Las Vegas Camera Crew and Camera Operators

Las Vegas Camera Crew and Camera Operators

Las Vegas Camera Crews and Camera Operators

We talk with a few Las Vegas, NV based camera crews about local projects, production life, experience, gear and much more.

Camera Crew Panelists

Las Vegas, Nevada Production Camera Crew, Camera Operators and Freelance Film Crews

Sarah Marince:

Hello, everyone. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to crew talk. Brought you by shoots.video. I’m your host for this evening Sarah Marince and I have a Las Vegas panel with me today. Everyone’s from Vegas. Hello. So I’m gonna go down the line as I see you on my computer. And have you guys say your name a little bit about what you do and yeah, whatever else you wanna say, just a quick intro, but before I do that, I wanted to just remind everybody, if you have any questions throughout the show, you just drop it in the Q and a box and we will absolutely get to it. So I will start my introductions with Michael Sweeney. Hi, Michael.

Michael Sweeney:

Hey, how’s it going?

Sarah Marince:

Good. Thanks for being here.

Michael Sweeney:

No problem. No problem. This is fun.

Sarah Marince:

So tell me a little bit about what you do.

Michael Sweeney:

So I’ve been in Vegas for maybe like 10 years or so. I have a production company here not, not big, but big enough for some of the smaller productions here. Mostly camera op DP do a little editing. I think it’s pretty much producing as well. Just being in a production company, kind of gets those jobs. You just need crew or gear or locations or that sort of stuff.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. We are glad to have you. Thanks for being here, Tyson. You are next on my screen.

Tyson Hunsaker:

Cool. I’m Tyson Hunsaker. I actually moved out to Vegas last year, actually at the beginning of 2021. And I’m just a freelance videographer and mostly video editor at the moment based here in Vegas in Henderson.

Sarah Marince:

Great. Where did you move from

Tyson Hunsaker:

Idaho.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Well, thanks for being here next. We have Joe. Hi Joe.

Joe Marotta:

Hi, how’s it going? Good.

Joe Marotta:

My name is Joe Marotta. I’ve been out in Vegas actually my entire life. I recently just started up my production company. Before that I was doing freelance videography and film DP work. I’ve done pretty much every job on a set and that’s where a lot of my focus is. And then on top of that, I’m currently within management for a local ad marketing agency out here called vis cap media. And so we do a lot of social media ads and productions and stuff. We have a huge office space that we work out of as well.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, that’s very cool. Yeah. And next we have Mikey. Hi Mikey.

Mikey McNulty:

Hi my name is Mikey McNulty. I’ve been in Vegas since 2008, so 14 years now. I come from a stills background that migrated into just about every type of media there is cause you can’t really specify one media this day and age. There’s a very flowing market. And more recently in the last couple of years, my career has taken me to Ariel, both in drone and low altitude helicopter work.

Sarah Marince:

Wow. That sounds really cool. We’re gonna have to dive into all of that a little later, but that’s pretty awesome. Thanks for being here. Yep. And last but not least, we have Miles. Hi Miles.

Miles Murphy:

Hi, I’m Miles Murphy born and raised in Vegas and do freelance directing DP and editing mainly for music videos.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, very cool. Awesome. Well, thanks guys. I’m gonna kinda launch into my list of questions here that I have for you.

Sarah Marince:

I guess I’ll start with Michael, how did you get into production? What were your first steps?

Michael Sweeney:

How far back do you want to go?

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh> take it from the top.

Michael Sweeney:

Since I was a kid, I’ve always had the camera in my hands, always been interested and I always take a photo camera to school. It’s just always been visuals have, have always been part of my world, getting in it professionally. Just kinda, I think, as you get older, trying to find out what you want to do where you want to be. I just started talking to friends and they’re like, oh, I, you know, of course I think a lot of people started the, Hey, I need a senior photo or wedding video or, or something like that. And then you just start doing it and you realize you can get paid for it. So you, you start doing what you love and getting paid for it. I guess that’s kind of how it goes. I came from Reno, so I’ve been here and close enough to LA where I don’t have to be there, but can still get work

Sarah Marince:

Nice. Now, do you like, or did you like doing wedding videos? Cause I, from what I hear, that can be very stressful. <Laugh> not at all. Yeah. Not a lot people do.

Michael Sweeney:

Yeah. If friends ask me, Nope, sorry, I’ll pass. ’em On to the people. I know. I, I just, I cannot do those, the senior photos, anything like that. I strictly more, you know, the narrative commercial aspect of of film and photography,

Sarah Marince:

Weddings were your stepping stone to get where you are. I

Michael Sweeney:

Guess I wouldn’t say it was my stepping stone. It was the thing that there’s always weddings and you can always make money off it and, and starting out it’s I think it’s kind of easy to get you know, work through that, through that means,

Sarah Marince:

Well, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that brief history of how you got started. Yeah. Joe, what about you? What was your journey like to get where you’re now?

Joe Marotta:

I love this question because it’s the exact opposite of what Michael said. <Laugh> I didn’t grow up having a passion for camera work. Like it was never any of that. I actually went to Las Vegas academy for music and then I didn’t really do anything related to the, and I was 22 working as a business banker for Wells Fargo and I just got the, I just got like the, the, I just wanted to like to write something and I just started like writing scripts. I learned how to, like script formatting, formatting. And I, I read a, wrote a couple scripts and shared ’em with some people. And they were like, Hey man, these are like really, really good. And then I was like, oh, okay. And so I quit Wells Fargo and I just jumped into film completely. Like there was nothing before any of that, that like showed it. It was just some random thing that popped up. And now I’ve been doing it since 2016.

Sarah Marince:

How long did you stay at Wells Fargo until you were like, okay, this is, I’m gonna take this like full time now. Was there an overlap?

Joe Marotta:

So if you mean like once, like when I was at Wells Fargo, at what point I realized I was good at it when I left. Is that what you mean?

Sarah Marince:

Yeah.

Joe Marotta:

Then probably like four months.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, okay. Pretty quickly. Yeah,

Joe Marotta:

No. Yeah. I realized pretty quickly cuz like I was making a lot of money working at Wells Fargo, but it wasn’t like, I, I, I didn’t like it.

Sarah Marince:

You weren’t passionate about banging? No

Joe Marotta:

<Laugh> So instead, instead I left and I took some crappy, graveyard shift security job where I just sat in a Gatehouse and I could just write all night. And so yeah, that’s, that’s just what I ended up doing. So the exact opposite of mine, there was nothing building up to it. It just randomly happened.

Sarah Marince:

Does anyone else on the panel kind of have a story like that where you were doing something completely opposite of what you’re doing now?

Michael Sweeney:

I could say something. Okay. So actually when I was in Reno, before I came to Vegas, I was doing construction and that was like the job that paid you know, my bills at the time. And then the housing crisis happened and there was no construction. So that’s kind of what pushed me more into this field. So that’s my story.

Sarah Marince:

Mikey, did you, were you always doing this?

Mikey McNulty:

So like I said before, I’m kind of originally from a stills background. So I originally grew up liking taking pictures on a 35 millimeter camera like beach sunsets and stuff. And then I went to a photography school when I was 19 in Massachusetts. And that kind of got me into the club scene in Massachusetts, which then I started traveling to Vegas to photograph DJs. And then I toured with DJs and artists and did music festivals all over the country for a while and ended up moving to Vegas specifically for that. And that kind of evolved into not wanting to stay up until 5:00 AM and then like to repeat every day cuz that’s how the city is. So I faked out and started doing more production oriented photography stuff in Vegas and that the lighting and photography can be similar to the lighting and video.

Mikey McNulty:

And that kind of brought me into some grip and gaffer jobs along with some camera work because over the time this is dating a little bit, but the fived mark two kinda evolved a lot of photographers and videographers. And it was one of the things where that was when I started shooting video just because I could. And that led into more production work and I do work with Michael Sweeney sometimes now on his productions. But I, like I said, I’m all over the place and it can be that kind of brought me to where I am today for just not liking sitting on my couch, I guess. So I’ll pretty much do whatever comes along. And that’s, that’s where I am today.

Sarah Marince:

So you kind of just like one thing left, led to another with like you started here. Yeah. Here. Oh cool.

Mikey McNulty:

Oh yeah. And absolutely. And like one day I can be flying a drone the next day I can be on a photo shoot the next day I can be on a video shoot, like there’s all sorts of different stuff that I kind of do at this point in time. And it’s it’s, it’s a very busy thing. There’s a lot of work in this town that especially if you, you’re not sticking to one thing in my perspective if you want to be a DP, then that might be a little hard sometimes to just be a DP and never like do camera assist or any of that

Sarah Marince:

Is Las Vegas a good city to be production wise? I mean, I know everyone kind of wants to go to LA or goes to LA, but would you say Vegas has enough work? And the same kind of tier work?

Mikey McNulty:

I would probably say that every single person on this panel has a different answer to that because it sounds like everybody is kind of on their own paths. And that’s what I’ve met through, through everybody that I’ve met in Vegas. Everybody seems to be doing a couple different things in their life.

Sarah Marince:

All right. Well, I was wondering, I guess if you’re starting out, would you say Vegas might be a good place to start out in the industry?

Mikey McNulty:

I mean, if you wanna get coffee, everybody can use a PA. So that’s a really good thing. And I feel like maybe there’s a little less PAs than usual in the last couple of years. I’d agree with that. I’d agree with that. So you know, finding somebody that can work for a little bit lower rate that doesn’t necessarily need to have a skill. And I’ll even sidetrack this over into the photography world of this a little bit where I have issues finding assistance because nobody really wants to assist. They kind of just wanna take a picture and get Instagram famous and then completely bypass the entire production life of like how you even get to that point of having a high end client.

Sarah Marince:

So you mentioned Instagram is famous. Everyone wants to be Instagram famous. Well on the panel we had, I guess two weeks ago we were, I can’t remember where everyone was from, but somebody mentioned that the word viral makes them cringe, that they hate going viral or creating content to go viral. What do you guys like? What’s your take on viral, viral videos, VI viral content.

Joe Marotta:

So this is actually can, so my, my day job, the, the managing job that I do with vis cap media, like, so what that company does is that’s the goal is we create ads. So we create ads that we call UGC, which is meant to be user generated content. Which is like, anytime you go on Instagram or like TikTok and you see somebody who’s selling something and it looks like they’re sitting in their living room, that’s what we do. And we build sets and it’s fake. Like that’s the kind of stuff that we do. Wow. So that’s the entire goal for that company is to make those things go viral. So my opinion of that is that it has its place. Certain kinds of content are more built for something like that. But if you’re striving to go viral, then you’re probably gonna have a little bit harder time. Especially because the algorithms are just always changing. Like you, you need to be constantly working. It is a full-time job. If you, if you wanna produce content with the, like with the, with the goal of going viral, like it’s it’s full time.

Sarah Marince:

So that company kind of takes an organic approach to kind of not like here by this, but like you’re just chilling out and like you show the product kind of subtly.

Joe Marotta:

So actually it’s yes and no. So the kind of marketing that, that, that vis cap does is actually direct direct marketing, which is like, no, it’s very much like, yo, you should buy this. But the way that it’s presented is that someone is in their house with the product and it’s just like, oh my God, this changed my life. You need to get this. So it’s, essentially like what those late night TV ads you used to see with like the black and white and the red Xs and people who don’t know how to pour their water. Right. But it’s like it’s user generated in somebody’s living room. And so, yeah, it’s a whole leg of content that I don’t think people know exist because it’s, it’s supposed to look like somebody’s doing

Miles Murphy:

It is in their own house.

Sarah Marince:

That’s pretty cool. I like that. That’s neat. I wanna flip over to miles. You said you focus Mo mainly on music videos. Can you try to talk to us about the music video world?

Miles Murphy:

Yeah, so I mean, the way that I got into it was I was just making videos for fun. I’d always made videos like growing up just for fun. And when I was in high school, I was just posting them on YouTube and Instagram and stuff like that. And you know, I’d always, the goal had always been to eventually do this professionally, cause I always enjoyed doing it, but you know, I was like 15 in high school, but I got my, I got my first job. Then when I was 15, a band saw one of my videos and wanted me to do their music video for them. And so we did that and it went well. And then ended up going on like the later half of their tour with them. Just like over summer I wasn’t in school. But then from there it just you know, I, I kind of realized like, I do enjoy working with artists and bands and stuff like that and, and kind of like having a story paired with their song and being able to create that for them. I just really enjoyed it. And so from there on out, I’ve just been mainly focusing on music videos.

Sarah Marince:

Can I ask what band it was?

Miles Murphy:

It was a band called AJR.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, okay, cool. That’s pretty neat. Yeah. And so do you still get to work with them?

Miles Murphy:

I still do a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. And so do you think you wanna kind of stay in the music video track or do you wanna explore other areas of production?

Miles Murphy:

I’ve recently, I mean, I do like music videos a lot, but I have been exploring other things. I’ve been doing something a little bit more like commercial work recently with some medical companies in San Jose and some other tech startups and stuff like that. But I think eventually I wanna like more so steer towards maybe documentaries and feature land stuff, but I think music videos will always be there. I really enjoy it.

Sarah Marince:

Yeah. Especially if it’s like where your heart is. It’s like, yeah,

Miles Murphy:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. So a topic that we bring up pretty much every panel is COVID and how it affected you how it affected your work. If you had to like shift gears and, you know, really change your business. So Tyson, how were you affected by the pandemic for work?

Tyson Hunsaker:

I mean, first of all, I started to really take investing into equipment seriously and investing into things like creating my own little editing suite here at home getting my own stuff so that I could make some kind of money while everything was shut down. And also I have a daughter, so I had to try and make that work. <Laugh> creating like this little play corner in her, in my office space. But it also E even though there was a lot of adaptation and a lot of problem solving involved I really like how it opened up a lot of doors and opportunities to be working with people all across the country or even other places of the world that like, I, I can barely speak or communicate with because of, you know, some, maybe some language barriers. So it was kind of a double edged sword, I guess, in a good way and a bad way where life kind of threw us some curveballs, but at the same time, it also gave us a lot of opportunities too.

Sarah Marince:

How did you promote yourself in your work during that time?

Tyson Hunsaker:

Social media I, I tried to really hammer through social media as much as I could trying to build an Instagram, some YouTube videos. I revamped my website. I created more reels cuz at the time my website and my portfolio was lacking in any kind of professional structure or organization, it wasn’t well polished at the time. So that kind of gave me more incentive to just really invest a lot of time into just creating a, a nice presentation of myself and, and my, my brand

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh> and it worked.

Tyson Hunsaker:

I try

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh>. Yeah. Michael, what about you?

Michael Sweeney:

As you can see, I definitely pivoted a little cuz a lot of those remote interviews hooking the camera up to zoom as we’re doing right now. I ended up doing a lot of those actually, and it was a little bit of a learning curve just cuz another thing was the whole, like they wanted only one person there, you know, we don’t wanna spread COVID so it was always like I had to learn a little bit more audio, how to mic people and that sort of stuff. Just to get those little jobs that came here and there I guess for me, I think I’m kind of fortunate that I didn’t have to, I didn’t struggle too much. But that is, in terms of pivoting, that’s probably where I went and then as time went on, obviously things opened back up. I had to learn the COVID protocols. I took a few training classes like COVID safety. And yeah, I think that’s kind of the only thing I could think of that really kind of shifted. And as we are now, we’re pretty much back to our normal production. So I don’t think I could really say much more on that.

Sarah Marince:

Did anyone hear, like really have to scramble or switch gears in terms of what you were doing before COVID and then during like the early days of the pandemic?

Joe Marotta:

No, I mean, at least I didn’t before COVID I was I, I, I would say that I, that the work amount didn’t really change it just who it was being done for. Like before that I was working with different productions or like companies and stuff, but then like that kind of dried up. It’s not that I really switched gears. I was just like, okay, I guess I’m gonna make my own stuff for a little bit. And I would just, I just, I just, I used that time to learn everything that I would think, I thought that I would need once it ended. So it was just me shooting stuff in my house. Like I like me and my girlfriend did comedy skits and, and I did visual visual aesthetic shoots. And I learned, I started exploring how to do the art of storytelling with the camera and stuff with no a like no dialogue and audio. So it didn’t really suit me, it didn’t really like to completely change things. It was just kind of like, oh, I guess this is happening. And yeah, that’s how it was for me

Sarah Marince:

Learning to adapt <laugh> yeah. Mikey, what about you?

Mikey McNulty:

So originally like the day it, the strip shut down, I started going down and videotaping as much as I could, which I’m seeing some head dots here, so I’m assuming some other people did. And it was such an eerie feeling. I was down there by myself and there was just nobody there and it was like time to gather as much content as I could of like photos and videos of this stuff, because like the casino doors were shut with clothes signs and all the billboards were dark. So that was the start of this thing where I didn’t know what was going on. Nobody did. And the one thing that I could do more and more with nobody around is fly a drone and that definitely just skyrocketed and launched me into way more aerial stuff.

Mikey McNulty:

And that’s throughout the pandemic. Like me, I kind of got this treat of being able to go film the strip when nobody’s there and really figure out how to do stuff on the strip with Ariel. Almost like a practice run because all the like there was no police, there was no like crowds. There was no nothing. So it all kind of played out where I had like a training wheel time to just go fly in one of the busiest places in the world. And that definitely benefited me because as things started getting back into where they are now, I just had a killer portfolio of the entire Las Vegas strip. And that was what definitely helped launch my aerial stuff to where it is today.

Sarah Marince:

Did anybody else kind of do the same thing? Just go out. I did shoot whatever.

Michael Sweeney:

I definitely went down on a trip. Like he’s saying, I took a camera down there and filmed a bunch of just my buddy walking around and these empty parking lots and stuff. It was a trip. It was really weird.

Mikey McNulty:

Yeah. Sorry guys, I’m gonna butt in for a second. I see some questions on the drone stuff on the chat. So I have permits and also about the interference shoot. I’m inspired too with the send remote. So I don’t really get that many interference issues, but every time I fly, I do have FAA permits and all of the police are notified of that. So that’s the way to avoid the fines.

Sarah Marince:

Oh yeah. I see. We had some questions about all of that. Okay, cool. Well, yeah. Thank you for the little drone info. I didn’t, I didn’t know that you had to have a permit to shoot on the strip. That’s pretty cool. Awesome. Let me get to my questions over here. Oh,

Mikey McNulty:

Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Completely. I’m now cutting off everybody. I definitely cut off

Sarah Marince:

Miles.

Mikey McNulty:

Like I was definitely saying something. Oh,

Tyson Hunsaker:

You’re fine.

Sarah Marince:

It’s totally fine. One thing that we usually end up talking about on the production talks is about gear and what your favorite pieces are, what your must-haves are in your kit. So Tyson, I’ll start with you. You wanna talk a little bit about your gear and what your favorite piece is?

Tyson Hunsaker:

Favorite pieces, batteries and GAFE tape. <Laugh> what I but you know what I, what I shoot on mostly when it comes to just like my own short films or short documentaries or some commercial work, I have a black magic pocket cinema camera, and a set of Sigma art lenses. I love Sigma arts.

Michael Sweeney:

Those are great lenses. Yeah.

Tyson Hunsaker:

Yeah. I have great lenses. I like, I just have like, you know, the 18 to 35, the 50 and the 70, and that kind of takes care of everything for me. So yeah, those are great. Yeah, I just, I can’t say enough good things about those SIGs. And

Michael Sweeney:

Do you have the, do you have the cinema versions or, or the like DSLR versions?

Tyson Hunsaker:

Just the DSL, like the photo versions. Okay. Yeah, but I did. I would actually recommend it if anyone likes uses like photo lenses, but wants to use a follow focus. Like you can just get like these $30 follow focus, gearings that you can just like slide right onto your yeah. Your lenses. Those are awesome to have. So that’s another favorite. Those are really nice to have. So you don’t have to use those weird zip tie things back. That was the worst. If you have it, use it, but like, you know, <laugh>

Sarah Marince:

Michael, what some of your gear must haves?

Michael Sweeney:

<Laugh> if my buddy was on here right now, he’d laugh. I have these things, I call crystals. So I like, they’re just basically like prisms or little pieces of glass, or some of them are actually screw-on filters that have like, just different artifacts to ’em. They can do like, they’re part like I wouldn’t say split diopter, but they’re like open in the middle. So there’s like diopters on both sides. I like using those, cuz it just adds a little bit something to the, the frame sometimes, you know, putting a little bit of like these prisms or these I don’t know if I’m using the right words, words. I always call ’em crystals cuz that’s what they look like. And you put ’em in front and the light reflects on ’em or refracts on ’em and you can shoot light into ’em and you kinda get these cool different effects, just blurry, like kind of interesting aspects to like the foreground elements.

Michael Sweeney:

And it just kind of adds a little bit like if you’re shooting a lot of trade shows or, or just some like a hotel, you know, you’re doing like a, a Dolly or something into a living room it’s kind of boring. I had to look like you’re crossing PA past like this refracted light or something. I’d say that other than that, you know, I don’t have any MUHAS. I mean, I have a bunch of gear <laugh> but all it can come and go. It just kind of depends on the shoot. I think

Sarah Marince:

I’ve seen those crystals as you were calling yeah. Before, and that’s a pretty cool effect, which

Michael Sweeney:

I have, I have ’em on my car. I could, could have grabbed them, but yeah, I have all sorts of different kinds. You can get ’em on Amazon or there’s actually, what’s a company like FX prism or something sells a bunch of different versions of I think they’re fun, you know, they just, they’re not in every case thing or use, but they can add a little bit to the, the image.

Sarah Marince:

Cool. Joe, what are some pieces of gear that you would say people who are starting out should have in their kit?

Joe Marotta:

I mean, it depends on what they want to do if they’re trying to do like videography then like videography or like running gun shooting, then it’s, it’s probably best to have like a small compact camera. The camera, like I’ve always been a black magic guy. Like I love the company. I love what they do. I love how they make everything so cheap to compete with like the bigger companies. And that’s personally what I use, but lately I’ve started using the the Canon R five and R five C. And that thing is just an absolute powerhouse of a camera like that thing you can do videography with that ‘s autofocus is absolutely amazing. It is light, it shoots eight K like it’s, it’s absolutely insane and it’s cheaper than, than most cameras that can shoot eight K. So depending on what you’re trying to do, if you’re, if you’re trying to do like films that I think the most important thing is getting some good lights, honestly.

Joe Marotta:

I think that lighting is something that people take for granted and they don’t put enough work and effort towards that in like the indie community. So just getting some good name, brand quality lights even, or like even some go docs, lights, and then learning to use them. Like you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make something amazing. My first, my first dozen projects were shot on a Panasonic G seven, that cost me $400. And it was just a matter of me learning how to light. So yeah, that, that’s what I would say. Some, some lights and then learning to use them.

Michael Sweeney:

Lighting would be the most important thing aside from anything else. Cause that’s what really shapes the image.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Marince:

Mikey, on the photography side, what would you say are some things that you should have in your kit?

Mikey McNulty:

I like where Joe was actually going with that, where it, you can, you can have a really bad camera and as long as you light things, then you’re kind of all set. So if you were going in photography, like I would always say and this, this may be more on the video end as well. That’s like when you invest in good glass, it just never goes out of style and it never gets old and it never loses its value. So if you go out and you buy a really nice lens with a kind of crappy camera, you can always upgrade the camera, but the lens does make a huge difference, especially if you know how to light things. So, and that’s where it comes into play. What we were just talking about before is going on sets with lower Bo or as a lower person, maybe a PA or something and learning the lighting and how people like things, cuz it makes all the difference in the world. And obviously you’ll know the difference between a red and a DSLR, but when you’re starting off, it really is helpful to know the lighting first along and then follow.

Sarah Marince:

How do you know when it’s time to upgrade to the newer or better piece of equipment?

Mikey McNulty:

You don’t have to put it on a credit card

Joe Marotta:

<Laugh> yeah. Yeah. Cause that’s, I would actually agree with that too. Cause like it’s, I, I think like upgrading to the, to the newer thing or like the better thing I think it’s, it’s, it’s not usually as necessary as people think it is. Like if you’re running around, like with I, I would, I would say if you’re running around with like a 15 year old, 10 ADP cam quarter, then yeah. Probably wanna look into upgrading, but as long as you can move your, as long as you can swap out lenses and as long as you’re able to, to tell the story that you want with the, with that, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter what camera it is. Like if your story requires you to have really good control over the color, then you probably need a 10 or 12 bit camera. That’s able to, to shoot in rock. But like, so it really depends on who you are. It depends on the story you’re trying to tell, but like, I, I, I think that this idea that you have to upgrade to the newest and greatest thing, you don’t need to do that unless you have a purpose for it. So if you, if you don’t have to put it on a credit card and you actually have a reason for getting it then. Okay. But other than that, I think it’s more about just growing your skills.

Sarah Marince:

Can you guys, oh yeah, go ahead.

Michael Sweeney:

Go ahead. I was gonna on that same note I’d say the reason to upgrade or the time when you need to upgrade is when it benefits like the story cuz ultimately the visuals or what you’re trying to express is the most important aside from, you know, lighting obviously let people see the image, but once if you need something that helps tell a story better, I think that’s maybe a time to upgrade or rent or something. Just try something new.

Sarah Marince:

Would you recommend renting the piece of equipment that you’re looking to buy before you buy it to test it out? So,

Michael Sweeney:

So that’s good, yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. And then also just on the note of buying too, it also depends on your market LA I don’t think anyone owns gear over there in LA <laugh> probably same for New York cuz you know, there’s just, there’s huge rental houses. You could rent stuff. If I needed something, anything right now I could call ’em up and get it in like an hour. But somewhere like Vegas here that’s kind of where I got stuck stuck is is the purchasing game, the gear game, because there wasn’t a lot of stuff here, which is a benefit in the plus or benefit in a negative negative is you spend a lot of money, but the plus is if you have that one camera, no one else in town, has it, people are coming to you to rent it or use it. So yeah, it’s also the market too. If, if you’re in LA I, I don’t think you would ever want to own anything cuz you just save that money for either your projects or to pay the high mortgage or rent

Joe Marotta:

<Laugh> yeah. Yeah. The thing that I go with when renting is specifically the things that I usually rent are lenses. I like, I’ll own the cameras and I’ll own the lights and stuff. But like renting is for specialty things and there’s no way I can ever like, I mean, until I have like a giant, huge company, there’s no way I’m gonna be owning all of the lenses I’ll ever need. Like lenses are the things where it’s really dependent on the project. Like I did a project a couple months ago where I wanted a super wide 12 millimeter with no fisheye. And so I had to go rent. I can’t remember the name of the brand, but I had to go rent off of lens rentals and it was like such a specialty lens. It would cost me like $10,000 to buy it, but I can just rent it for a week for a hundred bucks. And now yeah. So lenses are usually things that I rent.

Michael Sweeney:

Yeah. And I would say that also the, what, what, you buy like cameras I mean you don’t wanna buy the newest and greatest camera every year cuz 10 of ’em will come out in one year. It’s stupid. But stuff like say C stands, you know, you could own those for the rest of your life. Those aren’t bad to buy. Anything like that, lights again, you know we’re now in the L E D tech. So I don’t think lights are gonna change drastically as they did going from hot lights and tongues and lights to L led. So buying lights, you’ll probably always be able to use those regardless of the new technology. So I think that, I don’t know if I, I think I’m kind of going off on a tangent there, but that’s kind of the idea of like what to buy and when to upgrade, I guess is, is choose cameras are probably the worst thing to buy <laugh> in my opinion, even though, you know, we all own ’em but we kind of have to in this town.

Sarah Marince:

Yeah. We had somebody in the chat say that with tech moving so fast, it’s probably not a good idea to own gear unless you’re busy on a daily basis. Would you guys agree with that?

Michael Sweeney:

Yeah, probably.

Miles Murphy:

I think so. Yeah.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. I would say either that or if, if like I think that the two reasons to own gear is if you’re, if you’re constantly using it on a daily basis or if you’re the kind of person who will just get a project or something that you’re brought onto at the drop of a hat, like if it’s a last minute thing and you don’t have time to go online and get a rental because we don’t have those big rental houses, then whatever, you, you get enough to make it work. If you had to, like, I don’t have big fancy lenses for my cameras. I have broken the cinema lenses. I have the Sigma art lenses and then I make it work with those. And if I needed something super specialized, then I would hope that I’m getting more than a couple days notice to do it.

Sarah Marince:

So my miles, what were you gonna say about all of it?

Miles Murphy:

I was gonna say, I agree with Michael with, I mean, LA has so many things like rental things, a lot of my work I have to commute to LA for, but I mean, I, yeah, I agree with what everyone’s saying. I don’t think you necessarily need the latest and greatest camera. I mean I used a G five for a long time before I finally upgraded, but also now a lot of my stuff I shoot on super 16 and super 35 millimeter film. So I mean, that’s cool. That’s mainly what I’m doing now, so I don’t even need to upgrade to something like the latest digital camera or anything like that.

Sarah Marince:

All right. So I wanna shift and kind of talk about lessons that you’ve learned over the years. Whether a lesson or just a really good piece of advice you would have for somebody starting out and trying to get where you guys are, Michael, we’ll start with you. What are some of the lessons you’ve learned?

Miles Murphy:

I

Michael Sweeney:

Think I wrote some down here jobs come and go, like don’t be stressed out. I mean the jobs will be you, you might think, oh, I have to get this job because there’s not gonna be anymore. There’s a lot of work out there. Believe it or not. It takes some effort in networking. The cheap jobs are usually the worst and hardest jobs. You would think you’re getting paid less so you don’t have to do as much, but it’s the complete opposite, at least in my experience. So if you get a job that comes in and it’s like a really low rate or you know, long hours or something, then it’s usually gonna be more of a pain in the ass. Don’t stress. Cuz usually if you take that job and it’s proven this way, every single time I’ve ever done that, a better job, that’s easier and more pay comes along and you’re already screwed because you’re on that other job. And then yeah, that, that was kind of the ones I wrote down. Those are the things I learned

Sarah Marince:

You are so right about clients that’ll come in, like it’s like a lower budget project or whatever. And it’s like, those are the ones that’s just like, you just can’t seem to please. And they’re coming back for this and that and the other thing. And so I, I totally agree with you on that one.

Michael Sweeney:

Yeah. They cut corners and then it all falls on you in the end. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh> totally Tyson. What about you?

Tyson Hunsaker:

Yeah, I’d echo those. Those are good lessons. I’d probably add you know, learn from any and every source of knowledge you can, you know like learn the craft from as many different places as you can think of and just kind of be a sponge and absorb. This is especially for people who are starting out, but honestly, in our, in our industry though, like that’s that doesn’t change. You know, we’re, we’re always learning new things and especially since tech is always evolving, we always have to be adapting to the tech two. And then also know your value, know your worth. You know, don’t, don’t be taken, don’t put yourself in a position where you’re doing a job for maybe low pay or at the expense of your mental health that could compromise your love for what you do. And you could end up just really not liking seeing what you do because maybe you feel like you’re not being valued or you’re being taken advantage of just to know your worth and, and protect your love for what you do. And let that exude in the projects that you take too.

Sarah Marince:

Absolutely. That’s wonderful advice. Wonderful advice, Joe, what do you, what do you have to say?

Joe Marotta:

I mean, I would echo everything that Michael and Tyson said. I think the most important thing for people to know both when they’re starting and even as they become experts in their fields, is that there’s always gonna be someone better than you. And instead of being upset about it, you should take it as an opportunity to watch them learn what they’re doing and take those skills and make them your own. Like we

Sarah Marince:

Joe, you froze there.

Joe Marotta:

Okay. This guy’s a little bit, oh, oh,

Sarah Marince:

Go back, back up a little bit and say it again. What,

Joe Marotta:

What’s the last thing that you guys heard <laugh>

Michael Sweeney:

You were talking about someone coming around that’s better than you. And like, instead of being upset, like take it in.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. Yeah. So we have to be collaborators. And so it’s, it’s, there’s always gonna be skills that are, that are like, someone’s gonna be better than you at something. And it’s, it’s really important to be able to, to take a step back and learn how to listen. And then the second is you just fail. You’re gonna fail. You’re gonna fail a lot. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s actually the best thing you can possibly do because every time you fail, you’re just learning how to not fail that hard next time. And so you just can’t let yourself get beat down because you just seem to be failing. It’s just, everyone fails. You’re gonna fail. And, and you’ll just, you’re gonna make it through it.

Sarah Marince:

It’s gonna happen, but you gotta get back up on the horse.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. Sometimes you just, you go back and you look at your footage and you’re just like, okay, then you have to be able, instead of being upset about it, you have to be able to say, okay, why was it crap? How do I make it not crap next time? And that’s all you can do.

Sarah Marince:

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. That’s good advice, Mikey, moving on to you.

Mikey McNulty:

How would, I would definitely say time takes it. It just takes time. Everything takes time. You can’t really go through any of this process and expect anything to happen tomorrow. And also along with that, the biggest thing too is I, I feel like every day that I work a job, I work it with some type of family and it’s all about the crews we have that we’ve worked together. And you know, like after a 14 hour day, can you go through and still look at that person and be like, I don’t want to kill that guy. Like that’s like, we’ve all been through some stressful things. And I feel like I could work with any single person on this panel. And after a 14 hour day, that’s just a complete hell hole. You will either know if that person is like your new brother or you just can’t work with them again.

Mikey McNulty:

And I feel like there’s not a lot of the people in Vegas that you can’t work with again, but it’s always that thing where your next job most likely comes from the person to the left to right. Of you that you’ve worked with before that needs some help on something else that rolls into something else that rolls into something else. And it’s just a perpetual process of not being likable, but just being yourself and doing a good job, no matter what the job is. And for the love of God, trying to have fun with this, because there’s, we’ve all just been on 14 or 18 or 24 hour days where you just wanna leave. And that, that person next to you, that you’re working with feels your pain and can definitely help you. And you, you can call them the next day and be like, Hey, what’s the next job.

Michael Sweeney:

If I can add into that real quick the same thing is word gets around too, especially in a small town like this in production. So the attitude that you show on set or around other productions, people will spread quickly. So people are more likely to work with someone that doesn’t know as much but is super good, go getting and, and just happy to be around. I always like to say, like, we’re not saving lives, you know, so there’s nothing to be stressed about. Just, just get the job done safely and then, you know, maybe the next one will be half as hard, I guess.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a, and I, I would say that another really important thing for people starting out is definitely the attitude thing. Because like, if I, I can’t count the number of times where I’ve been on a set with someone who’s had a world of experience, but they just, they just don’t seem to love it. And I’m like, then why are you doing this? Whereas I get one guy who’s brand new and he’s presented with a problem instead of breaking down and like, oh my God, I don’t know what to do. He’s saying, huh. Okay, well, let’s see, how can we solve this? And it’s just like, it’s that attitude where when you’re presented with a problem and you say, okay, how can we solve it? I think that’s so huge.

Sarah Marince:

No, that’s all great advice. And Mikey, what you were saying, I think was, you just said you gotta be happy, like enjoying it, and that’s a big part of it. Big, big part of it. Miles. What, what advice do you have?

Miles Murphy:

I mean, I love what everyone has said, but I think one thing at least for me, when I was starting out, was finding your style with video. I mean, I think this could depend on what kind of work you want to get into. But I think with music videos, especially, which is, you know, mainly what I’ve been doing, having a style that is original or like, you know, creates value for the artist, I think is something that’s important. But also like, you know, if you’re on set, you know, obviously talk to everyone, be nice, you know, the basics like that. But find who you enjoy working with and, you know, keep them close and, and continue working with them. I think that’s what, for me at least, has helped the most.

Sarah Marince:

That was great advice that you all gave. Thank you guys very much for that. And I think we’re getting close to wrapping up one question that did just come in, I think is do any of you retain an attorney?

Mikey McNulty:

I have an attorney on retainer right now for an issue, but I do not consistently have one on retainer.

Michael Sweeney:

Think It must

Sarah Marince:

Get situation based. Something comes up then you would.

Mikey McNulty:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually the cheaper way to do that is just wait until the issue comes up and then they take a retainer for the issue as opposed to just giving them your money and waiting for an issue to happen.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. My, my attorney is legal zoom, so I, I that’s who I go for for all my contracts and stuff. He’s a great guy. I love him.

Sarah Marince:

Anyone else have anything to say about the legal side of things?

Tyson Hunsaker:

I’d say like, I mean, yeah, it is pretty situational and sometimes you might not need it, but it is good to have, especially when it comes to contracts, cuz you’ve gotta protect yourself when it comes to your you know, your time and your work. I don’t, I don’t hire a lawyer or attorney on retainer, but I do have a family member who specializes in contracts when it comes to these kinds of things and he went to law school. So I just kind of unfairly ask him first, some help every once in a while

Sarah Marince:

And it’s always nice to have a lawyer in the family. Like if you have a lawyer in the family or close friend, that’s always very helpful. Yeah.

Tyson Hunsaker:

Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Great. Well, I think we’re getting close to wrapping up. So at the end of every show, I always go around again to everyone on the panel. And you can just say your name again. If you have a website where people can find you or if you wanna say your Instagram handle, whatever you wanna say now is the time that you get to promote yourself. So Michael, I will start with you.

Michael Sweeney:

All right. My name’s Michael Sweeney. My production company is everything to nothing studios or ETN studios for short Instagram ETN studios and Facebook ETN studios and website www and update in a long time. But ETNstudios.com.

Sarah Marince:

Well thank you for being here and if you also wanna drop all the information that you say into the chat box, that’d be great Tyson. You’re next.

Tyson Hunsaker:

Thanks again for having me. You can find me everywhere just with hunsakermedia.com. Hunsaker’s just my last name. You can find hun media on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn. I think that’s kind of it. And yeah, you can follow for some updates on a short film I’m working on we’re finishing up principal photography next week. It’s a fun little, no budget passion project that I read and wrote the script for like years ago. Just never got around to making it until now until I just decided, you know, what it’s time.

Sarah Marince:

Well, it was great to have you and best of luck with your passion project.

Tyson Hunsaker:

Thanks.

Sarah Marince:

Yep, Joe.

Joe Marotta:

So Joe Marotta’s company is called Ascended Entertainment. I will drop the website link in the chat. That’s pretty much where you can go to find everything. Before we move on, I still wanted to ask a question to Mikey, actually just a real quick question. When you, when you went in from stills into video I, I like asking this question to photographers. What do you think is more challenging with photography or video production?

Mikey McNulty:

I feel that photography is slightly more challenging for the sole reason that in photography, you are able to look at an exact image for as long as you want in video. It is a moving picture and you move on from that. So your lighting needs to be more on point. Your composition needs to be more on point because I can look at that image for eternity and figure out where the flaws are. I do notice this a lot in video that there is especially in portraiture scenes. There’s a lot of sloppy lighting, but you don’t recognize it’s sloppy lighting cause it’s not a solid photo.

Joe Marotta:

Yeah. That’s that’s oh, okay, good. Cause I, my, my take on that was, it always seems to me, like I started with a little bit of photography, just learning cameras and it always seemed like the harder thing simply because like with video you have 24 frames every second to cover up a mistake. Whereas with a photo, you have to tell an entire story with just a single frame. And so like that just seemed like way too much pressure for me.

Mikey McNulty:

So one of, one of my things is lighting patterns on the nose really gets me and sometimes the lighting patterns and even movies, they go to complete crap. And if you can keep like a Rembrandt light on a face for an entire scene and video, that is an amazing thing to do, or like keep it a short loop or a long loop. Like if you can pick one of those lighting patterns and actually get it through the entire scene and video that in itself is an amazing challenge. Yeah. But in the photo you just have that leeway where if you have a crappy lighting pattern, that’s what you see.

Joe Marotta:

Mm that’s a really interesting take on it. I’ve never heard that, that side of it. Sorry. I just had to ask that question the moment he said he was dead, still photography. I had to bring that up because I asked everybody that. So

Sarah Marince:

No worries. No, you can ask any question you want. Mikey, you wanna go ahead and promote yourself?

Mikey McNulty:

Yeah, sure. It’s Mikey McNulty, my Instagram and my YouTube are both my name, Mikey McNulty. My company name is Refracting Pixels, LLC, and my website is McNultystudios.com.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Thank you for being here today and miles go for it.

Miles Murphy:

My Instagram is MilesMurphy and my website is milesmurphy.com.

Sarah Marince:

All right. And oh, you said your Instagram right? Miles Murphy. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you guys all for being here today. It was very informative and we learned all about what you do, which is great and best of luck to all of you on the projects you’re working on. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday and for everyone else, I’m Sarah Marince you can find me @ sarahmarince.com for all your voiceover needs. And I will see you guys next time. Thanks everybody.

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