Crew Talk: We talk with a few Phoenix camera crews. We’ll talk about local projects, production life, crew experience, gear, their services and much more.

Phoenix, Arizona Panel

Arizona Video Production and Film Crew

Sarah Marince:

Hello, everyone. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to crew talk brought to you by shoots.video. I’m your host for this evening, Sarah Marince. And it’s been a few weeks, so I’m glad to be back with all of you today. We have a production panel from Arizona, and so today we have bill Dan, Jason, and Bear with us. Hey guys.

Sarah Marince:

I’m gonna go through one by one and have you kind of introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about what you do and your services but first for everyone tuning in, if you have any questions or thoughts throughout this webcast, feel free to drop them in the question and answer box the Q and a box, and we will definitely get to them before the webcast ends. So anyway, on with the show bill you’re first on my screen. So I’m just gonna have you say who you are, where you are, a little bit about what you do and the services you provide.

Bill Searle:

Okay. Well, my name’s Bill, so I have a company called joy productions. I’ve been freelance crew for, oh, probably close to 20 years here. I, I, when I started out, I I just got a degree in SCC and film video, and I went out looking for jobs and didn’t really find much. And so I thought, well, I’m just gonna do my own thing. So I started doing that. I did some TV ads, the very first TV ad I did. It was when cable was little more fashionable than it is now. And the first TV I did was for one of, for a guy. I, I did a trade for somebody restoring my car. He was a 60, 67 Mustang. I still have it. But in any case he did the paint job and decked it out.

Bill Searle:

And at first it was really looking terrible. And I, I started out the, a my car, my car, I love my car, but it looks like crap. And that got a lot of attention for ’em. And so that’s how I started with TV ads. I’ve done a lot of, I’ve done a, I did a few of those. I did some sports stuff and some video depositions. I did a little bit of that sort of thing. That’s where, you know, they heavily shoot stuff for courts. And that went, that went pretty well. It was kind of interesting. I had one where a a guy was accused of racketeering and all that sort of stuff back. And they, they, we interviewed their neighbors and talked about what wonderful people that he was, what a wonderful guy he was.

Bill Searle:

So I’ve done that. I did a TV show. I didn’t do it. I was a DP in the editor for a TV show called Arizona country television a few about a few years back. And I worked with a producer who was interested in doing a TV show. He’d been in the TV business back in New York in the sixties. And he did, he wanted to do a TV show about Arizona and about the whole Western lifestyles and all the cowboy stuff and all that kinda thing. And so we did a show called Arizona country TV, and he went through the money before we actually got it on the air, but we shot five shows and it was, it was, it was very interesting and it was a lot of fun. I worked with Bobby, Jean Olson. Who’s a who does some stunt, who’s a stunt writer from what I understand. And she was our host for this.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, wow. So it sounds like you’ve done a little bit of everything. Yeah.

Bill Searle:

I’ve done a wide variety of things. I’ve also done some corporate videos of course. And it’s just a wide variety of things. It’s mostly been me as a one man operation every once in a while. I have people helping me, but most of the time I’m just working by myself, kinda, you know, doing the lighting and everything. So,

Phoenix, Arizona Video Production and Location Camera Crews

Sarah Marince:

Well, we are glad, we’re glad to have you here. I have a lot of questions about the court TV stuff that we’ll come back around to at some point. So start thinking about all those fun stories. I’m sure you have some <laugh>. Yeah. But next on my screen, we have Dan, Hey, Dan, you’re muted. Dan,

Dan Felska:

There we go. There you go. That’s a good way to start right off the bat. So yeah, I I did pretty much all of those things that he did. I worked, you know, all right. Maybe I don’t have that deep of a background. I also went to CC, so I knew I liked this guy right away. And when I graduated from SCC, I was still working for Fox and I had been with them for about 10 years, not Fox news just to clarify. And when I left that and started my own little company it went surprisingly well and things really started to grow. And I was getting excited about the direction that the company was taking, and then COVID hit and I was unsure of my future direction, but somehow we sustained our way through that. And now I do a lot of stuff for local companies. PXG is one that I shoot for quite a bit, which is here in town. And yeah, my goal is to have my feature at least in pre-production by this time next year. And so here’s hoping I can get that script finalized which is, you know, me and everyone else.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Well, thank you for joining us today. And next we have Jason. Hey Jason.

Jason Ryan:

Hey, I’m Jason Ryan. I’m the owner of psychic flying monkey productions and I’m a Phoenix camera operator, cinematographer and director. And I started with action sports videos. BMX videos specifically went to film school and just started getting more and more into it, phasing into this industry. And so now I make music videos. So I direct and DP music, videos, stuff for TV commercials, promos, short films, feature films, narratives, documentaries. I’ve had my stuff aired on TBS, either stuff that I was shot or DPD or directed. So TBS, PBS food network fuel TV, spike TV, oxygen cowboy channel, Great American country, CMT digital MTV, digital, and I’ve had films. As far as film festivals. I’ve had well over a hundred films that I’ve either DP or directed worldwide in festivals.

Sarah Marince:

So you stay pretty busy <laugh>.

Jason Ryan:

Yep.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Thanks for being here with us and last but not least Bear.

Bear Prandelli:

Hey guys, Bear Prandelli with Wulfenbear media. We’re a video production company here out of Phoenix. Mostly specializing in a lot of corporate and commercial stuff, but we’ve also kind of worked with quite a big range of clients in different industries. So I got started with this. I went to school for broadcast and kind of more just communication stuff. So I was working in like local news and just sports events, things like that, doing a lot of grip work G work, anything like that. And then in 2017, moved to Phoenix I was living in Maine before that for five years during college went to hus university, moved out to Phoenix and my brother Wolf came out and joined me and we started the company. So Wolf and bay and forth the two names. So we, you know, we really started out kind of not knowing what direction we wanted to go.

Bear Prandelli:

So we’ve just kind of taken on a lot of work from everywhere. And I think as, as it’s started to come together, we’ve focused in a lot more on, you know, working with really good product stuff, as well as doing a lot of story driven commercial work. So for a lot of the corporate clients that we have, we really try to sell them on the story. We really try to work with businesses that are more interested in, in story than necessarily sales from that point of view, at least. So yeah, that’s about it for me.

Sarah Marince:

Love the company name. That’s super cool.

Sarah Marince:

Well, thanks for being here. Yeah. And so I have my list of questions as always. I’m just gonna kinda run through, ’em throw ’em out to random members of our panel here. And like we said before, if you guys wanna jump in on each other’s answers, that’s totally cool. But Dan, it sounds like you have had like an interesting story. So can you tell us, you know, what sparked your what sparked it for you to get into production and kind of your story from the beginning?

Dan Felska:

Yeah, so I grew up in Minnesota and I, I think like a lot of people developed a he or unhealthy obsession with film and television. And as the years went on, I, there was something in the back of my mind. I knew that I always wanted to be a part of it and do it, but it never seemed practical, especially in the Midwest up north where we were. And when I graduated from high school, it was pretty jarring, just kind of the options were like Applebees or Applebees. So I packed up my little two door Mazda and I came out here to Arizona and I had to kinda pick and choose what I brought and I brought movies <laugh> and that was a car full of films. And so I knew that if I was ever gonna get a film made of my own and have it really mean something to me I was gonna need to quote, start at the bottom.

Dan Felska:

And I learned very quickly that that was not the case. You just sort of have to get it done. So I graduated high school, moved out here and started attending SCC, which is the Scottsdale film school at the time. Now it’s kind of merged and become the school of theater with the community college. But I would just try to get on any set that I possibly could, whether it was a PA or helping the grips or doing anything I could. And as you know, the months went on in the years, went on, I would get better and better jobs. And I was still working, like I said, for Fox out here at the time, it was like the safe job. It was a paycheck. And I was so scared to take the leap and I turned 30 and they threw like a surprise party for me at this place where I was working.

Dan Felska:

And I was like, I missed the boat. I’m gonna be with this company forever. And my sister of all people basically just said like, quit start your company and get it done. And I did. And it was the best decision that I ever made. I’m incredibly fortunate to have learned from a ton of people. And since then, I’ve gotten to work with like some of my idols from John PI Jene to Kaminski to just anyone that you can think. I got to film will Smith jumping out of the helicopter into the grand canyon on his birthday. That was like one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. And I just, can’t when I look back and think, I never imagined that it would move so quickly. But I’m 33 now. And I, like I said, I shoot in town a lot for a company called PXG. I also shoot for a lot of real estate companies. And then my goal right now is mostly just hiding in this house out here and trying to get this script written so that I can get this shot and made. Yeah. So that is, that’s the goal right now.

Sarah Marince:

So we have your sister to thank for giving you the push to go out and do it on your own.

Dan Felska:

I think we have my sister to thank in a general sense for most of my good qualities. She will. She’s usually the one that slaps a sense into me. That’s

Sarah Marince:

Good. Is she the older sister?

Dan Felska:

She is, yes.

Sarah Marince:

Older sister. Yeah, I know.

Dan Felska:

Yes. She’s not much older by a few years, but she is much wiser. So yes, we have her and as well as my father, mother, of course, to thank for helping me out.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s neat. I’m glad that you’re now on the path to doing it all on your own and working on your script. <Laugh> Jason, I, I have a question for you. Can you say the name of your company again and kind of where that came from?

Jason Ryan:

It’s a psychic flying monkey production. I got it from an old sound by an old radio station. This guy’s saying the invisible psychic flying monkey. I thought I had a nice ring to it.

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh> I love it. No, it’s very cool. Very different. I love it. So can you talk about what kind of projects you’re currently working on?

Jason Ryan:

Let’s see. I just finished a music video, just release it last Wednesday.

Sarah Marince:

Tell us for who

Jason Ryan:

Called fishing for love it’s for a screenwriter. Wasn’t even, it’s not even a real band. Actually I say a songwriter, he wrote it, he got a, a guy <laugh> really a guy who was on studio to composed the music, laid down the music, got another singer’s a vocalist. They put together a song and then he, this songwriter hired me as a production company to make the video. And so I I produced it directed, DPD it and edited it all posts and just release it last one.

Sarah Marince:

Oh, awesome. You can like find it on YouTube. I’m assuming.

Jason Ryan:

Yep. Yep. Fishing for love.

Sarah Marince:

Cool. And can you kind of talk us through your journey from the beginning?

Jason Ryan:

Yeah. Start action sports. Well, actually I’m a BMX writer, so I started out riding BMX. Been doing that since I was 12. And then one point rider writer made videos came big, became a big thing. First production companies, little production companies were putting stuff together. Some BMX on TV, it was back in the eighties and then rider started making their own videos. So I got interested in that a few years after writers had made some videos and had some good success with it and got a video camera and 97 was my first one and just getting more and more, got more and more into it. After that I made a full link. BMX video was distributed nationally, a second one is distributed internationally and then just like production so much. So I decided to keep going, went to film school, went to sec, like a lot of these guys learned a ton.

Jason Ryan:

I always recommend film school to people. Learned a ton. There made great connections, made great pieces, made my first music videos there. And so starting out with a, was able to put together a good reel starting right outta film school. And then yeah, so I’ve been freelance, I’ve also done some corporate staging stuff and quite a bit of that actually, as I was doing everything else. So whatever stuff for TV, documentaries stuff directly for clients, commercials, promos it’s flexible doing corporate staging. It’s flexible and still working with lighting video, all that kind stuff. So I got great opportunities to do that, like shooting C green Jordan Sparks the band train operating camera on them. So that could act as my credits, but ultimately is, is kind of a corporate thing. And, I preferred doing really kind of film and TV freelance. And so is as, as basically ended no, since the beginning of 2020 was my last corporate gig. I’ve been able to do freelance film TV ever since.

Sarah Marince:

That’s awesome. And so 2020, obviously the pandemic affected everybody. And this is usually a hot topic when we ask people about how they kind of got through like what the beginning of COVID looked like for your business and kinda how you got through it. Did you branch off and do something else that now you do, so bear I’ll throw it to you. How did surviving the pandemic go for you guys?

Bear Prandelli:

Yeah, well, I mean, I think like everybody, we had the uncertainty in the beginning of like, what the hell is going on and, you know, to what extent is this gonna affect our industry? What new rules are gonna be put in place and how is that gonna change the way that we have to go about production? You know, I think, I mean, first off we were, you know, we got a well deserved vacation to go visit our mom for two months while everything was completely shut down. So we can’t totally complain. But we kind of found like, like many, we had to obviously look out to see what the different options were in terms of, you know, the SBA loans and just making sure that we had stuff to get us through. I think we took a look at what we have to do to downsize what was absolutely necessary.

Bear Prandelli:

And also are there parts of a process of people that were contracting that, you know, we wanna keep relationships and ones that maybe are too expensive that right now we can’t afford. So there was a lot of that kind of talk going on. Ultimately we went from, you know, having a warehouse space that we were utilizing maybe 25% of the time to being like, no, we can just do this all out of our home office. We don’t have to have, you know, a brick and mortar facility to do what we do. So that’s kind of some of the stuff that we dealt with. I, I will say being in Arizona, I feel like we were a little bit spoiled because as soon as we, like, we took off in the summer when COVID kicked in and then came back right in August towards the end of it and things were already starting to kind of, you know, get back into place in Arizona. So I know that on the east coast and like New York and LA, a lot of production cities, things got shut down pretty hard. I feel like we were insulated in Arizona from that a little bit. Because August really comes. We were like back in action, you know, and, and, and moving again, we really kind of managed to keep that going through this past year too. And especially the past few months, it’s felt really crazy. Like things have been super busy.

Sarah Marince:

I was gonna ask do things kind of feel back to normal and like what protocols are still in place

Bear Prandelli:

From. I mean, I would honestly say at least for where we are, like, I would say that our business actually kind of blossomed through COVID and now where we’re at now, like we are busier than we ever have been. We were definitely still very much in kind of the startup, like knowing how to shoot, but not knowing how to run a business point. You know, when COVID was kicking in, like we, we were starting to work on some bigger projects. We were starting to get bigger clients. But we knew how to shoot. We didn’t really know how to operate a business. And, and a lot of the things that we kinda learned through this process was, was how to do a lot of that. So for us where we’re standing, it was almost kind of just like, okay, what’s happening. And then all of a sudden we start coming out of it and it’s just been like, like that for us, which has been awesome. But I, I, you know, I don’t know how it’s been for a lot of others. I know that for other production companies in town that work like that, we know on a personal level, they’ve kind of been in the same basket. It’s like after we started to come out of all the lockdowns, it’s just been a consistent, like it’s getting busier and busier and busier and busier.

Sarah Marince:

That’s what we find. So many people like on the panels, no matter what the topic is like area that, you know, you kind of figured out how to navigate COVID and quarantine and like the lockdown and everything, but then once things started opening up, it is just like boom busier than ever.

Bear Prandelli:

Yeah. I, I think it also helped that for most of our shoots. You know, even when we’re working with certain bigger clients, like the scale of our shoots, isn’t usually huge. So we’re usually working with maybe a couple models or people within a company. But it’s on a smaller size. It’s not it’s not huge sets for not having to rent big sound stages and have enormous groups. So it helped for us that most shoots, it was like, okay, just take the precautions we need to take. And, and we’re good. Like we’re not working with huge groups of people. So I think that was kind of in our benefit too, because we were able to fit in a lot of stuff that, you know, if we were kind of a little bit bigger, it might have been harder. It might have been a lot more work to, to pull off.

Sarah Marince:

Oh yeah. That makes sense. Bill, how about you? How did it all kind of, well,

Bear Prandelli:

Yeah, I, I was on a pretty

Bill Searle:

Good role one before COVID hit and then everything kind of shut down. Fortunately I, okay. I had a studio at the time at what, what, what is now the late rate paradise valley mall? They tore it down, but before at that time it was there and I had a studio there and basically I, I, I found a customer that he had a, I don’t wanna call it. It was a, a, he had a business where he had to communicate with a lot of sales people that he had. And in order to do that, he used to have conventions all over the country, but he couldn’t do that anymore. So he decided to the way he gotta communicate with his people is through video. And I was shooting videos for him, of him making his speeches and what he usually does at these conventions so that, you know, he can keep in touch with his people.

Bill Searle:

And I got a lot of business out of that, and that was a little bit of my saving grace there as far as that goes. So anyhow, and they kept the studio. It was interesting even during the lockdown, the studio was kept open. It’s kind of a little funny, it’s a little bit of a funny thing here. He said that my, my landlord said that because we had a nonprofit in there that he, he, he went, he couldn’t close. And so even though my, I wasn’t connected with the nonprofit I could get in and have, and, and, and, and use my studio, was I a hundred percent legal, I really don’t know <laugh> he said that they were very vague about that sort of stuff. So he said, just do your thing, you know, so that’s what I did. You know, and, and, and, you know, basically I got enough business out that sort of thing to kind of keep myself into a little bit of a holding pattern through the whole thing.

Sarah Marince:

Wow. It was kind, it was nice. You gotta kind of sneak by there for a little bit. Yeah.

Bill Searle:

Yeah. I, I didn’t, yeah, I guess I did sort of sneak by, I, I just kind wandered in. Nobody said I couldn’t do it. So I went ahead. <Laugh>

Sarah Marince:

Nice. Hey, you make it work. We do have, we have a question in the chat box and it’s from Kate and anyone can kind of take this. So can you tell the small business owners in the audience ways they can use video to reach out to new clients who wants to take it?

Jason Ryan:

I’ll take that up, you know? Yeah. I go on so many websites where they don’t have videos. I mean, I actually wrote up a little thing. One of my flyers about just how powerful video is mm-hmm <affirmative>, it keeps people returning. It engages them, they stay on the website longer. One of the biggest things that has some kind of video on your website, you know, some greatest, like a little promo, somebody could just be as small as a minute, just introduce it will set you apart from every other competitor you have, you know, have video

Bill Searle:

People don’t read anymore. And so, you know, give ’em a video and you get your, your message to ’em much more effectively than just putting a lot of print. I mean, if you, if you go to a webpage and you see three paragraphs to printer, are you gonna sit there and read all that? Or or versus if you go to a webpage and there’s a nice video and it’s nicely presented and you know, what, which are you more inclined to take a look at? I mean

Bear Prandelli:

We’ve also been doing a lot of work where clients are just having us capture B roll. And since we have relationships with like the web designers, or at least we’ll develop one, you know, we’ll be in contact with them and figure out what they want. Like, if you have the option to kind of communicate with them, like, Hey, we, we don’t even have like an edited video, but we have all these clips. It’s like, we’re, you know, shooting B-roll to be put on different pages. So if a client’s doing manufacturing, we’ll do shots of their manufacturing facility and they’ll put it on that one page. And it’ll be like a, a banner at the top where it’s just first thing that they see is this video that kind of outlines what the rest of the content on the page is gonna support. So just, you know, it’s like you, you can use even just some of that footage, like if you’re having a production company come out for a shoot we can go back through and, and re-edit tons of that stuff to be purposed repurposed in different areas

Dan Felska:

And Dan touch on. Oh yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I, I, I would agree with, with both of those things, and I think beyond like having actual corporate footage or like, things like that, as examples, one of the rare examples that I never really thought would pan out, but ended up getting me one of the biggest gigs I ever had. I made a, a friend of mine ask to come and shoot him, just playing his violin in his home. And I said, no, of course. And we shot this video and I gave it to him and never really thought about it again. It was just kind of a favor. And I apparently he put that onto his YouTube channel. A friend of his saw it, and she reached out to me, this would’ve been like a year and a half later. And it was one of those phone calls that I thought was a joke.

Dan Felska:

She was like, is this Dan FKA? Yeah. You shoot video. I do. She said, did you make a violin video for David? I said, I, I did. She said, well, and she said the words real estate. So right off the bat, I was like, oh, I don’t know how much I wanna be doing, you know, crawling through new houses and that type of thing. But she was delightfully sweet. And I ended up sitting down and meeting with her and then shooting every piece of content for her company for, and I still actually, I’ve been putting off the edit of her last video so that I could prepare for this, which I also didn’t do. I’ve been using this as an excuse to not get that last video edited. So thank you for that. But yeah, it’s the littlest things. I looked at that video on YouTube and I think it has like 19 views.

Dan Felska:

So it’s not, it’s not about blowing up necessarily all the time or trying to make something viral. I think that word is super cringy, but I, I really agree with what both of these gentlemen said, and also just make yourself sought after, as a content creator. So like everyone has an outstanding camera on their iPhone or whatever. Now there needs to be a reason why people want you or your company or whoever it is to represent theirs in terms of shooting content. So whatever it was about that video with the violin and the gentleman <laugh>, and I think it actually showed off the house better than it showed him. So that mistake was you know, beneficial to me, but it’s about establishing yourself and why your content is better legitimately and not putting an asterisk on it. Like why the video that you produce direct shoot, whatever it may be is legitimately of better quality. And just making that a thing it’s, it’s not necessarily about arrogance, despite the fact, that’s just an incredibly arrogant statement, but it’s just, it’s about understanding your skillset and what you can bring to the table and making sure that the people around you even strangers understand that as well. So that’s, and that’s what gets me, the clients that I get. So

Sarah Marince:

Why is viral a cringy word?

Dan Felska:

I think it’s for the same reason that and man I’m really just gonna go down the snob rabbit hole here, like do it. The reason content is great. Everything I do is amazing. I’m gonna put on my criterion collection. T-Shirt really quick. Okay. So <laugh>, I think it’s the same reason why there’s just not a lot of great content being made right now, but you could go back and over the last 20 years and people just slapped on a million great things. You’re never gonna make great art, trying to make something for X. So if you’re making something, that’s trying to go viral, you can put lasers and cleavage and whatever you would like in it. And it very well could go viral. But you didn’t make anything great and it’s not gonna sustain itself. So whether you got a billion clicks and you’re gonna milk that algorithm for a month, and then hopefully you save some money from that that is not, that’s not a, a grand plan.

Dan Felska:

And actually, I, I guess this would be a good time to name, drop my company. My company’s called grand scheme collective because at the end of the day, my goal is to whether I go broke or die, doing it, create content that I’m legitimately proud of. Even if it doesn’t make me money, fortunately it has made me money. So yay money. But in that same vein, it’s, I’ve never sat out to make a viral video. I’ve never sat down and thought like, I’m gonna just, I’m gonna build this Instagram account. I’m gonna make sure that my presence online is no, none of that matters. It’s fleeting and it’s gross. And it’s just, it’s hurting your craft. Don’t worry about Instagram. Don’t worry about Facebook links and Twitter followers. And none of that stuff matters because those things will come. If you make a great art period, and you won’t make great art thinking about going viral. So that’s when I hear people say like, we’re gonna make a viral video. I crumple into a ball and I die a little bit because it’s like, you probably will make a viral video and we don’t need it. <Laugh> we need good art right now, more than ever. So do

Sarah Marince:

You all agree or do we have any opposing views on viral?

Bear Prandelli:

Oh, no, I couldn’t agree more with that. I’m you’re like, you’re, you’re preaching the choir. Sorry. This is my brother Wolf. He’s been out. Hey,

Sarah Marince:

Well welcome.

Bear Prandelli:

Sorry. Sorry, Jordan gear back here, but I’m, I’m getting caught up cuz I, I completely agree with that. I completely agree

Dan Felska:

With that. Oh man.

Bear Prandelli:

Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I, I, and I, if I can add to that, I think that, you know, obviously what most clients are looking at, if you’re looking at it from their perspective is they want the recognition. They want the marketing, they want to be known. They want their product to be seen and they want a return on their investment. But I think that what gets lost in that a lot of the time is they focus too much on the hype and they lose the story or they lose the little touches that actually make what you’re trying to do artistic versus it just being stock footage, essentially like nice stock, you know.

Bear Prandelli:

Most of the commercials that we’ve shot where we’re unhappy with, how it came out is because there’s somebody on the team who’s so hyper focused on, oh no, it has to be this because of social. And it’s like, well, you just make good stuff that will come. So I I’m just re I’m repeating what you’re saying, but it’s just like, it’s, you’re, you’re preaching the fire. I agree with you hundred percent.

Dan Felska:

Let social adapt to good content. Yeah. Like when I see people turning and doing like nine 16 video for Instagram. No, no, no, no, no. They’ll adapt to the wide frame if they want it or, well, crap, God, I’m just a, I’m just a real SN real snap. But <laugh> just watching, like, man, this pale dude just he’s upset. <Laugh> I’m not for some reason I said the word viral and then went on a tirade about it. I like, oh, like I brought it up.

Sarah Marince:

It’s good. It’s good. Now I, I wouldn’t have known that, but no it’s greats. Great.

Dan Felska:

Awesome. I’m not this angry all the time.

Sarah Marince:

It’s a, <laugh> you’re passionate. Not angry. You’re passionate.

Dan Felska:

There you go. Yes. Yes.

Sarah Marince:

Bill, I wanna come back to something that really piqued my interest when you were doing your intro, is the court TV stuff. Can you just kinda share with us, like the craziest thing you saw when you were doing well?

Bill Searle:

I, I haven’t done, I haven’t done a lot of it, but I did a few things in it. And I had I had one that wasn’t really court TV. It was a guy that was involved in horse racing. And there was a certain, there’s a certain track in Phoenix, Arizona that I’m not gonna mention in this, but he he got, he decided to sue him and he called me in for a hearing. I went in there to shoot the hearing and the guy that was kind of in the judge physician had big side arm on his side. And he walked up to me, looked me right in the eye when I was setting everything up and said, is this absolutely necessary? And he just stared me down when he said that, like, he didn’t really want me there.

Bill Searle:

I said, well, I worked for them, you know? And, and, and so he, so he, he went over and talked to them. They said, cut. And I had to tear it all down and leave. After that, I did do a couple other hearings in his court and he, he, he was pretty decent about it. And you know, that sort of thing, there was another time I, I, and with the same case, I, I shot all these hearings for, for one of my clients. And he decided that he, he, he was running a horse in a race and he was in this bitter dispute with them and he thought the best way to keep them from giving any trouble was to have the media follow him around. So I followed him around with the camera and shot him going through the whole process of registering his horse and everything. And he ran his horse and it won. And then we got thrown out,

Sarah Marince:

Oh, wow. That is okay, well, wild ride there.

Dan Felska:

That was a metaphor. When you said he had a horse in the race, it was a literal horse.

Bill Searle:

He literally hit a horse running in a race. He wanted to run his horse and, and, and, you know, make his, I guess, make his money. And, you know, he wanted to get through it. And he, he decided the best way to keep that, keep them from harassing him when he did that was to have the media following him when I was the media. So I went around, following him around and shot all this stuff. I shot his horse running across the finish line and,

Sarah Marince:

And like horse paparazzi.

Bill Searle:

Yeah. That horse paparazzi. There you go.

Sarah Marince:

Well, that was pretty cool. That’s very cool. OK. We’re gonna, well, go ahead. Go ahead.

Bill Searle:

I was gonna talk about the, you know, the, well, the other one, I, I already talked about the court ones, at least as much as I can. And so, yeah, I I’ll just fell. Leave it at that for right now.

Sarah Marince:

Works for me. That’s sounds like a lot of fun.

Bill Searle:

Yeah, it is. It was an interesting experience doing all that stuff. Yes.

Sarah Marince:

Cool. Well, I’m gonna switch gears here and talk about gear. Jason, what is your go-to piece of gear?

Jason Ryan:

So I shot on everything shot on red Sean area, Alexa black magic cannon, Sony. I own the 4k black magic pup camera, and I love it. I’ve got the biggest adapter, the me bone speed booster to which I adapt my Nikon lenses. I have a set of lenses from the sixties and seventies. I put together Nikon still, still camera lenses. They’re all manual long focal travel for pulling focus. And it really worked well, take the edge off the 4k edge off 10 80 if I’m shooting 10 80. And so basically I, I like to keep things small and light, you know, it just takes time away on set when you’re dealing with all these map boxes and filters and stuff. So I tried to do as little as of that as possible. Geez, the shoot I did for MTV digital, we had canc three hundreds with just all this stuff hanging off ’em stuff we didn’t really need.

Jason Ryan:

You know, we had to use easy rigs in the house with low ceilings. Anybody’s used easy rigs with low ceilings, know the fun that is <laugh>. And it’s just like, oh, this is just not necessary. Not, not for this show. You know, it’s just so much stuff that people pile on their rigs, you know, especially doing handheld that you just don’t need and slows you down. Ultimately. so I like to keep it very light actually just today ordered a cage. <Laugh> a little, very light cage for the camera. And so I can run SSD hard drives which is a good, good way to go and more space and more speed and stuff before I was just doing just cards CFA cards, but definitely my camera. Also my tripod, I got a fluid head tripod. It was one of the first things I got, you know, when I really got in to the industry 2008. So Caroni fluid it’s a carton fluid head, tripod focus. And it’s amazing just out there just seeing how many few people have like really good quality tripods. And it’s just one of the main things you need.

Sarah Marince:

Awesome. Bear and Wolf. Do you guys travel with a light setup as well?

Bear Prandelli:

This is this kind of his department, cause yeah, this is definitely more the director and gaffer and, and Wolf is more the DP. I, we both shoot, but gears kind of his department. Yeah. So for us, similar to that last setup we’re rocking a black magic pocket, six K and we have it on a tilted cage, usually on man proto tripod or on a gimble. And the Gibo that we’re rocking is a Zune crane three S but if I’m, to be honest to anyone who’s interested into getting into video GI should be your last purchase. Because it just creates so many more headaches in the long run because there’s so many technical difficulties that you end up getting because of them. But that’s a side note. Other than that, though, what we rock for lights is man lights. And we have two 60 S 200.

Bear Prandelli:

We just got a 300. Yeah. Usually, I mean, ideally we try to keep everything to where, you know, we don’t have its in the car. Yeah. We don’t have a van, you know, like a lot of the stuff, unless we’re doing a, a gear rental and renting a van everything has to fit in my Mazda three patch. So it’s kind of like, okay, we have enough to out with a, a pretty good lighting set up C stands everything. But by the time it’s all loaded in, if Teris yeah, exactly. It’s it’s Teris and, and you need to kind of figure out like, okay, on every shoot, like what’s the minimum I can bring. And then do I have room for maybe a couple other things, but similar to Jason too, like for a long time, we’ve been adapting our old Sony alpha cameras to old can FD lenses. Like we love the vintage lens. Look, it’s so much nicer. And sometimes you get like these incredible shots with lenses that are, you know, 40, 50 years old that you buy for like $30 at a Goodwill. Yeah. Sorry. That’s

Sarah Marince:

No, that’s great. That, that’s awesome. A lot of this stuff kind of like I’m in voiceover, so like mics and stuff, but other than that, like sounds very impressive. Dan, you look like you have a little bit of gear behind you.

Dan Felska:

<Laugh> I am, to be honest, I’m embarrassed because, and impressed that you guys make it happen with, with those light setups. A lot of that is just like raw talent that I don’t have. So I’m a firm believer in, I shot my very first short film with a cannon scoop pick film camera. So and the, you know, if I wouldn’t have had a team of, of people around me to like operate that I would’ve probably like burned my house down. I have <laugh>, I have a, a good amount of gear because I rent out a lot of the stuff when I’m not using it. And luckily I do have a van as well as a grip trailer that I’m able to utilize when I need it. For me, I, you know, I think I, I know a lot of people on a personal level that own the black magic stuff.

Dan Felska:

I’ve never shot on one. I had a really bad experience with an or so once. And so like, everybody has that one brand of camera that they have a bad taste in their mouth because they have one bad experience. And so they’re like, eh, no black magic. I watch people do things with black magic that just below my mind my good home PJ swears by his black magic sensor. And then I watch the stuff that he shoots in edits and I’m like, yeah, making it happen. Me. I, I need this gear to help me. I’m an, you know, I would consider myself a very talented director and a solid camera operator. A DP is a understanding of lighting and tone that I just am not gonna pretend that I have. You know, because I, I have a level of respect for that.

Dan Felska:

That is, you know, is beyond, I’m not gonna be you know, out here, like on the DP because I can operate my camera. A real DP understands lighting and I, I can make something look pretty, but, you know, really understanding lighting, you kind of have to pick a lane. So for me, like when I’m shooting personal stuff, I like a new lenses. I know you mentioned can the FDS the, the lens I shoot on the most is actually a, a can or I’m sorry, an oo from 1989. And it’s just buttery. But for corporate stuff, I usually have my ice. I, I use these ice primes or a lot of like the, the full frame, email primes. I shoot currently on a Sony FX six. I’m about to retire the F 55. I think, I hope he doesn’t hear me, but I I adore that camera.

Dan Felska:

I’ve gotten so much use out of it and sneaky big studios and Scottsdale still rents it quite a bit, but I, I have way too much gear. And when I look around, it’s like some, you know, somebody needs to like go out and make a feature with that F 55 and I’m not utilizing it for that. And that’s where I want to see it being used. It’s just, you know, like renting it to a studio is great, but I really want someone to make something great with that. So I’m trying to downsize right now in that, in that regard. But I I’m a real Sony guy for life. I do, I love the area. I think outta camera image, it is, you know, the best, but it, it realistically rent the rent and area, buy glass, you know have a camera that you can shoot on.

Dan Felska:

I’m a, I think if you’re starting a production company buy Sony it’s the way to go. It’s the, for the price point, if you, if you want, you know, something next level, that’s gonna maybe get you some gigs, you can pick up that area kit, but it’s just, that could break you as well. You know, you’re sitting on a hundred thousand dollars that might be just collecting dust. And these two guys are out here making it happen with a black magic. And you’re like, okay, you know, so like you really gotta pick and choose like what you’re buying, which as you can see the extra gear behind me, I have not. So yeah,  it’s a crap shoot, but I also like, this is why we do what we do so we can buy these toys and play with them and make great art.

Dan Felska:

So like whatever money sucks gear is amazing. So yeah, <laugh>, that’s kinda where I’m at. When I get money. It’s like, here you go, Sonny, <laugh> just take this and gimme more cool stuff. So that’s kinda like where I’m at. And then I can get snobby about how fast my lenses are and stuff like that because you spend the money and then you’re like, you know, and then we stop down to five six, and it doesn’t matter. <Laugh> so that’s, that’s kinda where kinda worth that. But the moral of the story is go out and purchase a brand new van, a brand new grip trailer, Angie lenses, the new ones not don’t get the, don’t get the vintage bro. Get the ones that are 80 grand, put it all on a credit card and just, just roll the dice. That’s what I would say. Just roll those dice and like, like what’s gonna happen. They take your house, whatever we need to find sick lenses. You just need to be the common tape for every single one of these.

Sarah Marince:

Yeah. You also need to have shirts that say money sucks. Gear is amazing.

Dan Felska:

Tattoo on my,

Sarah Marince:

You need to side hustle, just selling stuff that says money sucks. Gear is amazing. It probably would do very well.

Dan Felska:

Yes. I think, yeah. Money sucks. Gear is amazing. You know, viewers suck, content is key. I think that’s what the back should say. Like the last view

Sarah Marince:

Is just like all kinda <laugh>

Dan Felska:

My video only has three viewers. Like that’s how R C I am, who I want it to be, you know, down to two only the elites.

Sarah Marince:

That’s amazing. And yeah, we probably should have you on here for just commentary on everything. Because this has been so good. 11

Dan Felska:

An hour. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Okay. We can do that. We can work with that.

Bill Searle:

I like that saying I borrow that, but that’s

Dan Felska:

You can have it.

Bill Searle:

Oh, great. Okay. Well, anyhow I’ve been shooting with pretty much,

Bill Searle:

Well, I had a, so I had one Sony, but I it’s mostly been cannon. I started with a camera back when I was a kid and I’ve I got a C200 right now. Send him a camera and those are awesome. I I’ve never had a camera camera anywhere near that. Cool. As, as that one is. And I’ve been using that for, I got that about about five, six years ago. And it’s, it’s a great camera. I’ve been using that. I have some lights, I have lighting. I have one of them here, but I have lighting system for, you know, I have lights for my projects. And I have a, really good Tripo, which seems to work good for me. So you know, all, it all works great.

Bill Searle:

And you know, like, like you said, the you know, the you know, having cool beer is cooler than having money. So <laugh> way I look at it. And what else do I, I mean, I’ve gotten all my gear. I, I can get all my gear for most projects that I do into my 67 Mustang and T a little hard to that, that it was a little hard to get it in and out of there, but I can get it in there. Okay. <Laugh> yeah, but you got a 67 Mustang, so who cares? Yeah, that’s true. <Laugh> but it’s, it’s a great car. I gotta get it back on the road, but and, and, and I can, I, like I said, I get all my, my gear in there, and there are a few times when I was renting some gear where it was a little, it was really jammed up. It was just me and the gear and that was about it <laugh> and on some bigger shoots and, but, but we got through it. OK.

Sarah Marince:

That’s the next shirt? What you said gear is cooler than money. That’ll be the, the next, yeah, I like this. This is like a brainstorming session. It is, it is for merch. I like it. I like it.

Dan Felska:

<Laugh> at least we’re gonna get good. T-Shirts out of this. I mean, that’s exactly

Bill Searle:

The

Dan Felska:

End of the day.

Sarah Marince:

Yes. And everyone tuning in now can get their first one 50% off with the

Dan Felska:

Code. You gotta use the promo code. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

<Laugh>

Dan Felska:

Film stuff. Promo code

Bear Prandelli:

From the beginning of the

Sarah Marince:

Show. Yeah. Film stuff. <Laugh> before we, cause we’re kind of running out of time, but I wanna get this question, Jason, I’ll throw it to you, but anyone else can jump in on it after where do you see the industry evolving to or what, what is the future of production?

Jason Ryan:

Hmm. Yeah, it’s pretty, kind of funny. We’re on a, a shoot. It’s just a, like this party probably a company bringing in there. This is back in November bringing in there, what is it called? It like their YouTube people, their social media personalities, whatever kind of rewarding them. And we had a, see, we had my camera, we had it on GI, our still emotion. And I told the producer, I’m like most, most of the fuel’s cameras here can do that now, you know, stabilize, iPhones, whatever. And then a lot of what we’re doing. So we really need to focus on what, what can’t they do, you know, long lens stuff. What can we do that, you know, set ourselves apart from these, the people, you know, the social media influencers, whatever aren’t walking away with better, better footage than us, you know, from this party. And so, yeah, I think that’s comp competition. Dan was talk about that, you know, competing with this technology, you know, as, as real, you know, content creators and, and people who do this for a living that’s what we need to work on story always, you know, telling a great story because the technology’s really, really catching up and it’s incredible what they’re even doing with phones, you know, at incredible prices.

Sarah Marince:

Anyone wanna jump in?

Bear Prandelli:

I was gonna say one of the things that we’ve seen come in recently, like just in Phoenix, they opened up the first, or I don’t know if there’s more, I know there’s at least one studio, that’s now doing the L E D rear projection mapping, you know, and

Dan Felska:

I literally got to watch them build. It was amazing.

Bear Prandelli:

The, the bit fire one.

Dan Felska:

Yeah. So I work, like I said, I don’t know why it feels like P is paying me, but like I work for a, a ton, a ton for PXG in that same building are sneaky big studios. And like, I’m in there constantly. And I also work for a big lot. And there was an email a long time ago. Like, Hey, like these big projects coming down the pike, you know, whatever, whatever. I just kind of forgot about it. And then they started bringing in this giant thing and it took ’em, you know, however long to put it in, I have a little montage on my phone of them building it, but like it’s next level. It’s like, it’s definitely like a, a smart play for sneaky in the sense that like, there’s nothing like it in Arizona, there are much smaller versions, but there’s nothing on that level where you can, like, you can put more than one person and have them fully submersed on a giant stage, including the floor and the ceiling. It’s, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. But yeah, not to interrupt, but yeah, sneaky big. You can definitely hit them up, check it out and they need to buy me at least a diet Coke or something for this promo <laugh>. But yeah. Anyway, it’s not to interrupt you, but yeah, the L E D light wall, it just made me think. Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Well I think we lost them, but bill, do you wanna jump in on where you think it’s all gonna go?

Bill Searle:

Oh gosh. Anybody’s guess. I, I think it’s, I’m, I’m hoping it’ll, it’ll go more creative and, and, you know, and we can get more, more places where we can put and, you know, sell it or make some money on it. You know, being creative, as opposed to just putting out, you know, like you were talking about the video, you know, the videos that are heard around the world kinda thing. And I I’m just hoping it, it, it, it, it goes in that kinda a direction, you know, where, where, you know, being creative will be a cool thing.

Dan Felska:

I think just to touch on that really quick, the, the future of the industry, because it’s something I get to talk about a lot without getting into like the theater versus Netflix debate, blah, blah, blah, blah, by the way, team Scorsese all the way we are in, in the general sense, like the content creators, all of these things, the industry isn’t going to change. It’s always going to be direct or driven people who can make good, meaningful films, not bites. The bites are important, but at the end of the day, it’s not something you’re sitting down with your family to watch TikTok ever. It won’t ever be their tools, not rules. And I’m stealing that from CC. We have Instagram, we have TikTok, we have YouTube. They’ll be there. We can promote art, but they’ll never be the medium. The industry will never become focused on solely that yeah, I just wanted to get that out there. So if you are starting a content creation company or production company, again, back burner, all that social media, don’t listen to the people that are trying to build a career out of that, cuz it’s fleeting. Yeah, but anyway,

Sarah Marince:

No, that’s, that’s good. Thank you guys for all answering and jumping in on that. We’re getting close to the end and I wanna make sure everybody has time to go through kind of promote whatever you wanna promote. Let people know where they can find you website, Instagram, anything? Just anything you’d like to say in closing. So bill your first on my screen, so we’ll start with, okay.

Bill Searle:

I’ll start. Yeah. right now I do, you know, I do projects that I’ve been talking about. I’ve been doing it for about, about close to 20 years now. I have a documentary I’m working on. It’s not something I’m gonna make any money on. It’s just something I just wanted to do. It’s about COVID and it’s effect on our society. And I’ve been taking testimonials from people. And I, I went actually, I took a cross country trip a couple months back and I got some testimonials from back east and, and you know, from different people with different, you know, everything from the one extreme to the other extreme. And I think it’s gonna be an interesting presentation when I put it together. And I just gotta, you know, I’ve been working on it for a long time and I just sort of need to, at some point I need to stop shooting and start mostly editing.

Bill Searle:

But you know, I, I keep telling myself I’m gonna do that soon, but other opportunities come along to make it better and I keep working on it. So I got that going on. I’ve been doing,  I have, I have another project I’m working on about some art from Greece that was stolen during world war I, and I’m editing that for some, for actually for my sister back east. And I’m working on a, like a, a teaser for that. That’s one of the things I got working on and I’m always looking for new projects. I’m always looking for something exciting to do. I’ve done what I’ve done. I’m trying to branch out a little bit more and get more into like you know, wait from the corporate stuff more into the artistic sort of thing. And I’m always looking for opportunities in that area.

Sarah Marince:

Very cool. Well, hopefully people will check out the documentary and everything when you have it done.

Bill Searle:

Oh yeah. My, my web page is http://www.chollaproduction.com/.

Sarah Marince:

Okay. If you wanna go ahead and type that in the chat box as well.

Bill Searle:

Yeah.

Sarah Marince:

Cool. Thanks bill. Jason, what about you?

Jason Ryan:

So my website is psychicflyingmonkey.com, but my reel is on there, my latest reel, although coming out with a new one my work, so music, video work short films, trailers, commercials, promos are all on there. Check that out. I director of photography on a feature, 15 minutes of a feature would be exact. He was in production for 23 years and I came, came along late as the last last guy to shoot for him. It was finally release, actually had a limited theatrical run at Harkins theaters and Phoenix and Tucson. And now it’s available everywhere. It’s on VOD iTunes. It’s all over the place in north America, and then it’ll be worldwide distribution sometime this year. So it’s called the prototype. So definitely check that out. Also, I mentioned before fishing for love the official music video, checked that out, and then I directed photography and edited a short film called used. It just has premier, and I think it’s gonna have a really good film festival run. So keep looking out for that at, at film festivals it deals with very serious topic, child sex trafficking, and I’m really happy with how it came out. Once again, psychic flying monkey.com. It’s my website.

Sarah Marince:

Great, well, best of luck with the film festival and thank you for being here.

Jason Ryan:

Thank you,

Sarah Marince:

Dan. Go for it.

Dan Felska:

Well in an attempt to tighten up my website today, which I probably haven’t touched since like Netscape navigator was a thing. I flipped some switches and push some buttons and cannot seem to get it back online, but the good folks at I O’s customer service are currently working on getting that up and running. I promise that my business is successful. So yeah, in a general sense you could go to http://filmoften.com/. If I didn’t go in and try to spice it up today on my own,

Dan Felska:

If you could get it to open text to me, cause that would be tight. Yeah, up until this point, I assume it was functioning properly, but I like opened up the, like, you can customize your website and I was like, I can do this. I can’t do that for the record. <Laugh> so yeah, it will be up and running shortly film off.com. I am a shamble of an adult. You can also on Instagram Dan FKA because I’m very creative. So I just use my first and last name to show just how creative I am with my Insta handle. <Laugh> so yeah, go to, go to Instagram. You can see all 16 of my followers and talk to them all and yeah. You know, let me know if there’s anything on there that you like fill often.com in a month,

Sarah Marince:

Yeah. All right. We’ll see the website in two weeks. Go ahead.

Bear Prandelli:

Oh, it’s gonna be hard to follow that, man.

Dan Felska:

Really? Cuz that’s probably the easiest softball to you. Like well, our website’s functioning so right off bat, probably hire us.

Bear Prandelli:

Yeah, I dunno about this other blown a lot here. No, you can, you can find us on our functioning website and that’s not entirely true. <Laugh> no I threw the, I threw the link in the chat cuz it’s, it’s spelled a little differently. We have the Germanic spelling. So it’s W U L F E N B E A R. On Instagram is Wulfenbear Media. Some of the coolest projects that we have coming up right now, we just kind of got through a slew of, I guess, more corporate and event stuff. And we’re actually working with a marketing agency that is in charge of the voting campaign in Arizona. So right now it’s been pretty cool. We’re actually getting to be in the focus groups with a bunch of potential voters who are going to essentially like the focus groups are determining how the campaign’s gonna go.

Bear Prandelli:

So it’s, it’s been a pretty cool process instead of just getting hired on as a production company where the creative director says, Hey, here’s the idea. We want you to get you to add your spice to it and do the tech stuff, but we already know what the campaign is. We’re actually getting to be there while they’re doing the research. So we’re really excited about that. We started that like our first night of that was yesterday and that’s gonna run us through November. Wow. So we’re, we’re really excited for that. We’re working with an organization called CPLC. So yeah, that’s like the big project on our plate right now. We’ve got some other stuff, you know, working to just events, concerts, festivals, things like that, that we work with. So

Sarah Marince:

Well, best of luck to you, both on that project. That sounds really cool. Thank you. I guess it’s time to wrap up. Thank you to the four of you for being here today.

Bill Searle:

Thank you for being a wonderful hostess.

Sarah Marince:

Oh yes, no worries. We’re here. I’m on here every other Wednesday, usually with crew talks. So if you guys wanna join in on another one, just let us know Dan. Hopefully you’ll be back for commentary. <Laugh> Yes, you’re good at it. You’re good at it. <Laugh> thank you for everyone else. I’m Sarah Marin. So you can find me on my website for all of your voiceover needs and on Instagram. And so we’ll see you guys next time. Have a great night guys.

Sarah Marince:

You might be looking at Shoots.Video and thinking. So how does this all work? Is this about a setting up the whole crew for me, be just giving me options and having me handle it or see something in between. Well, it’s D all of the above to put it simply. We are here to help you in any way that we can to get the crew and talent you need for your next production. We believe that every level of video production can benefit from a well-maintained list of qualified crew members for every position. This goes for pre-pro on set and for post, every project is different. So if you need a producer to help manage the decision making process, then we can totally do that. If you’re already a producer and want to build your own crew from scratch, then go for it. We are here to make your next production a success. And if you are crew or talent, looking for producers that want you, then you’ve come to the right place, sign up now and also leave a referral for any solid people that you know that are already on here. Thank you for considering shoots.video and happy shooting.