Your Photography Podcast

The Role of Video in Capturing the Essence of a Story with Evan Pollock

March 15, 2023 Adam Phillips Episode 21
The Role of Video in Capturing the Essence of a Story with Evan Pollock
Your Photography Podcast
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Your Photography Podcast
The Role of Video in Capturing the Essence of a Story with Evan Pollock
Mar 15, 2023 Episode 21
Adam Phillips

Embark on a visual odyssey with Evan, a filmmaker whose expertise lies in crafting compelling stories through the lens of both photography and filmmaking.

In this episode, we unravel Evan's journey, ignited by the roar of rally Porsches, leading to exciting collaborations directly with Porsche itself. Explore the landscapes of his recent projects, including a thrilling Utah road trip film, and discover his ambitious goal of completing a craft beer documentary, Brewingham.

Whether you're a seasoned creator seeking fresh perspectives or an aspiring enthusiast eager to learn, this episode invites you to explore the art of storytelling in visual media. Join us as we dissect Evan's craft, explore the heart of each project, and delve into the aspirations that drive his creative vision.

Prepare for an immersive experience in storytelling, photography, and filmmaking. Tune in for inspiration, insights, and the sheer joy of visual narrative with Evan.


Website
https://www.pollockpictures.com

Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@EvanPollock

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/pollockpictures/

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Show Notes Transcript

Embark on a visual odyssey with Evan, a filmmaker whose expertise lies in crafting compelling stories through the lens of both photography and filmmaking.

In this episode, we unravel Evan's journey, ignited by the roar of rally Porsches, leading to exciting collaborations directly with Porsche itself. Explore the landscapes of his recent projects, including a thrilling Utah road trip film, and discover his ambitious goal of completing a craft beer documentary, Brewingham.

Whether you're a seasoned creator seeking fresh perspectives or an aspiring enthusiast eager to learn, this episode invites you to explore the art of storytelling in visual media. Join us as we dissect Evan's craft, explore the heart of each project, and delve into the aspirations that drive his creative vision.

Prepare for an immersive experience in storytelling, photography, and filmmaking. Tune in for inspiration, insights, and the sheer joy of visual narrative with Evan.


Website
https://www.pollockpictures.com

Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@EvanPollock

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/pollockpictures/

Support the Show.

Hey, everyone, I'm just going to let you introduce yourself. Yeah, sounds great. Hey, guys.

My name is Evan Pollock. I'm the director and director of photography, owner everything of Pollock Pictures. I've been doing this since 2012 and mainly focused on filmmaking.

So that's a little bit different for a photography podcast, but a lot of the same rules apply, so I'm excited to be here. Nice. Thanks for being here, Evan.

Appreciate it. Yeah, of course, with that all said, what is it that you enjoy? So most of the times, I've asked people what they enjoyed most about photography, and you could answer it in that aspect, or what you enjoy most about video. Yeah, sounds cool, man.

Well, I think photography, I think I look to the greats, like the great filmmakers, honestly. Like Roger Deacons, who is a world renowned cinematographer. And he started out in photography.

He started out in composition, and he started out in framing visuals. He loves these really almost desolate visuals in a lot of space. So it's almost like landscape photography in a lot of ways when you look at his movies.

But then he puts people in them to introduce those human elements and these lone wolf characters amongst a vast wasteland kind of deal. So I love his photography because it relates, and it perfectly fits into his cinematography and the way that he tells Stories. And so my favorite part about photography, filmmaking, is the story that the individuals on screen are telling.

Whenever you look at a photo, I like to see a story. It's not just about a pretty photo or pretty visual. It has to be adding to a story.

It has to be going, leading somewhere. Because if it's a pretty picture to be a pretty picture, it gets about that deep, but if there's story behind it, it's very layered. That was probably my best way of approximating my favorite thing about photography, filmmaking, videography kind of things.

Nice. No, I really like that answer. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all storytellers, right? I like how you put it.

If it's just a pretty picture, it only goes so deep, which is super true. Sometimes I feel like I'm guilty of just creating a pretty picture versus a story, but I think we all are fairly guilty of that. I think that that's part of the process, though, is like you start off and you want to make the best visual.

You want to craft that just beautiful photo video, and you just want to make it just like eye candy. And as you get further into the industry, you kind of perfect or not perfect, you kind of get good at the eye candy stuff. And it's like, okay, now I want it to take a step further and deepen the eye candy to having meaning behind what I'm seeing.

So a lot of these visuals that we may be seeing may not be the most well crafted picture, but what's in the picture? Maybe there's a human, maybe there's no humans. Maybe there's just some inanimate object. But if there's something that's telling a story within that inanimate object or that individual, that's where we get to further our craft as filmmakers and as photographers, Is that once we're done kind of figuring out the eye candy part of it to really hone in how pretty it can be, now we get to take it a step further and say, okay, now what's behind the photo? What's really making this photo stand out? And so then we just take it a step further and really focus on that.

Our photos become less focused on being the prettiest it can be. Yeah, no, I agree. I guess the next question I've got is, I feel like you're been at this full time for a little while.

How long have you been doing it? And then I guess what got you into it? Yeah. Yeah. So I have been doing filmmaking professionally since 2012.

That's when I started my own business. I have been in filmmaking, like, training and playing around with it since eight, nine. So I was in high school when I started doing it.

And I actually started off doing arts in general since I was a kid, since I was probably maybe like eight even before then, I've been into arts mainly performing arts since I was probably like five or something like that. So my family has always been widely surrounding arts. My dad was a singer songwriter and musician, and my sisters both are.

My brother's a drummer. And we were always performing together, doing stuff together. And I got into singing, songwriting, and was part of several bands.

And then from there, transitioned into stage performance on live theater. And then when I decided I wanted to get more of a career out of it, I realized that being a performer in general, just being an actor or a singer or a songwriter, an artist of some sort, is very, very. There's always high peaks and high valleys and low valleys.

There's high highs and low lows, and it's never consistent. And so I looked into what other art form is maybe a little more consistent, something I can formulate to being a little bit more steady of a job. And so I looked into filmmaking and really fell in love with the filmmaking, not because as a backup or anything, but I really found filmmaking as a great medium to be able to express myself, but also get paid for it.

So I started getting into the filmmaking side, and Lord of the Rings was actually the movie that got me into like, I want to be in this field. I just couldn't figure out where I fit into the field of arts. When that movie came out, I think it came out in one and I was like, eleven.

So I didn't know where I sat in that spectrum of how I was going to get involved. I just knew I was going to be involved in the arts. And so that came full circle in probably eight, nine, when I started taking film classes and trying to figure out what I wanted to do as an artist in that behind the scenes spectrum, capacity, and really fell in love with it, fell in love with the filmmaking genre and realizing you have so much opportunity to craft the story yourself, because the performers on stage are really kind of just, they're the ones that are playing out what the director or the filmmakers have crafted for you.

So they're basically telling you what to do and then you do it for them. And if you do it well, great. And so I was like, well, I kind of want to do that job.

I want to tell other people what to do, and I was able to craft these things. So I think I have an advantage, though, because I started out on stage and so I can better communicate what I would like for people to do for me on camera. So I think there was some definite benefit of me being both sides of the coin, essentially.

So when I got into filmmaking, it was an easy transition from the stage to behind the camera, to be able to communicate with the individuals I'm filming. No. Very cool.

No, I think that's super interesting because just as a photographer myself, I feel like when I've researched or done any search on posing or working with people, they often suggest that as a photographer, you should also try some modeling and take some acting classes or something in that realm, just so that you have an understanding of how that person feels, and then you can better articulate what you need to say to that person. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's all about effective communication.

Yeah, no, I think that's great. Yeah. That kind of answered the next question, which is how long you've been doing it.

Do you have a favorite? I say lens, but focal length or, like, stuff that you like to shoot at? Yeah, I think that when I was starting out, I really enjoyed the 50 because it was very easy to get a good visual, very easy to get a good picture, very easy to be able to have that strong boca without it being distracting. It's called the Nifty 50 for a reason. It's beautiful anywhere you point it.

Just throw that f stop down, and you just are able to get some really creamy visuals. And I stuck with that because I started out filming wedings, actually, because it was a great way of crafting a formulaic story, doing it a lot of times for practice and getting paid for it. So it was good practice for me.

And to make things look real pretty, you go with 50. It's an easy, quick lens that makes everything just look like a dream. But as I got older and as I started crafting out my own, I guess, lens library, I started falling in love with the 35.

And I think that's among the common focal lengths. 35 between, like, a 28 and a 35 is where I like to stick around, mainly because it gives a little more of the scope of what you're filming while also having. There's an intimacy as well.

So it's, like, almost the best of both words of, like, you kind of get a semi wide shot of what's going on while also still feeling intimate. It's still close enough to your subject, but still wide enough to be able to see, to give relevance to the frame. So I really enjoy those wider shots, those wider focal lengths.

35 is kind of a semi wide, but I think that once you hit 50, it starts to get into those medium close ups, kind of focal lengths. And then obviously, the 85s are beautiful, but they're also really intimate, so you have to really dial in those shots a lot more carefully. But, yeah, I would say probably my favorite is the 35.

Yeah. Nice. No, that's cool.

I sold my 50, like, a year ago. Oh, yeah. Was it out of just being tired of it, or were you like, oh, man, I'm ready to try something different? What'd you replace it with.

I had it since 2012, and I gave, like, a little workshop to this person, and they're like, oh, man, how do I get this? And I'm like, you should have this lens or one like it. So I ended up just selling that to her for, like, $100 or something because it's not the high end one, but it was mediocre. And then I haven't replaced it, and I've been shooting a lot on an 85, but I did a group photo with the 85 the other day, and I found myself.

I felt like I was running like, a football field away just to get everyone in the width of within the frame a little rough. Yeah. Makes you run a marathon and then need a megaphone to get across the field.

All right, now, mom, participate with the. Hold the child. Make sure they're not blinking.

Make sure they're smiling. That's not fun. No, that's cool.

It was fun, but I think that's cool because, I don't know. I have a 16 to 35, but I feel like the prime 35 is nice. Yeah.

I'm a huge fan of that. My favorite zoom lens is a 24 to 70. You kind of get the best of all worlds within that lens.

Yeah. So the next question that I have written down is, what's been some of your most recent work or some of your favorite work? And I think the thing that caught my eye that you've been doing is a lot of this Porsche type stuff. Yeah.

If you want to share some of that or whatever. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

It's so funny is that the Porsche stuff that I've been doing as of late has been. I kind of fell into it. I love good cars and pretty cars, and I haven't been, like, a car nut where I'm super invested in the specs of all the vehicles, and there are plenty of car photographers and filmmakers out there that know cars inside and out and know the models, and they can list off all the specs of this vehicle, and I know zilch of know going into.

I see pretty car. I'm like, that's a cool car. I love it.

It looks beautiful. And everyone's like, oh, that's a terrible car. On the Porsche end, I'm like, I think it looks good.

I couldn't care less. I just think it looks pretty cool. It's much better than my one Lexus RX 300.

That's just like a grandma car. And I'm like, it gets me from point A to point B, so I was much more a utilitarian when it came to vehicles. And then when you think about going into filming Porsches, it's like you're going from utilitarian all the way to the end or near the end, kind of like that.

More of the luxury brand stuff. So you're kind of jumping over a lot of the common man cars to go straight to the top of the food chain in a lot of capacities with Porsche. So I kind of fell into doing Porsche content Porsche work because a buddy of mine did a rally build of his old 80s Porsche, which is a nine four four Porsche.

And I didn't know much about the car. I just knew that he did a really cool build, and I was like, dude, we need to film this. We need to make something cool.

And he is another filmmaker friend, and he said, absolutely, let's do it. So we just took a quick little weekend or not weekend. We took a quick little.

I think it was just like an afternoon went up to the mountain. It turned out being raining, and we had this incredible, beautiful backdrop of the Pacific Northwest with these blue haze and mist kind of coming in. And he likes to send the car pretty hard.

And so I was like, let's film it. Let's have fun. So we end up having some really cool fun with that and a lot of cool visuals.

And it semi blew up online. I was like, wow, okay. People really like this stuff.

And he connected me with another guy, Brock Keane, with nine nine six road trip. And we kind of did a collab film called where to Next? Where these two guys essentially start camping in the forest and they have a little joyride down to the beach. And it's really cool.

It was a really fun film to make, and we all just had a blast that one day. We shot it in one day, and from there, it's kind of been nonstop. Now, that small short film that I did just because for the heck of it, has taken me to Utah for like an eight day road trip film for a big brand, a global brand.

And then from that project that led me into dealing directly with Porsche, and Porsche had us come out to Pennsylvania for one of their events, filming. They had me do an independent story with Brocken, and then they had us go to Europe for ten days and shoot a road trip film from Germany to France. And it was phenomenal.

And it's been kind of, 2022 was a very nonstop year, half of 21. And then 2022 was basically nonstop filming Porsches. And I like focusing on story and people, and I think that car, cinematography eye candy we were talking about earlier can only get you so far.

And so what I really like focusing on is the story of the people that are involved with the vehicles, because that's what sticks. And I feel like that's what's going to have a more long lasting effect. So we had a really great time being able to tell those stories and be able to tell that really fun road trips and all those really just shooting cool cars.

But at the end of the day, it's a box, and there's a person in the box. I'm like, I want to know more about the person in the box rather than just a car. You can only capture the car from so many different angles and have the car doing some really cool things, but I'm more concerned about what's the person who's driving the car.

I would say probably my favorite project that I have done with the Porsche stuff as of late. My favorite one is probably the short dock project I did in end of 2021. I shot it in end of 2021.

I released it last year called My Way. And that was with the Utah Short film. It was about, like 1212 and a half minutes long of us just filming this Utah road trip and getting to know Brock Keane as an individual and what drives him as a driver of Porsche and just a car enthusiast in general.

So that's kind of a long story short of how I got into the Porsche space and got into car filmmaking and my favorite project to date. Nice. Very cool.

I take it you probably visited, did you visit the Porsche Museum in Stutgart? Yes, we did. Funny story about that one, actually. When we got into Stutgart, we flew into Stutgart on a Sunday, and then Monday, we were getting everything prepped on Sunday, and then Monday we had basically an extra day because they weren't ready to give us the car yet that we're supposed to take across for the road trip.

So we were like, well, let's see if we can get into the Porsche Museum and do some hanging around, see what's, you know, do some filming and see if we can get a tour or something. But the whole entire museum was closed, and we were like, okay, well, that's kind of a bummer. Let's see if we can talk to a few people, a couple of people that we talked to that we were communicating with originally, they said, we can't do that right now.

Then we just talked to somebody else and they said, oh, yeah, of course, come on in. I'll give you a private tour. And so they just let us play around in the museum for like an hour and a half, 2 hours, just walking around unsupervised, just like, yeah, you guys take a lap, film whatever you guys want to film.

Oh, and then later on, hit me up and I'll take you to the archives. And so we got to go to the archives and be able to film a lot of the stuff that they. All.

The first photos that they ever took of the Porsche, the first Porsche design that was on a know the crest and everything like that. And so they were showing us all these really cool historical landmarks of Porsche. Me not being a really Porsche file know, fanatic, I didn't know mean, obviously it was very beautiful, it was very cool to be there, but I didn't know the historical relevance for the people who are just like Porsche nuts that are sitting here just like glued to all these little pieces of memorabilia.

I'm like, oh, my word. It's like me seeing the first ever super eight camera. Essentially, it would be like me oogling or ogling over some new, one of your historical filmmaking tools kind of deal.

But yeah, it was really beautiful. And Stutgart is. They really do that museum.

Well, I mean, that is a beautiful, beautiful museum. Yeah. I just wondered if you'd had.

Because I lived over there for two years. Oh, yeah. In StUtgart up in.

Okay, nice. I think it's about an hour and a half ish north, I think, north of Stuart. But yeah, I went down to the Hawkenheim ring one day.

They did like a 500 miles race on the Hakenheim ring. Yeah. And there are a lot of different cars, but the majority of the cars were Porsche or BMW.

Yeah, of course. The epicenter. Yeah.

So it was pretty sweet. Very cool. Yeah, that's cool, man.

Do you have a project that supersedes the Porsche stuff that you've done a project that would supersede it? If you can even share. I don't know. No, there's a project I'm currently working on that I've been in post production for a while.

I had the back burner for a little bit since it's a passion project. It's a craft beer documentary actually, called Brewingham that has been kind of like my love letter to the craft beer industry as a whole. We had the craft beer boom a few years back, and I fell in love with good craft beer here in Bellingham, Washington.

And I've been working kind of slowly working on this documentary about the craft beer scene in general. And if you've seen the show, Chef's table. It's essentially like that, but for craft beer.

And so I've been working on that for a while. It's been in post production for a hot minute, mainly because I had to put on the back burner. Because 2020 hit, I lost All My Income and I'm like, all right, I got to find new clients.

Passion projects got back burnered, and now I'm able to actually open it up again and get back to work. So that one is going to be finished this year and then it'll be released to the public. If I can either sell it or license it, it'll be released to the public probably end of this year.

Very cool. Favorite thing to photograph or video. I think you kind of hit on that, that it's like the people and their stories, but if you want to elaborate on that more.

Yeah, like I said, I think people, you'll see in my production reel that every single visual there has people in it. And I did that on purpose because people are the most interesting thing in a frame. And obviously there are other people who have more prerogatives towards, like nature or landscape and everything, photography and photography wise, I like landscape photography.

I love being able to go into these really remote places and capture time lapses and all these beautiful long exposures and get these visuals that a lot of people can't reach. But I think for video filmmaking, people, people that are doing engaging things. I don't like taking pictures of people behind a desk, but I like taking pictures of people being engaged and being active outdoor people who are engaging with life.

What are your goals moving forward, like, if you feel like you want to share them? Yeah. Goals moving forward, man, honestly, I feel like professional goals. I would love to complete my first documentary, first feature length documentary, which know the Birmingham documentary.

That is my main goal right now professionally. I would like to sell it to a streaming network that would like to take it on as a series, essentially, and me being kept on as executive producer to be able to help shape the stories and go and visit some craft beer towns across the world. It's not a local thing at all.

It's very much an international idea. And so I think that one existing as maybe I'll be a director on a few of those episodes moving forward, and then exist as an executive producer for the remainder of the show's run. That would be a phenomenal experience and honor.

I think that I would like to push further into the narrative space, being more of geared towards narrative filmmaking in the traditional sense of, I mean, not to say documentary isn't narrative. More so like scripted narrative, though I think that I would like to explore that. But I also know that short films, narrative short films aren't really highly paid.

They're very much passion projects through and through. And so you have to be very careful about the passion projects you get invested in. And I would say my goal is to be able to find pockets in which I can make successful short films through and be able to break them down and be able to not exploit them, but more so make sure that people that worked on them got paiD, that I was able to get paid.

And my whole entire goal is making sure that people are rewarded for their talents as I continue to my whole entire goal with going the independent route and not doing the traditional, working on the Hollywood sets, working on the things, because I had opportunities right when I came out of college to jump on some shows like, say, walking Dead as a PA and then build my way up. But the lifestyle of Hollywood doesn't really jive with me. And even though I want to be know, I would love to be directing big budget features, I don't think it's in my cards, mainly because being in that realm, you really have to know the people, you have to party with the people.

And I'm not really a huge partier and that there's in some capacity, a compromise of ethics. And so I'm like, you know what? I don't think this is my scene as well as the times that you are in that industry. My wife isn't in the industry, so she's not as able to understand or relate to the sacrifice that you really do have to give of yourself to be in that industry.

It's a very chaotic industry in general. And so you're working five to six days a week for twelve plus hours a day. And then after those days, you have to go and hang out with these people at bars or at strip clubs or things like that in a lot of capacities to get ahead.

Because then people know, like, oh, I work with this guy. He's reliable and he's likable. I'll hire him on the next thing.

Reliable and likable extends across all industries, but in a lot of capacities. Those are the scenes that you have to be a part of to then move forward and progress in your art form. And I wasn't really willing to compromise on those.

And so I took the harder route and I decided I'm going to do, I would rather do 30 years enjoying myself to get where I am instead of doing ten years to get to the same point, but hating the journey. So, yeah, essentially, I don't want to do ten years hating the journey to get to a certain spot. I'd rather take the long route 30 years, and enjoy it.

Long story short or very long story long? It's funny that the term long story, I used it yesterday, the long story short. And then I was like, that's a long story long. I don't know where the short part comes from and where people think they're getting short with it, but anyway, yeah, I'm a verbal processor as well, so I tend to talk my way through it to eventually answer the questions.

So you'll notice that it takes me a while to kind of weave a story, and being a filmmaker, you tell stories. Yeah, no, it made all sense to me and everything good. I thought it was a great answer.

Thanks. And I think I'm kind of right there with you. I don't think I ever want to interview someone that took.

I don't think I ever want to have someone on here that did it and hated the ten years. I think I want something that when people listen to this, they are able to relate to it and also see themselves also doing it. And most people don't want to hate the journey.

And there's parts of it. There are grind, for sure. Absolutely.

The path that we chose is not without grind, is not without compromise or sacrifice. It's not without those elements. I think that there were just certain elements I was unwilling to bend on.

No, yeah, exactly. I'm right there with you. I don't want to feel like I need to also go hang out at the bar after we're done filming or whatever and do all of the extra to work your way up, in a sense.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with people that want to go out and have had a drink to kind of decompress from a long day. I think I was just invited to a lot of spaces that I didn't feel comfortable with because the next day, they were getting absolutely hammered and then coming back to work, like, hungover.

I'm like, I don't go and get drunk. I don't go and do that. That's a different lifestyle.

Not to say that I'm better or anything by them, it just doesn't fit with my lifestyle. And so I'm like, you know what? That's not really something I want to do. And I don't go to strip clubs either.

And I know a lot of people that, especially people who are on the road filmmaking, that's what they do when they arrive. They're like, what's the best strip club in there? I'm like, oh, man, this is not my scene. So it's to each their own.

But it just didn't line up with me. And then even if I decided, say, for instance, if I decided to go that route, it would be a stressor on my marriage and on my relationship with my wife because she's not in that scene and she's not able to emotionally or physically relate to me being gone, doing these long, hard hours and followed up with me returning home, having nothing left for her. And that's a big thing for me, is being able to have more of a life balance because my family is my number one priority.

I just get to do a career that I also love. So that's helpful. I think you're on the right path, in my opinion.

Because as far as. And I guess I can relate to this in a sense, having been in the military for a time and I was still actively pursuing the photography realm on the side, as a side hustle. And I did six years active duty.

And the one thing that I always, it was funny because a lot of people, Friday night, they went out, they went downtown, and they partied, did their thing, and Saturday morning they were hungover, they didn't have the energy, and they spent the rest of the weekend trying to recoup from their Friday night or Saturday activities just so that they could be ready for Monday versus me. I didn't go and do those things. And I was able to then wake up early on a Saturday, go for a hike, get some cool pictures of nature, see some wildlife, whatever, and really just enjoy the few days out of the week that I had to myself, I guess, or for myself.

And being able to have that bit of a balance and take that time, both on a professional level, but mental level also, I think, is super crucial to have that. And I think just that parting scene takes a lot away from you. Yeah.

As an individual, absolutely. I think that that space is really. I think that it's hard because it's like after a long day's work, after a twelve hour shift or after, you know, being in the military, it takes a lot out of you.

It's nearly twenty four seven. And then you really want to let loose and let your hair down or whatever, and be able to just not have to care as much. But there is absolutely huge benefits to being able to still have that frame of discipline and be able to be like, you know what? I need my rest after this long week, I need rest.

I need restoration and I can find that. And restoration is not found at the bar, in my opinion. Social aspects.

Yeah, that's great. But not true restoration, you're not going to find revived and restored at the bottom of a bottle. So I think that you made the wise choice in going and exploring and going on those hikes and exploring nature.

I mean, that's where I find rejuvenation for sure. I guess. Moving forward, do you have or what tips do you have for people that want to get into the realm of photography or video and kind of, are they aspiring to where you're at? Yeah.

Don't expect every job to pay you well. That's my biggest tip. I think that's my biggest piece of advice.

And invest a lot of your time and energy into spec work, free work, the stuff that you do a lot of free work to then be stepping stones into where you want to be. So I think the biggest tip from me, for people, for filmmakers, aspiring photographers, aspiring filmmakers, is you got to do it yourself first before people are going to take a chance on you. You got to be able to showcase that you have the chops to do something.

I would say that spec work and free work are going to be your best friend. I still do spec work today. Like I said, I've been in this industry, in the film industry for what, like eleven year? This is my 11th year professionally and getting into weddings.

I did a couple of weddings for free, shot them, edited them because I needed something to showcase and I showcased them and I started small, charging small, and then I started building up from there. And then once I quit wedding filmmaking and went into commercial filmmaking, I started off small again. You can't really say like, hey, look at my wedding work.

Let me film your carpenter business. There's no translation between there because with wedding filmmaking they're all about quality of the film you're producing. With commercial filmmaking they're all about where is my ROI on the back end? How am I going to be able to make money from this? So you really have to look at all the spec people are less willing to take a chance in the commercial space than they are in the wedding space.

I think that obviously it's very important to capture a wedding well and be able to represent that story well. But in a commercial sense, they're looking to make money. They're looking to recoup the investment that they just put down on making a commercial or building out their business.

They're looking to what's going to bring people in the doors. So you have to be able to showcase that you can represent the business well, that your photography or your filmmaking is going to have return on the back end, that you are going to be able to understand their whole entire business's message. So it's a very chaotic industry.

Don't expect to make it big by doing this. You really have to love it because there are days of grind and there are days of beautiful profit, and you can rejoice in those. But I did Porsche work for free.

First few projects I did for free, and then I got to work with Porsche. I did some commercial work for a free project that I wanted to try shooting commercials. Shooting, not commercials, motorcycles.

And so I shot a free motorcycle commercial and integrated with some bags and some other products to kind of do like a three in one, like a bag commercial, motorcycle commercial, and a whiskey commercial all in one and making the bags more forward. But that gave us the flexibility of being able to show it to. Now, three companies, there are three different types.

A whiskey backpack and a motorcycle company. So spec work is your friend. Free work is your friend.

Embrace the people that are willing to step up to the plate, that aren't always in it for the dollars, though. Money is important for you to survive. Understand that this industry is not all about money.

It comes with the territory of learning your craft and honing it in and then being able to connect well, because networking is huge. Networking. People will always hire people that they're friends with.

Before that, they're going to hire somebody who's an unknown but does good work. It's like, well, I don't know if they're good work with my company. I know this guy is really good to work with, so I'm going to hire him.

He does pretty good work, but I'm going to work with somebody I'm familiar with before I work with somebody I don't know at all. So familiarize yourself with the people in the industry and network. Network.

Network, yeah, I mean, those are probably my biggest things. I have a whole entire list of what you need to do to get into this industry, and that's actually a video I have on my YouTube that's called more of a transition from wedding filmmakers to commercial filmmakers, but essentially it gives you the same tools that I would recommend to anybody. Just jumping straight into commercial filmmaking.

Yeah. If you want to look up that, that's on my Evan Pollock YouTube. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes as well at the bottom of the thing.

Sweet. I guess to kind of just wrap this up. Where can people follow you on Instagram, web, or whatever? Yeah, for sure.

So my professional work is at www.pollockpictures.com. Pollock is spelled Polock pictures.com. Same thing with my Instagram Pollock Pictures and my TikTok Pollock pictures.

And then my YouTube is just Evan Pollock. So E-V-A-N. Pollock.

P-O-L-O-C-K. So, yeah, be sure to give him a follow, and, yeah, thanks again, Evan. Sweet, guys.

Thank you so much for having me. Yep. Big thank you to everyone that's made it this far into the episode.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and being a listener. If you have not yet rated us on Apple Podcasts, that helps us out.

A megaton. It's the big thing that helps make our channel, this podcast rank and grow. Basically, it helps me to be able to do more of these.

Again, thank you guys so much for being here. If you haven't yet subscribed so you get notified with every weekly episode, every Wednesday, every morning. We would love it if you would subscribe again.

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