Video Talks - Conversations on the Business of Video ‣ Marketing ‣ Filmmaking ‣ Online Video
Video Talks - Conversations on the Business of Video ‣ Marketing ‣ Filmmaking ‣ Online Video
How To Be An Awesome Drone Pilot & Build a Successful Lifestyle Business with Tom Middleton
Tom Middleton is a director, cinematographer, drone filming specialist and co-founder of SMN Film – a video production and video marketing agency. He’s also one of the BBC’s 'go-to' drone cinematographers.
In this interview – loaded with advice for aspiring and established filmmakers and creators, Tom gives us his best advice for drone shooting, how he connects on a personal level with businesses and what it takes to truly find a work-life balance.
Tom runs the business with his wife Miche, also a filmmaker – specialising in creating beautiful cinematic films that evoke an emotional response in audiences worldwide.
Over the years Tom has run film events, lectured in creative media production and freelanced as a DOP, director and producer.
Listen @ http:videotalks.co/12
In this episode:
- Why his family moved away from London
- How they evolved a business by playing with toys
- The power of LinkedIn vs other social networks
- Why it's important to showing your personality through social media
- How to shoot with a smart phone
- How to shoot the best drone shots
- How video can change the fortunes of a business, even in lockdown
- Why you should separate yourself from your business when working from home
- Why gaming and playing Goldeneye is great for drone filmmaking
- Why camera movement is key in everything he shoots
- Why backing up footage is the first thing you should do
- Why planning is fundamentally the best thing you can do
- An overview of Tom's drone cinematography course
I think it was only actually when we left London that I really started to think what did I want from my life? And what did I want creatively for my own career. And that was a big changing point. That was a massive Crossroads for us because it was the first time I'd ever really thought about that seriously is can I make money doing something I enjoy? And will it last for the rest of my life?
Unknown Speaker :I am Welcome to another episode of video talks where we talk to creators commissioners and everyone in between about the business of video. My name is Andy Greenhouse, and I'm your host for the series of interviews on this podcast. So the video talks podcast is for anyone who is getting started in video anyone who is a creator or a filmmaker or an animator who is looking to gain some extra tips from other experts and it's also for business owners and market
Unknown Speaker :Others who are trying to use video in a more effective way. If you'd like to connect, you can get me on Instagram, at video talks podcast, or Andy Greenhouse, and all the show notes that we have for every episode are over on video talks Co. Now, if you're here for the first time, please hit subscribe, and we can keep the episodes coming into your feed. We can keep you updated with all the value that we get from these interviews. And if you're a creator, and you want a shout out about a project that you're launching, or the you're working on, then just DM me at video talks podcast, and we can sort that out. Okay, let's get into today's episode, which is an interview with Tom Middleton, who is a filmmaker as cinematographer. He's a drone ninja. He's amazing.
Unknown Speaker :At all of those things, he runs a company called SM n film with his wife Mitch in Shropshire in the UK. And basically, they are surrounded by beautiful hills and beautiful sunrises and sunsets, which you may have seen on LinkedIn. So in this interview, we dig into how you can build a career around your lifestyle and complement your lifestyle. There are tips on smartphone shooting for beginners, how LinkedIn is a great platform for showing off your personality and connecting with people. And what it takes, of course, to be a better drone filmmaker. So Tom and miescher are actually launching a drone course just after this podcast is live. So the links for that will be on the show notes which will be video talks.co, forward slash 12. And there'll be a link to their drone
Unknown Speaker :via video talks.co forward slash drones. So there's only one more thing to say which is, there is a little bit of traffic noise because they were recording in their garden. We did this video via Skype. So there is a little bit of traffic noise and possibly a train. So just bear that in mind. Okay, well, let's get into the interview. It's time to say, run vt.
Unknown Speaker :I'm super happy to introduce my guest today Tom Middleton. Tom is a director cinematographer drone filming specialist and co founder of SM and film, a video production and video marketing agency. He's also one of the BBC go to drone cinematographers. Tom runs the business with his wife Mitch also filmmaker, specialising in creating beautiful cinematic films that evoke an emotional response in audiences worldwide. Over the years Tom has run film events lectured in Creative Media Production and freelance design.
Unknown Speaker :DLP director and producer, we met in around 2004 when I was running my first film events at the hundred club in London, and he was running bite sized cinema. We've stayed in touch over the years, and I've always respected his approach to filmmaking business.
Unknown Speaker :Hey, Tom, so pleased to see you. And thanks for joining me on this not a problem. very welcome. Thank you very much for asking me to be a part of it. Well, it's, it's really exciting. I'm excited to talk about what you've been up to and what you're going to be up to. So, yeah, so Tom, I've given our audience a brief overview. Please, could you fill in the gaps and just tell us a little bit more about who you are? what you do. And you know a bit about your background. Now? Of course, yeah. So it's interesting. Thinking back to when we met back when we were in bite sized cinema and you were doing the film events in London because that was how you
Unknown Speaker :Don't go out 15 years ago or so I think it was quite a while back, wasn't it? And so
Unknown Speaker :since then, we decided to leave London which was a big decision. I think both professionally and personally. Because
Unknown Speaker :we weren't we found out we're going to be parents the first time and we decided that living in London was not the life we really wanted in terms of professionalism and that kind of family life. So we moved to Ireland for two years lived on the southwest coast of Ireland, and
Unknown Speaker :kind of dabbled in it. I think living there gave us a huge boost in terms of thinking about what we want our lives to be, for that fulfilment purpose, because as soon as you move out of London, which I know a lot of people have done, who I know who've suddenly realised that actually, you know, things change a lot and you become a lot more focused on your personal life and your business life. And so we ended up doing lots of odd and odd sort of strange jobs here and there. I was a camera operator on a wildlife touring boat for a few months. And I did everything. I was a surf life instructor and I was all sorts of things. But then eventually we decided it wasn't really for us. So we move back to it.
Unknown Speaker :England, intending to move back to London but stopped in Shropshire because his parents live nearby. So it was the stepping stone going back to London. And then we decided that actually,
Unknown Speaker :we didn't really want to go back to that kind of rat race mentality and working too much, which had been so accustomed to growing up that I thought that was normal. So we decided that actually, we probably have a slightly more relaxed life if we stayed in Shropshire. And at that point, we decided to try and find a more creative career path that would give us more satisfaction as a lifestyle career choice rather than actually being a nine to five job which is what I had been doing in London.
Unknown Speaker :And so we at the time, I was doing lots of lecturing for some universities and colleges around structure and the West Midlands. And then at the same time, we also evolved into doing this business which we hadn't intended to do, but it became born out of passion. And I think that was a big choice for us in a big moment because it was something we love doing and we got a lot of satisfaction from doing in terms of capturing footage and this was also at the time of the mirrorless camera.
Unknown Speaker :Evolution, and also at the same time that a lot of the early drones started coming out. So we were playing with a lot of new toys and finding out that we could be really creative a lot easier than we had been in the past. And so we started doing promo shoots and corporate jobs and things that we were
Unknown Speaker :emotionally connected to in terms of that alignment, creative alignment with the brands, and that kind of built up, built a company for us because we were we were doing jobs that we love doing. And it wasn't just a day job, it wasn't kind of work that we had to do to pay the rent, it was more choosing the jobs choosing the clients we wanted to work with because we had an affiliation with their style, their ethos, and that meant that we had fulfilment from that work. And so it became much more of a lifestyle career and it kind of evolved into the business that it is now and what the way it feels that it's not actually a job it's more of a lifestyle choice and it's something we love doing and we you know, have had a lot of enjoyment from Yeah, well it kind of comes across in your in your videos. Can you just take me through your morning routine when you're when you go out and film The amazing sunrise.
Unknown Speaker :His local area, you know, take me through exactly what you do in that scenario. Yeah, it's been a it's been a constant effort, not the opposite of an effort. It's been a constant passion of ours. Because every point we know there's going to be a good shot of sunrise no matter what time of the year it is, whether it's the middle of winter, we know there's gonna be a nice sunrise where it's a lot later in the day, it could be a half at nine o'clock, or in the summer, like very recently when we've been doing shoots for the drone cause you're getting up at sort of four in the morning to capture a sunrise at half five so you're getting into the right position but to me, it's never a choice never having to get up because it's a you know, a massive pain in the ass. It's more of a I know I'm going to get something amazing so I get really excited about it and that that process is what spurred on it. I type business because it's more of an excitement and actually knowing you're gonna catch something that's really magical. And I think that's a lot of the a lot of the filming we do with a drone is not necessarily for a corporate job or commercial job. It's actually just, we're going out catching stuff because we know it's a
Unknown Speaker :Right location we know it's going to be great sun in the right position.
Unknown Speaker :And then we have we're building up a library of content that we know will be usable at some point for different purposes. And a lot of that has been translated into working with Getty Images now with uploading stock for their website and stuff like that. So it's kind of building a library of work that is as much about passionate is about kind of commercial game. Brilliant, amazing. So is obviously I can hear traffic in the background as a bit of context Tom is sitting in his garden
Unknown Speaker :I imagine that you're opening the doors The birds are tweeting, maybe there's an eagle
Unknown Speaker :you know, over the over the top shear downs or whatever.
Unknown Speaker :And you open these doors and it's kind of like a Disney esque scene but clearly you're you are near a road, there is a road there is a red which is the a 49 which is kind of the backbone of of Shropshire running from north to south, but that's
Unknown Speaker :A few hundred feet that way, but we do we live in a small village. So we've got a local pub which we just had a quick pints in for the first time in however many months it is, which is nice. And but it's in every direction you go from our house in within 50 metres 100 metres, you're in open fields, and there's lots we're in the bottom of the valley. So everywhere you walk up a hill into somewhere that you can see this incredible view. So it's very easy for us to just nip out and grab a quick sunrise or a sunset. Or we look we we have a special spot that we like to go to with the kids around sort of eight, nine o'clock in the evening, which we call sunset Club, which is just literally walk out the nearest Hill and watch the sunset with the kids and that it's quite often that we find it's the nicest way to capture a little moment and remember a time with our kids when they've been all throughout their ages from the ages of one up to now 12. And it's been a really nice sort of thing for us to do, I think. Oh, amazing. That's incredible. Well, let's dig into a bit more about your business. So this is called video talks. Could you
Unknown Speaker :Give us a an insight of how moving images work has worked for you and your business. And maybe is a bit of context. I mean, you're a big LinkedIn user. Right? So obviously, video is talking on LinkedIn quite a lot for you. Maybe you could, could touch on, you know how effective that's been as a as a business kind of lead magnet. Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess in the past, I'd say probably seven or eight years, it's been really interesting to see how a lot of businesses have adapted to the more video perspective in terms of realising that there's a lot more commercial gains producing really good stylistic video content. In the same way that TV has turned a lot like that a lot of Netflix shows are now much more cinematic a lot more emotional, a lot more kind of attractive for viewing audiences. And I think a lot of businesses now realising that it's the same with online content. So producing really good stylistic video
Unknown Speaker :is really good for businesses because it shows a lot of not just their ethos and their brand personality, but it shows how much they pay attention to every detail of their business. So for us, producing content for businesses, which is mostly used, I'd say, for online social media purposes or website use. It's, it's been really interesting for us to work with businesses who understand the value in what good video looks like, and how that can attract business for them. We need to talk to them over a long period of time, not just a short period of saying, here's a brand promo, here's your about our story. Here's your film, that's going to sit on your homepage. It's about thinking about how to
Unknown Speaker :produce a series of content that lasts a lot longer than just, you know, a website for homepage. It's more like here's a six month series of content or a six month series of films that tells a story over a long period of time. And therefore audiences react a lot better to that information. We've always use social media as our blog if you'd like to showcase what we're doing more so than the website. So
Unknown Speaker :We've also found that LinkedIn has been the best way for us to communicate with audiences who resonate with our work. Because Facebook seems to have died a death recently, Instagram, we had a lot of good reactions from a few years ago. And then when Facebook took it over, it dives. So now we get virtually no traction on that at all. But with LinkedIn, you're speaking to individuals, not businesses. And it feels like there's a lot more
Unknown Speaker :relationships building out of conversations from LinkedIn. And we've had lots of people who've made good friends with and had good amounts of work with based on the reactions from posting on LinkedIn. And this is not just sort of saying, here's a project we did five years ago or two years ago or a week ago. It's more the kind of personal stories of the stuff that we've been doing to stay creative. So it's kind of showing your personality as well as showing your business acumen and showing your creative ability. It's kind of saying here's, here's the stuff that we do because we love it and it's not just about kind of commercial gain. It's about showing personality. Yeah, no, it definitely comes across in your in your films. That personal
Unknown Speaker :approach and connection. I know that the you've had several posts where you've had
Unknown Speaker :an involvement with it, is it kind of hanging 10th company? I use that in the like the most basic. I know. I've got a good brand name, what is it? It's 10 style, their name is tensor. And they, yeah, they've they've been a manufacturer of
Unknown Speaker :elevated tents. So they're elevated off the ground, they're strapped around tree trunks, so you're completely off the ground. And they're amazing for sleeping in because you're, it's like a cross between a hammock and a trampoline in terms of that comfort. And we've known them for, I mean, I went to school with one of the brothers who founded the company. So we've known them for decades, but we've been working with them professionally for the last eight years, I think. And so we've produced all of their visual media in the UK, which has to do with either how to set up the tents or actually brand promotions and lifestyle content. But they get they get sent content all over the world, but it's just it's a really easy way for us to kind of communicate a quick story with the kids. So
Unknown Speaker :Taking a tent up to the woods nearby, staying in a tent up and then having a bit of fun. And that was part of one of the stories we made over the summer. Well during lockdown, actually, which was what we called backyard adventures. So we took the boys up for camp out overnight, filmed it, and then 10 so wanted to use that as a brand promo. So they they said it was great enough because we filmed almost the entire thing on a phone. And it was just quick and easy to do. But it was really good fun. And the kids loved it. And it worked really well for 10 hours. Well, great if you got any tips for people who who have only got phones out there who that maybe they want to do something for their business. And obviously, you know, if you've you're obviously a master at cinematography, but you know, any basic tips for somebody who, yeah, I think phaser they're amazing tool because the image quality of them is absolutely fantastic. And there's a lot of apps now that you can get which you can manipulate the image a bit better than you can using the iPhones native tools. So things like Filmic Pro you can have three to five cropping you can adjust the frame
Unknown Speaker :Rates a bit better you can adjust the shutter speed in the ISO and with a bit more control in manual and also using things like foam gimbals makes such a huge difference because I know that iPhones now have a lot more image stabilisation but just having the ability to have a handle which you can control the settings on a phone means it's you have a lot more creative freedom to move the phone in a way you would without actually holding it in your hand. So for instance, in the example of using the tents in the woods with the kids, you could start really low in the long grass and then kind of come up rise out of the grass and follow the kids as you're walking which is a kind of shot you would not really be able to do just holding the phone because you'd be all over the place tripping over grass and stuff through the few times I've shot with a phone
Unknown Speaker :the gimbals come in really handy. Yeah lately, the new iPhones and just generally new phones I got crazy stabilisation. Yeah it's amazing if he even think that kind of five years I suppose.
Unknown Speaker :So I wanted to go back a bit
Unknown Speaker :To you know, your earliest influences, and, you know, just hear about what kind of got you into film and the creative process. Sure. No, that's a good story, I think because
Unknown Speaker :I think to be perfectly honest, when I was working in London for a few different production companies and running the cinema clubs, we used to do the short film screenings. I had, I didn't have a lot of career aspirations. At that point, I think I was very much led by growing up in London, thinking I had to do something next and going through university going through getting a job as a runner going through a company and kind of it just happened without thinking about it.
Unknown Speaker :And so I think it was only actually when we left London that I really started to think what did I want from my life? And what did I want creatively from my own career? And that was a big changing point. That was a massive Crossroads for us because it was the first time I'd ever really thought about that seriously is can I make money doing something I enjoy? And will it last for the rest of my life? It was only when we moved back to structure that we began to think about actually
Unknown Speaker :rekindling I think a passion of mine, which was photography at the time. And so I bought a Nikon D 90 camera with a nice, nifty 50 lens, which makes everything look amazing.
Unknown Speaker :In those days I think Nick Monday night is only had a 22nd capability of capturing video. So it was very short capturing moments. And at that point, we started to film stuff because we knew that the the lens looked amazing and it made everything really nice. So it's really kind of getting used to that manual settings of cameras. And using it with video functions more than photography. And so we just we started by just filming our our lives, taking the kids for a walk, go and do something really quick and easy, but then try to make a story out of beginning with a dad trying to think about how that evolves into something. And this was in the day when
Unknown Speaker :it was it was quite early in the social media kind of craze. There wasn't a lot of video around on social media.
Unknown Speaker :But we didn't think about using if social media is more just for personal use. It was more just kind of as a memory for us to remember our kids when they were toddlers
Unknown Speaker :And then growing up, and that kind of evolved into our passion for filmmaking. And at the same time, we began to kind of absorb a lot more content that we became inspired by. So there was a filmmaker in Australia called Benjamin Dally, who we came across his work because he had a Vimeo staff pics,
Unknown Speaker :choice. And he is an Australian filmmaker who had started by making lots of surf films and skate films and kind of lifestyle content of him going out with his friends and jumping in the sea. And it was everything from sort of filming with phones and stuff like that also diving and using GoPros underwater, but it had a style to it that resonated with us a lot because it was it really embodied that kind of lifestyle ethos more than actually saying, here's a commercial film, it was just him and his friends. And so I think we adapted that kind of ethos in our filmmaking, trying to make films which we're not we're not actually meant for a purpose. It was more just for us to sort of flex our creativity. One of your signature styles is that is this office.
Unknown Speaker :See the motional connection but this kind of feeling that you're connecting with nature. So there are a lot of brands that you work with who who have a connection themselves with nature, and maybe quite a kind of, you know, maybe a product which is quite craft lead. There's quite a craft process involved in that with drones. Obviously there's there's been a, there's been a huge surge in drone use over the last I don't know, what would you say 10 years? Yeah. Or at least five or seven? Yeah, definitely. Why do you think drone shots are so popular in you know, for for brand films, etc. It does feel to me that the production value of a film can still be raised hugely by aerial shots done in the right way. You know, the psychology of it, almost. Why does it join short work?
Unknown Speaker :And what is it in the joint does work? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it kind of does. Because we've been we've been having to think about that a lot when we've been producing all the modules for the drone courses, what makes it feel cinematic? And why does drone footage feel more cinematic than having a gimbal shot or something you can do on the ground. And I think that, with all the trend of drones being a lot cheaper and easy to buy these days, it means that anyone can buy a drone and send it up and get a quick shot of something and they sent it to site. They tend to send it as high as they can, and get a look down on whatever the subject is, but that doesn't really feel like a good cinematic shots. So we've always treated drones as if it is an extension to a gimbal. But it's about I think it's about trying to tell a story throughout a single shot, which I think for us, we've always used a single shot process for drone work, rather than having a montage of drone work. So I'm very rarely post anything on social media. That's a montage of scenes of different drone shots. It's always been one shot that has a beginning, middle and end and it has a face
Unknown Speaker :Have narrative that actually makes you want to watch that shot. And it tends to be more about revealing something in that process. That is a surprise. And that whether it's a sunrise or a sunset or following a subject or revealing a building or anything, it doesn't matter what the subject is.
Unknown Speaker :It's about trying to find a path with a drone that you would never be able to do with a normal camera. And I think that's what we've always tried to do with drones. So even if you're flying off the end of a pair into a lake, and then, you know, rising up to find the sunrise, it feels like it's actually kind of a story. You know, I mean, there's a beginning, middle and end. And that I think, is a lot more interesting for viewers to watch. And I think that's something which is not a huge amount of drone operators really understand and I think it's something which I want to
Unknown Speaker :I don't want to say educate people because I don't want to sound like you know, we're better than everyone else. But it's something we're trying to promote is that unique storytelling perspective of finding a job
Unknown Speaker :path or flight path actually has that sense of storytelling and you can do everything you need to in a single shot. And therefore it feels more like one of those shots where you have like a, you know, a Ridley Scott film, whether the opening shots 10 minutes long or something ridiculous. And it has that same mentality of watching and thinking, How on earth did they do that? How did that shot get done? The interestingly, you talk about drone shots, revealing something and I think that's a really, that's a really clever art to get right, isn't it? I think the, you know, they're kind of over the hill.
Unknown Speaker :I'm sure I could choose maybe a more poetic phrase, but over the over the hill shot or at the end of the cliff shot or whatever, you know, so you don't quite know what's coming. I think that's, that's very true. So digging into your drone course, I guess you've become through experience.
Unknown Speaker :A bit of a drone expert. I'm probably like, as you say, you take you take the drones
Unknown Speaker :out
Unknown Speaker :for fun with your kids over the course of like the last 10 years or whatever, or however long drones have been around, yeah.
Unknown Speaker :What What does your course involve? And you know, what, how can it help people. And our course is aimed at the kind of low end of the experience market. So it's people who've bought something like a maverick pro or America or something that which they've been a slight bit more easy to buy. And it's aimed at trying to try to educate them on those cinematic shots. So like I just said, it's kind of trying to find those angles and those storytelling shots which you can do everything in a single shot. So it's a course with 10 modules. And half of those modules are all about specific shot types. So it's how to shoot a sunset or sunrise, how to shoot a moving object, how to shoot a building with cinematic angles, and looking at all the differences between what camera settings you can use and what drone movement will help make that shot cinematic.
Unknown Speaker :So it's been a really interesting process for, for me to kind of uncover that knowledge, which I've kind of accumulated over the last few years, but actually not really thought about because I've been out doing it. So I've been trying to educate Mason trying to use her as a test dummy pilot to educate her on these shots and see how she fares. And it's been a really interesting reaction trying to think about how to communicate that thought process and that learning process and what you need to do with the, with the joysticks, because it's for me, it's just a kind of natural extension of I need to move that way. Don't think about it, I just do it.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, how do you go back? Do you kind of go backwards, step by step from, you know, the end result and think or do you go from a beginner perspective we went from the course module starts with module one being how to set up the plans for a flight. So it's a lot to do with kind of researching the location, thinking about the safety parameters, making sure you've got permission, and then running through some very basic stuff like spatial awareness and I
Unknown Speaker :Knowing how close you can fly to stuff but making sure you're looking at the drone rather than actually looking at the camera view, because they're two very different perspectives so you'll have a lot better judgement looking at the drone in the air and seeing how close you can fly something rather than actually looking at the camera. So in the same way that the same perspective you get from a GoPro you can put a GoPro really near something, but it will actually feel very different once you watch the footage back
Unknown Speaker :and then it progresses through
Unknown Speaker :half the modules are how to set how to do certain shots. And then the later part of the stage is more kind of
Unknown Speaker :how to make the footage look more cinematic with editing. So a couple of little simple tips like colour grading the difference between the different file formats and codecs you have a picture profiles. So looking at more slightly more technical later on. I don't say beginner, it's not a beginner course. But it's kind of trying to educate people about how to shoot more cinematic content, if they've got a journey. They want to kind of achieve those type of shots that they've always wanted to but never quite sure how to do them. What's your advice for an entry level
Unknown Speaker :camera person who maybe has thought, drones that that brilliant but I just couldn't fly one. Well, the thing is, we know a lot of camera operators who've bought drones and have had them in their cupboard or they've shelve them for a long amount of time because they never really think about how they want to shoot stuff or what they want to shoot. And I suppose from our perspective, it's it's trying to think about one single subject and not trying to over complicate the process. So if you find a location that you know is going to look good in a sunset or sunrise, don't over complicate the process but trying to think I need to shoot this three different or four different ways. Find one shot which tells a story and fly past a tree or over a hill like you say, reveal a sunrise reveal a sunset, fly around a group of people but just don't over complicate the process. Try and find an easy way to make one shot look really good. And just keep repeating that process until you perfect that sounds perfect. I'm in
Unknown Speaker :So Tom, we've just come out of lockdown in the UK
Unknown Speaker :At the time of recording, how's the timing locked down being for you?
Unknown Speaker :creatively, obviously, you've used as you said, You You know, you've done quite a lot of personal filming.
Unknown Speaker :How's it been for kind of client work? And also, have there been any kind of standout projects in the last sort of six months that you wanted to mention? Yeah, it's been a it's been a really interesting one because just before locked down, I did my first episode for Countryfile said just start with a conch shell and then lock down happen to that all standard to hold which was a real shame. But I'm hoping to get back into that. And lockdown itself has been a bit of an interesting one because all of the projects we had planned we had three trips abroad, we had all sorts of projects which we had planned, all ground to a complete halt. So it was kind of a massive standstill in terms of production. But we had been working so hard just before locked down that we had a massive backlog.
Unknown Speaker :Have edits that we needed to finish in order to maintain client work. And one of those was really interesting working with a brand, a local brand to us in Shropshire called Ludlow gin. And we had been working with the founder of the gin company for a few months previously, and then talking about how to launch his new brand identity based on his personality. So we convinced him that he needs to be the forefront of the campaign, he needs to be the forefront of the personality of the brand, which he had never been before. And so we we did a massive shoot, which had a cast and crew of about 40 people in a tiny hotel bar, where he walks into an empty bar, slams a bottle of gin on the table, and then the whole room erupts into a massive kind of a party of people all dressed in elaborate outfits, which went down amazingly well. And, but as soon as that was released, which was on the third of March, then lockdown happens. So he sails ground to a complete halt in terms of supplying bars and restaurants and hotels.
Unknown Speaker :And so we discussed to him actually is that
Unknown Speaker :way that he can still maintain a connection with his audience. And is there a way that he can actually maintain his sales process outside of working with buyers. So he decided, and we decided with him that actually he should be selling his gym online, direct to customers. And he began doing a kind of locally based 30 mile radius delivery service. And his sales went through the roof because he was actually able to connect customers. And also the content we produce, we produced, I think, around something in the region of about 30 films, which were cocktail recipes, which he released every single week through lockdown. So he was he was able to maintain that connection with an audience and sort of still stay relevant. And so that's been you know, his his business is transformed because of lockdown in a positive way. And that's been a really interesting process for us to think about how video can have a huge impact on a business even in hard times. That's really interesting actually. 30 Films So in the last three months, any and they've been pushed out over the last three months was that a day shooting how
Unknown Speaker :How long did that take? It was about I think four or five days shoot in total we did the hotel shoot took two days, which was the hotel and Hereford, which was just before lockdown. And then we had a day in his distillery and we had two days in studio setting, making cocktails. So we kind of churn through, you know, 30 or so cocktail films in over two days, and unfortunately, had to sample all of the cocktails, which meant the filming at the end of the day was a bit tricky. It was good fun doing it. I love the idea of like, bespoke gin delivery because obviously in lockdown, that's probably one of the essentials that people needed along with toilet paper. Right? Yeah, definitely a good supply booze and a good supply to it. Well, just talking about kind of location of your business and you know, obviously, it's a great place to live by the sounds of it. How does that work with with kind of clients and business in general?
Unknown Speaker :It's been, I mean, living in structure has always for us been
Unknown Speaker :Have a love hate relationship in terms of professionalism, because
Unknown Speaker :we've always had to have a level of confidence in our own work that we can compete with businesses or filmmakers in cities such as London or Birmingham or Manchester or any other cities around the country. But we've always maintained the fact that we are going to stay rural, we're not going to be sucked into kind of moving to a city again, because it just is a whole change of lifestyle that we don't want to have to face again. So we do a lot of freelancing for other agencies like the BBC and other agencies around the country. But that's just essentially me going out and shooting for them on a daily basis. So it's not actually our company working for them. It's just me going out working for them.
Unknown Speaker :But I think as a business, it's it's always been a difficult question that we've had to ask ourselves is, do we compare it in the right way? Are we recognisable as a as a company that produces content that is, has a reputable style and I think that's something that's it's taken a long time for us to adjust to that kind of understanding.
Unknown Speaker :We have a brand we have a reputable style, we have a series of content that should be recognised as luxury and actually worth what we charge for our work. And I think that's something that's it's taken us a long time to, to kind of get to that point. Well, I definitely think that comes across in your work, the quality and you know, the cinematic, just the beauty of it.
Unknown Speaker :Is there a formula for a successful business? This is this is our business, a video mini round of questions. And is there a formula? That's a really good question. I think. For us, it's been a really long process of turning a passion into a business. And I think the only advice I can give to people in that position is separate the two very quickly, as early as you can try and separate your personal passion from a business perspective. And look at all the business administration you have to do for the company. Very separate in the way you operate. Your
Unknown Speaker :to process because that's something that we have had to do over the last several years. And we've always made a conscious choice of never having an office or studio because we need the flexibility of working with home with two young kids. And everything that offers and being able to choose our days of work and not having to be
Unknown Speaker :restricted to working nine to five in a studio or office environment. And I think the benefit that comes from having an office is that you can separate your life and your business, but being able to do it, when you choose to do it, I think is a much better situation. But you do have to make sure that you know, where your guidelines are in terms of your boundaries of when you spend time with your family. And when you spend time operating the business and how you move the business forward and how you actually change the future of the business. And I think that all comes down to knowing where you're where you want to be going with the business and understanding that goals and setting targets for your business is as important as the creative process.
Unknown Speaker :really relevant
Unknown Speaker :As well in this in this time, how do you think the landscape business landscape is going to change? After all this?
Unknown Speaker :I think there's gonna be a lot of big organisations that understand now that people can operate from home. And it doesn't have to be everyone has to be in an office environment, I think
Unknown Speaker :there's been a massive shift in people working from home and doing zoom calls or Skype calls and operating from a remote environment. And the fact that you don't have to have that physical entity anymore. People can operate from distance. People can still be creative from a distance, but it's just about trying to find out how that works for teams. And if you have a big team, if you have a big company, can you still have that connection? Can you still have that collaboration that you would have in an environment of an office, but can you do it remotely? I was gonna say have you yourself? Have you done any remote shoots or have you? Have you done any socially distance shoots yet, we've turned our home into a studio or turned our kitchen into a studio to film for Ludlow
Unknown Speaker :So, we actually did a collaboration with Ludlow gin and a coffee roasters in Bristol, who
Unknown Speaker :they created a coffee liqueur. So we, we created a whole campaign which was entirely shot in our kitchen, doing lots of close up macros of like coffee beans dropping onto a lovely piece of oak, and then an espresso Martini being made full of, you know, these lovely close ups of the drink being made. So it's been quite interesting to think of how much we can actually achieve in our own house and how that actually still makes it feel like a luxury brand promo. I think I saw the making of Yeah, did I see that somewhere? Yeah, there was cats jumping all over the table and all sorts of weird stuff going on. look good.
Unknown Speaker :So your as a family business, does that come with its own challenges? I mean, obviously, like you say you've got two two young kids. Yeah, that 12 and semi young 12.8 so that they cannot a bit but they're just on the cusp of being able to take care of themselves now. So it's kind of interesting, but
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I mean with with every family with every family during lockdown, it's been really difficult to juggle work and family life and home education and everything in between.
Unknown Speaker :But I think it's just everyone adapts their own way. And I think everyone finds their own way of being able to do work when they can and work with their kids when they can find a nice balance. So, for us, we've been getting up at 6am every day during a couple of hours work, and then been quite regimented about doing a bit of exercise at eight in the morning, making sure I'm keeping healthy and then knuckling down doing a bit of work with the kids from morning to lunch, and then saying, right, you guys clear off we're going to do our work from lunch till the afternoon and at least everyone then has their own structure and schedule. And it feels like that's, that's the format that worked for us really well. And hopefully, everyone's found their own path weighing thing making things work. Interestingly, because you shoot for the BBC, what's what is your setup for that and what shows have you you know, what shows Do you generally shoot for sure, sure. And same for the BBC up but for the last couple of years. I've done the last two
Unknown Speaker :series of antiques roadshow on Sunday night, which has been really amazing running around the country meeting all these amazing people in these huge events they put on. I also just started working with Countryfile, which was the first episode I did was the week before lockdown started and I haven't had anything since then because they've been doing everything locally to their presenters. All the commercial stuff we do with drones is on our inspire two which can shoot up to 5.9 k ra which is the image quality is absolutely incredible. And it really is nice and then a lot of the stuff we do which is either personal stuff or kind of quick and easy we just use our Mavic two pro which has just you know cancelling out a backpack and climate Hill relatively easily and gun shoot. So it makes it a lot more easy to manoeuvre rather than lugging around this massive case with the Inspire in it. Cool. Okay, so moving on to our scrub forward round. This is
Unknown Speaker :a quick fire round and if you don't want to answer
Unknown Speaker :Okay, so video nasty. What's the worst habit? You see people practice in drone filming the worst thing I think people do is
Unknown Speaker :To move quickly in the middle of a shot. So all the shots that we try and do are one smooth movement. And I think shot is always ruined by the middle of a move, the SEC camera suddenly moves to the side or it Jacks up and down or it kind of moves left to right. So whenever we try and think about shot, it's always one fluid motion from start to finish. So it's either forwards and backwards or up and down, or a combination of those things. But we tend to never move more than one axis at the same time. And I think that always kind of, if you go forward and then up, it seems it feels like two shots rather than one that I think they should be separated. I think that's a big mistake for most drone operators is not cutting out the bits that look the best and trying to post something that is lots of movement in one shot. I was just wondering, did you play computer games? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :GoldenEye you younger, GoldenEye. Exact same controls, as I remember go. Now the N 64 is the exact same controls as drone. So the left the right hand controller is most of the movement and the left hand controller is where you look and so that kind of
Unknown Speaker :It's very intuitive as for a drone operator if you've come from a gaming background to be able to operate, and I think that's why a lot of first person view pilots adapting very quickly because they're so used to that kind of way of seeing the drone move around. You might find it as an as an influx of gamers moving into drone filming. So what's your competition? Okay, what techniques and software techniques in terms of camera work, I think something we've always used is camera movement. So even if you're using handheld cameras moving left to right makes a shot feel more dynamic and makes it feel more fluid. So we've always use camera movement in every single type of shoot we do is we very rarely shoot a static shot unless it's an interview. But even if it sometimes an interview feels better for you can put on a slider or something that is a you know, a gimbal you can have a bit of movement feels more interesting. We use Final Cut Pro mostly to edit because I find it's so intuitive and so quick that we can churn out edits really fast and sometimes we have massive shoots like we work with
Unknown Speaker :Hay festival every year. And during the process of that 11 days of the events, we go out and we film sort of 10 to 15 interviews a day. And you have to turn those around really quickly. So you have to edit them and then put them out for their social team really quickly. And I just find that Final Cut Pro, we can work with such a quick speed that it just means you can push stuff through much quicker than having to think about the longer process of colour correction and kind of outputs and the stuff that some of the other packages such as Premiere Pro can offer. But I just find that I think for the content we're doing for pushing out to websites and social Final Cut pros more than enough and it's a great workflow for us.
Unknown Speaker :Brilliant.
Unknown Speaker :Play, Pause, stop one thing you always do one thing you sometimes do and one thing you should never do.
Unknown Speaker :One thing we always do, I guess is religiously every single time we go on a shoot whenever we come back, whatever time of day it is, no matter how long we've been shooting. I always take the fish off the cards. Make sure I've got it backed up because
Unknown Speaker :I'm really bad at kind of removing footage off cards. So if I know that I've already got it off the cards, I know it's safe and then I can format the card if I need to. But every time I put a card back in the camera, there's always going to be something on there for another shoot and I instantly think, have I backed out Have I got that somewhere? Do I know where that is? I don't know where it is. And it's a nightmare because that just what I should do is copy it and then format the card to know I've got a clean card to work with but I'm very bad at formatting cards.
Unknown Speaker :Another thing that Mason was tells me off for is not storing correctly. Our office space in our home is just an absolute mountain of bits of cables and charges and stuff which is just dumped in there and not put away properly. So I have to admit I'm terrible at organising equipment when it's finished with a shoe and actually prepared for another shoe but that's something I try and do a lot is whenever I'm preparing for shoe I'm literally regimental with write a kit list making sure I've got everything charged all the batteries are numbered.
Unknown Speaker :knowing exactly what we need,
Unknown Speaker :and making sure it's ready. So that that side of it, I'm great, but it's when it comes back in again, I'm terrible
Unknown Speaker :at probably talking to a lot of filmmakers there, I can definitely relate maybe 50% of people are like that. And something we sometimes do, but don't do enough is making sure that we've got backups of backups. So for instance, when you come off a sheet, your tech fetched of a card stick on a hard drive, we tend to work on laptops with Lacie hard drives, so we can just take around the house, sit on the sofa in front of TV and just churn away and edit. But we don't do it enough is making sure that those hard drives are backed up onto another system where you've got a library of content from the last few years. So only last year, for the first time we invested in a Drobo system with I think 65 terabytes or something ludicrous in the massive amount of space. And we don't do that enough, is making sure that we've got backups of all our working hard drives onto that system because every now and then like throughout the drone course, I've been
Unknown Speaker :Searching for a drone shot, which I remembered from three or five years ago, which I know was in Wales or some beach somewhere, and I know it should have been on that archive system. But actually, it's stuck on one harddrive that's on the shelf somewhere. So I should have backed that up properly. But I haven't done it enough. Is there a way that you track your backups? No.
Unknown Speaker :brutally honest, there should be the way I the way I archive it is through the years. So I have
Unknown Speaker :on our Drobo system, I have a folder for every year. So everything that's throughout that year just goes onto that sort of system, but I don't do it enough. So there's something that slips through the gap every time. We've always we always used to use Trello for project management originally before we move to Basecamp. But
Unknown Speaker :the one thing that is the Trello hangover is literally the hard drive, logging and all that kind of stuff because it just feels like quite a natural way of finding things. That was just in case anyone
Unknown Speaker :mouse's need something, you know, trillo obviously free, quite handy just so that you can just look up whatever you've got on whatever hard drive. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :And one thing you should never do.
Unknown Speaker :I think one thing you should probably never do is clear a car without checking if you've got it backed up because I've been in a situation where I've been out with a drone on a commercial shoot for the BBC. And I've, I've been in the middle of an aerial shoot and the the car does fill up so it stops recording. And I've had to wipe the card because I had no way of being able to check it because the drones in the air and I had no choice but to wipe the card to be able to carry on recording. And then there was a project that was on the card, which I had not backed up previously. So I lost that footage. So I think it's just about being regimental with that process of knowing exactly how much space you've got and making sure you know, when you get to a shoot, you've got more than enough space to be able to continue what you're doing.
Unknown Speaker :And obviously you always learn from those hiccups, they never repeat them. So yeah, you do them once again.
Unknown Speaker :Again, yeah, best tools and tips for productivity work life balance, motivation, that kind of thing, something you can't live without. I think the simplest thing for us in terms of productivity is pen on paper is literally writing down scheduling your day from us at six in the morning until five or six an evening of thinking about what sort of things you need to do throughout the day. So whether it's, for us getting up at 6am, spending a couple hours on LinkedIn, engaging people posting some content, doing a bit of exercise, working with the kids or doing something that you know, you have an allocated block of time to do, and actually having nothing that disturbs that time. So for us, it's been a really difficult thing to, to try and have one thing and one thing alone to do for two hours because you'll end up having one of the kids come and ask you for lunch or something you have to get disturbed for and then it takes you 20 minutes half an hour to get back into that process again. So for us, the biggest most simplest thing is literally writing down your plan for the day for the week, down to the hour of knowing what you want to do and try to stick to that and not get too
Unknown Speaker :But can you give us one secret shooting tip? I mean, it depends on the shoot. But I think one thing that we've always had a stigma for is actually that the equipment you use doesn't matter. It's not about what tells us it's about the result of the footage and how it looks. And I think that's something which a lot of mirrorless camera operators and DSLR operators have always felt that kind of stigma of the fact that it's not a Cinema Camera. It's not a broadcast camera. It's not something that looks cinematic. But actually it's more down to the image quality that you end up with. And actually, if you're giving somebody something that hits the nail on the head in terms of what they wanted, it doesn't matter how you got there. Well, it brings me on to what's next for brands and video. What are the benefits of somebody spending a huge amount on a big production versus spending a manageable amount on a much smaller, more agile production? I think almost that answers its own question, but what's your opinion and I think there's always a place for
Unknown Speaker :Using big expensive equipment and cinema cameras, and we're lining up a quote using a phantom flex, which can shoot a ludicrous frame rate, so it'd be really fun to be able to use that technology. But at the same time, you don't have to do that. And I think, hopefully, what this kind of financial crisis and this lockdown procedure has taught a lot of companies is that they don't necessarily have to spend enormous amounts of money to get the results they want. Because it comes down to if you're shooting something at 3000 frames a second versus 120 frames per second, is the end consumer really gonna care? Do they really mind what that looks like? Are they still going to get the same results from the message of the video rather than actually how slow it looks? It's not about necessarily using the the most expensive technology but it's about kind of giving the client what they want in the best sense and trying to try to produce something that you're proud of and that they're proud of. So what's next for you? And you know, your kind of vision of
Unknown Speaker :The your future and your ultimate goals. And
Unknown Speaker :it's been interesting for us during lockdown because just before lockdown, we had a kind of annual discussion about where our business live, we do this every Christmas, every kind of winter, we think about where we're going to be going in the next year, what we want to be doing and how we want to be growing as a business. And the sectors that we wanted to target and have worked in and want to work in more is tourism and food and drink.
Unknown Speaker :Because those are two industries that we've found the most satisfaction from working from in the past year. And we think those are the biggest boom industries going forward for the next one month. So
Unknown Speaker :I think especially in the next six months, there's going to be a massive boom in tourism, there's gonna be a huge boom in hospitality and food and drink. And I think those sectors are going to be the biggest things to grow out of lockdown. So if we can provide services to those sectors in the next six months, and that's going to going to grow a business and help us kind of solidify those processes moving forward. Cool, and obviously the
Unknown Speaker :Could the course will be, hopefully a nice kind of source of income. On the side. Yeah, I mean, the drone courses, I think it's been a really interesting learning curve for us, because I hope it sells well. And I hope it speaks to the right kind of audience in terms of the way we've taught the kind of content of the modules. But I think there's lots of different extensions, we can do that we'd like to do another whole course and inspire to filmmaking and actually look at professional level, and actually helping filmmakers think about if they are making the jump from phantoms or the Matic range to an inspire or Inspire to they're going to be investing another five grand on a piece of kit rather than actually a ground. And so is there anything that we can help them think about? And are there is there a market for actually a much more specific technical, cinematic filmmaking course for drone operators or, you know, any small micro kind of courses that we can offer?
Unknown Speaker :Well, I mean, obviously, they can contact you on LinkedIn right to ask you questions, and I noticed that
Unknown Speaker :Recently you have been putting out kind of more kind of interactive questioning
Unknown Speaker :videos. Yeah. So is that something that you would like from people, you know, if they have got kind of things that they need to learn? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's something which we in terms of LinkedIn content, we've always had the best reaction from audiences, which tends to be other filmmakers about the drone footage we put out. So you've either got recognition of stuff, which which has worked really well, and people talk about how nice it is. But it's been interesting actually, recently to ask questions to talk about is there is there tips we can give people? Is there processes that we have found difficult that other filmmakers may have found a solution for? And actually using LinkedIn as a an engagement process and actually trying to find solutions to problems? And is that a better process for using the platform actually, than just saying here's a bunch of work?
Unknown Speaker :Brilliant. So how do people connect with you? If they want to do that? They can either email me straightaway at Tom SMM films comm or connect through LinkedIn
Unknown Speaker :I'm more than happy to talk to people I love. I love talking to people on LinkedIn because I think it's a great platform for engagement. So feel free to leave a comment or contact me on LinkedIn or give me an email.
Unknown Speaker :Cool or your Instagram is S and film. It's just SM and film yet. SMM film is our Instagram handle. Yeah. Cool. Tom, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. It's been brilliant to see you and talk to you. Yeah, look at the beautiful background. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. We'll catch up with you when the drone courses live and see what your next chapter is. Cheers. Take it easy. Cool. That's Well,
Unknown Speaker :thanks so much to Tom Middleton. He really knows what he's talking about. When it comes to cinematography, drone filming all of that stuff. I really hope you check out his course. As I said at the beginning, we'll have a link via video talks.co forward slash drones and you can check out all the show notes
Unknown Speaker :To this episode and everything mentioned, all the all the gear, all the software, and any links that he mentions and videos and stuff will be on the show notes and that is that video talks.co forward slash 12.
Unknown Speaker :So, yeah, thanks for joining me for this episode. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and we can keep these episodes coming in. We've got some great stuff coming up, including we've got a giveaway that is coming up. So if you are still here, then Thanks for staying. The giveaway is to do with one of our guests coming up. So keep an eye on social. You can check Instagram at video talks podcast, or
Unknown Speaker :Facebook facebook.com video talks podcast funnily enough, and you can connect with me on Instagram and e dot greenhouse. So yeah, please give us a shout if you want a shout out and we'll sort out for the the woman
Unknown Speaker :It creates a pitch in the middle of the episode. So thanks for listening again, and I'll see you on the next one. Cheers.