Connections! in SW Florida - Featuring Madeline Scoular from Manta Films

Wow, Madeline, that makes us look so legit.

I know it does.

I feel like you're in the news.

You're so fancy.

What?

I know, what?

This is Renee Han, and I am so excited to be here today with someone that I think Many people know because you are hugely connected in the community, but even for those that, that know you, I'm excited for you to tell the story because not that other businesses haven't been interested, don't get me wrong, or interesting, but you have got a really cool story and I want, want to share that. But before we do that, I just wanted to start with a brief intro. These 30-minute sessions are all about connecting people and businesses. We are so blessed in the Naples area and surrounding areas that we have such a variety of businesses. And not only that, I just think there's something about Naples that attracts the best and the brightest. So whatever the, the business is, we seem to have— you know, you'd expect to go to big cities to find the kind of talent we have here. So, and that's the case here because we've got a big city girl gone wild. But I've got Madeline Schuler with me here today, and I'd like her to start by just introducing herself, telling a little bit about her and her husband into the owners of the business, and then we'll move into business. So please tell us about yourself.

Hey, well, I am from Washington, DC originally. That's where I'm like a fifth generation Washingtonian, I think. Both my parents grew up there and so forth. Actually, I grew up in the same house my dad and my granddad grew up in. So I, in my 20s, decided I wanted to be a movie star and moved to LA. And I did a couple commercials and things like that, but then I somehow fell into production. And it kind of was the right fit for me. So in LA, working production, working like a crazy person, long days and having a lot of fun doing it, I met my beautiful husband, John Schooler, who had actually also moved to New York as a young guy to be a movie star and then to LA and fallen into production as well, and we met and combined. And then we got married and he went back to film school to write and direct, and I kept working with, you know, on big music videos and commercials and stuff, a lot of fun stuff in there. And then we had JD, our son, and then when I was about to leave for Palm Springs to shoot a Jenny Craig ad, I had Samantha a month early. So we decided at that point that we were kind of done with LA, and that's how we ended up here in Naples.

That's awesome. It's so funny, you never know what life events are going to change your direction, but I'm sure when you were 20, ready to run off to make it big in Hollywood, you never thought you'd be in the little town of Naples, did you?

I never thought I'd even move to Florida. I had never been to Southwest Florida, I don't think, at all. And I think I came once before we moved here. It's insane that I even said okay and packed up my whole life and came here. But there was something right about it. I don't know what it was, and it took me a little while. Don't get me wrong, a girl from DC and a girl who lived in LA, a good, you know, 30 years of city living, and to Salvas, Florida, there was quite a long transition. But we had made a film in LA, and we figured, you know what, we can be anywhere to make movies. So let's just take these babies to the best place possible, and in my opinion, we came came to paradise, as they call it, paradise coast, and raised and actually had 2 more. So now we have 4, but, but we came to the best place.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, and not only did you— did the family factor attract you to Naples, but it's such a strong part of your lives. You guys grew the family even larger, but you, you just hit that one. Um, well, and I'm always amazed, Madeline, how you and your husband are able to juggle such a busy you know, professional life and personal life, and yet you'd never seem to miss a beat.

So, um, that's nice.

Not easy. Yeah, one day we'll have to do an inspirational one and actually talk about how you manage that. But today I wanted to talk about your business, Manta Films, and, um, start because it was a great point for me. I, I missed the very obvious connection of your logo and the name as I, um, have heard it mispronounced. So tell us, let's start by What inspired you guys to start the business? And then we'll talk a little bit about the services.

All right, well, the business, you know, John went to film school to direct and write. So obviously, and we made a feature film together, an independent film that won about 8 awards in LA before we moved to Naples. So we both had the film background and the love of the acting and the love of the storytelling. And then we came here and kind of brought our freelance selves. And when John was, before John and I met, he'd gone off on kind of like a soul-searching mission and gone scuba diving around the world. And one of the things that he always talked about was scuba diving in Tahiti and the manta rays. And he, I mean, it changed his life, truthfully changed his life. And so it's always kind of been a thing. And the kids and John do it in the pool where he says, hop on the manta, I'll grab 'em back and they'll go deep, deep in the water. It's like an angel. They're huge, beautiful angels and it's—

Oh, they're just smooth and beautiful and graceful.

You're right. Beauty. So, and there was a line in our first film that John wrote the script for, obviously. And it was, I'm gonna botch it now that I'm bringing it up, but it's find the beauty in beauty. And at the time it was, I forget the character's name, but it was like find the beauty in beauty. And it's constant, and he does, he finds the beauty in beauty. You know, I'm the bean counter, I'm coming forward to talk about us, but really Manta Films is John. He's the one who directs, he's the one who writes, he's the one who shoots, he's the one who edits. I mean, he's the guy, and I'm the one who thinks that he's so talented, and I'm like, let's go, 'cause you're so talented, I love it. And I, you know, I was an actor, I kind of have an idea, and I worked productions, so I kind of have an idea what's good and what's not good. It's really, you know, that's kind of it.

So, well, I'm not taking anything away from him because let's just be clear, she's being really humble because you also have a very artistic eye. So yes, he may be at the forefront of those things, but if anybody's had the opportunity to see your creativity at work too, you're not just a bean counter.

Well, thank you. I, I do, I do love my— I do, you know, the photography business I do have, and I do love that. That is true.

Well, and I have to say with John, you know, you talked about all of those things because when you're, you know, let's use Hollywood as an example. It is so segmented, right? I had a cousin that was a lighting director and her whole life was that piece of it. In short introduction, John is sort of, you know, he knows it all. So that's highly unusual to find somebody who's got that, first of all, being able to create, capture beauty on film and other mediums, but then the ability to write and all of those things exercise different parts of the brain. So he's very unique in that way.

He really is. I mean, from the start, if, you know, if you're talking commercial, it's, you know, from conception through scheduling, through hiring, through picking the models or the people, whatever it might be, if it's a promo or a commercial like with the Inn on Fifth or Lazy Turtle and things like this where we did photo shoots and videos for them. I mean, the Inn on Fifth, we did photos of the hotel and for commercial use for them as well as vignettes used for them. So it was casting for both stills and for video. And he shot it and he edited and he helped pick out the wardrobe with the marketing director, any, you know, he came up with the idea of the different vignettes just to highlight the different parts of the hook. I mean, so you don't always get that. If you were in LA, you'd have an agency that came up with this and you'd have a casting director that came up with that and you'd have the director that pulled them all together and you'd have a producer who would be the bean counter and make sure everybody fit into the budget and the timing. And so you had multiple people. I mean, I had crews of, you know, 60 to 100 people usually doing what John does basically with him and I and occasionally 2 or 3 other people. But so that's what's really great. And I know nowadays a lot of things have moved into multiple abilities. It used to be very standard that you'd have a director, DP, and an editor completely different. And now on television, you have a lot of combos, a lot of producers that shoot or directors that edit and things like that. It's more common now. But I don't know a lot of them personally. He pretty much does it all. Well, I help, but he does it all.

If I was a customer, I see a lot of upside in that because what happens when you truncate all those pieces is over time, a vision starts here. And I imagine like the grapevine, right? It starts to transform. You hope that it gets better, but when you've got someone who is so personally vested and involved in the creation, it keeps that— your vision doesn't run away with you and suddenly become something else because 15 people touched it, right?

Right.

So to that point, let's talk a little bit about the product. And I was thinking, Madeleine, unless you have another way you want to talk about it, it might be interesting because I know there's variety in there. Maybe what would be good is let's take some sampling of the different industries and customers you serve and maybe use those as examples to share some of the products. And services you guys do offer. So if you're okay with that, let's—

I am, let's do it. All right, obviously the In on Fifth is a great example and you can see those stills or videos on our website or actually on theirs. Obviously you can go to the In on Fifth and see the videos and some stills. And then there's every year for the past few years, we've done the gala video for Star Ability Foundation. Which is formally the Foundation for the Developmentally Disabled, who we absolutely love and adore. And that's really interesting because Jon goes in and films these kids, and, you know, they talk to Jon while he's shooting at them, shooting, like filming, you know, "Hi, Jon." And so for him to come in and kind of find a way to get video of people that have special needs or special, you know, they're exceptional folks in different capacities, of course, And they're adults, they're all over 19. It's kind of, I don't know if you know about StarAbility Foundation, but when you age out at 19, special needs kids age out, StarAbility is there to kind of pull up the pieces and they have wonderful classes and an amazing program. So that, John has done their gala video now 3 years in a row, I believe. And there's a, and then we, and obviously there's local businesses. We've been working with Pure Florida for years. And a lot of, most of their videos have been done by John. You know, we obviously have a film connection with the Juliens, having that they were both in Hollywood making movies, but we've known them since we moved to Naples and we've had the wonderful honor of working with them for their Pure Florida, as well as partnering with them to make Paradise Reef, the Emmy Award-winning documentary film that we've made. So it's both, you know, if you need a promo for your business, If you need a video for your nonprofit, if you need a commercial, a national commercial for your business, which we did with, you know, Pinchers Crab Shacks, we did a national commercial, 3 national commercials for them actually. Or we make films as well. We made documentary films and we won Emmy Awards for Paradise Reef, which you can still see on PBS if you search it on wgcupbs.org, I believe. And it's a wonderful, nice film. It's kind of a beautiful showcase of our wonderful Naples, Florida, Collier County. And so with all of those, like with, let's say Paradise Reef, for example, John followed them for 2 years, the meetings and everything to do with the artificial reef project where they were dropping reefs off the coast of Collier County, Marco Island, Naples, Garland County. And he filmed all the meetings and he was doing a lot of, was working for free, working with them until we could, actually get some money behind us to make the film. But, you know, he documented it, he picked who would be interviewed, he asked the questions, he filmed it, he did— so together with obviously the talent of the Juliens, who are amazing and wonderful, with me and John, and we got the chance to make it, and it's a really lovely film. I'm really proud of that one. So there's a lot of different stuff that we do, obviously, and in the midst of all that, John actually shot out of a helicopter, so we have Aerial photography, anyone who wants to do aerial, not just a drone, we do do drone footage as well, but the actual beautiful footage of hanging out of a helicopter and scaring the heck out of me, he has done that as well. So, a lot of different stuff. I love it, so he's a little bit of a rebel in. From start to finish, I know, right? But, and then, you know, it's really fun to get the opportunity to go into businesses. I mean, I know WWM&R, I don't know if you use them or not, but they're a local law firm and we did a video for them, which, I'm really proud of also. We did a 3-minute and a 30-second so they can have one for their website and one for online. So there's lots of different stuff you can do for your business.

Well, I almost— these are my words, so pardon me for taking liberty and feel free to take them back and say, Renee, thank you so much, your minuscule little mind just slaughtered that. What you do very much is being storytellers. And so I can think about so many things. So if you imagine someone in it, whether it's an individual, whether it's a business, that wants to be able to tell a story visually, either to attract business or sometimes— I mean, I could see, you know, I, I remember seeing a video back in the day that this gentleman did for his family because he wanted to leave his story behind, you know, and, and they paid for it, right? It was a paid— it could be anything like that too, because that's what you guys are good at saying, okay, Who are we trying to reach? What are you trying to convey? And let's make magic with it. So that could be applied in so many different facets.

Totally, and honestly, in some of the documentary films we've done, it's kind of been like that. Like Marcus Jansen is a Southwest Florida artist, a visual artist, and he's really talented. He's got a gallery in Fort Myers. He lives, he has children, and he raises children in Fort Myers, but he also has a place in New York. And he travels to Europe and he's well known. But Marcus Jansen Examined Report made a documentary film about him because he's an ex, he was in the Army and his artwork has a political kind of twist to it. So he's an interesting guy to kind of check out his journey. Or another local artist is Leah Malovegrove in Pine Island who's fantastic, special, awesome, wonderful, strong woman in a woman business, woman-owned business. And we did a wonderful mini-documentary for her. Which is great. You can see it on her website, I think, or on ours. But things like that where we get to tell people's stories through our visual storytelling medium, which is fantastic, and push up these beautiful people that we have in our wonderful Southwest Florida. I mean, it is a great community. You think this tiny little Southwest, who knows Southwest Florida, but it's got some wonderful powerhouse people.

And I imagine under the right circumstances, The business is available to travel and do the work too.

Oh, of course. Yeah, John can travel. I can— I, I don't like to travel. I've done it a few times, but I— I don't know, in your future, a big comfortable RV, a lot of time in RVs in LA.

I should definitely cross country for your next Emmy winning.

I'm down, I'm down for it. But yes, John, John went up, actually did do some shooting for, for for, oh, sheesh, I'm blanking on some boat engines, but up in Newport and Rhode Island, so that was cool. So yeah, he does go out of town, and in LA, and he went, actually, went to London for the Marcus thing. So traveling is always available. It doesn't have to be local. We live local, but we move around, yeah.

That's great. And what do, I'm sure every project you guys have ever worked on has been special in its own little way, but What do you guys, what do you find that you and John get really excited to work on? It's one thing to get paid, but then there's another element of, oh, this is gonna be fun. What kind of gets you excited?

Well, it doesn't all, it's not always the same, I'm sad to say, sorry. Sometimes it's the same, but for John, I would say anything beautiful. He's, I think, happiest. Waist deep in the Everglades with Harry Julian shooting alligators. God forbid, if you can believe it. But really, I think anything that has to do with nature and beauty and water, he's a big fan of that. And I love that too, don't get me wrong. I love the beach and I love Florida. And birds go by, it never ceases to amaze me. It's like, I get awed by it each time. I think that I'm used to it and then, Some pelican flies by, I'm like, it's a pelican, what the heck? So I think it's pretty amazing too. But things like StarAbility get me. For me, that's the stuff that touches my heart. I mean, I love it every time. Those folks are special to my heart, I love them. And I wish I could do more of that. But I also think we find a common ground together when it comes to making feature films. So, cause I really do love films too. So, and John's a big— I think if we had our choice, we just make movies, but it's a long, it's a lot of, it's a long commitment.

So yeah, that's, that's for sure. But the beauty is you balance your business and you're able to do both and you're good at both. So that's, that's wonderful. If, if a business or an individual was interested in engaging you for I don't know, even the prospect of working on something, talk to me a little bit about your process. What would they do? I mean, obviously they'd make a phone call, but then what?

Always start with a phone call. Yeah. Give me a call or, and/or email me. And, um, and then in, in the past, it's kind of, it evolves to us having a conference call, the three of John and me and the, the other person or persons. And usually it's a multiple people. And from there we kind of talk through the logistics of what it is that they want and what they see and how we think we can give them what they see and what they want. And then it kind of goes down all the different shots. So it's always with a start with a phone call, happy to take your email, happy to have a sit-down meeting or on a lot of them, even before this craziness, a lot of them were phone because people are busy. And so we're cool to have conference calls or Zoom calls, I guess is the new thing, we can do that as well. But yeah, and we'll help, it's kind of a systematic process of do we need boards, do we need lists, do we make you a presentation, and then it's the budget process and things like that, so. Yeah.

Does it usually start, let me ask this, does it usually start with a what does it cost or does it start with a what is your budget?

Nobody wants to tell me what their budget is, but that it should start with what is their budget, especially in Southwest Florida. But it usually starts with what does it cost? And on occasion people just disappear. I just tell them what it really costs. They don't come back and say, oh no, no, we can't do that.

Documentary for $150.

Right? I mean, sorry guys, it's not gonna happen. But people do often come in and say, what does it cost? And then as soon as I, give them a budget, they just leave. Which is not, you know, you should work with me. We can figure out a way to make a lot of things. $150, probably not gonna happen. You know, grab your iPhone and go. But we do, we'll work with people, you know, do the best we can.

What are some of the, and it may be really obvious, and maybe this is a really quick question, but I appreciate the mediums that you work with and the film and the still photography and all of that. What are some of the channels that people use the product for? You know, where websites, TV, I mean, what are some of those channels?

Majority is websites, definitely. We're in an age where it's almost everybody pretty much should have some sort of video on their website. I think that's what I found. I mean, that's originally what W, like WWMNR came to us for a website video. Sometimes, there are businesses that have conferences, so they want it for an introduction for a conference or something like that. So they'll have it for the conference and then they'll also have it for their website. A lot, obviously, you know, the Julians and Pinchers and Wave Radio and all those things were actual national or local commercials or national commercials. So that's different, those will be, you know, the main, still the main 3, Fox, NBC, CBS, whatever, or 4, main 3 or 4, whatever they are, the networks. And then I think it's growing now with the, you know, every, people do want videos for their social media and things like that. Everything's just growing and changing kind of slowly but surely, and what is, is kind of standard is kind of changing as well. But now some of those, those things you talked about, particularly with, um, film—

or excuse me, videos— is, you know, they can be repurposed in so many ways. So, you know, taking advantage of your services to do something even a little bit longer that could be truncated and used in smaller pieces for anything from, you know, an email footer to a, um, promotion of an event to a, you know— so they can be— so I always tell people, think broader than just that immediate need because once you have that captured, it can be so highly leveraged in lots of different directions.

Totally agreed. Absolutely what, I mean, the Inn on Fifth had that kind of, she saw that over, you know, over a year ago when we did that. She saw the beauty of the ability to take a 3-minute video and put it on the site and then cut it down and take the same video with John re-editing, you know, a piece for the rooms, a piece for the restaurants, a piece for shopping, a piece for whatever. So she had the vision that she could use it for every, thing. And, and she actually had the vision to reach out to local businesses that she uses at the hotel. So that was really cool. And that's something somebody else might be able to use, something they do, um, somebody else that they help, whatever it might be.

Yeah, that's a great, great thing. Well, if anybody from the chamber ever listens to this, I would love to see them leverage you guys to do some tourism videos.

That would be great.

I think John and you would be awesome, both because of your personal passion for the area, but then your eye towards beauty and how to capture that would just be a powerful— now, those in Naples, we don't want them to hire you because we want to keep this little Naples paradise to ourselves, but anybody in the chamber, call Manta because they got this going on. All right, what I want to do, we have 5 minutes left. I'm gonna carve a little bit of a piece of that out just to tell people some of the businesses coming. But before I do that, Madeline, what I like to do is offer, you know, just an open— we've talked about the business, but an open-ended opportunity for you to share anything that's on your mind, things you want to do. Some people have used it to, I don't know, talk about what they're doing during COVID Some have talked more philosophically about how to be successful as a business. I'd just like to give you the open-ended opportunity to share. What would you like to share with your audience?

Oh, gee whiz. Golly, that's a tough one, right? Well, I guess I'd like, if there was something to say or that I've learned from this kind of last, what is it, 3 months that we've been in?

Feels longer.

Longer. Is enjoy. The days may be long, but the years go fast, boy. And I have been looking at a lot of old photos recently, and time has flown by. So enjoy. I know it's hard. I know it's not the greatest thing in the world. I know it's scary. But carry on and keep calm, as Winston Churchill says, because it's kind of, listen, I know it's not an easy time. Believe me, for a film business, it's not an easy time. With somebody who has 4 kids to feed and keep active and, you know, not stir crazy and all. But really, it has been a beautiful time to be together. We've spent a lot of time together. We've had a lot of fun. So that's really what I wanted. And, you know, and to be creative and figure out what, you know, I mean, we got into this because we both loved film. We started as actors and we moved on to something else. I mean, I could have, it might've been smarter to go and be a lawyer. You know, but I really loved film. My dad was a lawyer, my grandfather was a lawyer. It might've been smarter just to be a lawyer, but I have had a lot of fun making films and commercials and I'll keep doing it. So keep calm and carry on.

And I'm assuming, but you correct me, Manta Films still available to hire even during some of these more challenging times. And if nothing else, planning can start, as you said, over a Zoom discussion. So don't, you know, no need to wait, right? Absolutely.

And we'll distance and respect people's space and wear a mask if you want us to, or whatever the case may be for safety, obviously we follow whatever works, the rules that we all should be following, we're down with. But yeah, we're open, we can make things. And if we've made videos for you before and you wanna re-edit, we can do that from distance. But yeah, we are available to hire and can work anytime and keep 6 feet apart. I'll speak from ya.

Fantastic. Well, let me take a moment to talk about some of the businesses I have coming up. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I have Image Projections Design and Consulting. On Wednesday, I have Massage Heights. Thursday, I'll have Susan with Hattinger Floors and Cabinetry. And we'll round out the week with Muralistica, Alicia, to talk about some of the art stuff that she does. She works a lot with children and lots of mediums there. And by art, I mean not your art we've talked about today, but more people doing art. Next week I've got a couple— I've got— well, I won't go into next week yet. I've got some fitness, I've got title company, but I did want to extend the invitation if you're watching either on replay or right now and you've got a local business that you'd like to do a 30-minute highlight on, don't hesitate to reach out to me. They are free. I'm not charging, nobody's paying me for anything. Don't run away thinking I'm going to come in and give you a $150 bill to pay. This is free. It's just time. So the only criteria is I do want locally owned companies. I'm not interested in, not that they're not hugely valuable and highly respected businesses, the chains and the national ones, but that's not the point of this. The point of this is to connect our people locally with the businesses that we're so honored and privileged to, to have in our town. So with that, Madeline, if somebody would like to get in touch with you and Manta Films to go create stories and beauty, what's the best and easiest way for them to do that?

You can go to our website or you can email info@mantafilms.com. At mac.com, or you can call me at 818-231-6233.

Fabulous. And we so appreciate you allowing time with us today. I know you run a busy household, and, and I'm personally appreciative that you've made time for us to be able to get the word of your wonderful services out in the community. So everyone have a wonderful week. It's Monday. They go faster and faster the older you get. I can attest to that. So make the most of it. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Thank you.