In this episode of OneLeg Up we talk all things video production with our partner, Jeff Gadigan of AminoCat Entertainment.
We specifically cover how entrepreneurs should approach and incorporate video assets into their marketing plans, how a strong story can have more impact on sales than a cool feature set, and how do you make a video memorable.
In this episode of OneLeg Up we talk all things video production with our partner, Jeff Gadigan of AminoCat Entertainment.
We specifically cover how entrepreneurs should approach and incorporate video assets into their marketing plans, how a strong story can have more impact on sales than a cool feature set, and how do you make a video memorable.
Welcome to one leg up where we discuss how you can deliver the very best customer experience and how you can achieve zero marketing waste. Ed Davis, the chief operations manager here at one leg in today. I have a very special guest with me.
He's an actor, comedian, a Boy Scout, a father, a husband, and an all around awesome dude. Jeff Gadigan, how's it going, Bud? It's going good. Yeah. Yeah. That's all you got to say, it's just going good. You're in Southern California.
You're living the life outside of Hollywood.
It's good, I mean, things are great. I mean, it's come a long way.
Working, just working.
That's pretty much what
we've been doing is what everybody's doing. I gotcha. So while Jeff is, in fact, all of the things that I said when I introduced him just a second ago, we didn't bring him on here to talk about any of those things, actually, although we might get into him being an actor and a father and Boy Scout.
Jeff actually is the co-founder of a fantastic video production company that we count on as a collaborative partner here at one leg. And that company is called Amino Cat Entertainment. And today, we're going to talk about how to infuse storytelling into your marketing, specifically with video assets.
And it's a really interesting story for us to our really interesting topic for us to talk about. We are constantly running into or having discussions with clients whose assets are whether their photography, videography, whatever the case may be.
Those assets typically look like all of their competitors. Right. And I think some of the conversations that you and I have had and some of the work that you've actually done for us with a couple of our clients and for one leg, we strive to make those things look different.
We strive to not present just the product features or the service or the services. We're actually trying to tell a story within that short amount of space that we might have, whether it's a minute or 30 seconds or whatever the case may be.
And so you're a wonderful resource for helping us understand.
Oh, sorry, sorry. That's OK. And the last.
We're live, folks. All right. But so so let's start with a little bit of the background, Jeff. How did you get to Hollywood? What was the path that you took?
The path I took. OK. No. Like I've always been interested in entertainment, things like that. Most people when you probably didn't know that about me, since we've known each other for years,
we have known each other for
decades. I. Took the roundabout way it took me about. I wasn't until I was like probably in my mid 20s when I decided to actually start pursuing it and going to go Hollywood, I had to try to go like the conventional route.
I don't think you even know about this like I was I was going to college for a bunch of different stuff. I was thinking about being a doctor. I was doing a lot of different things and just didn't end up panning out.
And eventually I just got fed up and I was just like, OK, I'm just going to do what I want. And that's kind of how I, I ended up here, my roots, like I'm from California. Like my family's from here.
So I was always here in the summers, back and forth, back and forth. So I had exposure, but not really a lot. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, there was a lot of exposure to like Hollywood. So we didn't really know how to get started.
Which is probably why I didn't actively pursue it. Right. Which is why I didn't actually pursue it, so I ended up just coming here and just figuring it out on my own like I do most stuff, I'm pretty much self-taught everything.
I actually went backwards. I after I came here to be an actor for a while, I decided because it's it's a tough business. Like it's just it's all rejection. Like you can't you don't get into acting, you know, get into entertainment for the money.
Some people do it for the for the validation.
What about
you? Yeah. Or the fame, because you burn out and especially it's just on top of just constantly. It's basically like finding a job, looking for a job every day of your life and going to every like. Sometimes if you're doing auditions, one or two auditions or more a day, getting rejected after a while, never hearing back is
a real rejection call or anything like that. So it's tough. You really got to enjoy it. That's just not me acting in like I know a lot of you know, Kat, like the reason why it came to be initially was because we wanted to address that catch 22 in this industry where.
We wanted to address that Catryna to an issue where you have to have work to get work, things like that. We had a lot of people like my wife's an actress, too, but I, I wanted to, you know, get work.
But just like you don't have a real things like that. All these things, like there's no there's no set way. There's no way anybody can actually systemize a way to get break into Hollywood or to even become. Crew or things like that, there is, but you have to find out what you always have to have some sort
of in and around the time I got. Involved in this industry, there was like technology started changing, like it became more affordable to create your own content, things like that. I didn't know anything about a camp, how to operate.
Well, actually, I did like I did a lot of photography in high school, and I was always into that type of thing. But film wise, all those things, I had to sit around and figure out how to do that because I needed to create my own luck, so to speak.
Obviously, since I'm not a household name, nobody knows who I am or seen me. That's not the point of what we're trying to do. Like, you really have to enjoy this industry that we're in. And rather than that, there's nothing wrong with having a survivor job, things like that.
But for my wife and I, we we enjoyed and love this industry so much. We wanted to create a platform to where we can make a living, survive and still stay related to our industry.
So this is this is where this is where Amino Kag came about.
It is it's weird. Millichap came about and actually we just wanted to make sure that it was just like, OK, I'm just going to get my friends together. I know some people who want to be a director or some people who were trying to figure out how to do this.
So we decided, OK, we'll figure out a way to give an opportunity to those people and we'll all work together because it's, I think, just like us all, even working together, it's highly collaborative, like there's no one way.
There is a way like some people will find a way to do everything themselves. But that's like you burn out really fast. I've done that before and I had to learn to build these relationships, because you kind of have to while you're building these relationships, you have to kind of do things on your own and eventually evolve
. So I think just by I don't know how we ended up where we are, honestly, it's just maintaining relationships and wanting to do good work and learning. Acting wise, like to get experience on the set. They'll say, do background work, do these things.
Yeah. I mean, I've never I've done a little bit of background work, but I always found more I found it more satisfying to me to like just get on board as a just kind of see how everything works.
Yeah. And it it created more other than the learning and just creating opportunities for other people who needed a leg up or a high leg up. I didn't I did not plan
to cover that. Thank you for the shameless promotion right in the middle of year.
That was natural. That was completely organic. It's perfect. It was just a chance to to give everybody just a chance. And because we did that and it has nothing to do with us, it's just trying to help people.
Some of some of the people I've worked with have gone on to bigger, better things. And it got to the point where, OK, well, we're still kind of the little guy. I'm not comfortable asking this guy for our favorite role, though.
I know that I could if I wanted to. But there came a time like a breaking point for us, for lack of a better word, where I did not feel right, saying, oh, can you just do me this favor and work for free, things like that.
Like, I feel like there was a certain point in our career where we had to actually go out and actively pursue a way to pay these people for the projects we wanted to do. And about two years ago was when my wife and I well, my wife and I started well, I started wanting to have a production
company years before I met my wife. I mean, OCAD didn't come around till I met my wife. I had a small like a bunch of production companies before then. I never really got off the ground because they were just, you know, trying to go after that big dream of making these short movies and eventually moving into features
, which is a huge gamble. Like it's hard to get by because this is hard to put food in your mouth. Dealing with that kind of thing. And that's still on the backburner. That's still something that we want to do.
We're still actors, but we decided like going into the ad space, going into the commercial arena. Would be a more long term, stable goal if we build it.
Well, I think that's that's where I was going to. That's where I was going to head. Right, which is it's it's admirable. Sort of the the construct in the culture that you all have been developing, an amino cat in terms of, you know, whether you're you're you're in the background of a of a shot, whether you're a
primary actor, whether you're a director, producer, whatever the case may be, you know, you all are trying to give those opportunities when you didn't necessarily get those opportunities. But understanding that, as you just said, it is a huge gamble to try and say, you know, well, we're trying to do this feature film and hopefully a student, you
know, a bigger studio, pick this up or or whatnot. You all made a you made a conscious decision, a business pivot into something that is more sustainable, that it keeps the lights on. It still allows you to look at those opportunities as and when they come along.
But but I think the bit that we really want to talk about is the part of amino cat that's helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and things along those lines get their business up and running, because you all are, I believe, really skilled and really adept at.
Taking a basic product that even though an entrepreneur may say, well, you know, this this baby product or whatever, it might be the case, you know, this is what it means to me. These are the features of it.
This is why it should be in the market. You all have an amazing instinct. I would say to take that and actually wrap a story around it so that you because a lot of the things we talk here at one leg is you've got to you've got to capture people's emotions.
Right. You've got to talk to their emotions. And then you can come in with the rational component of, hey, here's why this thing is safer, here's why it's going to save you money, here's why it's going to to make good on the brand promise that it might have.
So so so how did that come about? What is the process? How do you all think about those things when somebody comes to you and says, I have this product, I have this service, I need video or photography assets?
What what goes through your mind as as the producer, as the production,
as a producer, as a producer of this company? And when we talk to a business like I mean, first of all, like we're coming from that theatrical that that short creative feature film, background stories, everything, everything. And that's how we approach it, like we don't.
I mean, creating empathy or trying to figure out what the story is for clients. We find that that's a lot more effective than all the technical jargon that they some clients additionally want to just get across on the film.
And it comes to the point where it's just like people loosely put, like if they have to find out that you care to an extent before they figure out all these details, because a lot of times they're not going to understand those details.
They just want to know the bottom line, like, will it make my life better? Like and how. And so when we approach when a client approaches us, it can be as easy as they may get or as hard as they make it, because.
And that's fine because that's not their space, that's why they're coming to us is trying to figure that out. But coming from creative, like we can go all the way. Like thousands of millions of miles away from from from the traditional way out of the box, or we can stay in the box like it just depends on
what they want. We can give them what's what's what they're looking for. But they would just have to tell us in a lot of times, our stuff is very rooted in the story first. Like advertising, anything. We just need to know what the story is first and be able to craft whatever the the piece is.
The ultimate project is into the story that they want to tell. And at the same time, from a viewer standpoint or for a consumer standpoint, for them to be able to create their own opinion and relate to that story themselves, whether it's completely on the mark for what we're going for or not, as long as we start
to stir up those emotions and we're allowed to find something that's relatable in general, just general relations. And I'm not talking about anything really obscure, but something that's able to create some sort of empathy or some sort of understanding that this is I need X product in my life because of this.
And it doesn't even have to be like anything. It doesn't have to be related to anything like as far as like, I don't know, like a mouse pad or a mouse or like a a hairbrush, things like that, like those little things.
You can find a story out of that. To make people believe that this is important, you know, this is more than just a mouse. I mean, it's a hairbrush is what like it? You can tell the story of selfcare.
You could tell the story of some people. Yeah, something like that. And you find a way to tap into that and say, OK, this is what it is. So we're basically just trying to look at the sound is just kind of show people we're telling stories.
That's basically what we're doing. It's the same thing as a film with the same thing as as a TV show, anything like that. It's just more OnPoint. It's got a very specific purpose. But if people want to be entertained.
Yeah.
Sure. Even with their 30 second promo film that they might have on their on their on their crowd.
Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of great crowdfunding videos. I've seen a lot of just really questionable crowdfunding videos and a lot of them that I lose interest. Like it could be a project not even interested in.
But I'll watch it. If the story's good or if the concept is good, I'll watch it just because it's entertaining. And you know what? Whether I need it or not, it sticks in my head like I know about it.
And so so so what are those things that people get wrong when they are developing? Is it purely is it purely they just put the product in the shot and then they they they literally bullet point out the features like in your mind, is that what the core issue is?
Because they haven't actually thought about as you were just saying, this is how it actually emotionally impacts your life. So as you know, when we when we do like a branding project or we're evaluating somebody's service and we're trying to figure out how we're going to talk about it from a one leg standpoint, the first thing that
we ask is what is the offer? Right. Because that we're trying to figure out what the features are, what of the service or the product we eventually get around to, what are the what are the direct benefits and how do we want our clients to feel when working with this product or service?
But you all do the exact opposite. I think you all lead with, OK, what is the emotional driver we want somebody to to have when they see this video and they see. Yeah, it's
right. Yeah, it's more like we start with the hook of the song rather than the rest of the lyrics. Yeah. Because if you I mean, going back like and if you think about school or high school, some people love history, some people love science and they love the technical aspect of it.
But if if you're not, you have to find some way to get your you know, because everyone's got to go through their general, Ed. So they've got to find a way to make it interesting. And maybe that's not the best example, but they find ways to get around it.
Like history is basically just telling the story like and with it, not like if if if there's politics involved. I'm not a very, you know, politics gorme. And if I could find a story in it and things like that, it sticks.
But to answer your question, I think the one thing that they get wrong and again, this is just opinion, but I do fine speaking from a consumer standpoint, because we're all consumers, is if you throw a bunch of just very technical language at me or show me diagrams and all these things, though important, I'm not going to
memorize that. It's just like I'm studying for a test about a subject matter that I don't really have any connection with. But everybody can connect with a story. That's why people watch movies, watch television, even sports to an extent like things, things like that, like they're involved, they're creating a narrative, whether it's random or not.
It's just everything's a story. It's just life is basically an improvised story. And that's what kind of makes things interesting.
That's another that's an awesome way to look at it. Life is an improvised story at some point. We're going to have to I think maybe that's going to be well, I mean, for you all. Just in terms of being relatable to what an entrepreneur company might go through and you can develop
well, I mean, to touch on it is like I'm a writer, too, when I employ a lot of writers, women partners as a writer with a lot of times we draw from our own stuff and we put it on paper.
So we're scripting out experiences that we're just made up, you know. And that's I think that's where people can, because the thing is, everyone's experiences are more they're all different, but sometimes they're the route is similar. So they can figure out how to react.
They can figure out how they would react on their own, and that's the more you can get conversation going, the more even if it's just an internal dialog, the people watching an ad piece. As long as they remember, I'm going to the sales are great by my service, that's great.
But if you're looking for something long term that sits with you for a long time, I think you're always going to remember, because there are some ads that I just. I don't care about the product, but I remember the advertising, I remember.
Yeah. Yeah. Where's the beef? Yeah, from
all those things. Yeah. I mean, a story of like some old lady, you know, looking for beef. But yeah, anything like even more recent stuff, things like that. Everything is moving over to a more narrative space. And I think.
And right now, what the challenge is, is like we're talking about sometimes a 30 second spot like attention spans now are so much shorter. So that doesn't that I think one of the mistakes is they think, oh, we only have 30 seconds.
So we have to give them every technical aspect of this product in 30 seconds. We don't have time to develop a story, create a narrative around it. That's the challenge. You have to write you have to create a narrative in 30 seconds or less.
And to get people hooked on to that, to at least maybe if they want to untraced enough to get into a bigger piece if you have that or to just do more research on the product, because I think all the technical stuff, there's a place for that.
Like once you get them in it, they're going to want to research it. They're going to figure out how things work if they want that, or they're going to want to go try it out. And if you get them to try it out, that's when they kind of feel like, OK, this is for me or this isn't
for me, but this is for me. It's really good or it's not for me, but it's for so-and-so or this or that. It's just creating a dialog however you want to.
I, I just think it's so much more interesting and, you know, just for the listeners out there, obviously we're we're a little bit biased with with them, you know, cap, because we produce some really good. We've worked on a couple of projects.
We've reproduced some really good stuff. And Amino can't continue to help us that one leg with with a couple of other opportunities that we're developing. But, you know, I think about this one that we're currently working on. Right.
It would be easy enough to just show this product and get, you know, a little bit of B roll with a little bit of movement and so on and so forth. And and and. And I think that. But the more interesting bit is injecting the human piece of it.
You know, we've got a dog, an interaction, all that kind of stuff that doesn't cost. I mean, yes, it costs a little bit more, but it's not any more effort. Right. You're going to be in a bathroom shoot in a shower anyways.
Why not let the dog run crazy for a minute, you know, and get that B roll, because that is going to be interesting. I think the other thing that we think about. When we talk to clients about what the visuals are.
It's really interesting to me the. You know, a client will come to you and say, well, we've got this, we've got this fantastic product, we believe we believe it is the end all be all, whatever the case may be.
And it's different. We know it's we believe it's different from everybody else, and now it might not be and usually it's not. And then they fall into this trap of. Yes. Everybody else shoots their products like this. Go, go do that, and you're just.
Why would you do that? Why would you honestly, if you believe your product is different? Why would you go and make it look like everybody else's product? From an advertising standpoint. Right. Because then it's just sort of like roulette, right.
Like like the consumers seeing essentially the same ad from multiple different vendors. And it's up to them to pick. Oh, well, today I just happened to land on this one on Facebook, presented this ad to me, that must be it's the visual that they're going for.
Not necessarily the company. And so if you believe that, then why not do something as you and I are talking about? Why not do something different? Right. So so instead of just showing a star power and saying, you know, here's our bathroom remodel company, please pick us for your next remodel job.
Let's show them that the bathroom can be way more than just some place where you wash up or use the bathroom. It can be a place where you hang out. It can be a place where you have fun.
It can be a place of rest. It can be a place where you can transform and go to a whole different place mentally. That, to me, and I think to you is probably a lot more interesting.
And I think it is because how do you I mean, people live life. And unless you're even even like super wealthy people, you know, I know any their life gets stale. Things get stale. It doesn't matter what water life you are, it's still going to address the the the the the party you said about people just trying
to do what everybody else is doing. It's safe. And I think they're thinking behind that. And it's an old way of thinking is that while they did this and they've already forged the path and it worked for them.
So I'm going to do that, too. But it's the same thing. Eventually bread gets stale like it. It's just going to be the same thing. So what when you do that, what differentiates you from the other guy? You did the exact same thing.
And you got these products. I'm not going to lump it all in and say, OK, your products are the same, but going back to, well, the hairbrush example, how many ways can you quantify a hairbrush? Not many. But the way that you tell the story sure makes it different.
But I, I there's a lot of companies now who are actually producing their own content that's just so out of the box, different. And I think actually just one might like the stuff that you guys you guys tell me about your concepts, everything.
It really it. It's strengthening my creativity muscle, because you guys, you're your approach to everything is stuff that I've never really thought of, like they're so out of the box that I have to wrap my head around it because there's nothing like that.
And. But people will look at as reinventing the wheel, but the thing is, it's fresh, it's new, and it actually gives somebody something rather than zoning out while they're watching. You know, it's kind of that whole thing like that.
I don't think there's as many commercials now as when we were growing up. But some people just. Now you can fast forward through them everything. But now there's some ads that I just don't want to like. I wait for those ads to show up just so I could watch it, or if they're done really super well, just
so I can unpack it.
Oh, sure. Yeah, 100 percent. Yep. And and I think the goal is and you mentioned and I appreciate the compliment about us being fresh and and really trying to push the limits of and forcing clients to really think about what it is that they're doing and what they're projecting.
You know. It doesn't have to be just the Super Bowl win, a memorable commercial or spot comes out, right. I think every every company, every organization has the ability to capture that little bit of magic and infuse the the the emotion and the empathy to get people to align with with what it is that they're trying to
do or what it is that they're trying to sell. I just think it's incumbent upon them to allow the creative people, the you, the, you know, our creative team and whatnot to do their job and not get in the way, in all honesty.
So, you know, provide the guardrails or whatever you might want to do from a brand standpoint and let us go back to work.
Yeah, that's I mean, going back to what the thing that we're working on now is these mundane rooms in a house or these mundane places that people want to shoot in or or film in to create their advertising, they're mundane locations.
But you know, what it is, is that they create stories in those locations. Yeah, that's what that's what we try to do is make this area memorable and build the. Show them the family structure or life. Show them the lifestyle.
Show them the emotion. Tap into all those things in that room. Or what have you. To make it memorable and make it stick. Because at the end, you can't you can't force anybody to buy your product. They have to initially, it doesn't matter.
They always have to make that conscious decision to either purchase services, sign the contract. All that is not is out of your hands. You just have to provide them with the reasons why. And though technical stuff, again, because I really think that's a big thing.
Like when I talk to a client and they start throwing technical stuff at me, I don't I have a hard time trying to figure out how to put that in. Like, I'm not I'm kind of like in the cusp of like being creative and having a real logical mind, which is why my wife is super creative.
My other partner, Jim, is more of a writer. Like, I have to I kind of I talk myself into a corner since sometimes trying to figure out how to use, but having their feedback, looking for things. They're able to take a bullet list of mundane stuff and say, OK, well.
We work together to say this is the story. This is what it is like. This is a product. We need to tell the story of this because this is what everybody relates to. And they're going to be able to create a narrative in their own mind about why they need this or why they don't need it or
why it would help or certain features they'll pick and choose. And eventually they're going to go along with whatever is best. But we do the best to make it the story so strong. Like if people have a favorite movie or anything like that, there's a reason why.
There's a reason why. So that's that's it's not. Yeah, it's not that complicated. It's it's it's a craft it's hard to do, but it's it's it's, if you will, just like a lot of people with kind of, I think, lose sight of being the consumer when they're talking about their own product.
Sometime. I think they're so in their thinking about whatever the investment they made or that they're just going to do this or they're going to make money, like going back to our roots is acting like the reason why we're still in the industry.
We're still moving along and we're still doing this. And we're able to do this because we love what we do is because we enjoy what we're doing and we don't see ourselves. I couldn't see myself personally doing anything else.
I could do it. I could force myself, but the quality of life would not be the same. And I think taking that idea and trying to show how these products or these services improve the quality of life, and because it's all quality of life, if it's your business you're trying to raise your business, it does well.
You have a better quality of life, you know, and that's that's just kind of it's real simple, like it's simple. It's just not easy to do, is it? Yeah.
We get getting our own way sometimes, OK? Yeah, right. I think that's a perfect place to stop. All that is is really great. If if the point was was missed by the listeners, obviously. Jeff, you know, Kat myself, one leg.
We do care about the story. We do care about positioning our clients differently because we think that that's what's going to have a bigger impact on their business, on their sales, on on whatever it is that they're trying to do from a from a marketing standpoint.
So. Right, Jeff, we really appreciate you coming on. That's it for for us today. We hope you've enjoyed our chat and learned a couple of things. As always, we are we here at one leg believe poor marketing pollutes the planet and the business is full of tired, outdated, indistinct, unremarkable and underperforming marketing.
That sucks. But what sucks even more is that many companies have forgotten the most important thing of all the customer. And we're on a mission on behalf of our clients customers to change that. To learn more, go to zero marketing waste dot com, where you can subscribe to our blog and this very podcast.
You can also find us and follow us by looking for the Flamingo and the one like handl wherever you socialize. Thank you. Talk to you next time.