Los Angeles Camera Crew and LA Film Crews
We talk with a few Los Angeles, California based camera crews. We’ll talk about local projects, production life, experience, gear and much more.
Camera Crew Panel
Los Angeles, California Camera Crew Discussion
Sarah Marince:
Hello, everyone. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to our camera crew talk brought to you by shoots.video. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been with you all. So I’m excited to be back. And today we have a very large panel of guests to talk with today. And as usual, I’m gonna go down the line, have them say who they are, where they are in just a quick little sentence about what they do. So I’m gonna go in order as I see everyone on my screen.Â
Los Angeles Video Crews and their Services
Daniel Gamburg:
Hi. okay. I’ll be quick. I’m in Los Angeles. I have a sister company in San Francisco. I own a production company. We do everything from soup to nuts from script to, to screen commercial documentary corporate national commercials documentaries TV. So we pretty much do the whole thing. And we’ve been around since 2002.
Sarah Marince:
Awesome. Well, we’re glad to have you here today. Thank you. And next I have Mario. Hey Mario.
Mario Garciduenas:
Hi, how are you guys? My name is Mario, obviously. I’m based in Los Angeles. I’m a cinematographer DP. I mostly work in commercials, music videos. I’ve done seven features trying to do a little bit more narrative work this year which is fortunately picking up being doing a few shorts and the most recent short actually meal. We’ve been talking about films. Most recent short I’m doing right now is on four 16. So it’s just working on that film side, trying to focus in that direction. Local 601st AC I probably need to be an operator at this point. I actually don’t tell 600. I said that I need to be an operator. I just wrote on the show where I need to do that job, but anyway.
Sarah Marince:
Very cool. Well, thank you for being here next. I have Neil. Hey Neil.
Neil Watson:
Hey Sarah. See. Yeah, my name’s Neil. I am actually based in LA Burbank. I am a director, producer and cinematographer with my company called Film Dreams Inc. We’ve been going on for the last geez. I wanna say about four years now. We do everything pretty much from concept all the way except for distribution. So we’ve done everything. Our main Forte’s narratives we’re prepping a feature right now, but we do a lot of short films from different writers. We are very much, for some reason, our bread and butter this year has been sizzle reels and music videos. I, I don’t know why. But on this side, whenever I’m not working with our company I am a local 600 chem operator. So do narratives through that and waiting on the big feature that I worked on for almost three years, which is the avatar sequels coming out. This is December. So very cool. It’d be fun to watch that finally.
Sarah Marince:
Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Well, thanks for being here next. We have Abiel. Did I say that properly?
Abiel Hernandez:
No, that’s great. I’m recently new to Los Angeles, California. I just moved to Los Angeles about four and a half months four and a half years ago. Sorry. so I just started freelancing working for myself in 2019 and currently doing music videos, a lot of online YouTube videos now and TikTok videos, but yeah things are great. I’m happy to be here.
Sarah Marince:
<Laugh> awesome. I’m sure we’ll have some TikTok questions for you <laugh> later on today.
Abiel Hernandez:
<Laugh> awesome. Yeah.
Sarah Marince:
And next I have Ryan. Hey Ryan.
Ryan Thomas:
Hey, how’s it going? So yeah, my name’s Ryan Thomas. I live in Los Angeles, north Hollywood and primarily do commercials and I’m in local 600. I’m also a local 728 member. I came up through the lighting side and then I also own a lighting rental house in San Francisco called bolt lighting rental.
Sarah Marince:
Very cool.
Sarah Marince:
Thank you guys for being here. I have my list of questions as usual. And if anyone has a question while we’re watching, feel free to drop it in the Q and a box and we absolutely will get to it. One question that kind of popped to my mind right away. When I heard y’all talking was local 600. I’m not familiar with that term. Does somebody wanna jump in and kind of explain that term? Anyone Mario go for it.
Neil Watson:
Yeah.
Mario Garciduenas:
That is just the ICG denomination for II’s number in Los Angeles and it does work nationally and technically internationally. So yeah, if you work on a union set in Mexico city, for example, which I did for the show that I just operated on, I’m not in the Mexican union, but it doesn’t matter because 600 covers me, which is really interesting. I didn’t know that I think it’s one of the only ones where you depend, regardless of where you’re in the US, you can work as you know, I CG whether it be a D I T first AC second AC operator DP loader utility technically originally found out L least are technically 600. So that’s interesting. But yeah, that’s essentially what that means. 7 28, which is, I think that Ryan was saying that is the, the electric denomination of the same thing. There’s just a different chapter per se of an answer.
Sarah Marince:
Cool. Very cool. Thank you for that. One of my first questions that I have is how y’all got started in production and Neil, I’m gonna throw it to you first kind of how you got started, what sparked that idea that you wanted to be in production?
Neil Watson:
I guess, geez. That’s, I gotta go back. I mean, I always wanted to do it, I was always filming and doing little stories and things like that, but I’m from Puerto Rico originally. So back when I was, when I was born and raised out there, the opportunities to get into any of those were very short lived. I think the only opportunity that you could have was if you knew somebody who knew somebody who was on TV and they would kind of give you a hand. So it was, I never saw it as a prospect. So I did a nine to five for a long, long time until my grandfather on his deathbed, literally slapped me on the face and told me I wasn’t doing what I loved. And the next day I went out and started looking at film schools and everything else that I could find, cuz that’s what I wanted to do. I just wanted to do production. I wanted to tell stories and that’s kind of where I’m at now. That happened in 2009 from the end of oh nine to the beginning of 2010. I went to full city university in Orlando for film, got my bachelors there, and started working on every show that I could find. And that’s been kind of my trajectory over here.
Sarah Marince:
Oh, very cool. I used to live in Orlando, so I’m very familiar.
Neil Watson:
Oh, very cool.
Sarah Marince:
Cool. Grace’s going to a lot of people who have gone through there. That’s pretty cool. Oh yeah.
Neil Watson:
Yeah. It was, it was fun except the incentives went away and everybody jumped ship and went either to Georgia or somewhere else.
Sarah Marince:
Yes. Yeah. I know. There’s a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of actor friends I know have moved on up to Georgia. Yeah. New Orleans, just different places to kinda mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Get into it there, but oh, pretty cool. Awesome. Daniel, what about you? What’s your story?
Daniel Gamburg:
Okay. Let’s see if I can make it quick and short
Sarah Marince:
Take all the time you
Daniel Gamburg:
Need. I went to San Francisco state university and for my, my bachelor’s degree in, in, in film studies and then I decided to do production and I got my MFA in production, which was where I made my first feature in school while I was still a graduate and living in San Francisco. And I also made a short documentary. So from there on my short, my, my, my feature got purchased by Netflix back when Netflix was just starting off.
Daniel Gamburg:
Wow. Which was like a huge like thing for me because was, it was about a startup the.com bomb that, that the bubble that burst back in 2003, 2004. So they were really, you know, and Netflix was a San Francisco based company, so they purchased it. And so I thought, oh great. Now I’m gonna move out to Los Angeles, California and make my own movies. So I moved to Los Angeles <laugh> did a lot of camera work, trying to get thought I was gonna try and get into the union, but that kind of I realized, took away from my creative abilities, meaning, you know, you you’re, you’re writing constantly. So you come home, you’re tired from operating the camera and then you’re writing your own screenplay and you’re pitching and all that kind of stuff. So to make a long story short, I said, well, you know, I’m, I’m also a sag actor.
Daniel Gamburg:
I, I, I study theater. And so I, I, I’m on both sides of the camera a lot of times, but I don’t talk about my acting stuff. I’m originally from Russia. So I speak fluent Russian, and I would do a lot of Russian bad guys, which is really weird because I’m actually a really good guy. And anyway, to make a long story short, I started my own production company back in 2002. And that’s right when I was also working on my feature, but I incorporated in 2002. And from there on, I just, you know, just worked it and built the client base and blue chip clients. And then just people, they came back since I worked also in the, in as a camera operator on the, you know, Hollywood side, I, I was able to actually hire people that work on films to work on smaller projects. So the quality of the work would be at a certain place. And I just kept at it and that’s how I got into it. I love telling stories, you know, it runs in my family. So from documentaries to featured personal stories, human interest stories are my most interesting ones and that kind of bleeds into Los Angeles more corporate work and business videos and stuff like that, because it’s all about story and personal story and, and, and that’s really how I got to where I’m at.
Sarah Marince:
How do you choose, like you, do you hear about someone’s life? You’re like, that would make a great story. Like, I wanna tell that story, like, how do you decide what story
Daniel Gamburg:
I read a lot? Like I just, I read the New Yorker. I read, you know, short stories. I do all kinds of stuff. And, and because I’m, I’m so interested in documentary work and I started off making a document by my grandparents who are Holocaust survivors. I continued to Chronicle my family’s trials and tribulations from coming from the Soviet Union to America, running away from disaster, of course not all melts together with what’s happening in Ukraine, everything’s repeating itself, which is really crazy. But the stories are also so whatever I can connect with personally in terms of what’s happening in the world wider, and that’s happening around me, then I, you know, make, make, make films about that. Like I had a short that I just, that premiered the New Yorker documentary series that was based on my experience of coming to America.
Daniel Gamburg:
Wow. But that was very personal, and was very cool. That was a very personal story. So I’m trying to constantly, you know, navigate between the personal stories that I own, that I have my own stuff. And then the corporate stuff where you have to, you know, work to bring in the money. And I, my advice to everybody and anybody is that if you can find that place where you’re enjoying the personal story that you’re making and try to approach that enthusiasm with else’s story, when you’re doing corporate work, or you’re doing, you know, business, you know, shoots for corporate corporations, it can be a very gratifying experience, not just for you, but for them also.
Sarah Marince:
Yeah. You kinda have to have that personal connection to really dial in the passion on the project no matter what it is. Yeah.
Daniel Gamburg:
Yeah, exactly.
Sarah Marince:
And did we still find your first? Did you say it was a documentary that you, that was on Netflix when you first started?Â
Daniel Gamburg:
My first was a short documentary that I made about my grandparents. That was a film project. My, my, my dad said, I said, I have to make a film. My dad said, why don’t you make it on your mom and on your grandparents? I’m like, but you know, who, who cares about, you know, these two little Jewish little families, you know? And he said, well, you know, they have a pretty interesting story. You should talk to them. And when I talked to them, I found out everything that they went through, you know, how they lost their families. And then they were paired up together because they were survivors and they decided to have a family. It didn’t actually have to do with romance. It would just have to deal with survival. And they wanted, my grandmother lost two kids, and then she decided to have a family so she can have two kids again, mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, and, and then, so definition of love and what it means to people, you know, who are survivors of, of, of trauma became, you know, that was like, wow, this is amazing.
Daniel Gamburg:
And then of course it went on to win a bunch of awards. It went to F festivals and it played on PBS because my dad likes to tell a story about those two little guys, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> and that’s how it all began. Really.
Sarah Marince:
Wow. That’s so cool to have such a personal connection, you know, to the beginning of a huge career. That’s really cool. Thank you. Was it Ryan or who said that they do stuff for TikTok? Oh, might be muted.
Abiel Hernandez:
Was that you?
Sarah Marince:
Yeah. Oh
Abiel Hernandez:
Yeah.
Sarah Marince:
What does that mean? Like, what are you coming up with? Are you filming content for people?Â
Abiel Hernandez:
Mean? I literally have been getting hired to do just nine by 16 video, just everything. And it’s only aimed for TikTok and yeah, it’s just interesting. I mean, the, I mean, it’s what the world is in now, you know, so it’s pretty interesting.
Sarah Marince:
So I guess, you know, you scroll TikTok and, you know, I guess kind of Instagram as well. And some of the, I mean, the videos they’re only like 1530, second, maybe a minute, but they’re, they are high production. Like they look really good. So are creators coming to you guys and saying, Hey, I, you know, I wanna either create this platform or I have this huge following platform help me make my videos look really good. Is that what’s happening?
Abiel Hernandez:
Yeah. yeah, that’s, that’s what happens with me. They’re just like, but even then, they’re still like, oh, it’s gonna be on cell phones. So it doesn’t, the quality doesn’t need to be that great. And it’s just like, what <laugh>
Sarah Marince:
Does it kill you inside when they say that?
Abiel Hernandez:
Yes. Cause a lot of the times, like, they’ll pull out their phone and like, I want it to look like this and I’m just like that’s not the same thing. Like it’s
Sarah Marince:
You can do that. You can set up your phone. Right,
Abiel Hernandez:
Right. Yeah, exactly. It’s difficult. Sometimes
Neil Watson:
We did one too. Oh,
Sarah Marince:
Did you, did you
Neil Watson:
Knee? We did. We did one for Cherokee uniforms. Okay. And it was there, their entire new Disney line of uniforms was coming out. And so we did a to, and it was, we shot, we actually shot it all on cinema cameras. And we found out literally that the owner was, I guess we were filming two, two campaigns in one, we just didn’t know about it. So we were filming their bigger campaign with all the graphics in the effects. So obviously we shot nine 16, but we shot it wide so we can do whatever we wanted later on at 4k. And they were shooting on the side with a ring light and an iPhone 13 <laugh> because they wanted to throw that content out there. And then, which is crazy.
Sarah Marince:
It’s like immediate has to be like right in the moment it happens. It’s got out there.
Neil Watson:
Yeah. They just, they just wanna throw everything out, like right there. And then it’s like, or at least three or four videos while they’re doing it and then showcasing us filming the other ones.
Abiel Hernandez:
So did you have to flip your camera? Like no, because all talks are, are all
Neil Watson:
Like, you know. Yeah. So, well, it’s really funny. So we figured it out, so I have, I have the new, the new Raptors and it, it basically frames it for you. So you basically, you can pick the nine, 16 frame on the tools, but because we’re shooting, we’re shooting with the full sensor just in case because there’s movement and there’s all these graphics and we wanna have the higher quality in order to put in the graphics afterwards, all the freezes and stuff. So it doesn’t look good. So like, like said, like you said, it’s like Sarah said, it’s like, it looks like actually better quality than if it was just on the phone. Although it’s getting really merged very quickly. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but yeah, we shot it all with the nine 16, and then all we did was put it through post and just run the timeline with at nine 16.
Neil Watson:
So you can just frame there and then, but I’ve seen a lot of cameras which don’t have, I guess, that frame tool yet. And they’re all flipping them and, and I, and I get it. I get it’s like, oh, well, this is only gonna go for the client here, but I’m going well, I’m doing a demo reel. I don’t exactly want to go from a nice, you know, wide screen to all of a sudden you’ve got this nasty vertical. It’s like, I might as well just shoot it all that way and put it another demo reel that way. That’s just my thinking.
Sarah Marince:
I also imagine that the turnaround for that job has to be so fast. Like you film it and they wanna post it like immediately.
Neil Watson:
Right? Well, we, we did at least ours. I can tell you because they were, they wanted to time it to the, their uniform line coming out at the same time. So we actually were very lucky. And that’s, I think, why they were doing all the Instagram or the, the phone one’s right there, and then the instant ones, because they wanted to have a little bit of content to start posting up before we started doing ours. Cuz we do everything all the way from post to coloring the graphics between my partner and I, we pretty much have the entire post if we need anything with sound and everything. We have a Rolodex of people. But we had, I wanna say we had about a month after the shoot, but within that month we were, we had the most important videos that we had to push very quickly through in order for them to start the campaign. So that, that was ours. I mean, I’m sure of Yale knows that it’s like, if you shoot ’em there, they’re gone after that or something like that. It’s like quick.
Mario Garciduenas:
And
Sarah Marince:
Do you think, oh, go ahead, Mario, go
Mario Garciduenas:
Ahead. No, it’s, it’s kind of just piggy backing up with that. We did the only thing I’ve done with talks very similar, exactly what you’re talking about. I have Raptors, well the Raptor two komodos and one of the most recent jobs that we did was an 1800 party for them, during Coachella. You know, how they all have like all this, like, you know, side party things or whatever. Oh yeah. And they wanted to rent the Komodo. And I was like, well, what’s, what’s the job. And we started talking about it and very much it was, oh, it’s a life TikTok thing. I’m like, all right, cool. Well, I actually, I dunno if you know about the Raptor, but it’s got cool and it already kind of does it for you. And we go straight live and all that stuff like, oh my that’s exactly what we want. And the whole thing was broadcasted, broadcasted 4k, which is hilarious to me. Cause going on and like what <laugh> like they’re on their phones.
Neil Watson:
What’s the reasoning?
Mario Garciduenas:
Yeah. But now I mean the rate was great. I ended up like steady hopping that thing with a, you know, with a pretty wide lens, which ended up being silly to me because in the end there’s so much depth the field that it kind just looked like the phone anyways like a really, really high quality version of a phone, but still kind of like a phone. And I mean, our turnaround was life. There was no turnaround. It was just like we’re, we’re on, we’re going
Mario Garciduenas:
Day. They get what they get and move on. And I mean that one was brutal cuz we did if they wanted, they were trying to, do you guys remember back in the nineties whenever MTV was doing like this, the, this, the spring break party, 1997 follow of me. And they would be like a follow through the whole party thing. We’re like, we’re here with blood. Like they would interview that person, go to the next person, this whole one continuous show. That’s literally the same thing we did. And it was brutal in the desert. It’s just like between the heat, the sand just blasting me in the face. I had two grapes just like holding it just to make sure I didn’t die. It was gnarly. But yeah man, and it’s crazy because again, it is for a tick dog.
Mario Garciduenas:
I think that very much can just be done on a phone and they’re like dishing out real money, like 1800 paid like a production budget. Like I had an AC, I had a DT, I was secondly DP operator. Like it, it was a real job. It was super weird to me. But yeah, I mean, in a way you kind of have to, to some degree, I think to be able to evolve with the times you have to get with the times, you know, you have to, I, I can’t imagine any of us are gonna be shooting a future of million 16. Right. But in terms of paying, please don’t say that <laugh> but in terms of paying the bills, I mean like there is like, that is, that is what consumers are consuming. So, you know they’re no chicken and they’re eating rice. Let’s make rice.
Sarah Marince:
Now, do you guys think this is going to be like an area where there’s going to be a bulk of work? Like, did you see this coming? Do you think that it’s like something that you, your only job could be to film for TikTok and things like that?
Mario Garciduenas:
I, I think from a commercial standpoint did from like, not commercially cause wow. I don’t want to use that term, that loosely, but I think from a promotional standpoint, I absolutely see that being a thing, a really good friend of mine, Alex Nik, she actually to be my second AC, she started doing she’s a bodybuilder started doing like the videos who might have seen them on tick TikTok over her Instagram, the Russian mafia, the, the girl that like flips the, the cap of the, of like the vodka bottle and chugs it. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. So she’s a good friend of mine. She’s doing my second AC. She started doing Instagram videos and then TikTok videos. And now she owns like a full blown company where like all of the marketing done for EDC for like huge festivals. She’s in charge of that. And that is its own thing now. Right. So there’s still doing a commercial for UDC, but it’s like this one commercial for UDC and then like this crazy amount of promo. So I think if anything, it’s probably creating a new version of marketing that then existed for, and in the end, that’s kinda what I am seeing is I think,
Sarah Marince:
Wow, that’s wild. I mean, just something you’re scrolling through on your phone has, so that can have so much behind that video that you’re about to scroll past, but it’s pretty cool as a, it
Mario Garciduenas:
Expires in 15 minutes. That’s the craziest thing about it. They don’t put all this money on a thing that it’s gonna be obsolete in like a day.
Ryan Thomas:
Yeah. Instant gratification.
Essential Gear for Camera Crews in Los Angeles
Sarah Marince:
Yeah. And it’s on to the next thing, like whatever the next trend or, you know, song, whatever on wild wild. Well, one thing that everyone loves to talk about when we do these panels is gear like what your piece of gear is, what, what you must have in your gear kit, like, or a piece of gear that you should have when you’re starting out. Ryan, I’m gonna start with you talking to me about gear.
Ryan Thomas:
Oh, funny, because <laugh> I asked this question and the only thing I wrote down was my phone. Nice. <Laugh> nice.
Ryan Thomas:
Yeah. Just, I mean, you know, I I, I try my best to be very organized, you know, when I do shoot anything. And so I’ve, I’ve tried to you know, either use an iPad or laptops or other devices like that to kind of stay organized on set, but I’ve just really found that like my phone is, you know, it’s something I can keep in my pocket. I can quickly reference things and yeah. You know, with Artis and the sun seeker app, all those kinds of things like yeah, just like that is like, if I could take no other tool, but that I would be okay. You know, so that’s, that’s, that’s what I’m thinking.
Neil Watson:
I mean, there’s almost a light meter that’s kind of comparable. There’s it’s like, it’s close to comparable.
Ryan Thomas:
I know it’s like a,
Mario Garciduenas:
Like within
Neil Watson:
A third, you know? Yeah.
Ryan Thomas:
Light meter color meter, you know, you really can do quite a lot with just your phone. So insane. Yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m on board. I’ve, you know, it’s funny with the TikTok thing. I’ve been trying to convince a number of directors that I work with that we need to make a short film that just lives on TikTok. It’s, you know, yeah. It’s a new platform. It’s very interesting. And I think that you can kind of take a lot of the ideas from it and, you know, say something new. So
Neil Watson:
I think you’re right. I mean, I was gonna say Snapchat has their own damn feature out. I mean, why, why is TikTok not a thing with a feature yet? I mean, Snapchat, I think actually, no, I’m, I’m, I’m mistaken. I thinking, I think they’ve got at least two,
Mario Garciduenas:
They have definitely a TV show cuz I first saw it on, I’ve gone to a show.
Neil Watson:
Yeah. And it’s, and it’s like, it’s in that frame and I’m just, I mean, look at, look at what was the, the short form company that went under?
Neil Watson:
I mean they, they, they had it, the only problem is, I think that a feature film, you just, I mean, how do you, how do you ingest, how do you ingest the long form narrative in that frame? It’s just not like the entirety of filmmaking has always been the, the, you know, the high for the two for one in theaters or, you know, or, you know, 16 by nine or four, three on TV. It’s like, there’s nothing that has been compressed. It’s like, I don’t know. I just, I just, there, I don’t understand the information captured that way in, in my opinion. I just don’t see how people can continue for 15 minutes. Sure. I’ll give it to
Ryan Thomas:
Context. Here’s
Mario Garciduenas:
A question. Here’s a question of that, to that concept. How do you capture that? Right? Like when you think about it, like most really iconic stills tend to be either one by one, four by three or straight up nine, 16 vertical patches. So maybe not nine, but you get on since that vertical thing, when you look at those images, they tend to be really white frames. Right. Which in, when you print them out to like a, you know, 24, 36 setup, like it’s amazing. And you get all of the essence when you’re looking at it on your phone, that shot would be so tiny.
Neil Watson:
Oh yeah. You
Mario Garciduenas:
Be able to digest that. It would be ridiculous. So you have to commit to the closeup and tell that whole story in closeups. Yep. I’m out. <Laugh>
Neil Watson:
<Laugh> yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s hard, it’s a hard sell. I mean, it’s, like what Scorsese says, like you live within that frame and if that frame continues to get smaller and smaller, what are you gonna do with it? It’s just, it’s just unbelievably hard to even, I mean, yeah. You’re closeups. You could probably tell a story. I mean, it’s fantastic. But when you have, when you have somebody like Chivo or somebody doing these vertical shorts, it’s kind of like, it just, it, I don’t know. But you guys, when I saw that, I was like that. I mean, it’s great, but it still looks like a phone and it still looks vertical and it just doesn’t give me any emotion, at least for me personally, which is just hard, I agree.
Los Angeles Camera Crew Rates
Sarah Marince:
We have a question that came in with the recent spiking costs. Have you adjusted your day rates and gear rates?
Neil Watson:
Oh yeah. They went up <laugh> yeah. As it should be. It’s like people, people should not lower them. So adjustment of, yes. You, you continue to that’s that’s I feel like that’s a thing. I don’t know if anybody wants to jump in, but it’s, I, I hate having to fight you know, these rates that are coming in and out I hate having to fight a producer on what is the ex what is the right tool for the job? Because they swear by it, they think I have a perfect example. I have a friend of mine who is a great first AC and she had no data prep and they took two mini LFS out to film. But they had no sound person because they thought that that camera was gonna have scratch audio. And that’s where they’re gonna pull any sound from.
Neil Watson:
And we literally laughed. We were like, how is this the problem? This is why you don’t pick the equipment. You leave the people who work with the equipment and professionals to pick it just because it’s digital does not mean that it’s, it’s democratized to the point where, you know, somebody who’s never held a camera decides that they’re gonna pick that’s that’s the equipment. So and with that, with that being said, I feel like that moves into the rate. It’s like, yeah, there’s people starting out. And I understand, you know, you’re getting your rate from the amount of work that you’ve had and stuff like that. But it’s, it’s hard. It’s I, I adjust my rates. I’ve found out that I’ve adjusted my rates depending on the client and I’m, I’m on a smaller company. So I think we’ve only been around for four years.
Neil Watson:
So we’re starting now. Finally, last year we started making a profit, which was really nice, because usually it takes three years for a company to start pulling profits, depending on what you have on your Rolodex clientele. We’ve, we’ve managed to stay very, very comparable on the pricing and not have to short change anybody cuz I I’m big person, a big person that like big believer in it’s like if I, I don’t wanna shortchange my film crew, I should never have to shortchange my Los Angeles video crew. There’s no reason for it. If I have to do it all myself, that’s fine, but it’s not what I want. It’s like I wanna have a camera crew of professionals that are gonna do things 10 times better than I am and I want to pay them their worth. So what other people don’t understand is that the camera crew is what are the most important things, if not the most important thing aside from, you know, the content that you wanna put out there.
Neil Watson:
But if you don’t have the right camera crew for it, you don’t. So, I mean, for me personally, my, yeah, I mean I’ve probably under-balled once or twice in order to try to see about getting a job. I think we all have to a certain degree. But we shouldn’t have to. My biggest thing is, we should never have to. So, but with gear and things like that, it’s hard. I mean, you continue gear is now like cars, it depreciates the moment you buy it mm-hmm <affirmative> so you have to kind of, it’s almost like we’re we also have to keep up I call it the long con we have to keep up with everything that’s gonna be coming in the future. Right. Even though technically when you look at things yeah, Netflix has this whole, like the, the whole rule with 4k and stuff like that. And that’s great because you know, you wanna hold onto all that material and stuff like that, but human, human being’s eyes are scientifically proven. Don’t see anything higher than that. So all you’re seeing is brightness more than anything. So it’s just, there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense, but I guess that’s, that’s my 2 cents I rambled on on that one.
Sarah Marince:
<Laugh> no, that’s great. Daniel, you seem really passionate. When I said about,
Daniel Gamburg:
I actually wanted to, I wanted to ask what was that question again? Just, I was
Sarah Marince:
Sure with the recent spiking costs, have you adjusted your day rates and gear rates?
Daniel Gamburg:
Okay. That, and that’s really that, that’s what I was trying to figure out spike and costs in terms of spike and costs and, and
Sarah Marince:
The world I’m gonna guess,
Daniel Gamburg:
I guess. I mean, the way I think about it is I, I agree with Neil, my, my, my way of thinking about it is don’t buy it unless you need to use it. Right. Agreed. Because equipment is constantly changing. I especially like cameras. It’s crazy. It’s absolutely insane. They change every year, 4k two K eight, 5k, six K. And we’re going on and on and on. And, and I mean the only thing that really doesn’t change fast is lighting, but lighting is changing quickly also. It’s like, it’s, it’s insane. So the way I tell clients is I ask, I ask them to pay me for what I ‘m paying for my professionalism. They’re not paying for my equipment. They’re not paying for, you know, how big the crew is. They’re paying for how well I can tell their story. And from the work they’ve seen on my site from the sample work.
Daniel Gamburg:
So you’re paying for a certain feel and a certain quality. And, and you know, when I talk to clients and they’re like, and they have no, a lot of clients don’t know what things cost. Like they just don’t. They’re like, well, how much is it gonna cost me for a three minute video? I said, well, it can cost January from $5,000 to $150,000. Depends on what you want. <Laugh>. Yeah. Right. And so it’s a real moving target. I, I never, I could never have that. Like, it’s an, it’s a, almost impossible to, to answer, like, do you increase your cost? We increase our cost. Just like everybody else does in terms of wage of living. Right. And you have to pay more for rent and then I’m gonna charge more from my time. But I think that, I, I think it’s really important as Neil says, I, you wanna pay your camera crew?
Daniel Gamburg:
What? You always pay them because they expect that’s what you’re gonna pay them. And you, you, my butter is my, you know, my camera crew, they’re like my golden egg, you know, the, the, the goose that laid the golden egg, cuz I, I want them to be with me. They know me, I worked with them for 20 years. I don’t have to explain anything. And so I have a set rate that I feel like that’s what I need to make and I’ve had to turn words down and that’s when it really hurts. You know, sometimes you’re like, oh shoot, I, I, you know I’m too expensive for those folks. And, and I think for each person on this panel, you know, you have to, you know, you have to pay for certain things in life and you make those decisions. But I always try to say that never discount if you don’t really, really, really have to, because once you discount, that’s it, they’re always gonna ask for that lower rate and, and a
Abiel Hernandez:
Friend and family discount.
Daniel Gamburg:
Exactly. Yeah.
Abiel Hernandez:
<Laugh>
Daniel Gamburg:
And then, and then, and then it also depends on what tier of people you’re working with. If you’re working for a corporation, like HP or, or apple, or, you know, big, you know, you do commercial rates and these are my commercial rates. And sometimes that’s what I’ll do. I’ll have a commercial rate and I’ll have a small business rate and then I’ll, and then I’ll have a PSA rate, like public service announcement rate. So, those three rates basically stay about the same. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> I mean, that’s just my opinion. I don’t know how everybody else works
Abiel Hernandez:
With that for me. It’s a little bit different. I’m a, I don’t have any crew, I’m a one man band. So I kinda just usually am by myself. I actually worked with Mario on an event a couple of months ago. Another event, of course. Is that what that was? I didn’t even, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So I it’s, it’s tough trying to tell people like, oh, I need to charge you more cuz like things are going up more and everything. But I appreciate the people who do take that into consideration. Like you said, like you can charge $5,000 for a three minute video. You can also charge $150,000 for, for a three minute video. It’s all about what you want. And I’ve, it’s, it’s nice when people are able to do that, but I mean, I still have some bills to pay.
Abiel Hernandez:
So like I do take the low, the lower end work and you know, with everything that’s happened with COVID and everything, I know that some people definitely, you know, just are going through some tough times. So I’ll try to be considerate. But I mean, at the same time, I don’t wanna then like to do too much work and then feel very, very underappreciated cuz that has happened as well. And then it’s just like, we’re going on today? Five or revision number something. And then it’s just like, all right, like now I’m just losing money, time, patience, everything. But you know it’s give and go it’s 50 50, honestly. It’s like I try to, to be conservative, but sometimes I’m just like, all right, fine, fine. I’ll do it. Let’s do it. Let’s just do it fine. <Laugh>
Sarah Marince:
So one thing you put on was, oh go. I was gonna say, you said rent it you and a lot of people say that like for equipment, you still,
Mario Garciduenas:
No, I can touch on that in a second. So one of the things that I was gonna say is taking a different stance on why racing rates or why turning down jobs based on rates. So I’ve turned down two features this year that I really wanted to do that I desperately wanted to do. And honestly, I would’ve done them for free. The reason why I didn’t take them is because one of them, for example, I just did this long enough. I’ve done enough features to where I am, I kind of know what things are gonna cost. Even if I don’t get paid. Even if I completely pull all my homies favors, get a band, vision, baggage for free type stuff. I know what things are gonna cost. The features that were offered to me were 500 K. That was the budget that they had.
Mario Garciduenas:
And the reality is like they needed to be like two mil at the lowest end, the stuff that they were trying to do. I loved it. The script was a genius, freaking masterpiece. I loved it. And I had a conversation with the producer. Like I wanna do this and I want you to do this and I want this to happen, but you need to understand this. You don’t have enough money to make your movie. And you’re doing yourself a disservice by making your movie for the amount you’re making it because your script is good enough to be good. It is good enough to sell huge. And you’re gonna completely kill yourself by undercuting everybody, by trying to make it cheap by trying to do these things. And you’re, you’re literally making your script less than what it is. You’re making your story less than what it is by trying to make it right now because we have 500 K like I get it. That sounds like a lot of money, but when you’re running a business and you have, you know, 50 to a hundred employees, you gotta pay for 30 to 40 days all at once. You know, like 500 K is really not that much. It
Abiel Hernandez:
Goes away
Mario Garciduenas:
Fast. It goes away real quick. And I think a lot of this, you know, like younger entrepreneur based directors that are like, oh, well, like what I got this money. I wanna make my first movie. That sounds great. And I bought this awesome script and you read it in great detail. You don’t have enough to make the script look as good as it looks on the page. You know? And I think that’s really good . That’s my first time I’ve ever done that. And this is my first year where I ever liked a feature that I really wanted to do because not because they couldn’t pay me enough or because my rate was too high because it was very much for them. But because even if they didn’t pay me, even if I called the favors, we just, it wasn’t going to be what that movie could be.
Mario Garciduenas:
And to me, I’m gonna put it in my career now where like, I don’t just wanna make a feature I’ve made features. That’s cool. I wanna make a good feature. I wanna make something that I’m like, yo, this is awesome. You know, and you have to start at some point like realizing you like this is, this is what this costs, you know, even on the loan, this is what it costs to get greatness. And the script is great. So don’t, don’t, I’m not turning down because I don’t wanna do it, turning it down because I want you to realize that you can do better with your script. And that’s a really tough thing to say to have that conversation. Obviously, I didn’t say it that way, but like it’s a really tough conversation to have. And it’s a really tough thing to let go of because I know that they probably hired some other kid.
Mario Garciduenas:
I was like, oh, for 500. And I just thought that it’s just not gonna look as good. And like, I was so invested in this project and it’s brutal, but that’s, I think, a different look because I agree with everything you guys said, right? Like, yeah, you gotta take care of your crew as the cost increases. You gotta, you know, you gotta, you know, take care of the business and all that stuff. But, but then talking, you know, looking at it from the BL perspective that like, yo I really care about this. And like, because I care about this, I wanna do it. There’s also that, you know, double edge sword of like, because I care about someone to do it, but is me doing this, going to be good, good enough, better than it could be better than better than, you know, than it currently is.
Mario Garciduenas:
And that’s a scary thing. And in terms of renting stuff, you know, I, like I said earlier, I have two Red Komodos and a Raptor and I’m probably gonna sell all three of ’em pretty soon <laugh> to put down a deposit on an Alexa mini 35, which is out. I am on the list of a couple of places for that. It is an interesting ecosystem in Los Angeles that I’ve found recently that unless you’re working away through the inside of the future world or through the inside of, of, of the system, it seems to me that having the gear gets you the job. And that is really frustrating because the reality is companies. Yes. Okay. I have the, I have the, like, I had an Alexa mini for a while. Right. And I sold it to get to go 4k because you know, I needed it and that Alexa mini got me a mountain of freaking words.
Mario Garciduenas:
The funniest thing is I would still rent them the camera. I would still charge them the rental. So it’s like, so, right, exactly. So it’s like this, company’s like, oh, well we’re getting this guy with the camera for this much and this much. And it is like, if I didn’t own it, we’d still have it to rent it. <Laugh> you know, like, like you guys think you’re getting a deal. You’re really not like, I mean, you have a guarantee that I’m gonna show up with a camera, but there’s some mountain of freaking rental houses in Los Angeles the same thing’s gonna happen no matter what you do. Right. So really the smart thing should be to rent it from, from rental houses. But I think a lot of video production companies get scared of that. They, they, they get scared of like, well, this guy’s this much. And then we gotta rent this thing. Then we gotta rent this other thing. Whereas you tell them, oh no, this is my total number. And I’m gonna show up with the camera. They’re like, oh great.
Daniel Gamburg:
You can also buy you <affirmative>. And, also by using Alexa, by the way.
Neil Watson:
Yeah, I was gonna say, use Alexa is gonna be a lot less
Daniel Gamburg:
And it’s just as good. They won’t be able to tell the difference.
Mario Garciduenas:
Exactly.
Neil Watson:
I mean, you can look at, you can look at the 35, it’s going out for sale. Now you probably give yourself another month and a half and you’re gonna see a bunch of them come out. Be like, yep. This is where, I mean, cuz everybody that’s, it’s, there’s, there’s a very big truth in what you’re saying. It’s like once, once you have the gear, a lot of people will do that, but then it does come out. It’s really funny. I have my stories. I started out with an IA. I literally did my first short film in Los Angeles. I bought an IA. And the reason I did that is because I was wanting, I knew, like I said, long con for me was I knew I wanted to start a video production company because I wanted to make my own content first and foremost. And then if I used a video production company, obviously to make other stuff for clients, that’s fantastic.
Neil Watson:
But my production company to me is more of, I wanna make my things and I wanna sell my things. I want to get to that level. But I bought an Eartha mini because I looked at it. I have a friend who bought a mirror straight outta school. So from full cell university, you go under your debt, go into about 70 to 80 K and then he bought a hundred thousand dollars camera right behind that, to which he finally paid off. I think it was a year and a half or two years ago, but I decided to go with a $5,000 camera and I put it next to his with the same lenses. And it was literally the same image. So it was, I, I just couldn’t believe it. And it’s like, yeah, the name, obviously, because it’s like every other gear equipment. It’s like, if you don’t have the name red or Ari, you’re not looked at the same way.
Neil Watson:
But I started putting content and filming as much as I could with the camera. And all of a sudden people were like, oh wow, okay. So you did that with an Ursa. Great. Let’s hire you to do this and this. So there’s, I mean, obviously I say that now, but now, now I’ve gotten to the point where it’s like, okay, now I can be the Red Raptor camera. Now I can go with that because now I know that even though I have these other cameras, the name still gives you, like you said, that one name gives you it exponentially. Like the percentage of people that call you all of a sudden when you post the fact that you own that type of camera. It’s it’s stupid. I have it
Mario Garciduenas:
On my own, on purpose. Like the first two features I did. I don’t know if you’re familiar. I shot ’em on an affinity. Oh nice. Yeah. I bought akin affinity when it came out, I had a kind and mini 4k, my first of future store on that. And frankly to this day, if it wasn’t for the post product for managing workflow a nightmare on that camera. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> if it wasn’t for that, I’d still be shooting on it. I generally think it’s great. Camera gets to Alexa. And then I bought it for like three grand. Like it was crazy. And to me, like I still do, you look at the Mabo, you look at a couple of these other Infini cameras that I guarantee you. No one in, maybe not, no one, but like as solid 80% of people that are probably watching this have ever heard of dude, these cameras are really freaking good.
Mario Garciduenas:
Like really, really good. Yeah. Or like a crazy price. But you show, you know, you tell somebody, oh, it’s, it’s a Chinese camera. A cool <inaudible>. And like, production’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is this thing again? No, I don’t know. I don’t know. What about a rat or an Alexa? <Laugh> you know, and so like you said, that’s at some point you realize, okay, great. I can give you the image. You probably want a better one with this other tool, but you gotta see the sticker. It’s the same reason why, and I don’t know about you guys, but I like when I was and this is kind of a thing to Ryan when cause I was, came up with G E side for a little bit, one of the things that drove me crazy when I was working on like higher end music videos is that a lot of BPS would love to throw like a thousand lights that were not even actually playing.
Mario Garciduenas:
Right. Because the client, the, the label wants to see where the money’s going. Right. So you overdo this thing to make it look like you’re really freaking this big thing. And like, it’s really not. And it’s just so silly. And I dunno if you had a similar experience, but I definitely remember like, like doing a lot of genie work and being like, why are we hanging this light? <Laugh> 300. It’s just like, it’s like a Nova, like 9,000 feedback there. It’s not gonna read, but like, you know, you’re building like a 20 by frame, but putting like 1 18, 2 feet away from it, you’re like, why
Ryan Thomas:
<Laugh>
Mario Garciduenas:
Because the client wants to see it.
Ryan Thomas:
Yeah. I definitely don’t know. Cause I’ve been shooting a little bit on the you know, at least in like smaller jobs where it’s like social media content or something like that. I’ve been using the FX six instead of using a lot of mini and yeah, I really like that camera, but I bought the Sony G master zooms with it. And like, while that combo is great for somebody who wants a clean, nice image mm-hmm <affirmative> you know, I, I like, I did a job with kind of a bigger commercial production company, but it was like, it was a multicam thing. It really made sense for us to shoot, you know, not to not shoot on Alexa mini or something. And I owned two of the epic sixes. And so yeah, I was like, oh man, like if I use the Sony G masters, like, is it, is it going to look like I’m a DP? That is the big question. And so, you know, I was like this is tough cuz you know, other things too are like, you know, the dependability of all this stuff as well. And is it a professional, you know, piece of equipment? I don’t know.
Mario Garciduenas:
It’s definitely the infinity man. I didn’t know what I was getting. I was scared that it was gonna crap outta me halfway. It turned out it’s like, it’s a phenomenal camera,
Ryan Thomas:
But yeah, it works great, you know? Yeah.
Mario Garciduenas:
And has a reputation, black magic has a, I know that if shit and I can go to them.
Ryan Thomas:
Yeah. So
Mario Garciduenas:
That’s a thing and that is a valuable point.
Ryan Thomas:
Yeah. And I ultimately, I ended up just getting a BU the Optima easys instead, you know, which I’m like, okay. Like, you know, like, honestly this is still far cheaper than I think they were expecting it to be for the camera package. But you know, we’ve got a camera, it looks like a camera and everybody feels very confident including the client as well. You know, because I think that that is a big thing to keep in mind. So, and the client is
Mario Garciduenas:
What I wouldn’t say. That’s, that’s
Neil Watson:
One of the biggest things I’ve done. I’ve done two national commercials before even doing the company when I was coming out of school. And one of ’em was for the the web what’s the web cheapo air.com, which does all the flights and stuff like that. And it’s, it’s so interesting because they put up, it’s probably one of the biggest budgets I’ve had in 2014, 2015, but they did not send a client. They never sent anyone as a client. We shot it all in Florida, their main basis in New York, but it was really interesting to see the format of a company that just wanted to save money. So the reason they didn’t save a client is because I had to come up with contracts in order to do a one time buyout for the actors and for the composer, because they did not wanna pay residuals for the next five years on the two people.
Neil Watson:
So Matt that’s like, and, and I didn’t think two things about it. I just found a really good friend of mine who was a sag actor who said, yeah, sure. I’ll take a $10,000 paycheck for 12 hours. Why not? And I just, I just won’t really, you know, sign my rights away for the next five years and that’s and the composer the same way. And it was like, Jesus. But it’s really interesting because yeah. Be between having a client there and not having one it’s miles away, like one of the coolest things, cause the client wants to see everything. Obviously they wanna see everything. And then the other thing is, is, I don’t know if you guys have had this, but when the clients come in and they wanna be a part of it, even though they have no knowledge, all they’re, there is to look at the work and re like take pictures and send back, but then they’re coming in and they’re like, well, we, why don’t, why are we not doing it this way?
Neil Watson:
And this way? And this way. And it’s like, is, is the big boss telling you to tell me this? Or it’s like, oh no, I just thought of it that way. I think it would be cool. I was like, you’re here to take pictures and record. It’s like, unless I get a message from the big person up top, that’s signing the check. I’m not doing that. So it’s a really fun way of having to speak that language while you’re on set and then showcasing everything. But yeah, it’s, there’s clients that, that, that are very good at seeing that there’s some clients, man, that I’ve seen that it’s like, it’s like, what camera do you have? It’s red. Okay, perfect. And they walk away. It’s like, what is happening? <Laugh>
Sarah Marince:
Very cool. Well, thanks for talking about all the gear talk. We had a question that came in while you guys were talking about that. And it was from Charles. Hey Charles. And he wants to know if you guys are still wearing masks indoors. I’m assuming on set San Francisco six months ago. We had to wear masks everywhere unless outdoors.
Neil Watson:
Yeah, in Los Angeles. I mean, for me personally, LA it’s, it’s a given and it should be, I, I think it should be everywhere, especially inside. And the reason I say that personally is because it’s really funny. I make a lot of my money on the side, which goes to the company, but I do a lot of camera work. So I do a lot of even reality shows, but that are unions, which are few and few and far in between. But I did, I did a travel one recently that was really weird. They had no COVID at all. And we were, we were traveling from state to state every week, week and a half in each state filming families. And, and they had no COVID compliance the very first day of filming our sound person and our makeup person got, COVID and a COVID antigen test positive, which it’s kind of 50, 50 a throwout anyways. But then, they kept going and we, and we kept filming. And then the second week, when they finally postponed the show, they postponed because the host got COVID, they didn’t check correctly. Or, or the, the tests were just antigen tests. So for two days, I think he had COVID, but they hadn’t PCR him. And so he basically gave it to all of us.
Daniel Gamburg:
Was this a union shoot?
Neil Watson:
No, it was not. Oh me, if it, there you go. I mean, it makes, yeah, I know that’s I was, I should have rephrased that, but it was one of those things where it’s like, it’s like, I don’t understand it. I mean, it’s the, the, I feel like the pandemic hasn’t really left. I mean, you’ve got everybody whoever’s been vaccinated boosted and everything. I personally have had all, every, all the shots and stuff and and I’ll, I’ll walk out without a mask without my doors, but inside it’s still, I mean, cuz think about it. A lot of people swear it’s oh, that’s no pandemic. Everybody’s back to work. But if you get COVID, nobody’s gonna put you on set. So why would you wanna risk it? That makes absolutely no sense. So yeah. I mean it’s different from state to state. In Los Angeles, I think for me personally, inside mask up and continue to do it, it’s the easier, more safe way.
Daniel Gamburg:
I think there’s a protocol that we take, first of all, the protocol, even, you know, I’m not a, we’re not a union company. So the protocol we take is that, and we do shoot in San Francisco all the time is that if masks are mandated by the city, we absolutely wear them. Right. Number one, if they’re not mandated by the city, we still wear them as the crew. And then I ask the client who comes to the set or whoever if they wouldn’t mind wearing the mask or how do they feel about it? You know, I always ask them, you know, what they feel. And I always tell ’em like, we’re just trying to stay safe. You know, we wanna make, and, and that, but we’ve had an issue where we had a client that decided they didn’t wanna wear a mask on the set, which, which was very frustrating and, and upsetting, you know, so part of me feels like sometimes we, if it happens where there’s an outbreak and we’re mandated to wear it, then if they don’t wear it, we don’t shoot, you know, we’re done. And we take our deposit.
Neil Watson:
<Laugh>, that’s interesting that you say that that’s really interesting cuz me as, as a, as a company as well, it’s we had somebody come in kind of like that mm-hmm <affirmative> and we were like, we’re like, that’s, if you don’t wanna wear a mask, that’s fine. But then you can’t be on set or at least your vicinity of the set has to be far away. And they were like, we’re paying for this. And I was like, yes, but your insurance is not covering it. This is my production insurance. And if I have, and that’s, that’s the only way that I ever got the client to finally go, oh shit. Okay. So then cuz I, I basically made it almost like a law, like look it’s my production company. I’ve literally put, I have a cover compliance officer on set. Everything is through the company and, and obviously I budgeted so that you guys have to pay for it too. But at the end of the day, it’s like, you know, this is, this is your name and my name. And if you don’t think your name is valuable, my name as a production company is valuable. So I am not even gonna try to do that. You know, it’s like we all will wear masks and even our lunch it’s like nobody sits at the damn table. It’s like we have, you know, six feet apart on our tables. We have two other people if we have the space and we have a large Los Angeles camera crew, if I question
Mario Garciduenas:
Have a question, is it more basically because like, I’m, I, I mean, I’m a company on paper technically, but like I don’t operate as a company. I operate as an individual with a company. My question to you is, is it more based on legal, right? Because I can preface a little bit more or we can just go from there. Is it more legal? My, the reasoning behind my question, being that when the pandemic hit you couldn’t, I, I wore my mask to go to sleep. Like I was terrified of this whole thing. The second vaccine came out and I took the shots and I took the second shot. I stopped wearing it. I was like, I’m good. I don’t need to wear this again. And unfortunately that’s why I got COVID on set one time <laugh> and but since then, weirdly enough, it’s just been like, I have this weird sense of like, just like, like comfort level. And like, unless I’m doing something with Disney or Paramount or, you know, a couple of companies that I work with that require the masks and they’re super serious about it. And, but it very much feels from a legal standpoint, it doesn’t feel like, well, we want you to be healthy. It’s like, no, no, no, we just don’t want you to Sue us.
Neil Watson:
I, I don’t. I see, like to me personally, I can tell you right off the bat, if you’re, if you’re working for me or for my company, I would require it. And, there is a legality to it, at least for me as a company. But at the same time, the first thing I tell everybody who will question the mask on my set, it’s like, well, think about it this way. Something happens on this set and you get COVID. That means whatever you have coming up after you’re gonna get screwed out of. Cause as soon as you test positive somewhere else, especially in the jobs like you’re talking about, cuz trust me, I work for my older brother Disney and everybody they’re all gonna look at you and go, Nope. And the thing is too is my O my other reasoning for it.
Neil Watson:
And this happened to me as well, when I finally got COVID with the show months ago. It wasn’t where I got a negative test. Five days later, I had to wait another 10 days before the PCR actually came out negative. Even though I was technically from what science says, I wasn’t right anywhere. Like I was gonna give it to anybody, but on paper, if I go to a set and I show that I’m positive, I’m never gonna work. So I try to explain that in a certain way. I mean, cuz a lot of people will just not understand it that way. But yeah, to answer your question, I think to me it’s two prong. It’s definitely legal because as you said, it’s a company. I have production insurance that I pay yearly mm-hmm <affirmative> and that production insurance is there for workers comp and everything like that. And I would much rather make sure that everybody’s healthy on set than to have to pay a worker’s comp or somebody who’s got COVID who is not working for me. It just, it doesn’t make any sense, you know, especially if I have all the tools in my disposal to keep that from happening
Mario Garciduenas:
And by the way, just, just so we’re all super clear. If any production I ever work for is like, yo, you need to wear a mask. I do wear a mask. I’m not that I get that way, but no, very much. That is, that is an interesting question. It’s a thing that I find interesting to ask smaller production companies again, because the bigger ones very much feel like they just wanna save face , it’s not that they care. They just wanna save face.
Daniel Gamburg:
Well, one other thing that we do is we actually use wireless video with our clients. So even like if there’s somebody that really doesn’t wanna wear a mask, so no problem here. Yeah. Grab your iPad. Here’s the wireless router number, go to the other room. You’re more than happy to watch. Yeah. A note for us to text us <laugh> or, or call us where we’ve been more than happy. I mean, we try to accommodate, you know, and sure. And we’ve done a lot of and I bought a whole wireless system just so that, you know, the clients can be somewhere awesome. And, and, and then they feel safe too.
Neil Watson:
Yeah. It’s a smart, smart, very smart move. Very smart move for sure.
Los Angeles Video Crews Discuss 3D Video Production
Sarah Marince:
We have one more quick question that just came in before we wrap has 3d gone away or do you see it for the future sometime?
Neil Watson:
<Laugh> gotta, I hate to say, I hate to say it, but this Christmas is gonna come back. I hate to be the one to say it only because I was in that boat for three years filming and we, you know, Venice’s all the way, top and bottom all
Mario Garciduenas:
Avatar.
Neil Watson:
Yeah. Stereoscopic all the way. So it’s, it’s gonna come back. Thankfully it’s not 3d where shit gets thrown in your face. <Laugh> So there is a lot of depth, which is really interesting because of the scale of what this next movie is gonna be. I feel like a lot of people are gonna enjoy it now. Will it stay? I just, I, I couldn’t tell you, I mean, I’m sure Hollywood will pull it up and go again on it, but I, I, I, I can say like, come December, it’ll either be a big craze or it’ll be like really? I mean, it’ll at least be fun to watch.
Mario Garciduenas:
I’ll have to ask. So it’s interesting. Neil deli brow, one of the writers, also one of the actors in Avatar, which he worked with, lives in my building. He was in one of the shorts I did
Neil Watson:
Recently. Oh, nice.
Mario Garciduenas:
Awesome. Freaking dude. I asked him that question weirdly. I was like, are we going 3d on this? And he’s like, yeah. And just got in the elevator and it just closed on. I was like, was that good, yeah. Was that bad yet? What’s your take on that? Is it a good year or is it still bad yet?
Neil Watson:
From what I saw I mean, the thing is I’m, I’m not a fanboy of James Cameron, but I am a massive fan. I mean, I got to, it was really interesting. I got to work with him for close to three years, like literally next to him. I mean he, even, he even saw two of my short films, which is I, I have, I have that to live for. It’s like, yay. Cameron keeps Cameron critiqued, two of my films, but no, it’s really interesting because there’s the, the 3d aspect, all you’re doing is growing, I guess, from, from what he did on the first one. What’s interesting about this one is that he found a way to film motion capture underwater, and he did it correctly, which is one of these scariest things. I mean, it was about six or seven months in a water tank. Wow. And that was, that was the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen set up. So I just, I just think he breaks. He won’t make a movie unless he breaks through with something technological wise. So that’s the inspiration, that’s the motivation to go see a film of his caliber. Yeah. And, and like I tell, I think that’s one of the things that I told a friend of mine. It’s like, when have you ever seen a James Cameron movie flop? And that should answer that
Mario Garciduenas:
Question. When have you ever seen it? Cameron movie do what
Neil Watson:
Flopped is the question and that, I feel like that would answer. I mean, like I said, it’s gonna be awesome.
Daniel Gamburg:
Did he, did he make Piranha? Yeah, I think he made Piranha.
Neil Watson:
Oh, that we don’t talk about that. <Laugh> oh,
Daniel Gamburg:
There
Neil Watson:
It’s. That’s that’s the one that I, I hope he just, yeah, I can’t talk about that one. I’ll never say a word about that one,
Mario Garciduenas:
One though. Like what?
Neil Watson:
Oh, we couldn’t even talk about that on set. Let’s put it that way. <Laugh> off, off the subject. <Laugh>
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Sarah Marince:
Well, guys, I wish we could continue this talk for another hour because I think we all could still talk about everything for an hour and it’d be so informative and this has been a lot of fun. But we do have to wrap and the last thing we do every web has they go down the line again and you just kind of say where people can find you, if you have a website, you wanna promote a project you wanna promote or your, your Instagram handle, whatever you’d like to do now is the time and Daniel, I will start with you.
Daniel Gamburg:
Great. My company name is enlightenedpictures.com. So you can find me on the internet. Enlightened is basically something I came up with in 2002 when I came out of film school, because I’ve always felt like I wanna learn something. So and it’s enlightening, Ned spelled with an E D and you can find all my work and my, my recent short that’s on the New Yorker documentary series is also there. Yeah. You know, that’s, I don’t really have an Instagram handle, sorry. Oh,
Neil Watson:
Okay.
Daniel Gamburg:
<Laugh> I mean, I have a lot of pictures. I mean, my, I always think that the work speaks for itself. You know, if I have to take a picture of myself on the film set, I’m like, eh, why am I doing that? I was
Neil Watson:
Here.
Daniel Gamburg:
I was here. It happened. <Laugh> And yeah, I love to tell, I, I think it’s all about telling a great story, no matter, you know, what kind of equipment we talk about. In the end you can make a great story with an iPhone, super eight camera, you know, whatever, whatever there is. It’s all about the story, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative>
Sarah Marince:
Awesome. Well, thank you for being here and Neil, we’ll go with you next.
Neil Watson:
Oh so my company, sure. My company’s name is film dreams, Inc. You can find film dreams Inc. On YouTube Vimeo is actually Instagram and TikTok. Our TikTok really doesn’t show our work. It actually shows for some reason, our page became a behind the scenes page of, of the jobs that we do which is really just pictures of people doing really fun stuff on set and cameras and all the stuff that we love to do. Yeah, we can find it on Instagram. My page is Neil Watson, director on Instagram. We’re currently doing literally prepping about three short films right now which is really fun, cuz we’re doing one with one of the actors from Baby Drivers named CJ Jones who I met a long time ago. And then yeah, I think that’s pretty much it’s for us, for us in the company. We tell a lot of stories. We love really, really good scripts. I’m a writer as well. So it’s, you know, like Daniel said, like everybody here is, I mean, we’re here to tell really, really fun, really good stories be it personal or, or any of that nature. And it’s just, it’s, it’s a lot of fun and it’s been great chatting with everyone here.
Sarah Marince:
Well, thank you for being here Abiel. I didn’t say that correctly. Did I?
Abiel Hernandez:
That’s fine.
Abiel Hernandez:
Used to listen. It happens all the time. I’m sorry. No, no, no worries. I’m not really on, I don’t post much on social media. You’ll see pictures of me and my daughter, probably more than anything
Sarah Marince:
You don’t TikTok. You make TikTok post,
Abiel Hernandez:
I’ll start scrolling and then never stop for like two, three hours. Then, I just closed it completely, but Abiel Isaac films on Instagram. And yeah, there’s some work there. I usually don’t post too much there. A lot of my stuff is more internal. So I can’t really share a lot of it, but yeah.
Sarah Marince:
Well thank you for being here and Ryan.
Ryan Thomas:
Yes. I posted my website, RyanThomasdp.com in the chat and then also my Instagram RD. So all there.
Sarah Marince:
Well thanks. You and Mario.
Mario Garciduenas:
Yeah, actually I’m gonna like to follow all of you guys on IG, whether you’re posting pictures of your a or your food <laugh> in terms of a project coming up, I have a feature that I will be DPing at the end of the year. I have a short that I’m very excited about. It’s because we’re shooting everything on film. Most recent projects just did a thing for vice DP to documentary called well it’s a documentary series called and search for queue. If you wanna check it out, it’d be awesome. I am clicking enter on all of my stuff on the chat. If you wanna check it out. Real Instagram, my Instagram on I, I post a lot of stuff on my stories very regularly. My last post post, my reel is like a year old. So and before that I was like two years ago. I don’t post a whole lot as an actual post. I might start doing it a little bit more, but yeah. Other than that you need a DP to give any of us a call.
Sarah Marince:
Awesome. Well, thank you all so much again for being here. And for everybody watching, I am Sarah Marince who can find anything voiceover and you know, I’ll help you out with any of your voiceover needs @ sarahmarince.com and at SarahMarince on Instagram. All right, guys, have a great rest of your Wednesday. And I’ll talk to y’all next time.
