Deborah Smith:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crew Talk, sponsored by shoots.video. I’m really excited to have two wonderful guests with me. And Micah, do you want to say your name, introduce yourself. Just give us a little intro spiel about you.

Micah Knapp:

Sure. Well, thanks for having me. My name’s Micah Knapp. I’m a producer and director here in the Seattle area and I work on commercials, music, videos, documentaries, shorts, and feature films. And I’m working on my first directorial feature right now.

Deborah Smith:

Congrats. Awesome. I, well, look forward to hearing more about that and by the way, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Deborah Lee Smith. I am an actor, producer and writer located in Los Angeles. And again, I’m really excited to be here for crew talk. Ilya. Let’s hand it over to you. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Ilya Akhmerov:

Hello? Yes, my name is Ilya and I just moved to Seattle. Actually. I moved from Chicago, so this is a new place for me. And I’m a FTD drone pilot.

Deborah Smith:

Very cool. That’s awesome. I really look forward to hearing more about that. I’ve done a little bit of drone work with one feature that I produced, but I’m excited to learn more.

Deborah Smith:

So Micah, how did you get started in production? And obviously you do a lot of different types of production. So just give us an overview of how you got started.

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, it’s been a long, long road. When I was eight years old, I got super inspired by Steven Spielberg and Jurassic park and was like, he made dinosaurs real. I wanna make movies and was like, I wanna be a filmmaker. I started studying all his films and reading about him in his life as a filmmaker. So I saved up 500 and bought a video camera. Back then I was like a high Hitachi video camera. So like sitting on old tapes editing in camera. But yeah, I started making movies with my brothers and eventually transitioned into having a company of my own doing commercials and music, videos and shorts. And then I, from there transition into working freelance in the Seattle market, directing and producing.

Deborah Smith:

That’s awesome. Are you from Seattle originally or

Micah Knapp:

I’m from a town close by. It’s Bellingham, Washington. It’s like two hours north of Seattle. It’s super close to Canada. Very supportive art scene there though. So

Deborah Smith:

It is, that’s, that’s an amazing city. I love that place. Yeah, that’s great. And what about you Ilya? You were mentioning before we started recording that you are from Russia. So I’m so curious how you got into production in Russia.

Ilya Akhmerov:

I actually started video here when I moved here. That was 11 years ago. Yeah. I’ve been in the US for 11 years, moved to Chicago and I never used a camera back in Russia. So it all started here, started with a GoPro. I was just, you know, playing around, making some dumb videos about travels and time lapses and, you know, putting it on the car, just trying to find places to, to put it somewhere and make something out of it. And it kind of evolved. Then I got into drones and the rest is history here. We are

Deborah Smith:

Very, and was there like a film or a show or like something that inspired you or how did you decide to start playing?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Well, YouTube. Yeah, I was watching YouTube and all the travel videos and I was like, oh, I wanna film with a GoPro. And I’m a pretty active person. So traveling, biking, or, you know, doing different sports, I would Mount it somewhere and make a video, you know, go snowboarding and stuff like that and make a video of that. And then I thought, okay, how do I make it my job? I mean, I really enjoy it and it looks like I’m doing well. At least that’s what I thought back then, now I’m looking at the old videos, you know, how it is. And yeah, then I got a present drone and I never even thought about drones before that. And I was like, oh, drone, that’s fun. And started flying, you know, those wide Phantoms back in the bay. So started with that, got my part 1 0 7 shortly, probably like a year, two years in of flying and been flying just regular GPS drones. And then that wasn’t enough. Again, YouTube FPD drones, seeing all the cool videos, people flying and started building drones and just making fun videos again. And then it evolved into, into a job.

Deborah Smith:

Hmm. And you have to, to be a drone pilot. Do you have to have a level of certification as far as a pilot’s license or something like that? Or, or is that like a different classification for

Ilya Akhmerov:

Things? Yes. The FAA has a specific license for operators. It’s called part 1 0 7. So if you are a commercial operator, that’s what you need. And yeah. I mean, if you have a real pilot, find planes that make it pretty easy to get one, cuz you will know all the information that you need to know for part 1 0 7, right? If you just start, it’s a pretty extensive amount of information that you need to learn about airspace weather and operations, airport operations and stuff like that.

Deborah Smith:

Very cool. And what kind of projects are you working on right now? As far as you doing drone work or yeah. What, what’s exciting you right

Ilya Akhmerov:

Now. Yeah. I moved to Seattle a month ago. Okay. So this is like a completely new scene for me and making new connections, meeting new people, connecting with production companies and yeah, seeing what’s around this is a pretty cool place. Finally, the weather is getting better. So for wine, you know, weather is important though we can fly indoors with small drones like this. Hmm. You know, we can fly indoors and make cool stuff inside too, but good weather helps. So yeah. Making new connections. I have a project lined up in Miami. Hopefully it happens this month. The weather is there. It’s not great either. It’s raining. So waiting on that. Yeah, that’s how it is.

Deborah Smith:

Awesome. Micah, what’s going on in your world? Any Steven Spielberg-like dinosaurs that you’re doing or anything like that?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, I wish no. I’m, I’m doing. I’m actually in post production right now on my, on my feature, 11, 11. And we’re composing it right now doing the sound design, getting it ready for film festivals at the end of the year right now. And I have a couple short films as well that I’m wrapping up and, and then just the, yeah, in Seattle here, there’s mostly a lot of commercial work, so that’s kind of been the focus as far as day to day. But the future’s been a couple years in the making, so I’ve been focused on getting that wrapped up and ready to go and get it out into the world. But it’s more, more inspired by the Terrence Mallek kind of work, it’s more visual and, and, and music based dramatic stuff. So no dinosaurs <laugh> so far too bad.

Deborah Smith:

Dang it.

Deborah Smith:

And Amazon is based up in Seattle, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you have a lot of commercials for them.

Micah Knapp:

It is. Yeah. Lot of Microsoft stuff here, a lot of Amazon that’s, that’s kind of the primary like jobs that people get up here doing commercial work for those companies. They have a huge footprint here, obviously. So there’s a lot of that kind of work, but yeah, those, those are kinda the two main,

Deborah Smith:

Very cool. Sorry guys. I’m having a coughing foot right now. No worries. So what with your, you know, your commercials and stuff, what kind of, what role do you occupy on those projects?

Camera Crews and their Various Roles

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, I’ve been producing and directing in the last few years. I tend to follow more into producing these days. It’s just a job that I sort of fell into. I I can get at pulling people and things together and making things happen. So I started getting hired more as a producer the last couple years, I’ve been doing a lot of producing for different companies in the area. And that seems to be what I’ve fallen into more so, but I also direct quite a bit too. So it’s kinda a balance of the two.

Deborah Smith:

What do you prefer? Yeah,

Micah Knapp:

I think I’m more passionate about directing. It’s more intuitive for me. I think it’s more what I’m drawn to, but I’ve naturally had to produce all my own projects anyways. So I feel like, you know, I kind of self taught a lot of producing work. So that’s something that I, I kind of, yeah, just people started hiring me more for that over time, I guess.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, that’s awesome. And that, that kind of goes into what my next question was gonna be was how has your role evolved on your different projects and is there, you know, you already are doing a lot of things. Is there something else that you wanna get into next? Are you gonna be an actor or you stuck, you done,

Micah Knapp:

I dunno. You might be convincing me. It sounds like that’s, that’s what you, you do a lot of maybe need to step into that. Yeah. no, I’ve been, I do a lot of commercial work, so I think naturally I wanna I’ve done quite a few indie features in the area priest, a couple windy features I’ve helped shoot some documentaries. I really wanna get more into features. I think that’s more, that’s where my passion is. And I think I’m stepping more into that. I’m producing a feature this summer and it’s something I wanna get more involved with cuz I love narrative filmmaking and I think that’s always been my passion. Obviously you have to pay the bills, but I love to do more and more of that kind of work and, and documentary too. I also love telling real stories and there’s just something beautiful about working with real people and, and getting the stories, other people in interviews. I think that’s beautiful too.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I, I promise I’m gonna, I’m gonna go to someone else in a second, but I just wanna hone in on that documentary piece there for a second. What do you feel is the biggest difference for you between filming a documentary and then narrative and commercials? I mean, that’s all, they all kind of have their own version of storytelling and I’m just curious what you see as the difference and what you enjoy.

Micah Knapp:

Yeah. With narrative, I love crafting a story, you’re telling a story, you know, you can really light it and take your time to build a scene. So there’s more control in a way, but I also love documentaries, it’s typically more stripped down the crews, smaller, typically at least the ones I’ve been on and it’s you’re able to draw out a story. You have to kind of like have an idea of where you’re going with it, but I feel like oftentimes the story comes out naturally, which I love. I think that’s great. And, and then working with real people and telling their story, I think, I think also B-roll has gotten more interesting in documentaries now. And I think that’s, it helps make it more cinematic and more interesting I think to the viewer. And I think people like documentaries more now and I think that there’s just something beautiful and powerful about telling a story with real people and letting it naturally evolve. So that’s what I am, that’s what I love. I love that element of it.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, no, I completely agree. I was sharing before that. I just have a documentary that’s premiering at Tribeca and I think that was one of the most interesting things about that experience. Cuz I normally work in narrative is the fact that with documentaries, you’re definitely honing in on the story that unfolds as you’re filming instead of coming into the filming and having something very specific. You just kind of like, see what happens and roll with the punches, which is, you know, kind of the best part about storytelling, just like seeing what happens, which I really enjoy. So yeah. Congratulations.

Micah Knapp:

Thanks and same on, on the tribe film. And I think also just the learning as you’re making the document or you’re letting the story unfold, like you said, and I think it’s beautiful to have it that you learn something as you’re doing it and everyone on the crew probably as well. So

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah. So Ilya, what you know, you obviously are, are you primarily a drone operator now and how did that evolve? Is that kind of gonna be your main stick or do you have another thing that you wanna evolve into?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Yeah, I really enjoy flying. So for me it all started with actual flying, not filming. I started flying for fun and then I thought about application of filming and I started with small drones just flying for fun indoors and then went outside with bigger drones putting GoPro on top and just flying for fun, filming how you fly and cuz back then it wasn’t a thing to film with FTV it was just cool videos of people flying around trees, parks, you know, different things. It all came from racing as well. And there were like two departments racing and freestyle, and now there is another venue filming and that’s my primary thing to film FPV. I can activate cameras, but I really enjoy flying and don’t take cool shots. It evolved from those small drones now into these big guys with cinema cameras.

Ilya Akhmerov:

So you can put a Camaro on a drone and get quality out of it. And now you can see these drones and cameras used in big movies. Netflix just released a couple movies. The one was in movies just recently, the ambulance Michael Bay movie. If you guys see that one, that is a lot of action, FTD shots and it’s something new people enjoy for me. It’s kinda everyday thing, but most people don’t see it as often as I do. And it’s pretty cool. And it’s a new perspective. You can do so much with it. You can get this new angle, there are so many varieties of things that you can do. And that’s what I really enjoyed when I see this theme and ideas start triggering like how can I show this from my perspective from an aerial view, how can I get around the building and reveal that down or fly through something and review a subject or a scene. And that creates those really energetic, cool shots that I enjoy doing.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah. That’s awesome. So do you have, do you particularly, I know you just moved back to, or you just moved Seattle, but do you usually have a specific DP or film crew and stuff that you like to work with or or is there, or do you kind of just move around depending upon the production and their needs?

Ilya Akhmerov:

It depends sometimes. You’ll have somebody within a production that can assist you, but it’s better to have somebody, you know, somebody you trust for FPV, you need to have a visual observer since you don’t have a visual on the drone and it’s required, you always have a VR and it will tell you what’s going on around the drone where people, cars and what’s going on and really good to have somebody that you know, and trust and they know what you’re doing. So it’s much easier to work with.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, very cool. And what, you know, if you, if someone was starting out and wanting to do what you do, what is the essential must have gear that you would say is in your kit? And I’m sure that like what you have now, as far as cinematic cameras are definitely more than just someone starting out would necessarily have. But if you wanna just give a brief overview of,

Ilya Akhmerov:

Yeah, there is a lot of new people coming into FPV scene and it’s pretty cool to see now it’s easier to get into FPV cuz there is so many tools and the information about it back in the day, you had to build everything yourself and figure out, go into like Facebook groups and make sure everything works correct. You couldn’t get it. Prebuilt. Now you can get them prebuilt online and people will, you know, answer all the questions and you have a lot of support, but to get started, what you do is you first get a remote and you practice on the computer. You don’t even need a real drone. You just, this flying FPV drone is different from regular GPS drones. You don’t have any stabilization, you control it manually essentially. So each axis is controlled manually with a stick movement and yeah, you just get a remote, start flying in a simulator. Once you get that figured out, then you can go outside and crash a real one.

Deborah Smith:

<Laugh> is there, is there a specific program that you recommend as far as a flight simulator?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Yeah, there are quite a few. My favorite one is the drone. It’s pretty accurate to a real thing. So field wise, when you go outside and fly, it’ll feel very similar to what you feel in a simulator. Because there are different parameters, like the drone. When you punch out, some simulators are very floaty. It doesn’t feel natural. It’s like you go up and slowly go down. There is DRL as well and liftoff, any of those will do, but the drone is my favorite. Mm-Hmm

Deborah Smith:

<Affirmative> very cool. So anyone watching, if you’re really obsessed with Mario kart, this would be your next thing. <Laugh> Micah, what about you? What what’s your essential must have gear,

Micah Knapp:

Must have gear. Yeah. I or

Deborah Smith:

Program or you know, anything like that.

Ilya Akhmerov:

There he is like his back

Micah Knapp:

He’s back in action.

Deborah Smith:

Well, go ahead. If you wanna go ahead Micah.

Micah Knapp:

Sure. Yeah. I work with a lot of DPS and steadicam ops that have all their gear. That’s something that’s nice in Seattle. It’s a small network, but a lot of us know each other and you know, everyone owns their own gear, so it’s easy to bring on whatever we need for a project. But I’m also a camera lover. So I actually just got a Kamado with some anamorphic lenses.

Micah Knapp:

Nice. And I’m, it’s my guilty pleasure. I’m wanting to get more into shooting anamorphic on projects and the Komodo is just too tempting not to get, so it’s a nice, small camera. You can I think they even made it as a crash camera originally, but it’s great. It’s powerful. It looks amazing. But anamorphics, I think, are something that I want to start bringing out more often, yeah. In shooting on. I’ve always loved the look and I want to do more of that in my narrative work.

Deborah Smith:

DPS must love you.

Micah Knapp:

<Laugh> right.

Deborah Smith:

You’re gonna give anamorphic. That’s great.

Micah Knapp:

Exactly. Yeah. A couple other guys I work with just got a couple too, so we’re, we’re, we’re building up an array of them. So

Deborah Smith:

That’s awesome. And from a, from a producer standpoint, like how do you like to organize, you know, your I mean, do you, do you line produce your own stuff as well? Or do you have someone else who kind of handles all that paperwork and everything

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, it depends on the project. I have produced lines quite a few times on commercials as well. So sometimes that’s me, other times I’m hiring a line producer or somebody to deal with the budget or, or sort of organizing things. But I’ve been on lots of small productions where you can have, you know, doing multiple producer things. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Yep. But it is nice when you can break that down and you have multiple roles and you can hire line producers. But I’ve, I’ve sort of, I’ve sort of jumped around and done a bit of everything. So I definitely have that experience as well, but I, I, I like creative producing. I like bringing crews together, people together, making stuff happen, locations. You know, I started out doing things such as making sure it happened when there was, you know, pulling stuff at a nothing basically, and making things happen. And I feel like you kinda have to do that on small budgets. And then as you get bigger budgets and work on bigger jobs, it’s nice to be able to be like, oh, now I can delegate that task or I can, we have the money to, you know, to get that. So, yeah.

Micah Knapp:

It’s nice to what I like about, I’ve done a lot of roles on set and what I, what I like about that and having done that is that I’ve gained knowledge of different, you know departments, whether it’s G and E or camera department is like, you know, what they’re feeling or thinking probably. So as a producer, you can be ahead of the game and, you know, make sure everything’s lined up and ready to go, or you have what you need. I think it informs that role if you’ve done other roles on set. And then when I get to direct it, it’s like, that’s my creative space that I love being in and, you know, working with character and what’s the motivation and the story and the vision and, you know, yeah. You know what, I’m, you know what I’m talking about?

Deborah Smith:

I do. That’s why I act when I produce often because that’s my creative outlet, you know, more, more so than just the creative producing. Tyler, I’m gonna go over to you in a second, but just one more question for you, Mike. What, what kind of clients do you work with up in Seattle?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, I’ve been all over the place. I’ve done stuff for MTV Buena Murray worked with Asics last year. Lots of Microsoft, Amazon work with a couple companies in New York. There were some documentary features I worked with kind of all over the place. Yeah. A bit of everything. And then, like I said, I’m pretty, Iny featured this summer. So it depends on whether it’s indie work or the commercial stuff, but there’s a ton of Microsoft and Amazon work here in Seattle.

Deborah Smith:

There’s a lot of money for it. So it’s great. It’s great that you can work with them.

Micah Knapp:

Yeah. And some of those are fun too. I mean, depending on the project that can be fun or creative where we did a bunch that were like LGBTQ series or black month or like these like more interesting story wise or like many documentaries or more creative commercials. And those are the ones that I, I still still love doing. It’s still, you can still kind of fit a narrative into those pieces too.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. Ilya. What, what when you were working in Chicago, what kind of clients were you working with?

Ilya Akhmerov:

So I did a lot of real estate back in Chicago.

Deborah Smith:

Okay.

Ilya Akhmerov:

But some fun clients we had were filming for the Ryder cup golf tournament up in Wisconsin. That was pretty cool. Worked with bulls too and couple commercials and just some content for them. And there is a big outer show in Chicago that I flew. That was pretty cool too flying. I mean, it’s a huge venue and you have so many cars that you can fly around and each vendor has its own theme and theme. It’s pretty cool to fly around through cars and just show how big it is. It was fun too.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s really cool. How have things changed for you?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Well, for me, things changed quite a bit. It’s a completely new place.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah.

Ilya Akhmerov:

So yeah. And new scenes, new life, just trying to figure out everything from the ground. It’s tough but exciting too. You need to make new connections, new people. You still have all the people that you know from Chicago, but here in a new place, you have new opportunities and going around, meeting new people. Everybody’s so nice here in Seattle compared to Chicago, I can show you that <laugh> yeah. Chicago is, I don’t know what’s going on there. I heard a lot about selling trees, but people are not friendly here and I am here and everybody’s smiling and happy to see like, oh, what are you guys talking about? Sale free. It’s not a thing. So not sure about that one, but yeah, everybody’s so nice. And anywhere I grow people are so happy to communicate and yeah. I enjoy it so far.

Deborah Smith:

I feel like it’s never as bad as people say it is. And then you get to the city, cuz people always say that like about Los Angeles that like, you know, people are self-centered and I don’t know, whatever, there’s all sorts of stereotypes. I feel like about each individual market and then you get there and you’re like, it’s actually not that bad. You just gotta find your people, find your good people. So Micah, same question. How have things changed for you over the past couple years?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, I think kinda like what you were saying, it just you build a network over time, you grow a network, make connections and of those people move to different cities and then you, you know, they have connections there and it’s kind of this, you know even bigger network that’s like expanding from there. And I think that, yeah, just word of mouth, I think gets around. At least for me, that’s helped you know, being around for a while in the scene. You get to know everybody and they know you and your work and your style. And I think it’s about funny people that you like working with, but are also competent and good at the job, that balance. But also I think the COVID stuff I hate to mention, you know, obviously changed a lot of things too.

Micah Knapp:

It was, I know everywhere was different. Everyone I know had a different experience, but I, I was lucky in that I was able to keep some jobs during the beginning of COVID a lot of it shut down, but there was just a lot of new things we had to get used to, you know, especially producing we’re, you know, COVID compliance officer on set now and going through COVID safety and you’re also responsible for people’s safety and, and also people dropping out at a negative test and just shooting that environment, wearing facials as a director, whatever it is, you know it was cool that we were still able to do our job and be safe. But it was definitely difficult. And during the early stages, it was just a lot of, you know, learning and, and trials and errors and trying to navigate what that world was like. So the last couple years I’ve been there, but also funny enough for myself. 2020 was hard, but 2021 was one of the busiest years for me. Productionwise I dunno if everyone just was ready to shoot, you know? Yeah,

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, yeah. It was. And in other places, the dock that I shot was New York, Florida, Pittsburgh, just DC all over. So yeah,

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, yeah. But which is great, which I’m, I’m happy, I’m happy people are back to it and yeah, still being safe, but those are, those are the main things I think. And then just growing your network and, and, you know, I think if you do good work and you’re a decent person and you try to be kind and, and you know, put yourself out there in a positive way, I think you’ll do great. You know, so I think doing those things, that’s the key.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. And what important lessons do you think that you’ve learned throughout the years? And you can, you can talk about C but also, you know, pre COVID and for someone who is just starting out, what would you say are some good tips or little nuggets of advice for them?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, I think, I think I know very few people that went to film school and I’m not knocking film school. I think if you wanna go and you have the money, that’s great. I think it’s more about connections. Yep. So I, I never recommend, I mean, with YouTube and everything now, I think it doesn’t really matter. Depends on what you wanna do. I think it’s good to learn set protocols and things like that, but you can do that. As a PA you can get on sets and learn how things work. And you’re kind of doing that after you get outta film school anyways, unless you have some connections. So I think, I think just being humble, if you don’t know something don’t pretend and don’t sort of front something, just actually learn it and, and talk to people and ask questions. And I think you have to work for it.

Micah Knapp:

Some people like to just automatically get the thing that they want and like. I wanna be this and do this role and, you know, make films. And I was the same way, but I think you have to work your way through the industry. You have to, you know not that I, I don’t think you have to follow a formula. I think you can do your own thing. And that’s why I think it’s great. Just grab a camera and go out and shoot something and come up with your own vision and style and you don’t have to follow what other people are doing necessarily. And don’t burn bridges. I think that’s important unless you, unless you need to or want to. Right. but yeah, I think just getting out there and getting on sets and meeting people and talking to people and networking, I, I feel it’s all networking,

Deborah Smith:

Definitely

Micah Knapp:

Having some talent.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah. I, I, I, I definitely wanna highlight your mention about asking questions on set. I think that that’s so incredibly important and also is a great way to weed out the people who aren’t, who don’t wanna be helpful. Because you’ve certainly, I’ve certainly been on sets before with I produced a feature with a first time director and the crew that was responsive to his questions were so much more helpful and are the people that I would hire back again. And the people who were dismissive of him, of his questions, or just didn’t want to give him the babying that he needed in that sense are people that I would never hire again as a producer. I just think that it’s, you know, we’re all just figuring out our way and and it’s just so important to not be a Dick and to just, you know, help, help everyone. Like, yeah,

Micah Knapp:

That’s so true. And I think it’s, I think it’s just important when you’re, if you’re crewing and producing crew jobs, just to build a really good team that works together really well. And like you said, if they don’t know stuff, hiring them, knowing that, and, and letting them learn or whatever, but hiring people again that are good people and do a good job. And it can be fun. It doesn’t have to be, I’ve worked on shoots that were just nightmares because the, the, the team didn’t work well together, or they didn’t there were certain people in positions that just made the whole thing, like a nightmare, you know? Yep. And it starts at, starts at the top for sure. I think yep. You know, above the line, but it’s definitely, yeah. It helps all around a good team.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. And Ilya, what about you as far as, you know, what, what you’ve learned, how did your career and life change during COVID and, and what, you know, bits of advice would you have for someone starting out?

Micah Knapp:

For sure. Yeah,

Ilya Akhmerov:

For me, it was a little different when everything halted production wise. I had a lot of jobs cuz I was flying indoors and doing tours of different real estate projects and nobody would go anywhere. So I had a lot of those to show and it’s like a virtual tour and that’s what I did. But yeah, I agree with you guys being nice on set makes a huge difference. Like the environment that you get on set directly shows in the final product that you produce, if it’s not great, then it will show it in the end product. And yeah, I mean, it’s always much more enjoyable to work with a team that’s tight and helps each other and nobody being a deacon, you know? And yeah, I enjoy those too and always look forward <affirmative> and always look forward to working again with those people rather than sets where it was nervous, tight and not enjoyable. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so yeah.

Deborah Smith:

I always like to remind people when they’re feeling resistant or whatever, that, like, we have the best job in the world. Like we’re, we’re just hanging out with awesome people and like telling stories like what is better? Like why, why have, you know, arguments or, or just be assholes? There’s just, no, there’s just no need for that at all. Micah, I’ll go back to you. So do you know how you personally get work that is real worthy, so, you know, work that you want to be able to showcase to other people?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real worthy. Yeah, I feel like I am, it seems random at least as far as on my end, like jobs will come in or this opportunity comes up randomly. It seems like sometimes yeah, sometimes you take on a job and you never know, is this gonna be like something I can that’s worthy of showing to people afterwards or putting on your reel, like you said? I think it just depends. I think it’s yeah, I think putting yourself out there and different companies will, you know, have a really interesting idea where you have an interesting idea and you have more creative freedom with the project. And I think you, you just never know. Sometimes it’s a project that is a money making thing and you just have to take it at least from my experience and it’s for the paycheck and not for the real.

Micah Knapp:

But I feel like it’s important to either do something for the paycheck, do something for your real or, or do something to learn something, one of those three things. And if you’re not doing one of those three things, it doesn’t make sense. You know, it’s, it’s like at a point, unless you’re getting music videos, for instance, that are with a huge label and your, and it’s a big budget, it’s usually losing money on it. I feel like I’ve done them in the past. And I typically would do it for bands that were, you know once I was passionate about or really liked. And I was like, yo, I’ll do this. Even though it’s a low budget thing, there were ones that I didn’t get paid much and, you know, back in the day and it was almost not worth it, you know, you’re losing money that no one’s seeing. And it’s, you know, not something you can put on your real life. So I think just striving for them, pushing for that and always trying to push really creative, interesting concepts. And again, as you, as you make your way through like doing more narrative work, I think the narrative stuff is more interesting to show personally, like I, on my reel, I tend to there’ve cinema that sometimes that’s, you

Deborah Smith:

Have a bit more creative freedom when it comes to the narrative.

Micah Knapp:

I just, I have my way of telling the story. Do I do just cuz I have my own way of telling stories and that I wanna tell stories that are a little bit more on like the Terrence Mallek kind of tone poem style, focusing less on dialogue and more on visuals and music. You know, show, don’t tell, taking that idea and kind of running with that. But I think, yeah, cuz I think you, I, I have creative freedom when I get to do that. And sometimes that is the case on commercials, but not, not always.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. And I, how do you select, you know, what pieces that you have that you wanna showcase on your real stuff like that?

Ilya Akhmerov:

So I want to say that you need to put yourself out there and show your work. Cause I’m pretty bad with that. I have so much footage that just sits on a hard drive and nobody ever sees it. Only people that I shot it with and it’s never, it never gets out there. So just whatever you do, I’m pretty sure you do it well and just put it out there because as a creator, you are always striving to make it the best. Like, so everybody likes it and I mean, you like it yourself first. And I always think like, oh this is not like, perfect. This is not good enough. So I won’t put it out there. And then a year later I see that footage. I’m like, oh, why didn’t I put it out there? I mean, it’s good enough back then. It was pretty good. Now I can do it probably better, but back then it was pretty good and the people needed to see it. People need to see what you do, how you do it and just show it, put it out there. It’s gonna, it’s gonna get to places that’s my take on it.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think you’re right. It is very important to sometimes be modest when it comes to sharing our work and just be proud of what, you know, we’ve, we’ve put out there and yeah, make sure to, to brag about yourself. Sometimes

Micah Knapp:

I also, I also feel like following up with what you both were saying. I think it’s okay to like sometimes just to suck for a while when you’re, when you’re doing stuff, if you have to like, I mean, cause I think some people actually see your progress and they enjoy watching you grow and it’s hard when you’re perfectionist, but I feel like, yeah, just put your like, like a sudden put yourself out there and just grow as you’re growing and people watch it and be like, that’s awesome. They’ll cheer you on. And I think you can’t just start out being amazing. You have to, it’s anything you, the more time you put into it, you’re gonna be better at it. So

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to what we were saying before about, you know, not being afraid to ask questions because everyone started knowing nothing, you know, everyone has started at the base level. And so it is really inspiring I think, to be able to watch other people’s journey and learn from them and see how much they’ve grown and you know, all of that kind of stuff. So Mike and Ilya, I’m gonna come back to you. So get your, your thinking caps on as far as your favorite project and maybe some horror stories if you wanna share, but we have a new panelist who has just jumped in for the last like 15 minutes or so if you wanna introduce yourself let us know, you know maybe some of, you know, we, we could also just start with you as far as some of your favorite projects, some of your horror stories, you know what you’ve learned about yourself over the past couple years? We’ll just start to have a conversation with you. Welcome.

Nut Suwanchote:

Hello. So my I, I was under new, which is actually my brother, so there’s three of us and we’re all like in the film industry. And so that’s a big you know, like we always get that people get new and nuts <laugh> but we’ve been in the we’ve been doing my brother started doing his like filming when he was in middle school and all that zombie craze. And so with one of those Sony point and shoots or Kodak point and shoots where you have to use double batteries, that’s what he started with. And so it kind of grew from there into weddings. And so we had a booth at the Seattle Wedding Expo for about seven years. And so that’s been kind of a thing. And then but we kind of grew out of that into more of like, like the narratives, but now we do a lot of commercial political campaigns and various other things like and, and some documentary work. What is it called?

Nut Suwanchote:

One of the things we just worked on included the Everett police department and a recruitment video for that. And so that was quite interesting, like a project, because, you know, we were kind of given this exclusive, like behind the door type of V I P access. So I was able to go in and record like part of a precinct or two, and then I was able to be in the car in the front and the back, you know, to just feel how it is. And that was a very fun, recent shoot. We just did. And me and actually me and Tyler actually work a lot together. We’re all kind of in this production together as like a nice younger generation of filmers. We didn’t go to a film school, so it’s kind of been kind of a learning learning and a trial and error type of thing.

Nut Suwanchote:

Yeah. the other, you know one of the other things he’s talking about is the late night show is kind of a, a big thing for API people, because it was held by a kind of like the host was a, a P like a representative person. And so everyone on the show had an involvement pertaining to AAPI. And like one of the participants he was an astronaut. Another was executive producer in the new halo like series. But they also helped produce the halo original 3, 4, 3 Bundy game. And so it was very cool to be like in the presence of people like that, you know, that you kind of like growing up, I didn’t think much about but to kind of just see it right in front of my face being like these like mid 20 year old, like videographer cinematographer cetera, like roles, like in that like, huge production was definitely like a very cool experience.

Nut Suwanchote:

Because it was Tyler , my brother, another guy, and we were all like, like, you know, these like younger guys just, yeah, I don’t know. I guess being that we, the younger generation , like videographers, we don’t meet a lot. We don’t always get the opportunity to work with older generations or younger generations, but like, we do get some older as a producer, right. Like but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with another cinematographer who’s older than me. But I’ve had producers who are older than me, but then I’ve also kind of been a mentor like a high schooler or, or middle schooler when I was in college myself. The grand cinema in Tacoma had a film camp and I was kind of the mentor there. So I was able to spark some kids ‘ inspiration and creativity to become a director or filmmaker. And so now one of the kids that I was kind of leading is looking at schools in California like UCLA for film production. And so she’s like, I really wanna do this. This is my life. And so it was, it’s a good feeling to like, to be able to inspire people.

Deborah Smith:

Absolutely. Yeah. That’s awesome. I’m so glad that you’re, you know, already continuing to pass the Baton. I think that’s a really important aspect of filmmaking. And do you want to, you know, just leave us with one bit of advice for those people that you’re passing the Baton to?

Nut Suwanchote:

I think, you know honestly I think the biggest one kind of is just start you’re gonna, not, everyone starts at the same level and that’s okay. And in due time you’ll get your confidence to grow in your skill and so will your skill change and you’ll adapt and you’ll be able to like, find your style or find a style that works well with you, you know, totally.

Nut Suwanchote:

Like I’m not much into commercial shooting or commercial editing. But the narrative is kind of fun, slow. I find that fun, but like, I know friends who are really into commercials or music videos. And so, you know, you find the niche for you that makes it fun, right. It’s not a job, it’s a career, right. It’s something you wake up and be like, Hey, you know what, I can make the world better today than it was before by contributing. However, I, you know, can, you know,

Deborah Smith:

Very cool. Awesome. Ilya, do you wanna let us know some favorite projects and potentially some horror stories?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Sure. Yeah. Just wanted to comment on making that world a better place. That’s that’s a good way to put it, you know, that’s what we strive for. Right. And it’s good to think about it if you’re making something and it makes the world a better place, just keep doing it. Yeah. So I like to work with talents. So if I’m flying around people, that’s kind of my favorite place where you shoot some action. One of my favorites was shooting Chicago bulls. When you combine a lot of talent on set, you create something special. So we had a lot of people jump in with balls and dancing and just a lot of people to work with. And that creates something really interesting and fun and cool. And you can, you know, stage and see what you can create. That was one of my favorites. Mm,

Deborah Smith:

Very cool. And

Ilya Akhmerov:

There is one, well, not terribly horror, but sketchy when I was on the shoot, it was like a warehouse and people were being forced out of there with the police and they didn’t want to, to leave. It’s like a junkyard-ish type of warehouse where they repair cars. And there is a bunch of small shops and it’s like not in a best neighborhood in Chicago and I’m there with all the camera equipment around and filming the space. So it can be sold. There is a bunch of police and the sketchy people with guns probably. So, yeah. <Laugh>, that was interesting.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, that sounds, sounds pretty crazy. Micah, you’re you last up? And I like ending on high notes. So why don’t you start with a horror story and then, and then one of your favorite projects.

Micah Knapp:

Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a horror story there’s been shoots that were bad, and there’s not really an interesting story behind it, but six or seven years ago, I was a field producer on the real world, that reality TV show. And it was my first foray into the reality TV scene. So it was very different. Lots of alpha male types, lots of fighting going on. It was just interesting. Cause we, we were sort of monitoring everybody on the cast the whole time and dealing with situations in real life that were not the most flattering or fun, you know, breaking people up or stopping an abusive guy from, from abusing another woman that was on the, on the, on the cast. But yeah, we, we would just, we were swinging around Seattle streets and we’d have people that hated the show, yelling at us or the crew, like crew and cast.

Micah Knapp:

And we would go out to the bars and people would be, you know, same thing, there’d be fights breaking out. And one of the things I witnessed was one of the cast members finding out she was pregnant on the shoot and having to go home. It was like seeing that, you know, being the first person to see that. And it was like, I shouldn’t be watching this right now. This doesn’t feel right. You know? Yeah. It’s like just the drama that sort of unfolds in those kinds of shows . It was an experience, but it was at times a little bit horrifying.

Deborah Smith:

Sure.

Micah Knapp:

Dealing with that energy and then also everyone’s drinking, you know, so it’s even worse. So I, yeah, it’s not necessarily a horror story, but it was definitely in, you know, something very different.

Deborah Smith:

It’s definitely a different kind of storytelling. So

Micah Knapp:

It’s like stuff that you wouldn’t normally tolerate on a set or shoot, you know, so it’s interesting just to like, let it play out and like they want that, you know? Yeah.

Micah Knapp:

But on the other end, yeah. I think directing my first feature that I’m in post on right now, because it was something I’ve wanted to do for years. And even though it was low budget, it was something that was like fulfilling a part of me that I had talked about doing for years and wanted to do for a long time. And just to have that creative freedom to make, make a piece and make it the way I wanted to make it with the people I wanted to make it with. And yeah. Yeah, that just, it’s very fulfilling creatively. So that was, that was beautiful.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah. That’s awesome. I think it’s so special when you find, find those people, hold on to them and then make stories together. I think that’s really important.

Micah Knapp:

Right. We get to play for play for a living, right? Yeah. Make a leave.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, exactly. Well we’re, we’re at an hour and usually these run about an hour. So does anyone have any last things they want say before we wrap it up,

Micah Knapp:

I’m stoked. I, I, I wanna see your feature.

Deborah Smith:

Oh, thanks. Yeah. Reading rainbow. I have a feature reading rainbow. Yeah. About reading rainbow, which is really fun cuz I definitely grew up watching rainbow reading rainbow as a kid. So it premieres at Tribeca next week and I’m excited to see, you know, what, we’ve got quite a few offers, but we’re just kind of waiting to see what happens with Tribeca and yeah, the documentary market is very interesting. It definitely, you know, goes, I think through, through a lot more ebbs and flows and I think narrative markets do. And so yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see what happens, but I’ll keep everyone updated. If everyone does, if you want to just go down the line and let us know, what’s the best way to keep in contact with you? If you want people to keep in contact with you, it will also be put in the chat on YouTube. So for me, I’m available on Instagram and I also actually have a mental health podcast and that’s also on Instagram and I always love giving people advice or, or talking to people about filmmaking. So this has been a real pleasure to talk with you all. Micah, where can people find out more about you or connect with you?

Micah Knapp:

Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having us and it was a pleasure and yeah, I can, I can drop my I think both of my, my websites, you know, micahknapp.com, it’s my, my name. I can drop that in the chat as well, as well as my IMDB page and, and Vimeo so, which is vimeo.com/micahknapp. So

Deborah Smith:

Very

Micah Knapp:

Cool. It’s just my name. Great.

Deborah Smith:

My name, easy, easy to find you Ilya. What about you?

Ilya Akhmerov:

Yeah, thanks for having me as well as a new member of the Seattle community. I’m happy to be here. Glad you can find me as Ilya FPV on all social media things and my website as well. Ilyafpv.com. Yeah. I’m pretty easy to find and send me a message, you know, get in touch.

Deborah Smith:

Yeah. Great. And Nut, why don’t you bring us home? How can people keep in contact with you?

Nut Suwanchote:

Yeah, I just wanna first of all how late I was, it was a conflicting schedule.

Deborah Smith:

Not at all. We’re glad that you could pop in for the last little bit.

Nut Suwanchote:

Thank you. Thank you for having us all. In Seattle, I think that’s the big thing that is said, I feel like it’s not represented all the time. And so it’s, it’s nice to, you know, be able to express that. I have an Instagram that I usually use for things like my filming and acting. But it’s not the same name as nut because nut is my nickname. And so I have a different, like, it’s a, it’s like, it’s a long name. It’s my first name, which is 10 letters. My last name, which is 10 letters. So like I can put that somewhere, you know, <laugh> and then I have I, I have my own company too. I wanted to start, you know, because I think in life and, and in anything like the best way to learn is to just do it. And so I kind of, you know, I’m learning as a business person as like a filmmaker, you know, and kind of merging it together. So

Deborah Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, thank you everyone for being here as part of crew talk. I don’t work in Seattle. I work in Los Angeles, but I’ve also worked up in the Pacific Northwest in Portland. So I’m just excited to be included as part of this group. And we will catch you all next time. Lovely to meet everyone.

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