We sit down with Ken Gibbs Jr. and talk video production.
Transcription:
Justin McAleece:
My name is Justin McAleece here with shoots.video talking to Ken Gibbs Jr. Today. And yeah.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. I’m going to have a really interesting conversation about what he does, what he’s involved with. You got a lot of hyphenates in your situation over there. You’re doing a lot of things, man. That’s great to hear. Tell me a little bit about that. What are you up to these days?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
So right now I am at Amazon, the head of series social. So I manage the social strategy for all of the original series on prime video with the exception of the gargantuan ones like the boys or the forthcoming Lord of the rings. Those are actually in the franchise category and led by just Thurber on the social side.
Justin McAleece:
Okay. So big deal though. A lot, a lot of big things you’re are currently involved in and things that a lot of people are going to see, right. Millions of eyeballs out there.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. Millions of eyeballs, I mean, and that also includes sports sports on prime. So Thursday night, Thursday night football for the NFL. And we also had our first exclusive game this year.
Justin McAleece:
Nice. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. What a crazy thing, right. How, you know, it used to just be the big three and then eventually the big four and then ESPN got involved and you’re like, man, a football game can be only streaming or only on a different, it’s just, it’s just such a bizarre concept to me being like a lifelong sporting guy and especially a football fan that they might not be available on ABC, CBS or NBC Fox, that sort of thing.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
I mean, the world has changed. And then I got to say as a native Bostonian who living out here in the New York, New Jersey area over the last few years, I’m looking forward to a day when I can watch it and not with the traditional blockings of the networks.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s and they, they have the blackouts and those types of things and just how all that is set up is pretty complicated. I’m sure from their end, from our end, we’re just like, where’s my game. What’s going on here. But it’s crazy. I mean, the fact that you can watch it on your phone, you can just watch a normal NFL game on your phone. These days is pretty cool.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
It is, it is quite honestly like, thank God that the phone is so high now.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s incredible how it’s coming. I remember like distinctly, like I dunno, five years ago or something just being like, that seems impossible. You can’t, like I could see pulling up videos on YouTube, that sort of thing, but like, I can’t just watch a straight up live sporting event on, on my phone, but it looks gorgeous and it works. So here we are.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
I love it. Yeah.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. So tell me how long have you been working there?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Just over four months, I began in September just before, maybe a week or two before I knew CMO UConn Lozo began. So I was actually kind of learning a system there that I think is about to change or she starts to really put her imprint on it as we enter the next phase of growth for Brian.
Justin McAleece:
I see. And how fast does this stuff change in terms of, like, I just know that as an independent producer and someone who is looking toward distribution often for a variety of reasons it just seems like that landscape is constantly evolving into different things. And I think it’s, I’m wondering if it’s as hard for you guys to keep up as the people who’s sort of create these opportunities as it is for the content producers to understand where they best fit in to get their projects seen by the most amount of people. Got it.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Got it. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a space that changes daily quite honestly. And that’s, I think really where you got to rely on the, the depth and breadth of your team as well, Greg with the digital and the social landscape today, there, there are new apps popping up all the time that are being targeted towards different communities. And what have you. So there might be an opportunity that might just be out of your purview because it’s not within your interests for example, but someone on your team can bring it to your attention. And I think at that point is when you dive deep, look at it and really understand, you know, is this a valuable part of your, should this be a valuable part of your campaign? And can it help you reach that audience that you’re targeting?
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, things are so segmented in, in what can be a very positive situation for content creators because they know that they can reach out to the exact people that theoretically care about what they got. If you reach out to them and they don’t care about it, then you, you got some retooling to do. And that can be a little bit of a hard pill to swallow, but at least, you know, that you can reach them, which is good. Yeah. Do you guys float around the [inaudible] sort of stuff very often or is that not really your role?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Not really my realm more so I’m more so prime video, but, but that’s why I like that is within the service as well. Electra example, you can get NBA league pass and other channels as well, but for us and for my team, we’re focused on the originals that are created and distributed on prime video.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. If someone was out there, they’ve had a lot of experience, they’ve made some movies, made some episodics maybe. And how does that work? Are they able to approach someone at prime video and say, I have this original idea and I think it’s going to be really great. I have this built in audience for this thing, whatever previous property it happens to be. How, how does that work?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. And I mean so obviously I’m still learning my way around the building, so to speak and defying all of the proper people. But what I can tell your audience is that, you know, the traditional entryway for linear or cable is not very different from the streaming world. Right. Okay. There’s a development team are development execs for the different categories, whether it be action and comedy drama, why a, all of those people from prime video are in the market just like their counterparts from cable and linear looking for new projects as well.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, that’s cool. And how much of that? I know, you know, we, we float this word algorithm all the time. How much of that is sort of algorithm based, the choices you guys make? And I don’t even know if you a hundred percent see the special sauce behind that stuff, but and how much of it is good old fashioned, just people believing in a project.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
So prime video to my knowledge right now is not having an algorithm drive. The creative choices are right. I think as opposed to a larger or longer lived organization like a Netflix, quite honestly, they might might incorporate that there, but prime video is really just six years old. Right? I think, I think the size and scale of the overall Amazon brand might have people forget that this stage videos, prime video development executives are really looking for the best products in the space that are going to convince various different audience communities of the value of that long-term relationship with prime video.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, yeah, you don’t want to have to develop new relationships all the time. You want to get someone who can produce. I mean, you know, and when I tell people who are working for me or want to work for me or whatever it happens to be, you know, business hasn’t changed that much and hundreds of years maybe ever, because at the end of the day, when you’re someone who has capital to spend on something and you need to make a product, then you need to make those widgets, like whatever those widgets are, you need to be able to make more widgets. And the easiest way to like produce more widgets is to have someone who’s really good at making those widgets for you. And, and everything is basically able to be broken down to that in my estimation. And so like, you’re looking for good people to make good content that you can rely on to keep popping out new original, you know, youthful, fun ideas, probably.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Well, that’s really it, you know, like I think with the last week we premiered the film one night in my head Regina, it was when I heard directorial debuts as well. And, you know, she’s out there as a known talent partners with a brand like ours. And look, we got the ROI around a film in this space that made the noise and attracted the audience to our service and looking forward to really seeing
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I’m going to check that out. That seems like a fun movie, you know, you’ve got some really interesting what would you say icons of the last half century? And they’re really talking about those unique moments in time that don’t happen very often. And I think when we can reflect on that a little bit, that that is a real thing that happened or it’s yeah, right at that, that’s, that’s biographical. So being able to see those moments in time and just reflect on like how profoundly they affect everything else outside of that one little moment, I think is pretty interesting. Yeah. so, so what sort of led you to this point? How did you get involved in this, you know, five years, 10 years back
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Really 10 years back, you know phase one and the answer that I come from building and launching websites I, for the knowledge, 28 years, I basically joined a startup with Henry Louis Gates out of Harvard and apprehend department. We got purchased by time Warner and just before they were purchased by AOL. And, you know, at that point, AOL really ran the engineering of right. I, I think I had all of the production opportunities and capabilities really at my fingertips. And got, got to really understand how you could impact audiences across various different content types. So, you know, I had a podcast that we’re recording on AOL studios way back then, when I think maybe the only other podcast I was aware of was like nine to five Mac or something like that. Wow. The Apple space, but it was really the opportunity to create contents that wasn’t facing any of your hurdles that you would on traditional platforms like TV or even praying quite honestly the web was the wild, wild West. If you could, if you could create it and you had distribution opportunities and capabilities, it was out there. So that’s, that’s what really kind of brought me to the space and having the opportunity to play with all the toys in the AOL toy box.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. So you’ve really come full circle from that, you know, that’s, that’s been your sort of your, your center of expertise. It sounds like is approaching new markets and new opportunities with a lot of toys at your disposal. Like you’re saying to get out to the maximum amount of people. Yeah. That’s neat.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
We, we, we’ve done some cool things over the years.
Justin McAleece:
That’s fun, man. What for people who are maybe starting obviously 20 years ago, sort of what you’re referencing, where they’re starting in their 20 years before your journey, what are some words of wisdom you would give them to? Like, how do you proceed?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Hmm, hold on. Let me make sure I follow that on who was 20 years before me.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. So you, 20 years ago, if you could give advice to you 20 years ago, what would you tell yourself? That’s a better way to phrase that.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Okay. Okay. If I, 20 years ago, I would have told myself that don’t worry. You have to know where everything okay. And, and have the confidence to pursue every opportunity.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
And, and I say that because, you know, 20 years ago for myself, I had just moved to New York from Boston that didn’t have much of a network within the city as well. So it was a little bit hesitant quite honestly, to make any moves that would have taken me away from that network, because I didn’t have any safety net at the worst, worst case scenario would be that, you know, you might find yourself in a position where things don’t pan out, you get laid off or let go, and you gotta go back home to Boston. Right. So I kinda, I was, I was hesitant on moving towards a lot of opportunities because of just that need for, for stability, but quite honestly yeah, yeah. That, and you know, I think when you’re young, you don’t understand that oftentimes even the managers don’t know what’s next, right. They’re just, they’re, they’re just, they, they, you know, bravery to kind of move forward and understand how they’ll handle whatever it is as they encounter arrive. But I think I may have been 20 years ago operating from a position of like, I just, everybody else knows what’s next. I just don’t.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s not that I don’t think no, it’s a, it’s a funny situation because you know, life is, is sometimes just a big progress of continually realizing that the people that you thought knew what was going on, didn’t really know what was going on. It’s a weird thing, man. I mean, and that’s when you’re a kid, you know, you just assume your parents got it all together. And they got everything figured out. And you know, if they got up a thousand bucks in their bank account, they’re millionaires and like, none of that stuff makes sense. And so like that developmental process to me just continually happens because then you get to somewhere else and you’re like, Oh, that was it. Shoot. I could have done this a long time ago. If I knew it was like, that’s all I had to do. Really? That’s a trip. Yeah. So I think that’s really wise is, you know, taking opportunities when they come and being able to turn something that, what would you say when you have the opportunity in your life, because you don’t have, you’re not quite as tied down or there, the stakes are not quite as high, you know, that’s really one you want to pounce, right? Yeah.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. And because, you know, when you, you don’t have anything to lose really, like in hindsight, looking back at it, Hey, if I had taken one of those opportunities and things didn’t pan out, I could have crashed on somebody’s couch for a little while. Like I had other friends who did it then had, and they’re in better places because of it.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Yeah. And here you are an overnight success. Right. And that’s, that’s how the always goes. How’d he get there? That’s not fair, whatever it
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Is. Exactly.
Justin McAleece:
So tell me do you think maybe prime is sort of in a similar situation? I mean, like you said, they’re young, you know, they don’t have this huge backlog that some of the other companies do. And so maybe they’re willing to make mistakes. I mean, does, does that make sense of, for how you look at what you guys are producing over there?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Oh, completely completely. So, I mean you know, one of the things that John Sophie who runs Amazon studios is, is really keen on, is making prime the home for talent. Right. And I think, you know, there, there are very many ways you can define that. But when you think about the entertainment industry as a whole, and some of the traditional habits or handlers who have steer things in a certain direction, I think you’ve seen a certain products, not made certain audiences not engaged because of traditional ways and prime, because Amazon is not solely in the video ads or streaming business is in a very unique position to really allow creators, to come to the service and, and create things that might not be able to find a home elsewhere because of various reasons. Right. And right now we’re seeing the audience actually respond to and embrace that, right? Whether it’s whether it’s hunters or when night in Miami or the boys correctly, I think they’ve managed to secure and produced some really unique IP that that’s resonating with the audiences.
Justin McAleece:
And that’s gotta be a good feeling. You know, from your perspective, granted, you haven’t been there the whole time producing the boys or anything. It’s not like that came up with you, but you know, seeing what you guys are doing, it’s good work and it’s turning out there and it’s giving people joy and, you know, interest in their lives by being able to watch these really good original content. How does that feel?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
It’s amazing. It’s amazing. I mean it, and it’s one of the things that I like about social media quite honestly, is that you’re able to put something out and actually see that immediate response. Right. You’re not waiting for people to write reviews or what have you, it’s like, no, is it trending right? That’s that volume and velocity. That means a lot of people are saying a lot of things about it right now, right now they could be saying bad things, but you get in there and you look at like, Hey, it’s great. People are enjoying it. And now not only do we give the creator this opportunity to tell this story for the community, is that always represented within the content. It’s an opportunity for a different representation quite honestly. And then the community that’s embracing it and celebrating it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s important
Justin McAleece:
To be able to do that. And so, you know, I’ll, I’ll get a little personal here. We made a movie it’s called brick madness. It’s currently on Amazon. It is not streaming for free, but it’s, you know, available on prime and all that for for purchase a filmmaker in my, in my position. And I know this, I know this isn’t quite your specialty or anything, but a filmmaker in my position. Like w w what, what should I do to get more people to see that movie?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
You got to let people know where it’s at. You know, I mean, you’ve got to let people know where it’s at. So to get people to see that movie it would be helpful if I knew more about the movie quite honestly. Cause then I can pick things up about my help. You identify the communities that might be most quick to embrace that film for whatever reason.
Justin McAleece:
Okay. I’ll give you the 30, the ten second breakdown. It’s a, it’s a documentary, it’s a comedy. It’s about a Lego tournament essentially. So yeah, it’s called, they’re called bricks in our world, but they’re essentially a bunch of people building, building those things. So yeah, it’s sort of lighthearted funny. I think it’s hilarious, but you know, a bunch of 30 year olds playing with Brex, a bunch of adult nerds in one way or another, that’s what we did. So, yeah. So yeah, I mean, there’s some obvious we would say groups there to reach out to like people and comedy people and mockumentary people, that sort of thing. But
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
I mean, for something like that, I’d also think that it would organically resonate with parents of right. Yeah. You know, not only have parents all, all been kids themselves and played with Legos, but they’re oftentimes kind of in that world where, you know, you’re walking across the living room late at night and exactly spot in your heart and they can appreciate the share that you have. And I think that those communities that I like when you look at a product and you’re thinking of how you can actually raise awareness for it online. Right. Okay. Comedy sure. It’s a combination. Right. But who else is going to have like a unique connection to this because of those various factors. Right. And when you think of parents, like, that’s, you know, that’s a wide who do people, right. And then from, you can put a bit of money, but 98 do a paid campaign. You can target the parents in that regard. Right. I would say, you’d have to put a little bit of budget behind it. If you don’t have something that is organic, we’re going to help you scale like a celebrity or affiliation with a group.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. And we do, we have some people that are, we got some faces and all they’re they in there. And, and that sort of thing, the the kid that’s in the actual Lego movie, the Lego movie part one, and part two, the live action kid, his name is Jayden San. He was actually in our movie before, was in the Lego movie. And so he’s in there. And so that’s, that’s a funny tie in not that people go to the theater necessarily to see him, you know, it’s not that type of situation, but he’s a great actor. And it’s a, it’s a fun, little a fun little tie in, I guess. Yeah.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. It’s all things that traffic online though, all quirky facts.
Justin McAleece:
It is weird. What still works, even though you’ve seen this same sort of quasi misleading headlines, a thousand times in a row, and what people still click on, I think you can’t underestimate humans proclivity to fall into the same psychological traps. It’s quite funny from the outside. I think going, circling back just a little bit, I was thinking like, you know, when you’re on ways and it sort of tells you to go to go around an accident or whatever, or to speed up in one way and go around the normal way, you ended up doing that in, and then everyone ends up doing that. And you suddenly, you got 50 cars out on this one little off ramp that no one ever uses. And you, you go the way that the computer goes to tells you to go, but it ends up being even worse because now there’s a lot of people in that space. And I got to think that there’s a little bit of inference to how it would work within the streaming services or anyone producing content actually is because if they have algorithms telling them what to make, then they might be all making the same thing.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah, I think so. I think the algorithms are less used in creation and in presentation. Interesting. Yeah. So I think, and I mean, obviously Netflix is the master of this, but based on what you’ve clicked on within their service, the algorithm is determining, you know, what other things it’s going to show you, but even then quite honestly, what thumbnail will show you with that one right there. They’ve got like a library of thumbnails for each one. So
Justin McAleece:
That’s dynamic as well. That’s interesting
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
For the mistaken and taking place. Yeah.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Because that’s, at the end of the day, they can sort of give you any version of what they think that thing is that would click with you, like literally make you click. And that’s what it comes down to. Right. I mean, we’ve come all this way and we have all this information at our fingertips, but really it’s still the picture and the short little blurb and then one or two other things. And that’s what gets you to buy the movie or watch the movie, or spend your hour and a half or whatever it happens to be.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. I mean, I quite honestly discovered it when I clicked on something that I had already watched, but I hadn’t read the title, but they had changed the thumbnail so drastically that eight and I thought it was something else like, Oh, I was like,
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, I, yeah, I didn’t really, I didn’t really realize that happened quite so dynamically. That’s, that’s really cool. And, you know, I think it’s very important what I tell content creators, as well as like, if you’re going to write a script, like, let’s say, for example, if you’re going to go to the, all the work of making a feature film, like, have it, give it a hook, give it something you can explain in 15 seconds, give it something that people naturally care about or like, or want to hear about are intrigued by. And that often comes down to something as simple as what is your key art going to look like? You know?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. That, so it’s, it’s interesting, right. I’m always debating the important of PR in a world in which the customer journey begins on the phone. Right. Okay. Chiari key art is incredibly stagnant in a timeline environment or gray as opposed to whatever a short video or gift could be. Okay. And that’s, that’s something that we think about internally all the time, right? Like what, what is going to be the customer’s first encountered with, with this areas, with this realm, right. Is it going to be a key art poster or is it going to be, you know, maybe a short video from a cast member that they shot while they were taping on set and publish to their Instagram and that might actually be it as opposed to the kiosk.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, very true. Yeah. I, and I think as a, a content creator as a filmmaker, I’ve had problems like consistently making new stuff to be able to promote that because it is the easiest thing. You’re like, ah, man, I haven’t put anything up in a couple of days. I’ll just put up the poster and put a little tweak on it or fix this, or take the main images that we always use and just sort of repurpose them. And that’s clearly not the best way to approach that. The better way to approach that is like, what else can, how can I reinvent this wheel and pull something that people haven’t seen yet?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s checking the box, you know, but I think in these days, what I’ve often had to convince senior leadership is that, Hey, like checking the box is actually taking the step backwards. Right. The consumer is looking at this and they’re like, ah, no, that’s just like, literally they just tweak the poster and put this out. Right. Because they wanted to, they felt they had to engage us, but they didn’t really think about engaging us or right. Interesting. So oftentimes I would say, listen, we’ve got to start capturing content from the moment we break ground on, on taping for production, like day one of taping. Okay. We’re here capturing everything. Right. We want you as a celebrity to start speaking with your audience about this project right now, you don’t get to speak to them every day. Right. But you’ve got millions of followers for a reason. Like they love, like they don’t just like you in that film, they just like you as a person, they want to see what you’re doing. So let them in on that, start that conversation. We’re obviously working with the directors to make sure that we aren’t revealing anything. Right. The actual series of films, but we’re peaking that interest at the earliest possible opportunity.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. It’s a, it’s a full-time job being a celebrity slash influencers slash content creator. I mean there’s yeah. You’re just constantly interacting. It’s a, it’s a strange world that we are in, but yeah, absolutely. It’s obvious how useful that would be to start talking about a movie three years before it comes out to just get, get it on people’s radar a little bit.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. In three years I be that much, you know, it depends, right. Like, like really like in game. Okay. We can talk about it three years in advance. Sure.
Justin McAleece:
What’s your decision making on including or not including a trailer on Amazon?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
There isn’t, there, there isn’t any quiet, honest, when you say on Amazon or for Amazon, like if we’re not, we’re going to do it’s Rella for one of our series. Cause we always do trailer.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let me, I think I’m going to get a little bit of a confirmation about what that question was specifically. Let’s, let’s talk about wit contests real quick. What is that all about?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
So what is a company that I’ve been consulting with is by Vadi Murti? Vadi is a young guy out of Yale, also here in Jersey as well, but long story short. What, what allows companies, organizations, sports teams they’ve been doing a lot with sports teams lately to do is basically crowdsource UGC from their community. So for example you could engage a sports team and say, alright, we want to see your best touchdown celebration or reaction to the touchdown, that XYZ player Joe scored via I frame, you can put it on your, on your website, right? Somewhere prominent that all of the people, either in your arena or even watching at home, no, to go to easily, they can then record a video on their mobile device, upload it to the page on the backend. As a company team organization, you have the very easy ability to just filter, right?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Okay. This one makes it, this one makes it, this one does. And one of the reasons that with to me as, as a social marketer, who’s quite honestly had difficulty filtering out the noise and these social conversations. I think traditionally you would do something like that on the Twitter with a hashtag, right. Or, or, or any of those platforms. But today what happens is, you know, XYZ person, who’s just looking to get eyeballs on their video is basically going to pollute your hashtag, right? You’ll find that your hash on everything. So what helps organizations cut through that clutter? Because very seldom will a troll kind of go all the way through the effort of, you know, making it to the teams page and uploading a video that has nothing to do with what the contest, that’s a high level of effort for someone who’s not committed.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The trolls want to take the easy trolls most of the time. They’re not going to go through all that work.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Exactly. And you know, in the Whit instance the team, the organization would then own that UGC that has been submitted. So not only can you use it in your, on your own social handles for content, you could possibly use it in paid ads as well. Which is how many of our clients have been using it. And the pricing that’s associated with the contest is actually totally determined by the organization. Who’s initiating it.
Justin McAleece:
Okay. That’s pretty cool, man. Easy way to connect those those people that want to make stuff and the people that want other people to make stuff for them in a good way that helps everyone involved, I guess.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Yeah. Yeah. Just trying to make it as easy as possible for organizations to find and connect with their fans.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds neat. I like it. I think, I think I’m in good shape. I’m not sure we covered a lot. It was pretty good. What else had you thought we were going to talk about or do, what else would you say to the people out there in the video production industry that feel like they might be stagnant? Something like that?
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
The video production industry right now, what I’d say is really doubled down on short form. All right. I don’t think you’ve got enough professionals who are really working on short form video. I think the short form areas dominated by your tic toc’s and what have you who are really, you know, young, young creators using the tools of the platform as opposed to real professionals telling stories, creating content within the short windows. Right? Because that think that there is a difference between amateur and pro, right. And having worked with the pros, what they’re able to do within those short amount of times, I think could really go a long way in terms of, you know, making people aware of their skills and abilities. Cause I just don’t think we’ve got enough professional talent quite honestly, that that’s really engaging all of these platforms. And Hey, I know it takes time, you know, as well.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
And that could be one of the reasons for, but for instance, on Instagram, I follow a lot of creators and not, not your traditional social media, creative, but you know, people who do a special effect design, just so I can see and identify their work as well, that might help inspire me for other things. I might reach out to them as a resource as well. Or even just illustrators to like, I think to see a lot of people who actually have, you know, pro level skill, even if it’s just putting portfolio work on that, right. To open up that conversation and participate more because I think we need to see more of the thought leaders behind the camera.
Justin McAleece:
I like it. Yeah. That’s a good answer. It’s it’s always going to be preferable to just get out there and make stuff and to figure out what you’re doing. And you know, I don’t know that it’s always true that if you make it eventually you’ll find an audience. I mean, sometimes you’re going to have to tweak what you make and, and go toward where the audience is a little bit too. I think there’s a balancing act there, but obviously getting better at your craft is always going to be a useful thing that you can engage in. And the best way to do that is just to make stuff and, and to continually refine like what you care about, what you don’t want to do. I think those are often good things to solidify in your mind to like, what am I not trying to create? Because what am I trying to create is such a huge question. I think it’s actually easier to answer the converse. Yeah, that’s just how I look at it a lot of times, but yeah. Get out there and make stuff. And if you find an audience and you can promote, obviously that’s just as important these days as anything else, then hopefully you can talk to someone like you or your team and get some, get the Amazon original, good place to be
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Indeed. And, you know, you got to create creation is life. Yeah,
Justin McAleece:
There you go. I appreciate talking to you, Ken. That was fun. This is Justin for shoots.video and we will speak to you next time. Thank you.
Ken Gibbs Jr.:
Thanks for having me, Justin has been great. Yes, sir. Have a good Saturday.
