we can compete with Atlanta easily because, you know, we are winning a ton of awards and And I think we're getting national recognition for the fact that we can do things inexpensively.

That's got to be really satisfying. Yeah, it is.

It is. It is fun. It's kind of scary though, you know, you own your business, you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering how we're going to manage this or how— what did I do? Oh no.

How do you manage? I mean, you, you, I think you started small, but in looking at your website, you've got a pretty big, pretty, pretty pretty big, a lot of mouths to feed. How do you, how are you scaling the business, managing the scaling?

Well, we, we, we're about to add some more staff, but we have a lot of contractors that we work with so we can expand and contract. I have 4 full-time people and they're, they're kind of the core, but, but yeah, I mean, probably 20 contractors that we work with regularly.

And you keep them busy.

We try to. Yeah.

So when you, when you, when people come to you with an idea or project, what kind of conversation do you have with them?

First thing you do is, is you ask them if, if they want a film, um, or a commercial, or, you know, a training film, or a documentary, or whatever, how are you going to use it? You know, are you gonna, are you gonna try to sell widgets? Are you gonna try to keep employees informed? Are you going to, um, try to educate people about your brand? Are you going to reveal water problems in the Sudan? You know, how are you going to use it? And that will help us decide how long it needs to be to, to be effective. And then, I mean, like, if stuff that you're going to put online, a minute even You know, you, you, but, but a documentary where people are going to be sitting down watching something, you can go half an hour, 2 hours. So, so yeah, the first conversation is where are you going to use it? And then the, then the second conversation is what kind of, how nice do you want it? What's your budget? And, and then, and then we just kind of plan backwards from there. You know, how many, how many days can we film with that budget? Where can we travel to? Where do we need to travel if, if we even need to? Do we need animations or? You know, what kind of graphics?

Yeah, well, I mean, post-production is longer than production work usually.

Oh, tell me about it.

So, I mean, all that audio and film editing is, you know, it's time-consuming, expensive, and—

And it's so different from how it used to be. I mean, it used to be that you could— well, you could shoot something and the color would be on there. Of course, we've got more sophisticated— we've got more sophisticated cameras now, but everything we shoot now is in like 6K RAW format. So when you look at it, it doesn't even have the color in it. You have to go back and colorize everything and, and then go through it and, you know, make sure that the audio track is right. And listen, my staff is so much better than I am. They, they have taken this light years beyond where I ever was.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a lot of experience. The only experience I have is in, let's see, during the pandemic, 2020, the summer of 2020. We— I, I'm a co-founder of a project called Prison of Peace. With my colleague Laura Koffer. I don't know if you read about that.

I did. I did. And I am a disciple.

Oh, well, thanks. We ended up— we had all these grants, couldn't go into prisons, right? Everything shut down. So we talked to other grantors and said, what do we do with the money? And they said, well, we don't want it back. What do you want to do? And we just smiled and said, we're going to put our entire curriculum on film. So we spent all summer with a full Hollywood film crew. 3-camera shoot, all the bells and whistles, filming our entire curriculum. And that's when I learned all about— our director was a reality TV guy, and it was, it was crazy.

I didn't see that online. I need— where can I find that online?

You won't see it online because it's not publicly available. However, I'd be happy to send you a link to the— to the—

please do, please do. Yeah, I, I think your work in the prisons is, is so admirable.

But, but I, you know, as the co-founder, I'm, Laurel is involved day to day, but that's where I got into thinking about budgeting because I knew how much this was going to cost us. And of course, it went way over budget. And, you know, I mean, so that's why I was curious about that because it just seems to me that controlling can, it's so easy for mission creep to come in. Oh, it'd be really cool if we did that. Well, little do we know it costs another $10,000 or whatever, right?

Yeah. But you know what I do? And, and it took me like a couple years to learn how to say say this and say, "You know, that's a great idea, and that's probably going to cost another $500. Are you cool with that?" Yeah. Okay, then you're not saying no.

Right, exactly. As long as you're there. But I was just amazed. I was amazed at the detail work that goes into this. I mean, it would take them an hour to construct a set, 2 hours to construct a set, then another 2 hours to get the camera set, and then get the lighting just so, and the audio just so. For there were, you know, 20 minutes or less of us being on set actually talking and teaching. It was crazy.

It is, it is crazy. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, they sent me a picture of my crew. They had this like Dana dolly out. It's a, and you put the camera on like a skateboard basically. And so the, the, the camera's going like this.

Oh yeah. Yeah. They have the trolleys on the, on the—

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah. So they put the Dana dolly up to get a shot of an HVAC truck. I hope they appreciate it. Probably spent 2 hours getting that shot.

So when, when you look back on your career and you think about how you transition from video journalism, working as a news anchor, to now having your own company, what do you think is unique about yourself that's allowed you to succeed in this way?

Don't give up.

Ah, persistence.

Yeah, I, I— and, and especially when, you know, I am faced with adversity, I usually find a way to get around it.

Mm-hmm.

Which way?

You go through it, over it, or under it, or however.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, if, if you have an irritation, let it create an oyster. I mean, be an oyster, let it create a pearl.

Right. Yeah.

And, and, and, you know, and also too, I'm just very competitive.

I could never tell.

So like, you know, I think if, if they could do that, we can do that, right? Yeah. I mean, we're just as smart.

Sure, why not? Where do you, where do you see the, where do you see your company going over the next 10 years?

Well, we are, we're talking with a, a national, and we've been talking to him for Doug. We've been talking to him for a year. So, you know, it's not, it's not imminent, but we, we have some other projects that we have like ready to go. One of them is a, a comedy food show, which is also travel, which is super fun. It's called Real American Food. And then, and then we have another one called Animals Y'all. And it's a, it's a comedian who is, you know, just kind of taking you around looking at people love dogs, cats, horses, you name it.

Watch TikTok.

What?

I said just watch TikTok.

Right, right. Exactly. So, you know, why not, why not use a really entertaining, good looking comedian to take you around and let you learn about behind the scenes stuff that you didn't know.

That sounds pretty cool. So these are ideas you're pitching to, to, to whomever, all the large distributors of these kinds of reality shows.

Yeah. Well, but if, but if this thing, you know, Friday actually takes off, then once we get, we get our chops, people are going to start listening to us a little bit more. So yeah, it's just, it's, it's growth. It takes a while, but persistence is the key.

Persistence is the key. I agree with that. I'm kind of like you. I'm not as competitive as I used to be. I do believe in not letting anything ever get in my way. I'll work through it one way or another. It may not be overnight, but we'll— I'll get through it, around it, over it, under it, whatever it takes. I understand that philosophy. So this, this show is called Listening with Leaders for a reason, as you know, because you told me, done some background checking on me. I'm all about listening. The very different, very different person today than I was 30 years ago when I was a civil trial lawyer trying cases over people arguing over buckets of money. Ridiculous. And I've learned, I learned and teach a really important skill, listening other people into existence. So I'm curious, in your business, it's obviously that listening is important to you. But how do you, how do you stay focused and really listen for what's important? And how do you do that as a journalist?

You know, I think that that was one of my talents really when I was a journalist because I was an empathetic listener.

Hmm.

You know, I got a lot of interviews that other people couldn't get because sometimes I just keep my mouth shut and see what people wanted to talk about. And, and sometimes that could be very cathartic for them, right? To share, to share their side of a story. And I think they trusted me also to be fair and not go into something with an agenda. Now, this is going to tell you how old I am, but back in the day when I went to journalism school, we, we were trained to get both sides of a story. And, and that, that is what I did. And I would bend over backwards to be fair. You know, I think that it's very hard to say I'm absolutely impartial because I'm not. I'm a human being. But, you know, I would, after I wrote it, try to make sure that it was fair.

Where did your empathy come from?

My husband died when I had, you know, shortly after we were married, he had cancer and my children were 1 and 3.

Wow, so, you know, that was a rough time.

It was. And I think, you know, yeah, yeah. And if you, if you go through something like that, I think you, you realize the humanity in, in us all. I think it makes you more grateful too.

There's something about loss that if we allow the grief to flow through us, it's transmuted into grace. And it's the grace that allows us to listen to other people in ways that most people can't. And that sounds like a journey you've been through.

Well, if you don't quit talking about it, I'm gonna cry. Stop, Doug. Um, but that was beautifully said. Oh my gosh. Thank you.

You're welcome. Well, just as a short aside, one of the things I do when I walk into mostly men's prisons, I don't go into prisons too much anymore, but when I used to go into prisons like every, every day, sometimes I would teach a room full of men. I'll never, well, I'll just tell this one story. I'll never forget. I went into one prison where I was asked to come in and teach the men how to listen because they were going to be mentoring at-risk kids who were coming in to spend a day in prison to see what it was really like. And they were, the kids were gonna go through the whole prison thing in the morning. In the afternoon, they were gonna be paired up with, with men who had volunteered to listen to them and talk with them. And so they needed to know how to listen to a, to a teenager, right? So, so I'm in this room, 250 men, and I'm looking around. I said, who wants to cry today? And I had a couple of my Prison of Peace students over in the corner cracking up. They knew what was coming. And I look around in the room and I look for the biggest, meanest, guy I can spot, tatted up. I'm big, but somebody who was bigger than me, I get him up there. You get up here. They have to do what you tell them to do in prison, right? They don't have a choice. And I had him in tears in 90 seconds because I would listen to him so deeply. I said, I just started off with a simple question. Tell me about you. Tell me what's going on. Should really open-ended. And I just started reading his emotions. And in 90 seconds, he was sobbing. And the room was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. And, and there was no shame, because what people saw for the first time— this guy who looked like he was pretty brutal was actually touching his own humanity, probably for the first time in decades. And everybody saw it.

Wow, that's amazing. That's strong.

Yeah, that's why I teach listening. Yeah, when you can do that, you have the ability to touch lives in the way that you do. When you, you know, when you make a beautiful piece of film that's evocative and stirring and causes people to feel emotion, that's powerful and learn a lesson or firewood. Yeah, even if you're selling a widget, selling a tire, you can still do it in a way that people walk away with something. They're just a little bit better off than they were before.

I hope so. At least smarter, maybe a little more knowledgeable.

Yeah. So what do you do with people who, who are poor listeners, which is a lot of people, right? You, you obviously have got the grace and skill to be a powerful listener, but you're very rare. What do you do in the circumstances where you're around people who are not listening very well?

It's very frustrating, isn't it?

Yeah, frustrating.

Yeah, I try to just weed those people out of my life.

Okay, you can send them to me and I'll teach them how to listen.

You know, I guess I'm tired of that. I don't need to. They're frustrating.

I guess you get to a point in life where you don't, you, you don't have to tolerate it anymore and say, I don't wanna work with you.

No. Oh no. And that, you know, that's the really cool thing about being a business owner now. I was introducing somebody last week at an event and I said, you know, people think television news is exciting. It's glamorous and exciting. I said, you know what it is? It's riding around in a rickety old live truck with a cameraman that smells like garlic and does— he's hungover. He doesn't want to work. I think it's not, it's not glamorous, right?

No, it's hard. It's hard work too for not great pay either.

Usually.

No, no.

Uh, that was, that was the—

well, I think, I think that you're at a place where you can choose what you want to work with. And if somebody comes in, people want to engage you guys to to create something for them, you get a— you must get a feeling for them and say, this is somebody— is this somebody I can work with? Is this something I'm gonna be grateful for what we produce, or are they going to be somebody who is a taker and just wants more and more and more and more, is never satisfied?

Or a blamer too. I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, we, we do need— we do need some cooperation for the people that we work with generally. Yeah, you know, help us get— you know, where do you want to do it? Who are we going to talk to? Are they your people?

Can you get them around on their time, that kind of thing, you know.

And, and if, if, if something does go wrong, like the internet thing that went down, you know, I, I knew that there was no way those people were ever going to be happy. And yeah, so we, we did a video for them, didn't charge them. Like, we won't work together again, right?

Right. When we want, shame on me, right?

Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Well, great. So what do you do when you're not filming?

Oh, I yoga.

Yoga.

I'm a yogi. Yes. I have, and I lift weights and I have dogs. I have big dogs.

Keeps you, keeps you active. And you're living in a part of the country where you can be outside most of the year.

It's gorgeous. Yeah. This is really a beautiful place to live. We're renovating a farmhouse that was built in 1895 right now.

Oh, wow.

Mm-hmm. Hit by lightning in the year 2000 and kind of shuttered and for, God, what, 23 years. And we might as well have just dug a hole in the, in the ground and started putting money in it. Right. Because it's just, it's just kind of leeching it out of us.

It's, yeah.

But it's, but it's, it's gorgeous. But whoa. But that's been, that's been really cool to see that happen.

Is that on sitting on some acreage?

Yeah, that's in Lincoln County, North Carolina.

Okay. Yeah, I know what rural living is. I live, I live in Central California, just south of Yosemite National Park on 10 acres in the Central Sierra Nevada. So I don't, nearest city is 35 minutes away.

So does it, how often do you get rain there?

Well, our rainy season, we're just coming to the end of it now. Our rainy season generally starts November and runs until the end of March. We've got next week, it's very warm today. It's 75 degrees, which for this time of year is a little warm here. But then we've got another big front coming in at the end of the week, so hopefully we're going to get one or two more storms come through. Yeah, snow in the mountains and right above us, so we can be at 5,000 feet in 20 minutes.

So, oh, how nice is that?

Pretty cool. Yeah, I get to go skiing every Friday morning.

Oh, I'm jealous.

So it's, it's, it's a good life. But yeah, so I understand the idea of projects. My wife is very big into projects.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, then, and the skiing, skiing in North Carolina, I mean, it can be a little marginal. It's, yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's basically, it's a cold storm to drop enough snow to make it worthwhile. Yeah.

You just, it's, it's skiing in ice.

Yeah.

Generally. Yeah.

I went, I went to Dartmouth College and skied at Dartmouth. And so I got used to, I coming from the West to New England skiing, but a real shock for me.

You're used to skiing on ice.

Yeah, skiing on ice, it was hard.

Yeah.

And in those days, this equipment isn't nearly like it is today. So yeah. One more question: what's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

Well, you wouldn't know about it because I wasn't going to tell you.

That's the point of the question.

Oh gosh, I didn't prep for that, Doug.

That's why I asked the question.

I, I don't watch TV anymore. I read.

Good for you. I haven't owned a television set in 40 years.

Really?

Nope, do not watch television. If you ask me what was on television right now, I would be totally clueless. I've been told since I left college.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, I watch some, but, but, you know, yeah, I, I, I don't like it. I, I don't like being fed an agenda. I, I like to discern for myself and pick and choose what I want. And there's my dog. Can you hear my dog?

No, that's okay. Oh, my dog's out on the ranch somewhere, probably with my wife. No, my wife would— and I would much rather sit and chat in the evening than turn on the boob tube and be hypnotized by whatever garbage is coming out.

Be fed.

You don't even watch movies either. Rarely, rarely do we watch a movie. I might watch 2 movies a year. Yeah, because there's just— it's— there's just so many other things to keep us occupied.

I like pop culture. I mean, I like to keep up with, with trends and, you know, what's new and what the public is excited in, because I think that affects my, my job.

Yeah, but you know, I read the news every day and I mean, I'm a, I devour information and news, so I'm, I follow the trends too. But a lot of these people that are mentioned in the celebrity papers, I've never heard of. I don't know who they are, what they do. I'm a musician too, so I spend a lot of time playing jazz violin.

So, oh, oh wow, pretty fun. We just did a couple PBS shows on the Steep Canyon Rangers.

The Steep— what are they called?

Steep Canyon Rangers.

Steep Canyon Rangers.

Yes.

I'll check that out.

Yeah. I'll send you a link.

Okay.

It's good stuff.

All right. Well, this has been fun.

It has been.

How'd it go for you?

It's just amazing. I wish I had thought of something a little more clever to say about the whole, you know, tell me something.

Great. You know, I can see why you're so successful and I know that everybody's going to love this conversation when they see it. So thanks a lot for your time.

Thank you for yours. And thank you for the work you do. I think it's so important. And it's been an absolute privilege to be on your show. Thank you.

Thank you, Kim. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast. Doug Noll, D-O-U-G-N-O-L-L.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you on the next show.