EP107 Lee Herbet | Commercial Videographer

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Can I just stop there? Yeah, I've already stuffed it up. Good morning everybody. I played the wrong music every time. Well, good morning everybody and welcome to the Camera Life podcast. It is Thursday 14th August. It's 9am at least here where I'm sitting. And this is episode 107 of the camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com if you are looking for a premium, premium handcrafted, Aussie made leather camera strap, head to Luckystraps.com We've got a whole range of products there you can customize and personalize to your heart's content. But that's enough of the ad read. We are joined today. As you may have noticed, Justin's not here. He's still in New Zealand. Jim's not here. He's doing a gig this morning. So he's madly running around Bendigo trying to find a replacement microphone. But we are joined by guest co host, Emily Black, friend of the show. Great to have you back, Emily. [00:01:26] Speaker B: Hello. It's great to be back. That's good. [00:01:29] Speaker A: I think with the beef up interviews and everything that we're doing, Emily, it feels like I'm talking to you once a week. Once a week. [00:01:34] Speaker B: I know, I feel like we've spoken a lot. [00:01:36] Speaker A: No, I know. But of course, being the Thursday morning Camera Life podcast, we are joined by a guest and I'm really proud to introduce today's guest because he's a mate of mine, Lee Herbert, videographer of the stars. How are you? [00:01:49] Speaker C: I am surviving. How are you? [00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah, much the same, much the same. I'm in my safe little space in a world gone mad. Great to have you on the show. Let's. I might just jump to a couple of quick good mornings before we dig into Lee's story. First of all, Lisa Leach. Good morning, Lisa. Great to have you back on board. Paul. Morning, Paul. Lisa Beecher this time, mate. Rodney Nicholson. Morning all. G', day, Rodney. I hope you're well and safe. Neil is here, of course. Wouldn't be the Lisa and Neil Leach show without Neil. Good morning, mate and digifrog, Dave. G', day. How are you? How are things in Tassie? Is it cold? And Lisa. Oh, I hope you had a lovely birthday, Greg. I did have a lovely birthday. It was my 52nd birthday yesterday and I was spoiled. So, you know, what more could I say? I got lots of Lego. No, don't sing. [00:02:47] Speaker B: We don't want to scare people away. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. We're trying to. We're Trying to increase our subscriber numbers, Emily, but. But. Yeah. Well, Lee, let's. Let's find out a little bit more about you. First of all, can you just give us maybe the quick 60 second version? Who you are, what you shoot, what you're known for. [00:03:07] Speaker C: Oh, 60. Well, first of all, I'm known for not giving short answers, so I am. I run a video production company here in Melbourne and we do mostly corporate stuff, so a lot of case studies, a lot of instructional videos, training videos, things like that. And what I enjoyed. I mean, I enjoyed doing that, of course, but if I won lotto, probably what we would do is I would just travel the world making food documentaries. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, that would be good. Are you looking for. You need a best boy, don't you? Every. Every. Every set needs a best boy. Can I be your best boy? [00:03:50] Speaker C: I need a winning lottery ticket before we discuss anything else. [00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a fair call. That is a fair call. Now, Lee, of course this isn't the first time that you and I have appeared on a podcast together. [00:03:59] Speaker C: No. [00:04:00] Speaker A: A few years ago, you and I were regulars on another photography podcast. Just. Was that. Did we start that during COVID Yes, we did. It feels like it was the dark days, so. [00:04:12] Speaker C: Certainly was. [00:04:13] Speaker A: But great to have you back on the show. We're going to roll back the clock in a minute and dig deep into who you are and what makes you tick. But before we do, I just want to jump on a couple more quick comments that have come in from Justin. Sunny but chilly here in New Zealand. Just before we went live, folks, Justin was. Was checking in on me to make sure that I was looking after the shop. Pleased to say he didn't find any of the dirt, so. And David from San Fran. [00:04:43] Speaker C: Hey. [00:04:43] Speaker A: From the Bay Area. And a big one from Paul. My podcast prize pack arrived yesterday. Thank you, Jim and team. The smell of the leather on that Deluxe 45 is divine. Takes me back to the start of each primary school year. Buying Clark's shoes. Wow. I don't think we've ever had anyone say that receiving a lucky strap has evoked past traumas like that. I remember wearing Clark shoes that always hurt. Didn't matter what you did. And desert boots. Did you guys ever wear desert boots to school? [00:05:16] Speaker B: Desert boots? I was never allowed to have desert boots. All my brothers had desert boots and I didn't get any because I was a girl, so I have to have. [00:05:23] Speaker A: That kind of part of the uniform. Oh, did you like the Mary Jane? Kind of. So they're called Mary Janes. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Lee? Were you a Mary Jane's boy? [00:05:33] Speaker C: I have no. I grew up in South Africa, so I have no idea. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, what footwear did you wear to school? [00:05:42] Speaker C: In primary school? I was more of a. More of a sandals type. So they were sandals with knee high socks? [00:05:49] Speaker A: Knee high? [00:05:50] Speaker C: No, look, I actually have a German passport, but I will not wear socks with sandals. So even though I'm allowed to, I. I feel it's, it's. It's my, it's my duty to educate my fellow Deutschlands, so just because you can doesn't mean you should. And then just black leather shoes. I. I don't think they had a particular name. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. School shoes were notorious in my day. Notoriously bad. Anyway, enough about that. Emily, how have you been? Are you good? I see lots of stuff on your socials about running around mountains. [00:06:27] Speaker B: I'm doing lots of running around at the moment. Well, yeah, this is half the reason I'm a bit. Yeah. And I'm training again for another 100 mile race, so when's. [00:06:37] Speaker A: When's the next one? [00:06:40] Speaker B: That's November again. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Oh, post Covid. Yeah, post Covid. Post beef up. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Post B. Yes. But I'll be able to get some hill training in there, so. [00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you will. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Raced through there earlier this year as well. But I'm. When I'm not doing that, I'm actually running through hills, taking photos of people running through hills. So it's making for a fun time. [00:07:03] Speaker A: That's good. [00:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good. [00:07:05] Speaker A: You're out there doing it. Well done. All right, well, great to have you here to help co host the show because as you can see, all of the lucky strap staff have deserted me. Jim, Yelena, Justin, nowhere to be seen. But. But let's talk about Lee Herbert. So, Lee, before we get to what. Who you are and what you do now, let's roll back the clock. I won't say how far I'll leave that up to you. But what I guess I'm looking for is what would. What do you think were some of those early catalyst moments or inspirations. [00:07:40] Speaker C: Or. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Even just the first time you picked up a camera? Where did it all begin for you? [00:07:44] Speaker C: I think probably throughout my teens and whatnot, and early 20s. It was probably just taking photos, happy snaps, things like that. But I think where it sort of started was I love travel and I love doing photography while I'm traveling. And very early on I very quickly realized that, oh, here's this amazing landscape with this beautiful sunset. Click. Well, that doesn't look anything like what my eyes are seeing. And that was the essence of you're. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Shooting with a Sony camera. Sorry, you go too soon. [00:08:18] Speaker C: It, it, it. I'm quite ign. I'm actually shooting with everything these days. Hang on, just, just, just, just to give you even, just a slight idea of how agnostic I am with phones, here's my iPhone. Here's a nothing. I think. Yeah, that's a nothing phone. Here's a Motorola and here's a Samsung. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, there's therapy groups for people like you. [00:08:44] Speaker C: There are lots of things for people like me. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Anyway, I interrupted your story. [00:08:50] Speaker C: No, yeah. By the way, those, those are all in for review. I only actually have. Just the one is mine. I'm not, I'm not made out of phones. [00:08:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:59] Speaker C: So, yeah, so it just basically started with. Actually, I think I was shooting. Yes. Nikon was, was my first DSLR. Yeah. D60, which, which is quite funny because I got the D60 and then within a week I gave it back and got a D90. The main reason for that is because I like physical buttons and the D60 only had a single dial and you had to push a button to switch between aperture control and shutter control. And I was like, no, I want a dial for my apt. I want it. It's. Yeah, so, so, so very early on I was like menus and it just kind of. I remember a mate of mine from Christchurch because I was very intimidated by the camera because like lots of people said, oh yeah, if you want to get serious, you want to do this. And I didn't know ISO from my elbow and so yeah, a mate of mine recommended this, this book. I can't even. I should, I should have remembered what it was. But he remember, recommended his book and it just basically taught the basics of. Here's what ISO is. Here was basically, you know, the triangle and it just kind of started from there. Now on the, on the other side of things because I'm always doing multiple things from out of high school I was doing musical theater. Yes, I, I used to sing and dance, but that was 20 kilos ago. And very, very early on through, through doing. Also I was a fat kid, so I lost a lot of weight later in high school, but I was a fat kid so I was always the funny one. And so I did some stand up as well. And I decided very early on that I wanted to do stand up rather than doing musical theater. The main reason for that is comedians. If there's any actors in the audience. I apologize if there's a generalization, but you cannot have conversations like this without generalizing. I found actors quite up themselves, and I found comedians very down to earth. And I think one of the reasons for now, again, very much a generalization. I've also found plenty of comedians also very up themselves. But as a general rule, if you're an actor and if you're in a play and it goes badly, you can go, well, the other actors dropped my lines, the lighting was terrible, the director was a cokehead, you know, all these other reasons why it's not my fault. Whereas when you're a comedian, you are the writer, you are the director, you are the actor. If the audience isn't laughing, it's your fault. And so, at least from that perspective, that's the element that I found the most terrifying but also the most appealing to me in terms of comedians. Comedians can generally. Well, they're all, most of them are neurotic and so they're always finding fault with themselves. But that kind of attracted me to it. And trust me, this is getting back to cameras. The reason why I mentioned this is I would record all of my sets. At first it was just a little voice recorder and eventually it moved on to cameras and so on. Not, not from a promotional point of view, but just because when you're on, at least for me, when I'm on stage and the adrenaline's going, I get off stage and go, what the hell did I say? And so just to remember what I had said and then to analyze it and go, okay, well, that bit worked. That bit didn't work. That seemed to get an interesting response. And that's the thing that I loved about writing comedy. And I think anyone who, anyone who speaks in public or does anything like this language fascinates me because you could take the third word of a sentence and move it to the end of the sentence and that makes it funny, or you could emphasize one word instead of another word and that makes it funny. And so all the time when I was doing Stan, I was experimenting with, well, I go like this or I go like this and you see what works and what doesn't work. And so anyway, so I was filming all of my sets and if you turn up to a comedy gig with a camera, all the other comedians go, hey, can you film my set? And can you do a little promo video for me? And so that's kind of how the video side of things kind of started. And in my grown up job, I was working in it. And I managed to get my way into a position of training people on how to use video editing applications. So I managed to sort of marry my grown up job and my less grown up job together kind of thing. And then eventually 11, almost 12 years ago, I. I gave up on the grown up job and went out and started my own video production company. It was interesting because my background was in training, so I was more of a trainer. And so when I left, I was doing like 80 training and 20 video production. And I wanted to flip that and the, the turning point for me. And it's, it's so funny how, you know, there, there are, there are sliding doors moments in people's lives. And this was very much a sliding door moment where a friend of ours who was the general manager of a small boutique ad agency, they specialized in the health sector, she came to me, you know, she called me out for a coffee and she said, I want to talk to you about a job. Cool. And she said, well, so we've got a client who has got some instructional videos for an aspirinhaler and we want to redo them. And I think you'd be the perfect person because you've got the, like the educational background, like the training background, so you understand the pedagogy of it's kind of thing. But then you've got the creative flare and you could make these videos a lot more interesting. And I was like, cool, this sounds really exciting. And she said, the job pays $15,000. And the first thing I said was, I can't do it. And she said, why? And I said, well, I've never charged anyone more than $3,000 for a video. I can't. And she was like, okay, here's the thing. If we went to our client and said it's only $3,000, they'd assume you're. And they wouldn't hire you. Yeah, I've seen your work. It's totally worth it. When we want a 3,000 job, we've got a guy called Dave that we hire. Don't be Dave. And there was such a moment of. And, and yeah, that was, that was, that was the turning moment for me where I was like, oh, I can actually make a living from this malarkey. [00:15:01] Speaker B: I think that's something a lot of photographers can relate to that, can't they? Like thinking, devaluing themselves and thinking, I can't charge that somebody else to actually come in and be the bearer of the news that if you don't charge this, don't Be Dave. Yeah, absolutely. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky balance though, isn't it? It's a tricky balance especially when you're starting out knowing how confident can I be? How do I charge? I remember when I first took up digital photography I started doing gigs, paid gigs, but mostly for friends and word of mouth stuff. Friends of friends. But I always struggled with knowing how to charge properly because I didn't study photography in, in tertiary or anything like that. But yeah, yeah, it's an interesting, interesting. [00:15:45] Speaker C: Issue and, and that was very much me that I, I didn't, I didn't study diddly. I mean I studied for my work stuff. Not, not you like work like courses and things and, and it's you, you, you've nailed, nailed the head. You've hit the nail on the head in the sense that, you know, if I was, in a sense I was just starting out but I had been doing it for 10 years already, just not professionally. And so that was where the disconnect from my skills as opposed to what I could. And it's all particularly these days again it's one of those things, perception is reality but it's all about the, your reputation and that kind of thing and whether people, people will have different ideas of your value from you kind of thing. And it's you first of all convince, understanding yourself and then convincing other people sort of thing. And yeah, just to go off on a little bit of a tangent, you know one of the, one of the biggest challenges like I realized when I was going out on my own that oh, you know, I'm, I'm going out to be creative and I'm just going to wear a beret and I'm going to turn up to gigs, go, let's make something fabulous. Now I, I knew right away that if I was lucky I would get to do that 25% of the my time and the other 75% of my time was what doing what I call grown up stuff, which is bookkeeping and marketing and client meetings and you know, grown up stuff and, and that was the part that took me four or five years to get a lot better at. I, I think I'm quite good. I still don't enjoy it. I'd love to get to a point where I can hire someone else to do the grown up stuff. I keep trying to convince my wife to quit her job and go, you can just manage my business because I don't want to. And, and so I'll give you. So actually I did a course for a company called Ripple training about, like, the business side of video production from the corporate side. And one of the biggest challenges, and I'm sure photographers have this all the time, is someone comes and goes, oh, I need to get some. I need to get a video, I need to get some photos. And you go, cool, what do you need it for? And they go, so that's the first. Just getting a brief out of the client is a challenge. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Do you find that, Emily, with your clients, that sometimes there's a lot of interpreting. [00:18:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it depends on the client. And like, I've had. I've had clients that have sort of known what they want because they've kind of done it before. They sort of know what the, the end outcome might need to be, but they need to refine it and change and shift it to where they're at now. But it's those, it's those ones that, yeah, it's like, it's new. I. I don't. I don't know. And you have to really start to ask the right questions of them to get that, that vision, because what they think they need is generally not what they need. Right? [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:18:41] Speaker C: And. And very often so, so, so what I actually did. So, so where this, where this sort of thinking came from is what I started doing, because obviously we want repeat work. The challenge is, you know, for. And I work with fairly big budgets these days and fairly big productions. And so if they're spending this kind of money on a video, that's great, but I want them to come back and spend more money on a video next year, you know, So I was, I was starting trying to think, how can I look at creating repeat business for myself? And so one of the things I started doing is I started looking at the websites of my clients that I'd done work for in the past and trying to see how they were using the videos that I'd created. And a lot of the times it was either on their website and, like, no one was going there, or they chucked it up on YouTube and it had like a couple of hundred views. And I looked at that and went, well, that's rubbish. Of course, like, no wonder they're not coming back to get me to do more stuff, because they didn't, they didn't get value out of what I created for them. And my first thought was, well, that's, that's their marketing. Their marketing team is rubbish. You know, clearly they're marketing. Their marketing is not using the video properly. They're not making the best of it. Why Should I do the marketing team's work now? Absolutely. I could have that attitude, but that attitude ain't getting more, ain't getting me more work. So the marketing team's still getting paid, but I'm not getting hired again. So as much as, you know, my, my, my slight autistic side kind of goes well, shouldn't be my job to fix this. Yeah, well, that's all, that's all well and good, but you're the one who's suffering from it. So. Yeah, what I came up with was I created this 10. This 10. And I'm happy to share it with you if you like, a little document called getting to know you. And basically all it is. It's 10 multiple choice questions to try and help clarify for the client what their brief should be for me. So it's like what, what do you want to get? Like, what does success look like from this product that I'm, that I'm producing for you? [00:20:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:42] Speaker C: You know, and, and is it, and then it sort of digs a bit deeper. Like is, do you want to create, is this a promotional video? Is it educational video? Is a little bit of both. And it's very important is trying to refine what it is they want to get out of it. Because if you try and create a promotional video that's going to speak to everyone, you're going to speak to no one, you know, like, like it's, it's, it's that kind of thing. And then, and then the, the really tough part is budget. How do you, because I don't know about you, but almost every time I say to a client, what's your budget? They go, I don't know which between you and me is. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Or it's, or it's a problem, it's a worry if they don't really know. [00:21:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And so what I say to them is, I go, okay, no, fair enough. So let me ask you if I said to you we're going to spend $10,000 on this video or $100,000 on this video, they work out where their budget is pretty bloody quickly. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, true. Yep. [00:21:43] Speaker C: Because that's, that's, and I don't think that's rude or, or abrasive. It's, I'm just kind of going like, give us an idea. And what I also say to them is I go, look, the thing is we can do it either side of that, you know, because one of the things I go, the difference between, you know, $50,000 budget, a $30,000 budget, budget and the $10,000 budget is we're going to hire a helicopter, we're going to use a drone, we're going to throw a camera up in the air and hope for the best. Like we can get you something, but depending on what budget you've got will dictate. And it's interesting with video. I don't know what it's like in photography, but in video, very often clients have never had videos created. Their way of gauging how much they think a video should or shouldn't cost is the length of the video. You know, they'll say to me, oh, it's, it's just, it's just we just need a short three minute video. We just need a short five minute video. And then I explained to them, well, like a 30 second Coca Cola commercial could cost you $5 million. So like the length is irrelevant. It's more. How many shoot days do we have? How much editing is involved, how much special effects are involved? Similar with photography. It's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. [00:22:53] Speaker B: Well, that's fine. [00:22:53] Speaker C: Like in, in one location, how much editing do we need? Do you like your hair shot? Are we, are we, are we, are we touching something up? Are we? And to, to, to channel that. The grumpy old man in me. One of my favorite things is when someone who doesn't do my job tells me how easy my job is. Or oh, it like, like I am trying to banish the word just from my vocabulary. Because if, because if I say to someone, oh, could you just do this? Something is always easy to do when someone else has to do it. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:29] Speaker C: And so whenever someone says, oh, could you just edit this out? I'm like, well, yeah, I could just do that, but it's going to take me three hours to just edit that out. And so wherever possible, if I'm able to have a client sit in on my editing sessions, like, it's interesting. A lot of editors are like, I don't want the client sitting over my shoulder watching me edit. I love it. Because that helps the client understand what's involved. Like, they'll go, oh, could you just do that? Cool, let me show you. Do you want to go get a coffee? Because this is going to take a while. It's every opportunity I have to educate my clients to understand how, quite frankly, how long everything that I have to do takes for me I see as an advantage, I think. [00:24:21] Speaker A: No, no, no, that's okay. No one remembers the question, but sorry, I was just going to say, you know, that it's a really interesting approach to, you know, include the clients to show them to, especially if you want them as repeat clients to show them what it takes that, you know, you're not just there pushing a shutter button and job's done. You know, there's so much more. And it's like you said, it's that other 70, 75% of the task that often clients just don't even consider, you know, well, I've got to, I've got to pay for overheads, I've got to pay for my Internet, my power, you know, I've had to upgrade my Mac, you know, all of that stuff. They don't. They just say, oh, well, you just take a photo. And I've had gigs in the past, people who wanted to. One client wanted to hire me for a party to set up a bit like a photo booth, you know, and I'd take a small instant printer and all that sort of stuff, and I gave them my prices and, and I was only fairly new in the game, so to speak. And she, and, and I know this is a meme, but she literally came back and said, oh, look, I think I'll just get people to take photos with their phones. I'm like, yeah, okay, cool. If that's the sort of quality you're looking for, you know, that's how you really want to remember this thing that you've spent. You're happy to have spent 25, 000 on a party, you know, but. Yeah, and it's that underwriting of, of our actual value that often bothered me with, with paid gigs. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Well, I mean it again, I can see it from their perspective in the sense that, you know, if, if I was organizing a wedding, let's say, and I can like, I can physically see all the food show up and I can physically see all the people eat the food now all the money you've spent on the food will literally go down the toilet within 24 hours. Yeah, you are literally shoveling. You're literally flushing that all away in less than a day. But the, the mentality is, you understand that whereas, you know, the client only if the client only sees the final image. Yeah, they don't, they don't have a perspective of everything that went on, you know, to create that image. I always remember, I'm blanking on his name. Scott Born man of mine, photographer in the US I always remember when he used to say, long time ago when he shot weddings and stuff. And you know, he'd always go, oh, you know, someone in the Party would go, oh, my Uncle Dave's got a dslr. You know, why don't I, Why don't I get Uncle Dave to. Sorry, I shouldn't stop. I should stop picking on Dave. My Uncle Fred, you know, has got a good camera, and Scott would always be like, cool, how about I'll take Uncle Fred's iPhone and Uncle Fred can take my expensive, you know, yeah, whatever. And I guarantee you I will get you better photos than Uncle Fred. And it's, it's, it's. It's really challenging because so, like, we are in a service business. Like, that's, that's the challenge. We don't. It's. It's. It's the service we provide. It's not really like there is the final product, but it's all that service along the way that gets you to that. [00:27:29] Speaker A: And I think a lot of clients, Lee, also. I don't know if this is your experience too, Emily. I'd love to hear your side of this, but a lot of, like I said before, they don't see the other 75% of the work. And they also don't take into account the fact that, you know, you might have been doing this for 20 years. You've got 20 years worth of experience. You've, you know, you've managed bigger clients than them successfully. You know that you, you, you paid, you paid your way through uni to do this or, or you did, you know, like, Emily, you know, first job was in the, in the press room at a, at a local rag. You know, it. You had to, you had to learn the ropes the hard way. And, and when you get to a point where you can charge proper dollars, part of that is in recognition of all the stuff that you've done to be at this level. And, and clients, obviously, for obvious reasons, and you can't hold it against them necessarily, but they don't see it. What's your experience been, Emily? [00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's, I mean, it is. It's like the, what's the, the commentary about? You know, the plumber turns up to the house and charges $300 for fixing the leak, and the person's like, well, you're only here for 15 minutes. And it's like, but, yeah, but I've done 20 years worth of experience to know that, yeah, that's what the problem is, and I can fix it. It's not based on the amount of time, it's based on the amount of knowledge behind it and, you know, breaking it all down. But, yeah, I, I think I think I have a pretty good relationship with most of my clients that understand like, I mean it's happened over time. Building that relationship and explaining that what you're going to get, you're going to get, get it right first time because I know how to get it right in camera. I'm not going to spend another 10 hours, you know, adjusting the shadows and fixing the highlight and all the rest of it because I used to shoot on film. You know there's a lot of, a lot of that value and so you know, things like turnaround time and things like that. But I was going to ask Lee actually about the. Having the client in on it and explaining them, you know, having them see the value that goes in and the time that goes into editing and things like that has that. So that repetition of client has that built that loyalty like and that understanding. And so you get return clients through that understanding. [00:29:50] Speaker C: In some cases, yes. In most cases, no. Okay, but. And that's the thing, you know, it's all, it's all a numbers game, you know, so, so you know, I've definitely got my, my, my biggest slash, best slash, worst client, all of the above. They definitely appreciate what's involved. It's interesting because they've, they are very pedantic about details and, and I think where I won them over was on one of the first jobs I was doing. It's a big client. So this particular department that I did some stuff for and I found it interesting niche because I will get to the, get to the. So in answer to your question, kind of, it can't hurt but, but it hasn't been nearly as good as I would have hoped. But where I was going with the other one was I found an interesting niche where because I didn't go to uni and I started in this industry very, very late in life and I'm not from Melbourne, I don't have that built in network of people that I know and know and you know, there's that old saying, it's all about who you know. Rubbish. It's all who knows you. I know lots of people who don't return my calls. So me knowing someone else doesn't help. It's, it's them knowing me and them thinking of me. Oh, I need a video. Oh, I know Lee. Yeah, Lee can help me with that. So it's, it, it was a very slow burn starting out and so, and it's all word of mouth, it's all, you know, that kind of stuff. And so normally how a lot of People get their start, particularly in, in film and TV and particularly if you're doing the corporate stuff is you go to film school and then two or three of the people that you went to film school with end up not being filmmakers, but they work in an ad agency or they work at a marketing team or that's. And this is how you get you. And every industry is, you know, don't hate the player, hate the games, that kind of thing. You know, that's how every industry, how everything in life works. We all humans are tribal. We, you know, we, we like to work with people that we like and all that kind of thing. And one of the, One of the things that. One of the challenges that I found was early on, a mate, a mate of my wife's. Stick with me. Her husband's mate runs an ad agency. So through a mate of my wife's husband, I got a meeting with the creative director of this ad agency. So I go in and meet with him. And obviously I'd sent through my portfolio before and I'd started doing some, some pretty good stuff by then. And I really appreciated his bluntness because he said to me, look, you know, your stuff is fine, but the challenge is if I'm gonna say to BMW, I'm gonna get Lee to shoot a commercial for you, they're gonna say, what other car brands has he shot for? Like, has he done anything for Mercedes? Has he done anything for Toyota? That kind of thing? Probably not. BMW doesn't care about Toyota. But that's not the. Here, it's a brand thing. Do you remember snooty actors? And so, and I, and, and I sort of said to him, I was like, well, okay, but like, you see the, you see the problem here is like, how can I. I can't get the work unless I've done the work. How do I get someone to take. How do I get someone to take a chance on me? And it comes from relationships and it comes from having those relationships. And so the niche that I managed to find was that I, I used to be a bit of a. I'm not going to say I worked in the corporate world. And so I had some corporate contacts and what I found was a sales team would want to create a video. Now, the sales team is not going to go to the marketing team to help them create this video because, number one, they think the marketing team will either say no or the marketing team will take over and they will make a video that is good for the marketing team and it won't be what the sales team wants to create for their video. So the first thing that normally happens is the sales team tries to do it themselves and it's not great. And so somehow someone in the sales team will be talking to someone that knows me and they go, oh, Lee's good for this. And so, because I'm not cheap, but I don't cost nearly as much as an ad agency does. And so the mark. So basically, sales teams are trying to get round a marketing team to get some videos made. And that's kind of the niche that I sort of found. The challenge with that is I really struggle to get into the big. The bigger jobs, because the bigger jobs, those have to go through marketing, those have to go to the agency, those. Like, I've actually had one of the people in, like a product manager in a. In a company that I've done quite a lot of work for, and I came to her with this idea. I was like, hey, I've got this idea for like a series of and like videos that we could do. And she was like, that's a great idea. I can't suggest it to anyone because in order to get the budget to do it properly, I've got to take this to marketing. And as soon as I take it to marketing, you're not going to get a look in. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:58] Speaker C: And the challenge is that, that's, that's just. I. I don't know how to, you know, and particularly now, today, like with, with, with influences and all this kind of stuff, it's very much a case of. Thing is, it's always been this way, but it's just a bit more obvious is people, People get hired on their reputation. People get hired on their reputation. And the relationship, it's either reputation or a relationship that you have with the person who's hiring you, or you have that reputation that people go, oh, and this is very much a sidebar, but something that I cannot stand. It's just people who hold the microphone. You know how the microphone's got a clip on it? [00:35:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And they. Or they put it on something like a pencil. [00:35:43] Speaker C: Yeah, well, look, look, if they put it on a pencil, I will, I will allow that because, like, if you are interviewing someone and so if you've got one microphone between two people, fair enough, I understand that. But if you're standing there by, like, I saw this schmuck, here it comes. People standing there with a microphone, they had to pick something up with both their hands and they were like, what can I do with the microphone? It's got a clip on it. You're supposed to clip it on your shirt. You look like a numpty holding them. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Maybe, maybe, maybe this could be your next career move. Like, you know, educating influencers. I think you'd do great with that temperament. [00:36:34] Speaker C: So many. If I was think of it, there would be so many letters to hr I wouldn't last an hour. It's. I actually I've got a photo. I'll see if I can find it. I can share with you. I've got a photo because. So I'm really pedantic about audio and microphones and sound and all that kind of stuff because if any of your audience, if you lovely people who are watching this today or in the future, if you're looking to do video, sound is 60 of video. You could have the most beautiful cinema. Also the word cinematic needs to stop being used so you could have the most beautiful footage ever. Like Oscar winning potential footage. But if your sound is bad, no one is going to watch it. So like sound is so super, super important things. And a lavalier mic, so these, these little mics that you hold, I mean now they're probably even designed to be held because stupid people. But a lavalier mic. And I've got drawers full of mics and mic gear and things for hiding mics and that's like I'm. I will show you my toys. So a lavalier mic is designed to be a particular distance away from your mouth. Like, like particularly when people are holding the microphone. When they're holding the microphone like this, you're going to get a lot of. And, and it's like it's not designed to be held this close to your mouth. If you ever want to know where the microphone should go, do the hello symbol with your hand. [00:37:56] Speaker A: I know. You're making me self conscious. [00:37:58] Speaker C: No, no, no. Look, look. But this is. But a shotgun mic is different from a lavalier mic. Like the condensers are different. The way it's designed to capture audio. Like it's the, the mic you're using, it's designed to be that close. These mics are designed to be this close. But a lavalier mic, do the hello thing. Put your thumb on your lower lip and wherever your pinky ends up, it'll almost always be like in your. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Everyone do it at home. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Everyone. [00:38:24] Speaker C: You're all do. I hope you're all doing it. But yeah, the mic should be so it, it, it actually needs to be this far away, not this close. And so you know, it's all Fun. It, it's all fun and games of me being grumpy about it because I, I, I, I think you look silly. But it's also, you're gonna bet you're gonna get better quality audio if you have the mic the correct distance away. Now the challenge is, I love it. You go, Lisa. The challenge is that because the I, I get where this came from because what may have happened again, I always try and see the other side. Where it may have came from is because it's got a clip on it. People would clip it on the top of their shirt and this is too close. And so maybe they were getting bad audio with it clipped over here and they didn't realize that you could just clip it here. Now also, like actual microphones, I'm being really snobby with that. Let me stop there. Lavalier mics are these tiny little. Hang on. Speak amongst yourselves. I'm just going to get some visual aids. [00:39:29] Speaker A: Okay. Show and tell time, people. [00:39:33] Speaker B: Rethinking all of the content that I create now and how it sounds and where I'm gonna put the mic and what I'm gonna do. What do I do with the ones that are sitting on my ears, mate? [00:39:46] Speaker A: I, I think what bothers me the most is when they, they clip a DJI mic to the peak of their baseball cap. That really, that really bugs me. [00:39:54] Speaker C: You know what? I'd rather. [00:39:55] Speaker A: But it's probably, it's probably right when. [00:39:57] Speaker C: You do this look, that's the, the clipping it to the hat. There, there is actually precedence for that. Like, I like sou can't get the mic on the person. They will actually clip it in their hair. Or the. Because again, that distance is better than so, so, so on the hat. I will allow that. I don't, I don't mind that. It's just, just, just don't hold the bloody thing. But so, so to get, so, so to give you an idea, this is, this is an example of like a lavalier mic. So there we go. So there's, there's, there's. And I'm, I'm really, I always go for the, for the tiny ones because you want a nice. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Oh, what happened? [00:40:38] Speaker C: Nice small one. It's easy. Oh, there we go. [00:40:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:41] Speaker C: So, you know, it's much easier to hide this. So you want to sort of pop that there. Now the key to taping it. Let me get my tape. [00:40:55] Speaker A: I think this is the one I wanted. Here we go. [00:40:58] Speaker C: Okay. So the key to. Hello. So there's a whole bunch of different Things. This is my little box of things for hiding microphones and that kind of stuff. So let me give you an idea of some of the stuff that's in here. So if you're dealing with a lot of clothing, Russell, you can have like this. So this is basically moleskin. And you can put that moleskin on the microphone because that's going to help prevent a little bit of clothing rustle when the mic, if the mic's sort of shifting around. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Where does one get moleskin? [00:41:31] Speaker C: If you go to. So my, my local dealer is La Mac. And. But most, if you go to most sort of like if you go to a music store or, you know, the sound shop or something like that, you could probably get, get a fair bit of that stuff. What is this? Okay, my old eyes. But what I get a lot of and what, what I use for most of my mics these days is, is so here's just a little bit of foam that you can then. Now this is generally designed more for, for dealing with wind. So if you're filming outside, it's particularly windy, you put the microphone into the foam and you just have the tip of the mic just at the top of the foam like that. And that's going to help protect the mic from, from wind. Now here's a little tip in terms of how you, you want to, you want to. Now obviously we do this on the inside of the shirt. But, but here's how I always tape my. And this is in an ideal situation, if they're not wearing a shirt or different clothing, you want to do that slightly differently. So here is. Now this would be in, in a little fluffy thing. So here is my mic generally where, when. Oh, look at that. I've done this once or twice. But, but, but, but here's, but here's the thing, here's the thing with micing, that that is not enough tape because where you're going to hear the most sort of rustling sound. So the mic's being pulled is actually not so much because the mic is pulling, is rubbing up your clothes, but it's rubbing up clothes because the cable is being pulled. So what you want to do is give yourself a little loop like that. So you see a little loop like that and then you tape. Oh, hello. So you give yourself your little loop and then you tape that down. And so now your cable's got a bit of, a little bit of give. And if, and I tape it down at the bottom of the shirt as well. And so then if, if my cable is pulling it's not pulling and moving the actual lid of the mic where the sound's coming in. And that is one of the best ways to avoid clothing rustle. Like if you're just sitting down and you're not moving too much. Just the top ones, like when I'm doing my YouTube videos and stuff, I just, I just clip it on here on the inside. I probably do the other ones as well, but if I'm really lazy, I don't do the other ones. But if you're, if your, if your talent is moving around this little loop thing, that is the best tip that I ever learned for avoiding too much clothing rustle and stuff like that. But so that's, that's the lav mics. But then if you're like interviewing people or you're getting stuff from, from a distance, you will then obviously use what we call a shotgun mic. And here's one of the main differences, the really important difference that you need to know about the difference between a lavalier mic and a shotgun mic. So a lavalier mic, some of them are omnidirectional, some of them are bi directional. But basically omnidirectional means it's capturing the audio in a bubble around this microphone. So it's very much designed to capture the audio in this little bubble around the microphone and to try and ignore audio from outside that little bubble. So that's how this is capturing the audio. A shotgun mic, as the name would suggest, is capturing the audio in like a cone in front of the microphone and it's trying to get stuff from as. So if you've got someone fairly close, and this is the key to good audio, is you want the source of your audio to be as close as possible to the microphone. That's, that's the only thing you get. The further away you are from the microphone. If you are the source of the audio, the further away you are from the microphone, the worse your audio is going to be because there's time for that sound to bounce off of walls. There's time for that sound to dissipate in other directions. So yeah, this in a pinch is what I use because ideally if I'm, if I'm getting audio from people, I always want a lav mic on them. Having said that, I've become lazy in my old age and a little, well, I've become lazy. But also computer software has gotten better in terms of getting rid of room echo and getting rid of other sounds and things like that. So what I've actually started doing now on corporate interviews, like back in the day, back in the day being like six months ago, I would have a shotgun mic directly above my, above my speaker, just, just out of sight like that. So, you know, you know sometimes when, when you're watching someone, the sound person's messed up or the camera person messed up and you sort of, oh, what's, what's, what's that? So I'll have it just there out of sight. And again, where you want it is you want it slightly in front and pointed directly at the person's mouth. Hopefully that they don't. This is why you never put an interview on a swivel chair. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Ah. So. [00:46:26] Speaker C: Well, that and other reasons. But yeah, so you want to point it at their mouth and that's going to get. I always use that as my backup and then I'd have a lavalier mic on the person. But particularly in corporate work, these are people who are not used to being on camera. So they're already, you know, they've got lights all around them, they've got this massive black dead lens staring at them. They're already quite intimidated. And you want your, your talent to be as relaxed as possible. So then having to say, well, I'm going to stick this microphone on you and just rip your shirt off and do this and do that. If you can avoid that, that's good. Your audio might not be as good, but you can avoid that. I like, I just shot a corporate thing last week where I just had a boom mic over them and I just used that audio and there was a little bit of room echo. We were lucky. It was a carpeted room. Again, I'll talk about room, treating the room and stuff. So I was lucky that the audio was pretty good to begin with, but my software was good enough to get rid of the room tone, whatever, and I was able to just use the, the shotgun mic and I didn't have to put a lavalier mic on the talent. And I think, I think that if you can, if you've got talent who's not particularly in corporate, if they're not used to being on camera, um, anything you can do to lessen the amount of stuff that you involve them with on the shoot day, unless they're interested, helps them relax and just kind of be able to be in the moment in terms of treating a, a room. And I promise I'll let someone else talk in a second. My wife and I, we always do, like we'll go out for dinner with, with another couple and then we'll Leave, and then we'll go back and work. Did we let them talk? Because. But at least we're aware of it. So we're trying to be better. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Half the battle is awareness. [00:48:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so sound travels in waves, and if a sound wave hits a hard object, a hard, flat object, it bounces back. That's why you get such amazing echo in a bathroom, because it's all tiled. So you actually. So. So if. Unless you want that sound, never do an interview in a bathroom, because it's just going to be lots of room echo and stuff. So how you try and treat an environment is. Carpeting is good. So that's going to absorb some of the sound. And then if you really want to get fancy. So, for example, the wall. My wife always says to me, you go too far. The entire wall in front of me and half of the door is covered in sound foam. [00:49:11] Speaker A: Bouncing off the wall. [00:49:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it basically, it's like. It's like. It's like getting. And I'll tell you, when I set this. When I set this up for the first time, besides the fact that it made my room a lot darker because it's all black, you can get white ones. So don't. Don't do what? Don't do what I did, but don't be late. Yeah. Oh, look. Our family motto, we actually got to translate it into Latin, was don't do what daddy does. And so we're gonna get a coat of arms made. It's gonna be amazing. [00:49:41] Speaker B: That's amazing. [00:49:44] Speaker C: And so. But it was amazing because, like, when I set this up, it was like the sound is being sucked out of the room. It's like my voice comes out of my mouth and then doesn't go anywhere. It's. If you. Now, this is all the fancy stuff. If you can't do that, what you can also do, like, just in a pinch, if you're recording yourself, sit under a blanket. Like, seriously, just take yourself your microphone and your laptop, put a blanket over your head. No one's watching you. Also, you can't see because you're under a blanket. Who cares what they think? And that will help your audio. Like, if you're doing voiceovers and stuff, that'll help it sound better. If you want to get a little bit. If you're doing an interview or something, what you can also do is now you can get fancy sound blankets, or you can just get a blanket and get a couple of. If you've got C stands or if you've just got light stands and You've got, if you've got a pole between the lights, as like you would have a backdrop. And instead of having a backdrop, put a blanket on it and have that next to the camera on either side. If you can do both in front of your talent. And that way when your talent is speaking to the camera, the sound is going there and it's being absorbed by those blankets. [00:50:49] Speaker A: That's a good tip. [00:50:50] Speaker B: It's why a lot of podcasters in cupboards in their. They walk in voice actors. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I've seen voice actors do it too, because the clothes just absorb everything. And they've got a mic stand and, and a little pot, you know, a little string for the light and the iPad. And yeah, they go do their thing. Lee, if I could just have a moment to say a few things, I'd really appreciate. [00:51:12] Speaker C: What are you saying? [00:51:13] Speaker A: We love you for it, mate. We love you for it. A couple of questions that I've been thinking about since I knew you were coming on the show, things about videography, because videography or shooting video has always intimidated me, you know, even though obviously all of our current generation cameras can shoot video and they can shoot amazing quality video for, you know, consumer level stuff. A couple of things I want to know about. We often hear different terms being thrown around. Filmmaker, videographer, cinematographer. What is the difference between those kind of, I guess those three core definitions that we hear. But what, what are they? What's the correct one? [00:51:53] Speaker C: Look, I, I think, you know, whatever you feel comfortable with kind of thing. And, and my take, you may have noticed I'm somewhat cynical. So. So my take is, is here's my take on that. So a videographer is a videographer. They go and they shoot video and they create videos. A cinematographer, well, I often say to my click. So I don't like being called a videographer and I call myself a cinematographer. And to me, the difference between a videographer and a cinematographer is about two decimal points in my invoice. Okay, so now that's. That's a bit cynical. Actually. What a cinematographer does is. And here's the thing, is that most videographers today, I would say, or definitely the good ones, do a lot of what a cinematographer does anyway, in the sense that a cinematographer is like, if I was a cinematographer on a film, I'm not just filming the film, I'm actually talking with the director, I'm talking with the editor. Before we doing a lot of work in pre production, we're thinking about, okay, what color palette are we going to use? For this scene, what kind of lighting do we need to set up for that? So very often cinematographers. Cinematographers are thinking about generally cinema. This is my interpretation. I don't think this is the actual interpretation. But I would say that cinematographers generally work in more controlled environments. And so they're thinking a lot more about how do I control the environment to get the exact image that I want. Whereas a videographer is like, they might still show up to do a corporate shoot and they're going to film, you know, they're going to bring in lighting, but they don't have a set designer and they don't have. Generally cinematographers have got more time and budget to really get exactly what they want. And by. [00:53:46] Speaker A: So it's more of a higher tier, isn't it? It's kind of. If you were looking at breaking, you know, video making into tears, cinematographer would kind of be your top tier in terms of all those things. Budget, level of detail, complexity, people involved. [00:54:01] Speaker C: And, and, and I certainly wouldn't say that a videographer can't do a cinematographer's job. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:07] Speaker C: It's just that very often people, again, all about perception. People who think if someone was hiring me as a videographer, they wouldn't expect me to be thinking about set design and they wouldn't be expecting me to think about, you know, all this sort of stuff. Whereas very often as a videographer, you're thinking about it, but you just don't have the time or the budget. Like it's. You want to do all the cinematography stuff, but it's just impractical. Like it's, it's. It was like I used to. Back in the before times, before COVID I did a lot of travel stuff. So there was, there was, There was again a maid of a mate kind of thing, ran a travel agency who. They do, like, boutique medical conferences, and they would hire me at least once a year to go and shoot one of their conferences. So, I mean, this was. No matter how things work out, I always remind myself that if I hadn't have gone out on my own, I, I would not have had these experiences, you know, so. So the first one was filming in British Columbia and so like Banff and Lake Louise and Jasper and then taking the, the, the, the, the Mountaineer train from Jasper down to Vancouver and, you know, we spent a couple days in Vancouver and, and that was amazing. And then the year after that, I mean, not as fancy, but I went to the Galapagos Islands. It was all right. [00:55:29] Speaker A: Oh, shut up. [00:55:34] Speaker C: It's a long Flight. I mean, I suffer. I could only afford. I could only afford premium economy on the way. There it is, there it is. And then. And then the year after that, I was in Jordan and. And. And I got to do a Funny side Story. So we. So we're shooting the stuff in Jordan, like, we've got two or three days left. And I get a text message. And again, this is. It's all about networking and it's all about context and people thinking of you. And I get a call, I get a text message from a mate of mine, say, so this is a mate of mine who's in Melbourne and I'm in Jordan. And he texts me and he goes, hey, can you be in Nairobi tomorrow night? And I was like, and this is a mate of mine who's very straight lace. Like, I thought someone had stolen his phone and they were just messing with me and I'm messing back, going, like, what? He's like, yeah. So there's this thing being shot in Kenya over the weekend and they were going to fly a guy out from LA and his passport's invalid by one day and they desperately need someone. And I thought of you because you're kind of closer than Melbourne. And so, you know, I went, I went. I went to the client that I was working for at the time and I was like, hey, look, we've pretty much shot everything that we need. Do you mind if I leave a day early? And also the client was travel agent. I was like, and also, can you get me to Nairobi tomorrow night? And 40 hours later, planes, trains and airplanes. I'm in the middle of the, you know, the. The Kenyan bushland filming rhinos and elephants and, And I mean, it was, it. It was amazing. And so I've completely forgotten the point of, of that whole story. There was a bit of. There was a bit about networking. What were we talking about beforehand? Because I definitely had a point. [00:57:22] Speaker A: I was talking about videography, cinematography, definitions. [00:57:26] Speaker C: Ah, yeah. So, so, so. But the thing with all of the. With all of those travel jobs, except for the last one in Kenya, because that was specifically for the thing that we were shooting all of the travel jobs, I felt like I wasn't doing nearly as good of a job as I could do because I wasn't on my schedule, I was on the tour's schedule. So when the tour had to get to a location, I had the amount of time that the tour was at that location. I couldn't get all the extra shots, I couldn't get the wide, I couldn't get the thing. And actually, thankfully, because I had such a good relationship with that client, I mean, we actually started it with the Jordan job. They flew me in a day early and they got the tour guide for the day before the tour arrived to take me around to all of the locations that, that the tour was going to go for. And I was able to actually get all. So that for me, I was getting to be more of a cinematographer on that first day before everyone arrived. And for the rest of the shoot, I was a videographer because I was able to shoot what I was able to shoot on their schedule. And I couldn't say to anyone I could just do that again, like, if I didn't get the shot, I didn't get the shot. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Yep, Yep. Okay. We talked about co. You mentioned Covid, and obviously things for everyone in this room, we're impacted by Covid. But we did see a rise in. Especially once the borders open and people started traveling again, we saw an even greater influx of content creators, influencers, if you will, creating video content for socials. [00:59:09] Speaker C: What? [00:59:12] Speaker A: I guess sometimes in photography, like I mentioned earlier, that example, people say, oh, I can just, I can just do it myself on my iPhone. Are we seeing or you seeing in your industry where people are opting just to, just to create point of view content with their phones over hiring a videographer or a cinematographer or maybe it's videographer more. [00:59:31] Speaker C: Absolutely. It's, it's, it's. I wouldn't say it's decimating my industry, but it's having a huge effect. [00:59:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:40] Speaker C: Like I was, if I was, if, you know, my work's down like you cannot believe. My income last year was down almost 80%. [00:59:51] Speaker A: Wow. [00:59:51] Speaker C: And now that, now, now again, the thing is, there's never, there's never one reason for anything. There's always multiple reasons. And so one of the reasons is the economy is not that great. And economy is always a funny thing because it's all about. It's all about feelings as opposed to logic. And so if people feel like the economy is not good, they're less likely to spend money because they want to save a bit of money. Because the economy might not be good and thereby everyone not spending that money. Guess what? The economy is now not good. And so it's. If there's confidence in the economy, the economy generally does better. If there's not confidence in the economy, it's. [01:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:31] Speaker C: And I'm way oversimplifying that, but that it's definitely. And so, so definitely. Like, I've got one of my bigger clients, they normally hire me for at least one, sometimes three or four. But there's always one big job in April and May that I always do for them. And last year that job just didn't happen. [01:00:52] Speaker A: Wow. [01:00:53] Speaker C: Like, like they just didn't. They just, and, and it wasn't that, that they got someone else, it's just that they didn't have, and this is, this is a multi billion dollar company and they just, you know, the budget wasn't there for that. Now luckily, you know, they hired me. The job happened again this year. So thank goodness. But like, particularly with that client, like I've got such a good relationship with, with one of the creative directors that I work with in that company. I actually said to them, I was like, did I like sleep with someone's wife and not like what have I done? Like if I pissed somebody off? And they were like no, you're just like, we're just not, we're just not doing like, we're either doing a lot of stuff internally, you know, and they're just, and they're just filming it with their phones and all the big jobs are going to the, the big. And, and this is where, while I was explaining my little niche, my niche is a very precarious niche and particularly with influences and here's, and this is where it's, it's really nailing me from, from mid sized clients, not so much the big ones or the little ones. And again I can absolutely see it from their perspective because if, if they're going to pay me $20,000 to create a video for them, they then still need to promote that video. They still need to pay for Facebook ads or whatever. So, so I create the video but they still then need to do things. Whereas they can pay an influencer maybe 30,000, so $10,000 more. $30,000. The quality of the video is not going to be nearly as good as what I do, but it's going to be good enough for what they want. And that influencer brings a built in, in market because they're going to get an influencer who's already within the niche of whatever it is they're trying to sell. And so I mean it sucks for me, but I can you. I understand from their perspective why they would go there that way and not hire me. So that's definitely something that, that I'm feeling quite a bit. [01:02:54] Speaker A: Emily, from your perspective as a photographer, you know, you do commercial work and all sorts of bits and pieces along the way. Do you, are you seeing the Same sort of issue from a photography point of view where the market is becoming loud and noisy and complex because of the amount of people that are taking up photography. [01:03:17] Speaker B: I definitely see the shift in that influencer market, like because. And also being a stills photographer in something like Instagram or Even Facebook and TikTok and all those things, it's all moving and it's all just showing your phone and it's all edited in your phone and then you just get it out there within, you know, minutes to be able to say to a client, look, I'm going to come to the job, I'm going to shoot you stills. You'll get them 24 hours later sort of thing, whatever. That, that sort of delay, which at one time was, you know, a massively quick turnaround is now it's, it's the next day. We don't, we're not, we're not interested anymore. So I'm definitely seeing a shift and a change. But there is, there's still a need for what we provide. It's just, I guess how that's shifting and transitioning, translating. It's like, you know, that niche market people are going back to vinyl because they like the sound of vinyl. People are going back to film photography because they like that, feel that it, it creates. I think things will evolve around. There's always going to be shifts and changes, but it's how we adapt to that. But I know in myself, you know, how I photograph, how I work now, like I contract out to somebody else and do other work so that I'm paying bills, you know. Yeah, I'm still, and I'm still in the industry that I want to be in. But you know, things shift and change. Yeah, but there's definitely, there's definitely still people out there that are spending the money and, and getting the shots and stuff. But I guess also in that sense that because I've been in the industry for so long, because I've seen changes and shifts and movements and because I've built relationships with so many different people. Yes, it impacts me, but it's sort of, I can evolve with it a bit. So someone that came into it, you know, five years ago would be feeling it differently than I would be. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah, they'd feel like their market is being, you know, pulverized by, yeah. Point of view shooters. [01:05:39] Speaker B: Like there's so many, there's so many generational, like, so every five or ten years there's a. Oh, you know, film was going to destroy photography, digital was going to destroy photography. Phones were Going to destroy photography. All of these things were going to destroy. We've just had to adapt and, and evolve and shoot differently and stuff. So I don't think, I think, yeah, I think it's just a movement and, and a shift. There's always, yeah, there's always going to be the need for our skill set, for sure. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, and Justin, I have often talked about this both on the podcast and, and off about how things are shifting and obviously another element that we have to contend with now is AI. And you know, you just scroll through your social media feed and there's stuff coming up now that I honestly can't pick if it's AI or if it's real, which is scary. It's a scary place to be. [01:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of the stuff. And having worked, I think having worked in newspapers and all the rest of it and there's, there's all of these breaking news and this has happened and that's happened. I think of the, you know, people, my kids age, you know, 15, 16, 17 year olds that are getting this, fed this information and they're just taking it for face value. It's like just, just question it. Just Google search that image. Google search that you, you'll potentially find that so much stuff that we're getting fed is just not real and it's just feeding a narrative, which is frustrating. [01:07:12] Speaker C: It is. [01:07:13] Speaker A: Well, I mean we, we discovered a couple of weeks back that Meta on Facebook introduced a new AI bot in groups. So we have a Fujifilm group that I'm an admin of and have been since about 2015 part of the group. And all of a sudden Meta dropped this post saying. And it went out to members. It didn't come to the admins. It just wasn't an opt in or opt out option. It just, they just posted it. Hi, I'm. Our group is called Fuji X Oz and Meta called the bot Fuji xbot. And so members thought that we had created it because it, it borrowed heavily from our group's name and it just started appearing and it said, hi, I'm Fuji xbot. I'm here to answer questions and you know, sometimes I'll comment on posts and then down the bottom in fine print it says, please note that something like, you know, not all comments and posts will be, will be correct or appropriate. You know, and it just feels like this whole, this whole rush to adopt AI. [01:08:18] Speaker C: I need a T shirt that says that. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you especially. [01:08:24] Speaker C: Does that cover me? Great. [01:08:26] Speaker A: I think it does I think we'll get that made up for you. But you know, it's, it's, it's interesting to see how much that is now influencing and people, a lot of people like oh, but it's just like going from film to digital and you know, now we're going from digital but it's not, you know, it's not creation. [01:08:42] Speaker C: I think it's, the challenge is, you know, I was having this conversation with, with, with a photographer made of mine in New York a few weeks ago. I mean he's, he's all in on AI and, and he, he, he made the, he made the comparison of you know, it's, it's like we went from, from horse drawn carriages to cars or you know, it's like the industrial revolution kind of thing. And, and, and yes, there are similarities. And one of my, like this, this is actually the footer of all of my emails. I'm, I cannot pronounce it, I should learn how to but. Le plush le change. Le plush le semont trus, which is a French phrase. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And so you know, it's always the same, but it's different. And it's, it's just the sheer volume and the sheer, you know, just it, it's, it's happening so much, it's hard to hold back the flood. And it, like, like I was saying, I've said this actually this kind of conversation a couple of times. This is going to be a bit esoteric, so please pull me back to photography in a moment. Remind me when I say what was the question that I want to talk about how AI is going to affect apprenticeships. So we'll get into that. But so statistically and again it's, it's like if, if you're hungry or suffering, whatever, you don't care about statistics. But statistically humanity has never been better off in the history of humanity than we are now. There is less poverty, there is less hunger, there is less child mortality, like more kids are not dying as babies and all that sort. Like statistically we are so much better off than we have ever been. And yet most of us, particularly in the Western world and, and the technologically, you know, I mean everyone's got cell phones these days, but they're not even phones anymore. But because we're having the stuff shoved into our faces all the time, every day, all, you know, every day, all the time. We all feel like everything's getting much worse now. Things are getting better. Things are getting worse. Yes. But overall, yeah, we should be more positive. The thing is that is, that's a problem more with human nature than anything else. Because, you know, I think, you know, there's an old saying in, in. In the TV news area, if it bleeds, it leads. You know, so, you know, the bad news goes up first and then we get. We do a little. We have a little good story about a puppy for like the last minute so people can go away. Puppies. It's our human nature. For some reason we. I mean, consciously I don't want to see it, but subconsciously I must want to see it because, you know, we're drawn to it kind of thing. [01:11:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:18] Speaker C: But getting back to the. The AI and Apprentice, one of my biggest concerns about AI is. And it's interesting because I remember being asked to pitch for a job, to do a couple of series of videos for a recruitment company to, to pitch AI in a positive light. And this was back in 2018, I think. [01:11:38] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [01:11:39] Speaker C: And I was, and I was sitting there kind of going, oh, I need to say something nice about AI and. And I sat there thinking for. Quite. And. And the. I again, here's the premise. And the premise sounds lovely in the sense that if you are an architect or if you're a lawyer, lawyer is a perfect example. Like new law, new law graduates. Like I've. I've actually shot. I shot some stuff for the, for the Legal Guild, whatever it's called here in Australia. I don't remember the name of it because it wasn't my client. I was contracting for someone else. So we spent a couple of days talking to lawyers and talking to law students, whatever. Anyway, the way law students are treated at law firms, they are indentured servants. Like, they spend days reading through documents and doing the research for the fancy lawyer who's driving the fancy car and getting, you know, $400 an hour. And it's one of the things, just like in photography or just like in any industry in, in videography, cinematography, we learned by being apprentices. We, we did the hard yards and we, we did the grunt work to get the experience, to learn the basics. So we have those basics as a foundation for us now that we are more successful, hopefully or theoretically in our industries. But one of the things that AI is going to do or one of the things that AI could do is AI is going to take care of that grunt work. So if I'm a lawyer and I don't want to spend a day reading through legal precedent, I can just say to AI, hey, I need to prove this point. Can you find the legal documents that prove this point? Fantastic. It comes back in 10 minutes and it does a day or two's worth of reading for you and gives you the result. It's probably wrong and racist, but that's, that's, it's, it's, it's a work in progress. But the real problem there is now you're not going to hire that law student to do that grunt work. And how is that law student going to get the experience to then become a successful lawyer? Yeah, and it, and it's the same thing with architects, or it's the same thing with a lot of industries. And that's one of my biggest concerns, is that, like, AI is making it easier for the people who are there, but for the young people who need that. Like, you don't want to work as an indentured slave. But that experience, that sounds terrible, but the experience is good. It's good to be a slave. You should experience. You should appreciate the experience. I need to change that metaphor. That, that is not a good metaphor. [01:14:10] Speaker A: I think for me, Lee, the, the biggest, you know, and we've spoken on it often here, and as a, as a reviewer of products and photography products and software and stuff, I've made a very clear stance with my clients that I'm not writing puff pieces and fluff pieces about AI because I don't think it deserves it yet. I think the biggest thing that concerns me, and I'm going to sound like an old man like you, Lee, shouting at the clouds for covering the sun. But the biggest issue, I think, is that there doesn't seem to be any true regulation, you know, like with this meta issue. Okay, it's their platform. They can do whatever the hell they want, clearly. But they've gone and introduced a product that they've then even pardoned by saying it may not be accurate or appropriate. You know, why are we releasing a product if it's not going to be giving correct information? You know, and the thing that, the biggest issue I had with that Fuji XBOT example I gave you earlier was that it didn't involve the admins. It was going to start engaging our members as though it was an admin. It was going to start answering people's questions, whereas it almost was starting to degrade the community in that the bot was going to answer all the questions that newbies would put in the group for experienced shooters to come along and mentor and help. But the bot jumps in instantly. You know, there's hardly even any Thinking time, you know, and it's, and we're eroding knowledge bases in all industries because everything's being produced into this quick little, you know, 25 words or less. GP chat, GPT summary. [01:15:50] Speaker C: And I don't want to, like, I, I don't want to. Hopefully I'm not coming across as too much of a Luddite in the sense that I, I'm not saying AI is bad as, as an overall thing. I, I, I think there's definite, definite advantage to it. I think like with most things I, I love, love saying to my, saying to my son every now and again, nothing is ever as bad as it seems and nothing is ever as good as it seems. And I, and I think, and I think that's a very good way to describe AI in the sense that I think it's, it's not, hopefully it's not as dangero, potentially dangerous as, as some of us think it might be, but it's. I should have been a lawyer. I always try and cover my ass. But it's also not nearly as good as what we're being, what we're being promised. It is also, I think, what makes me really cynical about it. Everything's got, I mean, like, so I got sent these microphones to review and they're AI microphones. No, they're bloody not. They've got machine learning and they do some clever things, but they're not thinking. Again, this is my, well, technically, and I know that like my son does this with me all the time and I appreciate how annoying it can be. Well, technically, that's not what's important at this point in the conversation, but because technically it's not AI, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's an algorithm. I mean, it's not thinking for itself. It's just kind of, I've given it parameters and I've said do these parameters and the thing is the results are iffy. You know, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not, you know, so that's, that's, I just, I think for those of us who are concerned about, adds to our concern that it's being promoted as the second coming. Yeah, you know, it's, it's, Yeah, I. [01:17:28] Speaker A: Think, yeah, that's, that's another part of my beef with, with it, as I mentioned, I don't think it's ready, you know, for industries like, say, photography to embrace. As you know, a lot of this software now has AI functionality and the amount of products That I was asked to review software packages, asked to review that, you know, that do AI assisted editing and culling. And, you know, the AI will only look for the shots with the smiles, so you don't have to spend hours culling the shots where the bride didn't smile. You know, those sorts of things. They are all time savers. And that does equate to, you know, time saving for a photographer means money. It means more time hooking new clients, going out on other jobs. But, you know, even talking to Justin and Jim because they tried to use it for some of their wedding stuff, and they still felt they just, they had to go back over it and check the outcomes, which, you know, if anything, they almost doubled their time on. Everyone's promoting it as a tier. It's ready. It's, it's great. I don't think it's not ready. I don't think it's ready at all. [01:18:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I think it has great potential in that it can save you time. It can save you time in the sense that it gives you, it gives you a good starting point. I'll give you an example. I use all video editing apps. My favorite one is Final Cut. And in Final Cut, they've got like an auto, awesome, awesome button. Basically, like, fix my color. And so you push this button and it'll try and fix your color. And it never, I've never pushed that button. And I've gone, yep, that's done. But I'll always push the button. I go, okay, well, that's a good start. Now let me just tweak that. So I think if they were promoting it like that and going, this will, this will get you a start. [01:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:09] Speaker C: You know, and, and, and so it's, it's. A lot of it is, you know, it's, it's smoke and mirrors, but it's obviously smoke and mirrors. That's, that's the thing. It's like, it's like, that's like, like, like, like whenever someone sort of, you know, tries to sell me a load of, you know what? The thing that offends me the most is that you think I'm stupid enough to believe it. It's like my, my, my eyes and ears are connected to my brain and I can see it's like, like, like it's, it's not doing what you said it would do, and you're still saying it's going to do it like, but it's not. [01:19:43] Speaker A: Again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it all too well. [01:19:47] Speaker C: And also, and also it's the marketing thing. Like. Like another one of my examples in Final Cut. So they've got this wonderful button for voice isolation. So, you know, you can, again, with audio if there's of noise or whatever. And again, you need to tweak it. It's never 100%, but that. But that kind of voice isolation stuff has been in applications for 10 years. [01:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:09] Speaker C: And up until a year or two ago, it was kind of always called, you know, it was machine learning or large language models or whatever, and now they're calling it AI. It's the same thing it was a year ago. [01:20:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:23] Speaker C: All you've done is change the tiny. [01:20:25] Speaker A: You know, it's like AI. AI is a big marketing thing at the moment, isn't it? You know, they're all pushing AI. This is going to save you. Whatever. [01:20:32] Speaker C: It's the Kleenex of technology. [01:20:34] Speaker A: It is the Kleenex of technology. But, yeah, look, I think. I think we've covered AI enough for now. Just before we move forward, I just want to jump back into the chat and just say g' day to a few people that dropped in a little bit later. Paul and Justin are having a private conversation in our chat about New Zealand LTK photo. Good afternoon. G', day, LTK photos. No, that one's for Justin. Paul. Paul jumped out a little bit a little while ago. About an hour ago. Now. Gotta walk into the office now, unfortunately. See you in the replay. You know, Paul, I worked in a corporate gig for many years and the secret is to walk around the office really fast with a sticky note, looking urgent, and then go park yourself in a loo cubicle and watch it on your phone. Everyone thinks you're doing something busy. Trust me, it's foolproof. Digifrog Dave. Yeah, we were. Dave bashing earlier, Lisa has said, I recommend everybody watch this podcast rather than just listen for the animation and the dramatics. I don't think she's talking about you, Lee, at all. Is it Ivan? Ivan Watts. Ivan Vuts. I'm sorry if I've butchered that pronunciation. Hey, everybody. Great to see you. Dennis Smith from School of Light has joined us. Yep. And even another beef upper. Bruce Moyle is here. [01:22:06] Speaker C: Hi, Bruce. [01:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, huge hello to Lee. Dennis says, I keep trying and deleting so much here when we're talking about AI and that sort of thing. LTK photo says, man, gone are the days when I can do a quick search. Google AI, top result, I find it's 50 correct. And then I have to check three different sources to make sure it is correct. Yeah, that's. That's the whole thing. We're all having to. To check it's right. [01:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah. See, that's my frustration with AI, really. Like, you Google something and something pops up and it's like, no, I'm not asking AI for the answer. I want to Google it myself. [01:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. The Google one's really frustrating because, I mean, a. It's doing me out of a job as a. As a product writer, like a reviewer and writer, but it's. Yeah. And the thing is. And this is what I. What I fear with it, is that people are assuming that it's correct. You know, people are just going with it. You know, my partner, Sash, is a university lecture lecturer, and the amount of people, they have software, university, proprietary software that detects, you know, plagiarism and potentially the use of AI. Because AI does leave. Even if it is correct, it does leave artifacts that you can quickly pick up as AI, even just certain punctuation and grammar things. It does, which is really weird. But the amount of people that are using AI to do their assignments, and they get caught, and then they get asked to rewrite it because it's suspected of being not 100% theirs, and then they get AI to do it again. And that. Because they think that, you know, there's this assumption that it's. That it's right, but it was just pulling, like, you know, it was pulling it. It was creating fake references when it couldn't find official references online, it just created its own fake references to fake articles. Like, it. You know. [01:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, it's a good tool. Like, it. There's so many good aspects to it, but there's so many. Yeah, like, there is so many flaws to it because, I mean, I resisted for a very long time, and recently I've gotten into it and I'm like, actually, it's a good. It's a good tool to start me on something if I need to. You know, if I'm writing something, it gets me going. If I'm having a bit of a block and I can't quite find something and get going, then it's. I'm always going in and changing it. I'm always fixing it. But I remember Photoshop one. Like, it's like, I know how to do a lot of the things the very slow way. And then when you realize, oh, that just. That saved me a whole 30 minutes of editing. That was really powerful. Like, that's really good. But, you know, I've still got to. I'm still double checking it and still, you know, doing the final proof. [01:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, that's, that's where the education needs to happen. Yep. AI is starting to. [01:25:04] Speaker C: And I think it's, it's easy for it to again because it's so big, it's high scale everything. Like I'll give you an example in terms of group think and how even without AI, people can get stuff wrong. So I was asked to do, create an instructional video on a blackmagic camera years and years ago. So I got a little bit of early access to the camera and what have you and then I took a long time to create this course. So I didn't like other stuff. Other content was out about the course before I was about the camera and I was watching a bunch of YouTube videos about it and this was like instructional YouTube videos and I can't remember exactly what it was but there was this one feature where everyone said this button does. Oh no, I remember what it was. It was basically if you apply a LUT or look sort of it that was baked in and so if you've applied that, it's baked into your footage and then so basically it's like you've applied a filter but now it's a JPEG and you can't unapply that filter because it's a JPEG and it's. So thing is, I read the manual and the manual said the opposite. Like the manual was like, no, if you are shooting in this format and you apply this and you bring it into DaVinci Resolve, you can still get rid of that filter or whatever. Look, you've applied and you've still got the footage to. And there was like three or four really, really well produced, really authoritative videos that said the opposite of what the manual said. It to the point where I actually had to reach out to my contacts at blackmagic and go, so this is what I'm seeing a lot of people say, but this is what the manual says. Can you just confirm what it is? And they're like, no, no, the manual is right. And I was testing it, it was right. And yet these were quite authoritative people on YouTube saying the wrong thing. And I think where, I think where that came from was similar to my bitching and moaning about people holding lav mics. I think one person did it and it was one person who's got a lot of followers. And everyone looked at them, went oh well, they've got a lot of followers. I should do. And this is the other thing. So. Oh, we can get onto social media now. If it was up to me, we would turn the Internet off and switch it back on again and see if that fixes was, you know, someone, someone with a lot of followers did it and because everyone, instead of trying to do their own thing. Not everyone, but a lot of people. Oh, they did it, they're doing really well. I'm going to copy them, which is a perfectly human response to have. But some of us are just a bit more subtle with the copying we do. And so, yeah, it was, you know, one, one person with authority said it and no one thought to question it. And then we just, everyone went along with it. So. And again, this is the challenge with AI because AI only knows the stuff that it learns from us. [01:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:01] Speaker C: Which I don't know, it's like, I don't know if that's. Well, in some things it's not. [01:28:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. [01:28:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:07] Speaker B: But then if the majority is saying one thing and the truth is another, AI takes the majority. [01:28:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they do. Yeah. Majority of that comes from Reddit and. Which are just people's opinions. [01:28:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:21] Speaker A: I don't. [01:28:22] Speaker C: Look, at the very least, could we switch the Internet off and switch it back on without the comments section? Apologies to all the people commenting on that, but I think on balance, we'd be better off without it. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. [01:28:36] Speaker B: Another story, but how does that feed my ego? [01:28:40] Speaker A: How am I meant to know that I'm going to be like, you know, Schrodinger's guy? Like, I won't know whether people like me or not. [01:28:46] Speaker C: I don't know, I just, I just assume they don't. And, and I just love that. So, so, so, so another little side thing. So about two, no, three years ago now, I started a second YouTube channel which was just supposed to be a little bit of fun, but where that came from was I'm very much into environmentalism and water conservation and all that sort of stuff. And I have some family members who are on the opposite side of that conversation. And I, I was like, I was sort of thinking, how can we. So for example, for those who haven't seen my shirt yet, it says, do you want to A, make a noise, B, make a difference? And that's something that I'm very quite about because I thought a lot of the communication that was coming out of the, let's say, pro climate change camp was making a lot of noise. So when people use Emotive words to get attention. It gets attention. But the challenge is I used to work for Apple a long, long time ago and people used to say to me, oh, Apple's just got good marketing. And I go, no, Apple's got very good marketing, but they've got very good products as well. Because if Apple had good marketing, people will buy their products once, it would be rubbish and they wouldn't buy the product again. So you can't just make a noise, you've got to think about how you're communicating with people. And so for me, the people who say, oh, it's a climate emergency, oh, it's an environmental crisis, you've got to think about not how you're saying it, but how people are going to hear that. And so the people who already agree with you, they agree with you. You don't have to use that emotive language to get them on board. The people who don't agree with you, that emotive language is actually going to push them away. Because particularly in that example, if I say something is an emergency, an emergency is something that happens in an instant and you have to deal with it right away, but then you've dealt with with it and then you can move on. A crisis is a similar thing but slightly more long term. Whereas our challenges with trying to affect stuff with climate, that is a long term thing and that is a lot of different things that we need to do and all that kind of stuff. So by saying it's an emergency, you said it was an emergency three years ago, how can it still be an emergency three years later? You're not going to. And it's all the people that don't agree with you that you need to bring across to your side of the argument. So I started this lecture, I was, I was very lucky. 2021, 2022, 2022 in particular were particularly good years for me from a work point of view. And we actually could afford to get an electric car. So we got an electric car and we got solar and all that sort of stuff. And so I was thinking, right, well, what can I do to try, try and bring those people across. And I was watching a lot of YouTube videos about electric cars and one thing that I noticed is a lot of the YouTube videos about electric cars were made by car people. So they were talking about car stuff like, oh, it's good in the corners, it's tight in this, it's what have you. I'm not a car person, I don't foot, go down cargo room that's what I know. You know? Yeah. And what I cared about was how many child seats can you fit in the back? Is it comfortable? What, Like I'm really nerdy. So what is the what, how does the software work? Can I use CarPlay? Can I use Android Auto? You know, how does, how does, how does the lived experience with the car work? So my idea was to create a YouTube channel that looked at that part of it and I couldn't. Like Mandy, my wife says to me, you're doing a teacher voice. Because I go into trainer mode. And that's why a lot of my videos ended up being like 45 minutes to an hour long. I'd say it's not a car review, it's an overview. [01:32:33] Speaker A: I can't imagine why. I remember, I remember your YouTube channel about your electric car and I, I was watching those for a long time, then they just got really boring. [01:32:44] Speaker C: But. [01:32:47] Speaker A: No, but it was fun because it was, it was that down to earth. And I think you even preempted each episode with something like I'm not a car guy, but I'm going to tell you about my car kind of thing. [01:32:57] Speaker C: Well, the channel's called Not a car guy. [01:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Yes, there you go. It is an interesting, you know, just as a bringing, swinging us around back into photography just for a moment. Sorry Lee, we, I'm joking mate. You know, we see when a new camera launches, okay, we see the same people get a pre production model and I, I'm not complaining because often I'm one of those with Fujifilm, but the video people that do reviews, they all put up a review, they are all identical and they're all based off a pre production model. And then you never hear from them again. You never hear what the long term use case scenario is for that particular camera or you know, as a professional. Is it working? It's just kind of like a, it's almost a cookie cutter approach now that these core group of people say Petapixel, Carmen Wong, people like that, they all get the pre production one because they've all got big followings and they do a review based on something that isn't actually finished yet, you know, and nor have they actually used it for more than a weekend. [01:33:59] Speaker C: And well it's, this is, this is the challenge. Like so for example, so my channel's changed a bit now and I can get into, into why a little bit later but I want to focus on what you said. So now I'm reviewing just sort of like general Tech so I get sent cell phones to review and, and things like that and it's really interesting. So I did a review of the new Samsung Fold a couple of weeks ago and again, I really don't like call again. I'm playing the game, which I shouldn't like. Like, I know that my channel would do better if I did more clickbaity titles, but I just, I'm a grumpy old man and I don't want to do it and, and I know that if I did clickbaity stuff I would do better, but you know, it's. Thankfully I don't make a living from YouTube, but it was interesting watching some of the comments on it because I got a couple of things wrong about the phone. Just a couple of little details. And there was this one guy who was, again, the comment section. There was this one guy who was really grumpy about it and he was like, first of all, okay, look, I don't mind you arguing with me, but at least argue well, you know, like, like make sense. It's, it's think about it, like think about my response and then counter my response before I make my response. And so his grump, his first grumpiness was, oh, I hate these Apple fanboys being sent, you know, Android phones. They should, Apple people shouldn't be allowed to review Android phones. And I was like, okay, well it's an interesting perspective, but I, I think why he was grumpy and again, I appreciate where he's coming from because I've been grumpy about this myself, is that he probably knows a lot more about Android than I do and he probably knows a lot more about this phone than I do. But I got sent the phone to review because I've got 5,000 subscribers and he didn't because he doesn't. And that's not fair. I agree with that. That isn't fair. It's. And, and what, like if he made a video that got more views than my video, that video could potentially provide better value to the viewers than my video did. I absolutely understand that the challenge is a little bit. In my defense, I only had five days with the phone like it's, it's, it. And, and I was desperate to do it because I don't normally get sent the phones before they're pre release because I've only got 5, 000 subscribers. So normally I get the phone two months after it's come out. And so, and, and, and, and, and this is, this is, this, this is, this is the game you have to play, you know, because you're like, you need the viewers, but you need the early access to get the viewers. You need the viewers to get the early access. And how do you. I just happen to get lucky a couple of times. And so, yeah, it's, it's, the other thing is, and, and I know this is blasphemy. I know, I know. Do we really need a new camera all the time? [01:37:01] Speaker B: No, I completely agree with that because as someone who has used the same brand for my entire, almost the entirety of my career and, and professional life, I've got lenses, I've got gear, I've got cameras that are still just as good, just as robust, produce a good quality. Like, you know, technology changes. So some tech, you know, some of it is better than others. I don't need necessarily, unless there's a critical flaw, you know, I don't need a new camera. I, I, I believe I should be sponsored by someone because I'm using the gear that I've had for so long and I think that's more value than getting new gear all the time. You know, like, here's something that you're going to have and you're going to use it for a long time. [01:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's that whole thing. We've been talking on the Camera Life podcast here, we've been talking a lot about recent releases. We've started covering some recent releases, particularly like the GFX100RF, so medium format point and shoot, the Fuji X half the. What else have we done? We've done it. Oh, the OM3. And people often ask me when I do reviews, you know, should do I need this camera? It's like, well, no, you don't need it. What have you got? You know, if anything, get a lens for the camera you've already got. And with the five grand that you saved on not buying a new camera or in the case of a gfx, nearly ten grand, book a trip to Japan, you know, buy a couple of memory cards, a couple of spare batteries and just walk with your new camera or with your old camera with a new lens or your old camera without a new lens, you know, it's, the gear is not going to make you better at what you do. If you, I mean, obviously if you're a professional photographer or video maker, in Lee's case. Sorry, cinematographer. Yeah. Or a cinema, sorry, whatever you are, Lee. Well, we just, we didn't get to the bottom of that. [01:38:56] Speaker C: Whatever I am, we don't have the time to cover that. [01:39:00] Speaker A: But yeah, no, we don't. That's a whole nother podcast. But, but yeah, you know, like it's. I've kind of lost my train of thought, I think. [01:39:08] Speaker C: Well, so if I can jump in for a moment, it's. Yeah, at least from, at least from, from a professional point of view, like the microphones are, are a good way to describe us. My, my microphone collection, which is extensive, I have a problem, but I recognize that is it. When I was starting out, I remember my first laugh was like a $20 el cheapo that I got from like somewhere on the Internet. But as I got better and as I was making more money, I was able to get more stuff. And what I always say to people starting out is the better gear isn't necessarily going to make you a better image capturer, storyteller, all that kind of stuff, where the better gear or the, generally the more expensive gear. And, and, and I do think if you're looking at something and you're looking, oh, there's a cheap option and there's a more expensive option, generally the more expensive option, it's not going to give you better results, but it's going to make it easier to get those better results. So, example is my first DSLR going from the D60 to the D90. Having that second dial. It wasn't taking better photos, but it was easier for me to take the same quality of photos. So my value proposition with new stuff is not what does it let me achieve, it's how does it let me achieve that. [01:40:32] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think, I think that's a really good definition of it because, you know, that's where I was going as well. That, yeah, you know, if you're doing a job, then you need the right tool for the job. It's no different to a builder or a painter. You know, you could get up on a bit of scaffolding with a, with a roller in your hand if you're a painter. Or you could invest in that $200 extendable pole so you can just stand on the ground and comfortably paint the walls. And this, you know, it's just another tool. And you know, unfortunately, often those tools are associated with FOMO and gas, especially for photographers. I've certainly had my fair share of gear acquisition syndrome in the past and I'm sure many people in the chat can, can attest to their own suffering. But, you know, and it took me a while to mature in that and realize that, you know what, actually I don't, I don't need every Fuji lens on offer to make images, you know, and so I've trimmed my kit down to like three lenses and I'm a prime shooter, so I don't even use zooms, you know, and it can help, obviously it can help, but I think, yeah, the whole gear acquisition thing is. I think. I don't think I've ever met a photographer who hasn't suffered from it. [01:41:43] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Lee and it's been eight months since I've bought a camera. [01:41:46] Speaker A: See, there you go. But having said that, the brands and the, and the retail spaces make you think you need a new camera and of course they do because they want to sell product running a business. Yeah, but, but yeah, it's. It's certainly an interesting topic. Just before we move forward, I just want to jump to a couple of question things in the chat, if I could. Young Bruce Moyle. And sorry I missed you when you're in Melbourne for a day, Bruce. I hope you had fun hanging out the airport. Oh, well. Missed. Oh, wow. Missed the. I can't read that. I need my better glasses. Lav micing. I'm so there for bitching about that. I bet you are, my friend. Bruce, again, I enjoyed the car videos and also the interactions with Simon. Uh, we need to get Simon on. [01:42:38] Speaker C: The show, actually, I just went last night. [01:42:42] Speaker A: And Dennis. Gotta fly. Definitely back to the replay later. Thanks for dropping in, Dennis. Always great to see you, mate. From Roy Bixby. Good gear only helps workflow. What do you guys think about that? You think that's a fair call? [01:42:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think that's just another way of saying what we were saying in the sense that it makes it easier to get to the same result. [01:43:05] Speaker A: Yep, I agree. And finally, from Bruce. Great chat, guys. Sorry, got to go make the dollars and do a shoot. Great to see everyone. Always great to see you in the, in the chat, Bruce. And yeah, we'll talk to you soon. I'm just conscious of time. We've. We've been talking solidly for almost two hours. I just want to remind everybody that is watching live with us now, if you're new to the channel, please jump in the chat and say hi. Let us know where you're from. What do you shoot? What do you shoot with? Are you a film photographer, Are you a cinematographer? Or do you, do you work professionally as a photographer? Let us know in the chat and also just remind everybody that this is the Camera Live podcast and we air live twice a week, every Thursday morning, 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time. We Have a conversation like we're having today with a guest and we thank Lee for his time today, of course. And then Every Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, we have the random photography show where basically we talk about the news, the reviews, what people are saying in the chat, we might even look at some of your images. So please remember to send any images for the Monday night show to justinuckystraps.com and your images might come up for a conversation just before we head out. Lee, what's on the horizon for you? What are you working on at the moment? What's coming up? [01:44:31] Speaker C: So just before I answer that, I did want to just give a little tip. Sorry, I feel like I haven't given enough value here. So if any kidding so much in. [01:44:43] Speaker A: Oh no, me too. [01:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:45] Speaker C: So I, I've, I've run a few workshops teaching photographers how to move into video. And, and so we talked a little bit about, about audio. But one of the, one of the most important things to think about video, if you're a photographer thinking about moving into video, and this is just, if it's just for, for a hobby or for fun or professionally, what have you think about the edit. Because very often as a photographer you need to tell a story in a single image. Very often, I mean sometimes you might have a series, but generally you need to tell a story in a single image. Whereas with video we have tools and we're, we're like, you could look at it a good way, bad way, but we're lucky I look at it as a good way. We're lucky that we have tools that we can tell a story in multiple images. So the way that I give this example and you, you can try this at home, lovely people, is I say to one of the photographers of my workshops, pick up this camera and film me walking through a door. And generally what they'll do is they will pick up the camera, get it in focus, get me composed, push record, and then they will follow me as I walk through the door. But that's a single shot, so that's just one shot. So whenever I'm shooting video, I'm always thinking about the edit. I'm always thinking about how is this shot or that shot gonna fit into my edit and what shots do I need around that. So for example, if I was filming someone walking through a door, I would start off with a wide shot in profile of the door on the left hand side of my shot and the person walking into my shot on the right hand side. Then I would Cut to an over the shoulder shot of the person walking towards the door. Then I would cut to as close up of the door handle as their hand grabs the door handle. Then I would cut to a reverse angle of the door on the other side as they're walking through the door. And then I would cut back to a wide shot, same one, but the reversed on the other side of the door. Now the doors on the right hand side. And my subject is walking away from the door. [01:46:31] Speaker A: Yep. [01:46:32] Speaker C: So, and you almost, if you want to think about it from a photography point of view, think of it like a comic strip. So you, you're not telling a story in a photo, you're telling the story in a comic strip. And so if you're going out to film video with a photographer's mindset, just think a little bit about the edit. And the best way to get good at this is to just do it, is go out and practice. It'll be rubbish when you start out, but the more more you do it, the more you will learn. You will go out and you will film everything you think you need to film. You will get back into the edit suite. You'll be editing in DaVinci or Premiere or Vegas or Final Cut or whatever you're editing in Imovie is fine. Like do it on your phone, do it on your iPad, what have you. And you will get, you will start editing, you go, oh, you know what, this would have been so much better if I'd gotten a shot of this or I, I should have gotten a shot of that. And so that's why I say do it because the more you do it, the more you'll learn. And the next time you go out to shoot, you got, you know, I've got to remember to get that wide shot to establish my scene. Or I've got to remember to get more, I've got to remember to get more close up shots for those detail shots. And so go out and practice. And the more you practice, the more you and the more you edit. Even if you're not planning to ever edit stuff yourself. Let's say you think I'm going to film stuff, I'm going to pay an editor to do it. You've got to know how the edit's going to work in order to provide the editor with the footage that they're going to need to tell the story in the best way possible. [01:48:00] Speaker A: I think that's great advice. There's a question in here from Roy, I know, sorry, from LTK Photos. What would you recommend for starting video. I'm not sure if he's referring to gear, but let's start with that. [01:48:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So I mean, first of all in terms of technique, what I just said, but then in terms of gear, your phone, whatever, it's. Again, this, this is the grumpiness in me. Nobody has a TV mounted on their wall like this. For those who are listening to the podcast, I'm holding it in portrait. Your TV is mounted on your wall. For those who are listening in landscape. So if you are under 30 and you don't, and you literally don't know what the word literally means, then fine. Shooting vertical, if you're going to be delivering your footage on phones and most people are going to be consuming your footage on phones and it suits the narrative and what you're sort of trying to do, do it in portrait. Like, I'm not, I'm not against. I know I am. [01:49:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Because sometimes clients will ask for if. If TikTok ready stuff, won't they? [01:49:08] Speaker C: If it makes sense, zeitgeist and go and do it. But as a general rule, film in landscape. And seriously, just film with your phone. I mean, most phones these days, the video out of the phones is phenomenal. So it's, it's not the gear, it's the technique. Learn the techniques, practice the technique. So if you've got a DSLR and you'd rather shoot with your DSLR because you want, you know, more shallow depth of field, you want your lenses again, like that. So recommendation. If you're shooting with a DSLR and this is you can get apps on Android and on iPhone where you can get manual controls because you want to control your shutter speed. So ND is very important when it comes to video. And I'll explain why. So as a. And one of the things I say about create the creative field in general is there's all these rules and you can break any of these rules as long as you've got a good reason for doing it, not because you're ignorant and you're like, just because, like, so, so this is one of those rules. You generally want to have your shutter speed double your frame rate. So if you're shooting at 25 frames per second, which is most of the world except for the US and Japan and a couple of other places, you're going to be shooting at 25 frames per second. Most phones, they'll default to 30 frames per second. It's fine. The reason why you want to do that is you want to avoid flicker from light. So most of the world other than the US and Japan, our electrical system works on 50 hertz. And so if your shutter speed is at 25 hertz, it's on the same frequency as the lights. You're less likely to get flicker if you're shooting. So if you were shooting video inside with, with, you know, lights in the U.S. they're running at 60 hertz. And so because your camera is shooting at 25 instead of 30, which is in a division of 30, it's out of sync and you're more likely to get flicker on your video. And I can send you a link, my old YouTube channel. I've actually got a video of how you can overcome that in the edit if you need to in some instances. So you want to set your shutter speed to 25 frames per second. Sorry? If you're shooting at 25 frames per second, you set your shutter speed to 50. And if you're shooting at 30 frames per second, you set your Shutter speed to 60. And the reason for that is, is you want to control motion blur in your video. So if I'm doing this and I'm moving my hand like this, you notice how you can't distinctly see my fingers. It's kind of blurry. And that's how the human eye actually works. So the human eye naturally sees motion blur. If you set your shutter speed too high, let's say I'm shooting at shutter speed of a thousand, then you're going to get this feature called staccato, which if I do this, you will actually see like six fingers. And they did like distinct and subconsciously, to the human mind, that doesn't look natural. And so your audience is giving you like something. I don't know what, but something's wrong. [01:52:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:52:07] Speaker C: The, the example that everyone always gives is the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, the, the invasion of Normandy scene that was all shot at a higher frame rate. So the, the motion blur is slightly off because Spielberg deliberately wanted to make him you uncomfortable while you're watching that. [01:52:22] Speaker A: Wow, that's clever. [01:52:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So again, it's fine to break the rules as long as you're breaking them for a reason. [01:52:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:28] Speaker C: So, but the challenge with shooting, but the challenge of locking your, your shutter speed is if you're shooting outside at a 50th on, on a bright sunny day, all you're going to see is white. So that's why if you're looking to move into video and you want to get a bit more serious about it, look at, look at getting either NDS or Variable indies make your life easier. Just, just get a couple of variable indies. And you want variable NDs. For those who aren't familiar with what an indie filter is, it's basically like sunglasses for you, for your camera. So that'll help make it, like, make the image coming into the camera darker. So you can adjust your other. Your ISO and your aperture, but you can maintain, you can lock that shutter speed for the video side of things. [01:53:10] Speaker A: Very cool. [01:53:11] Speaker C: So that's more technical, but yeah, just, just, just, just go out and film. Just, Just practice. [01:53:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. And it's the same with, you know, with photography. It's that whole question of, oh, well, where do I start? It's like we'll just pick up the camera and photograph what's in front of you, you know? Yeah, photograph your feet, photography pets, your house, plants. Walk out the door and photograph your car, you know, just keep going. [01:53:35] Speaker C: Yeah, well, like, if people. So I go for a walk every morning and so if people want to follow me on social media, I'm pretty much only like, I post the socials. By the way, you spelled my name wrong. Where it's le. Her Bet, not her. [01:53:45] Speaker A: Bert, I'm so sorry. I did too. [01:53:47] Speaker C: No, no, that's fine. Everyone does it because, because most people spell it Herbert. But my family's got to be difficult. Apparently mine is the German spelling and we only need the van. Ah, yeah, yeah, Very efficient. So, but yeah, so if, like on Instagram, if you want to find me, I'm. I'm Atlee Herbert. It all I post now because my opinion of having conversations with, arguing with someone on the Internet is like trying to push diarrhea uphill. It's pointless and you get covered in. [01:54:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:54:21] Speaker C: So my take on social media at the moment, and it's been like this for about 10 or 12 months, is I just post macro photos of plants and insects that I see on my morning walk. Walks. So if you're interested in macro photography, go and check out my Instagram or my threads because that's all I post now. Because my, you know, I was raised, if you got nothing nice to say, don't say anything. There we go. And that is all shot on iPhone. There's no filters, there's no nothing. I'm just. And trying to get it. Some are not. And this is the other thing. Everyone needs to remember this about social media. All those good photos that you're seeing are one of five and the other four were rubbish. Yeah, yeah. So. So I'm not brilliant and Amazing. I just take lots of photos and I get lucky one or five times. I mean, that's not entirely true, but. But, like, don't think I can't do it. Anyone can do it. Just practice. [01:55:20] Speaker B: Yeah, Nice. I think that's wonderful. [01:55:24] Speaker A: You do? [01:55:26] Speaker C: It's what people say about you. [01:55:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I've read. All right, look, I think. I think we're moving along to. We're just shy of the two hour mark. I think we're going to wrap today's show. Lee, I think we might need to get you back at some stage for some further video tutorials and education. You've been absolutely amazing today. I can see why you've excelled in the education space as well as filmmaking space. [01:55:53] Speaker B: Really close. [01:55:56] Speaker C: You heard how bad that sounded though, didn't you? [01:55:57] Speaker A: We did, yeah. She just proved your point. All right, let's. Let's see what the chat has to say before we wrap. So Roy says, I don't suffer from gas. I enjoy it. That is great. Way to flip the coin. [01:56:11] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:56:13] Speaker A: We've already covered LTK's question. I'm just a retiring product photographer in Melbourne. Retiring. [01:56:21] Speaker C: Not just take. Just out of it. [01:56:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Get rid of just Rodney Nicholson. I'm going to have to watch twice. Good on you, Rodney. Ltk, this is great advice, but his original question for more of an open topic, and I think that's. I think we've covered that question here from Roy. Are there any more tips to make video more annoying? Oh, like we talked about that making. [01:56:46] Speaker C: You uncomfortable, hold your mic, film in portrait and say literally the whole time. And, and yeah, I won't watch it for more than half a second. [01:56:55] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. [01:56:56] Speaker C: Oh, wait, no, no. Apply filters. Yeah, lots of filters. [01:57:00] Speaker A: Multiples in. [01:57:03] Speaker C: In fairness, if you ever see stuff that I've shot and it's. It's like noir. It's like black and white. I'll tell you that there was an artistic decision to go with the noir thing. The truth is I messed up the colors and I couldn't fix it. I've done that. [01:57:15] Speaker B: That's right. [01:57:16] Speaker A: Look, if you're ever in doubt, black and white, throw some grain on it, call it art. [01:57:21] Speaker B: That's my newsprint. [01:57:23] Speaker A: Newsprint. [01:57:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's fine. [01:57:26] Speaker A: Yeah. True. Philip Johnson. Thank you, Greg and Emily, and special thanks, Lee. Great show as always. Good to see you, mate. From Lisa. Thank you, guys. Great show. And Ian Thompson's in the chat, but thank you, Lee. This has been an amazing podcast and I certainly have to concur Lee, I've known you for a number of years and, and this is not our first, I'm so sorry, this is not our first podcast together. We have done this before. But I do want to say that, that, you know, always impressed with your work, always impressed with your ability to find a way to educate others regardless of the topic. You know, you turned your, your, the joy of purchasing an electric car and that, the wonder and experience that you felt at, because at the time they were still fairly new in Australia, especially that brand. You turned it into something that was meaningful and delightful and funny and, and offered an insight that a lot of other people weren't providing on the Internet. And I think if that's the legacy that you, you provide through your work, then, you know, consumers are all the better for it. So thank you so much for joining us today. It's always, always, always fun to chat with you and I regret that we haven't spoken more recently, but we will make amends to that. And then of course, Emily, Emily, thank you so much for joining us today as a co host. For those of you watching or listening along, I first bumped into Emily at BFOP 2025 last year. She, she ran the very first workshop that I took part in. Even drove me up, up the mountain in a car, which was lovely. And, and we've connected ever since. And always great to have you on and thank you once again. Emily Black, thank you. Our pleasure. But look, on that note, folks, we're going to say our farewells. I want to thank everyone in the chat. Please make sure that if you are new to the channel and you haven't yet, hit the subscribe button. It helps us out a lot. But also tickle the bell. Hit the bell. Notification. That way you'll get, especially if you're in a different time zone to us, you'll get notified of when our episodes are coming up. And please don't forget to head to Luckystraps.com they're the sponsor of our show. We are Team Lucky Straps. I'm even wearing one of their jumpers. And we make premium handmade leather camera straps. Emily's got one. Emily's had one for years. I've got one. [01:59:49] Speaker B: Delicious. [01:59:49] Speaker A: Please got one. And that's the thing with Lucky Straps. They should last you a lifetime. It's like a camera. If you look after it, it will last forever and keep doing what it's supposed to do. And Lucky Straps are just the same. So yeah, head to Luckystraps.com and check out what we have on offer. But on that note, I'm going to roll some music. Is that what we say, Lee? Do we say roll the music or play the music? [02:00:10] Speaker C: I've heard it both ways. [02:00:11] Speaker A: All right. I was hoping for some wisdom there, but clearly got nothing. [02:00:15] Speaker C: There's nothing wrong with something I don't know and I don't know. [02:00:18] Speaker A: Okay. Well, look, on that note, thank you, Lee. Thank you again, Emily. And thanks to everyone in the chat for jumping on today and watching live with us. And if you are watching down the track, make sure you leave a comment to say hi. And we might cover that off on a Monday night show. But on that note, hi, everybody.