The Power of Video: a Conversation with Dave Power - Power Creative

Leonie Seysan speaks with videographer Dave Power about content marketing and video production, work life balance, creating thought leadership content, and AI. Dave has some useful tips for people planning to create video content for their business.

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Content with Humans, Episode 1: The Power of Dave

LEONIE: Hi there, welcome to our Content with Humans series. I'm Leonie Seysan, Director of Article Writers Australia and in the coming weeks I will be speaking with some interesting people who are involved one way or another with content marketing.

I thought it would be nice to share more of the human side of marketing in a world that's currently very busy talking about AI.

It might or might not grow into a long-term podcast. Let's just see how we go and let's jump right into it.

My very first guest is Dave Power from Power Creative Video. Hello Dave Power.

DAVE: Hello Leonie, thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

Getting to know Dave Power

LEONIE: So Dave, I've actually known you for quite a few years now and I've seen you do a range of work from capturing customer testimonials to video coverage at national events and conferences and then of course in between jobs you're living it up beachside in Lake Macquarie. So tell me what does a week in the life of Dave Power look like?

DAVE: Thank you, Leonie. First of all, thanks for having me on board for your inaugural podcast or vodcast or whatever we're going to call this thing and appreciate the introduction.

For me, Power Creative, you know, family life up here on the coast in Catherine Hill Bay, I'm very blessed and very lucky. Erin and our two kids, where our daily or weekly routine is school, soccer, singing and a little bit of AFL in the mix as well. That's the kids, not for me. And if I was good at any of those things maybe I wouldn't be doing video. But anyway, I like to record people doing that, not do those things. So for me it's really about life balance and, you know, someone that I've met over the years who you would know as well - John Drury - once put it as integration.

For me it's all about integrating my work into my life and I'm very thankful that I can do the editing and the post-production work really anywhere I am or choose to be. But I film all around the place as you've mentioned.

LEONIE: So a week for you in terms of work, your work life balance. How many hours would you spend working?

DAVE: Well, some weeks… they're not always the same. So it depends on the scale of the project that I'm on and the budgeting involved. So for example, I've put some pricing models up on our website recently and what it is, is basically you could call it the run and gun or the sole shooter type project. It's really just me and that's it and maybe one or two cameras. Those sorts of jobs are quite labour intensive in a way that I'm on site all the time for those things.

In saying that, it might mean that I've got a team member elsewhere around the country working in the same capacity.

But the other end of that scale or pricing model that I've put up on the website is the really large content or the large event project. And those projects are sometimes months or even a year out in planning and executing site visits as well as crewing and resourcing and then obviously rolling it out in terms of production on site, whether that be filming or event producing, a whole gamut of all those things. So each week looks quite different for me, I guess is the short answer, because it's not like I've got the one type of project and scale that I always work on. I'm sort of scaling up, scaling down week to week.

LEONIE: Well, that makes it exciting, doesn't it? If it's different from week to week. So can you say what you're working on this week?

Dave’s current video project

DAVE: Yeah, definitely. Coincidentally, this week, I've had a lot of work around the cardiology world with a hospital in Blacktown. And it's one of Sydney's fastest growing hospitals, and I think most would agree the growth of Western Sydney is just huge. And what I'm doing for them is a lot around the philanthropy work.

So they've got a foundation called the Better Foundation. And really coincidentally, there's another group that I'm involved with who are donors to that group who are also creating content. And for them, it's all about, you know, I guess for the actual hospitals foundation, it's all about messaging to do with what the stats are around heart attack rates in Western Sydney, but also, you know, telltale signs that you are having a heart attack and not to ignore it and get into hospital. Lots of takeaways like that. And also about the equipment. So things like the LUCAS heart pump. 

And for me, like what I love about what I do is I get to learn about all these really interesting things, but also beneficially for my own health and for my family's health. I get to hear it firsthand from the practitioner. And actually, I kind of become an advocate in a way for the people that I meet in the work. But yeah, that's the sort of work that I'm producing right now.

LEONIE: Can you say which hospital?

DAVE: Yeah, that's the Blacktown Hospital. In fact, Blacktown and Mount Druitt are conjoined conglomerates in the sense of they share resources. So the Better Foundation are the charitable organisation that if you're wanting to donate to a group, you would donate to Better Foundation and Better Foundation would then put those resources into Blacktown or Mount Druitt hospitals to improve whatever is needed at that time. 

So in this particular year, we're talking about cardiology. Previously, it's been more in the eye care sort of world. And it's been about two years that I've been working with Better Foundation.

The creative journey

LEONIE: Excellent. So tell me, how did you get started in videography? I know you've been doing it for a really long time. But what inspired you? And what was your journey from the time that you decided to do it to actually starting your own video production agency?

DAVE: Yeah, well, young age, I was in year, maybe seven or eight, you know, kicking around the old handycam that mum and dad had got from the States on a on a US trip for dad's business back in the day. That was really my big grassroots beginning. And I, you know, was doing a radio show at school at the time on SWR radio, which still exists today, Sydney Western Radio. They were some of my real grassroots in realising, 

I don't think I realised it would be a career at the time, I actually thought it was me just having fun. Especially, you know, the camera side of things and creating sketch comedy videos, you know, influenced by things like Full Frontal and Fast Forward back in the day, just creating satirical fun stuff for friends. And before YouTube was a thing, it was put it on a VHS and share a bunch of VHSs around with friends, you know, or do the school formal or whatever it might be, record the formal and have these fun, as we called it, memories to treasure, which was, you know, the sort of back then, it was very much this is just an outlet and fun for me.

But I look back at it today, you know, because that was 97, 98. I finished in 99. And I just sort of think, well, wow, I was just discovering at that point, what content could be created. I just didn't know what it was, because there was no school department, really, for what I was doing.

LEONIE: It's a bit different now, isn't it? They quite often have their film department and teaching the kids how to do video and short films and everything, don't they?

DAVE: Yeah, yeah, it's so well embraced now. And I guess the curve just, you know, we're always trying to catch up as we as we know, with new technology. And I won't mention the other word that I know that you'll bring up later on. 

But you know, there's so much demand of, I guess, skill set at a learning age for students. And I think, you know, to that point, for me learning that it gave me this really big satisfaction and gratification around what I was doing when it came, because when I left school, I was doing hospitality management, and even had a two week stint at prepress printing, because my parents being accountants thought that they were more secure industries.

And so I took on these roles thinking, oh, you know, I better go for security, mum and dad might have a point, only to end up somehow finding my way back into what we're doing here with video content, and content in general. And then I think, but if it wasn't a mistake to do those things, it was actually more of a realisation whilst doing those things that there's still this passion inside of me, I just need to channel it somehow.

And I remember doing my course at TAFE in hospitality and going and using that old handycam to film something for a, you know, piece that I was doing on some study around how do you create a two day conference. And it was meant to be more around, you know, event manager planning type piece.

But of course, I filmed everything that I was talking about and went and filmed a walkthrough of the old Sydney Hilton, up the old escalators through the old mirror walls and everything. And I should actually find that footage because it's, that's my origin story, really, about how Power Creative was born out of the need to try and explain. And instead of writing it on a boring old document and handing over a piece of paper to my TAFE teacher, I wanted to put it creatively.

And so it was funny at the time teachers were saying, Dave, why aren't you doing film and television? And, and I said, to be honest, I hadn't really thought about a career in entertainment film. I think for me, it was more about just creatively explaining things. And, and that's how I've landed where I am.

LEONIE: It's funny that you say that about your parents and their thoughts on the videography, because I had a very similar journey. When I announced when I was quite young, to my parents that I wanted to be a writer, they were like, oh, we can't afford a writer in our family. 

And even the idea of journalism, my father was a senior police officer and the idea of me becoming a journalist wasn't very popular either. So doing the right thing, as you say, you want to, you want to please your parents. And so, yeah, that resulted in a lot of other jobs, but it doesn't go to waste that learning, does it?

DAVE: No. And I, you know, the two years of TAFE that I did, and there's a few friends out there that will laugh and say, Dave, you didn't really apply yourself. I was, you know, I was still a bit of a joker Dave from the days. I don't think that's ever left really. I'm still a joker Dave, but I was still very young and naive. And, but the things that grounded me in that TAFE course were the business acumen part of what I needed to know. 

And so, yes, I am creative. Yes, I am, you know, kind of technology savvy, but without some business savvy knowledge and how do you budget and how do you do this, which again, comes back to thanking the parents who were accountants. I wouldn't know any of that. So, you know, and there wouldn't be a sustainable business model for Power Creative. I'd probably be someone that just flew by night for one film. And then I'm out of here because I would have got burnt probably in the finance department.

So thankfully I've had those skillsets that have really grounded how I pitch, how I create, but also how I manage things in a project managing sense and accounting point of view. 

LEONIE: And how blessed are we both really to be able to be working in an area that we love?

DAVE: Yeah, a hundred percent. I always tell like everyone I meet, I don't even feel like I'm going to work half the time. Like it is just so much fun. And it's actually more, how much do I dial down the Dave element?

LEONIE: Don't dial down Dave.

DAVE: Because, you know, there's also there's certain times where you want to be on Dave mode or off Dave mode in serious situations. So I need to remember where I am, stay professional and keep it above board and be, you know, here for what I meant to be here for.

Generating Leads for the Business

LEONIE: So I know you're quite active on social media and you showcase your work quite a lot. Is that the main activity that brings your work in or do you do a whole range of marketing activities?

DAVE: Yeah, I think between the social content and the in-person, you know, I still have those early on, you know, groups that I've joined, like the Hills Business Chamber and other networking groups that I've met along the way.

And, you know, if I hadn't have done those things in person, I think there's only so much you can really believe of a person online. And it's not to say that because that goes against the point of what I'm creating, right, to say that. 

But I wouldn't say to rely only on the social content as much as I'm a believer of creating that content because it's what pays for my wage. It's also a mixture of, you know, you need to create that content and then add purpose in real life and meet people in real life and have just real conversations that aren't about converting sales.

And in fact, if I didn't have those conversations early on with groups like the Business Chamber, I would also be in a worse position financially because I wouldn't have met the right accountant. I wouldn't have met, you know, that right person who pointed me in that direction when I needed it. So, yeah.

LEONIE: And in fact, we wouldn't have met because we met through the Sydney Hills Business Chamber.

DAVE: Exactly right. And I think, you know, to your point there as well about, you know, we've both met by being partners of the Business Chamber and there's a lot of people out there

I know some who question why I give content which feels like you're giving content away, which could otherwise be commercially sold to a group like the Business Chamber. But the thing is, you get so much more out of it by giving that content back and meeting other people and also road-testing content in a way that I think is invaluable. 

So, yeah, the Chamber and social media are my two mixes, I'd say, between the online world and the reality of, yeah, meeting people in person. And, of course, there's all the other circles in life that we've got, whether it be, you know, friendship circles and people that you surround yourself with. But, yeah, those two would be the highlights for me.

LEONIE: So, thinking of your top clients, how did those clients find you?

DAVE: Well, I have to thank you for one of them. Rare Cancers Australia wouldn't have been a client if it wasn't for your introduction. So, I have you, like, forever in debt in my heart for that. I don't know if that's the right terminology. In debt? I'm in debt? One of us is in debt. It's probably me.

But, yeah, I really appreciate your introduction because, you know, if I hadn't have been introduced to Rare Cancers Australia, I think there's a whole lot of things, I think, even about myself and personally that I wouldn't have been able to cope with over the last five years if I hadn't have met that organisation. 

So, I think being introduced to a group like you did with me is so valuable because, you know, there's only so much of my content I can put online and hope that converts.

But being warmly introduced to someone as a problem solver to improve someone's business, it just, you know, it cuts out all that need to feel like you're tendering and going through that sort of process of red tape that often happens when you're converting a client. And it just didn't feel like that with Rare Cancers Australia. It just felt very organic. 

And in every venture that I do with them, actually, it feels like that each project, it's just a very organic conversation. It's not, hey, Dave, we're sending this out to 50 suppliers and you'd better keep on it. It's like, no, Dave, we're coming to you. We just need to talk about how we're going to, you know, go about that.

And I think...

LEONIE: And that's because they were delighted with you from the very first job that you did for them.

DAVE: Thank you. But, you know, like there's a lot of talk about loyalty with customers coming back out there. And I've seen a lot of people come and go and look, sometimes they don't have a choice because they just do not have the budget. And I get that. That's fine. But it's very difficult when people don't give you a reason and don't at least come back to you to have a discussion around what's possible.

And I think that's one message I'd like to get out there to people is that there isn't really one approach to this thing. You know, we can do it in so many ways.

Sure, I've got my pricing models on my website. And sure, I've got some certain approaches that I like to bring. But also if someone tells me, look, this isn't working. I need to do it a different way. I'm always going to come to people with solutions. And if it's not a solution that I can actually provide, I'll make recommendations about other ways they could approach it without me.

LEONIE: Yeah, that's a great idea. So just going back to what you said about Rare Cancers, the interesting thing about that is we were talking earlier about networking and opportunities and how you meet people. I actually came across Rare Cancers myself due to a relative who had a rare cancer. And I was so pleased with the assistance that they provided that I offered to do some content for them. And they actually came back to me quite a few months later with paid work.

DAVE: And you know what that shows me as well, because they like on the opposite side of that, I was engaged commercially and then I was helped personally with my brother-in-law that passed away. And I just think like it just shows what a unique organisation they really are to, you know, not kind of go, oh, look, we can't talk to you about this because you're a supplier or vice versa. You can't become a supplier because you're… you know what I mean?

Not that they say that to your face, but sometimes you wonder if they're the conversations that might be happening behind closed doors. But yeah, they're just so transparent with everyone. And it's just very refreshing, isn't it?

LEONIE: It is. They're a fabulous organisation and they just, they do so much. It's quite incredible. They've got so many resources for people.

DAVE:  And consider, sorry, just one more thing on that. It feels like this is becoming the Rare Cancers podcast, but like, they've got such a, you know, fairly small team really for what they handle. I've known other organisations that have a huge team and, you know, we look at like our utilities and all these other things that we pay and they're multi-billion dollar global organisations and you can't get anyone on the phone. Yet here is a small team out of Bowral, you know, working it out for all the demand that they've got with this, you know, really terrible disease.

So I just think, yeah, hats off to them for how they manage their organisation.

The Challenges of Major Event Videography

LEONIE: Yeah, absolutely. So you've actually covered some quite significant events for them and presumably for many other people as well. So I'm a bit curious about the challenges that come with that type of project, like a national conference or something like that.

DAVE: Lots of challenges. And, you know, it's kind of where do you start with challenges for these bigger projects? And that's going back to the point earlier about, you know, how I talked about working week to week on different demanding projects. You know, some things are four hours of my time and others are months and years of my time.

And when you're talking about doing, you know, a major event like Parliament House, you know, Minister X, Y, Z, attending all these dignitaries and professional speakers or, you know, significant patient stories, you know, you really need to have a lot of things as security nets.

And I think because I am someone that doesn't try and hold all of these cards to his chest and say it's all about, you know, me doing the operation, it's actually all about the team that I bring in  And that's where, thankfully, I'm able to manage projects and manage budgets. And that's the thing that changes everything in terms of how these things run on the day. 

So the more and the more transparent those discussions are with my customer about what is required to fulfil their expectation, and sometimes it's not even their expectation, but it's what I feel they really need to make their event successful.

It's having that honest conversation about here are the pros and cons of this individual line item decision, and here's how it could impact what that event looks like on the day. And it's not a scare tactic, but it's much more of like, you know, because I don't consider myself a salesperson in this process. I consider myself more of an education person about the process.  

But I bring in people that can really, you know, put some sort of ease in people's mind, particularly when it comes to the audiovisual management at these events, which I've seen go particularly pear-shaped before when I've had no control over it. And unfortunately, that can happen. And I don't want to be pointing fingers in the industry, but there's always something in the line that, damn, that wasn't in our budget to do that. We didn't have any control, and it was a third party doing it. The client insisted on doing it this way. Isn't that a shame? And there's not much I can do about it. 

So, I always just try and not like, you know, whip people on the knuckles for bad mistakes or anything, but just sort of say, hey, look, the learning from this is why don't we go this way instead of that way? I think this might work better, you know?

Even like right now, we're recording in Zoom, and quite often people assume that Zoom is the thing to do when you're going to do a hybrid event, but the risks around running a Zoom hybrid event are extremely high. And so, my precursor to that is it's a lot safer to put it on to Vimeo, which is a paid, I know Zoom's paid as well, but it's a very premium paid account on Vimeo, and you're paying for security in the broadcast, basically. It's almost like watching a Channel 7 or a 9 broadcast when they're going live to Parliament House, and you, you know, you've just got this secure network when you're putting it out this way.

But the challenge is always, you know, what is the interaction with the online audience? How does that look? How do they, you know, feel like they're still part of it in being online, watching on Vimeo? And that's where you introduce other ideas like Slido, chat feature, and all these other things that allow them to still contribute to the dialogue of the event. 

And there's many tools to do it out there, and there's no right or wrong. It's just about how they're managed, and what team members are in the line to manage it from the client's end, but also from our end, particularly when you need to be adjusting audio levels and managing what's being sent or received, and all this sort of stuff. Who the MC is on stage, how they're receiving that, you know, intel online, and how are they now getting that information to speak about it in the room?

All of those things have to be really thoroughly thought through. And again, by having a team around me, it's not all in my head. It's, I've certainly got some experience in it, and I can lead the discussion, but I'm always listening to what everyone else is saying around me. 

LEONIE: And I think that thing you mentioned about education, that it's very important. That sort of resonates with me too, because we get a similar situation sometimes where the client might want to do something in a particular way, and it's not the best way to do it. So they are relying on us to use our expertise to step up and say, I think there's a better way for you to do it.

DAVE: Exactly right. And, you know, like, it'd be like me going to a builder and expecting the house to look a certain way, but there's, you know, fundamental reasons why that doesn't work for the foundations or whatever it may be. And you're there buying their service for a reason, because they've got the professional expertise and accreditation and everything else. I mean, you and I maybe aren't accredited like a builder are, but we've got the years under our belt to at least give examples of what did or didn't work in certain situations.

LEONIE: Yeah. I think most often they appreciate that.

DAVE: Yeah. I don’t know.

LEONIE: They've got a limited perspective based on their own experience. And if you show them a better way, in my experience, 9 times out of 10, they're like, oh, thank goodness. Okay. That's a much better idea.

DAVE: Yeah. And sometimes it is trial and error, you know, like there's plenty of times where we might be on set shooting something and say, could we try it this way? And you just show them and you do it that way and let them watch it back and they'll soon realise it does or doesn't work. And so it's not about sort of, no, no, I told you. So it's more like it could work. Why don't we just give that a go and check it out? You know, because we've all got great ideas and sometimes, you know, having fresh eyes o things as well from the outside of the industry, isn't such a bad thing. 

If people have seen something that really has worked online and we haven't done it, we're going to try it and we're going to see how it works for anyone. 

So yeah, I think there's that fine balance, isn't it. It's like a seesaw of what is happening out there that could potentially be matched. And I often do say to customers, you know, if there's anything you've seen online that isn't in my portfolio, cause I don't expect them to go back searching my entire, you know, website catalogue, cause there's way too many things to look at. It's more about, Hey, what is your competitor doing that you've seen that you'd like to do better? Or what have you attempted to do in the past that you thought worked, but could have been better? And that's usually the start of most conversations.

Things that go wrong

LEONIE: Yeah. So with the national conferences and that type of job where you've got boots on the ground in multiple locations.  Tell me what's the worst or the funniest thing that's ever gone wrong for you and how did you deal with it?

DAVE: I thought a lot about this. In fact, yesterday I was saying to Erin, my wife, cause she, I don't give her enough credit cause she does a lot in the background and people don't often see her cause she likes to be the introvert. But she and I were discussing, you know, the regular thing that comes back quite a lot is, and it's not to say we fail a lot, but it's, it's that decision. It's similar to what we've just discussed about. Sometimes a client feels that a certain thing is going to be better than what it actually is. 

The crucial ingredient that I'd say comes up a lot is getting a professional interviewer to come in and help narrate things or help them off camera in talking. Like right now, you and I are talking to each other. I've got an auto cue on camera and I'm eyeballing you so that I'm looking at the lens. But there's other times where I'll have an interviewer off to the side so that I want them to be looking over here because it feels warmer to the audience, not to be stared at down the lens like I am right now. So if they're looking over here, it feels good. 

I've had clients refuse to have the interviewer on the budget, partially because they think it is a budget decision to cut them, partially because they feel like, oh no, I know what I'm talking about. I've got this. I'll just be able to wing it on the day. 

Now, unfortunately, what happens a lot is that nerves gets the better of them. You know, perhaps there's something distracting in the background that I can't control. And these are all things that an interviewer will just nail down. And it's not even, you know, again, taking the sales hat off and being the educator. 

It's not about me making money here. This is about them actually securing some insurance on investing in the video in the first place. Why would you have someone come along and film you and then deliver something that can't be used? You know what I mean? You're wasting potentially $3,000 to $5,000 in the process.

And I've had that happen where someone said, Dave, we should have listened to you. And it's not standoffish or anything like that. It's just like, come on back. We'll do it again another day with the interviewer. That's fine, you know.

LEONIE: And I've seen you work with an interviewer. Who was it? Give her a plug.

DAVE: Yeah.

Christine Heard is my go-to for most of my interviews, but there are a few others as well. Amber is also amazing. Amber Daines and Stephen Lee. There's quite a few. And the common thread that they all have is ex-journo. They've all had SBS, ABC, etcetera. They've created stories for an online viewer or a TV viewer, and they understand about succinct messaging, not waffle.

I'm a waffler and most business operators are wafflers. Cut the waffle, get to the point. What's your five-word statement And that's like, you have to learn that. You don't just wing that. Someone has to tell you how it works.

Tips on corporate video production

LEONIE: So broadly speaking, what makes a corporate video effective and engaging?

DAVID: I'd say the dialogue is one of the key ingredients of a corporate video being engaging, particularly when it comes to, you know, succinct messaging and having someone not waffle and speak direct. 

But also a well-thought-out storyboard, meaning for those who don't know what a storyboard is, what do we see on screen? You know, what's the first thing we see on screen? What are we hearing on screen? What's the message that's coming through and how does it flow?

Now, an example of that would be a client I've worked on recently where they've got this really big, strong heritage of 50 years in their business, and it's kind of a legacy inherited type business. And you want to pay tribute to the past. You want to talk about now. You want to talk about the future. And so there's almost like this story arc that you want to feature. 

I think for any business who's considering what their video storyboard is, it's important to recognise each of these elements that are in their story and work out what that flow is and in which order and how much focus we put on each element.

And then also, you know, who are the key people speaking about that? Is it the founders of the business? Is it the staff in the business who run it, the operators of the business? Is it maybe meeting the original founder or reflecting on old archive footage or photos lot a of people probably have more likely 50 years ago. So there's lots of these sort of factors that need to be considered when planning a corporate video.

And I think the other key note to, you know, recall on the word corporate video, the language of what is a video is now changing. There's no longer a single video that someone has on the website. It's actually several. 

You might have the original what's known as corporate video become the origin story video, whatever that word is that you want to call it. It's video one on the list. And what is video two? Maybe it's their product or service. What is video three? Maybe it's their customers talking about them, the testimonial. What is video four - the process? Maybe how do we go about what we do?

You know, there's all these sorts of segments and think about all the text that's on a website that can be dumbed down into five videos or less. 

And so, yeah, it's really about for me strategising where that company is that company or business or individual, you know, small business owner and saying, OK, here are the assets you've already got. What are we creating today? Where does this fit in the timeline of content that you've already got? Or are we starting from scratch? Where do we go?

LEONIE: Yeah. And so that you mentioned the storytelling aspect of the creating the corporate video and weaving in the history. And that's so important, isn't it? Because if you…I mean, I've seen a lot of boring videos out there where they start with history and they do everything in a chronological order.

DAVE: Yeah.

LEONIE: I don't care about the history.

DAVE: Well, that's exactly you don't want to bore your viewers today about what happened 50 years ago. And so there's again, this fine balance of respectfully remembering where you've come from, but also, hey, what's relevant now to the person that's watching this? 

But I think that's where potentially cutting your video up into segments is also a smart idea so that you've got all these subject matters that can be covered, but you only get a tease of it in that first video. And then do you want to find out more about the origin? Let's head over to the origin video when I found out, find out more about now. Let's go to now. And, you know, you're teasing people in and out of what their interest is.

LEONIE: So is there an ideal length for corporate videos or even for customer testimonial videos, which I know you do quite a few of those as well?

DAVE: Three to four minutes feels like the most regular time that I would be creating for most of those pieces, particularly the customer story or the business profile video or the corporate video, purely because there is a little bit of ground to cover. And if you try and do it in 30 seconds or 60 seconds, you're probably going to undercook things. 

And that's where strategy around maybe a three to four minute that exists on YouTube and exists on your website, but also having a 30, 60 second cut down that just teases people on social is crucial. You probably don't want to put the three to four minute version out on social media unless you really feel like, look, that's something you're going to keep pinned at the top of your page. And it's the thing that people can go to.

Maybe there's no right or wrong answer, I think, in that that you've just got tothink about what the strategy is and then move forward with it.

LEONIE: So how do you approach the storytelling side of it when you're producing customer testimonials?

DAVE: Well, that's where I think my key ingredient of the journalist comes in as well. So quite often the journalist is getting that background detail, you know, they're speaking ahead of time before we pull any camera equipment out, et cetera, to the experts of the subject matter about what is the key ingredients in this script. And they're generating to add to that storyboard some dialogue.

And sometimes it's not a verbatim script, but it might be here's talking points A, B and C that we'll cover in the first part of the dialogue. And here are the next points into the next section. So, yeah, there's a lot of different types of writing out there as well.

And sometimes I might even pick someone that's maybe not the media trainer type of person that's a sort of stylised writer that does things in a certain way, particularly if you're going to start bringing in comedy and satire to it, there's very prominent players out there. There's so many of them to choose from.

LEONIE: Dave, you could come to me for that, I'm quite funny. I'm not sure sarcasm counts, but that's okay.

DAVE: But yeah, you look at, you know, what is the style, what is the format and obviously also availability. 

If a timeline is there and the client needs things done at a certain pace, you know, basically you may not have the full list of people to choose from. It might be a case of who's available, okay, let's write this.

And for a lot of clients, that's all they need. They don't need it, you know, particularly formatted in any particular style or tone. And most writers can adapt that anyway. But there's been one or two projects in the past where it's like, I really want to find a comedy writer.

And in fact, a personal project I did for my wife Erin was I got someone to write a Mexican/Spanish themed song about Erin's life for her birthday for her 40th. Because she loves Mexican food and Spanish food and she kind of looks a bit Spanish. And yeah, it just it was gold.

And what happened was that comedian spoke to all of her friends and got all these little gossipy stories from her youth and pulled that together into this beautiful, you know, song.

And it was so funny. I'm not sure she's going to like me telling you about it. But, you know, there's an example of why that style suited that need. And in that case, I'm the customer asking for a particular thing that I think would be relevant to the viewer. 

So, you know, I think if any business owner is thinking about who their viewer is, there's all this brand strategy that we hear about personality of your business. What suits you? Are you the guy on the horse from that, you know, American what is the American aftershave brand? Brut? Brut? 

LEONIE; Is it Brut? Brut 33 or something.

DAVE: It's one of those. You know, we all watch Superbowl and see all the ads every year and we know what is the brand personality of that brand. And this is why choosing a scriptwriter and then choosing a storyboard, they're kind of the two key ingredients that you need before you pull any cameras and lights out as much as we can just pull cameras and lights out and wing it like we are here today.

If you want to have succinct messaging and it needs to be at a certain, you know, audience, they're the sorts of things you want to plan it with.

Thought leadership marketing

LEONIE: Yeah. So, I wanted to ask you about thought leadership video content. So, our focus over the last few years has been on creating thought leadership content that's either informed by interviews or by research that the clients are doing.

So, where does video fit into the thought leadership picture?

DAVE: Well, Rare Cancers Australia are going to come back up here because we did a thought leader series with Rare Chances Australia and they've also done one just recently actually in person.

So, they've done it both ways. I wasn't involved in the one recently but I know it was a big success in person in Canberra and, you know, there is that let's bring people on stage and they're the thought leaders type of an approach in an event.

But the other way that they've done it in the past that would suit a lot of people for video is a sit-down interview face-to-face, a little bit like you would if you were interviewing both of the Prime Ministers or the Prime Minister-elects ahead of an election. You'd have that one-on-one facing interview where Prime Minister, interviewer, maybe that interviewer is the key person of influence in the business and this is the person that is, you know, the subject matter expert and they're having a face-to-face conversation and that becomes your thought leader series.

You know, we've done that before and it's quite effective because you've got this really not like a space invasion. It's not quite this close. I'm exaggerating it for camera. But you've got quite an intimate setting when you're filming it when they are literally only a knee or so apart looking at each other and having a very solid conversation. 

You get some amazing nuggets out of that, you know, some real gold in what people are saying and I think for any industry that's a really good way to go about it and it's really just about do they all come to one space or one day and record it, which is probably the most budget-efficient way to do it, or do we travel a crew, which we have done for Rare Cancers Australia because the person who was the leader, they were very important people that needed to be in their space and couldn't possibly fly anywhere else for it because they're in that treatment or research space in various, you know, hospital organisations around the country.

So you also, you know, if you are creating content around thought leader, subject matter, you don't want to inconvenience the thought leader, I think is probably the learning on that one.

But yeah, it's just about, again, balance of budget versus convenience and where do we sit.

LEONIE: And are you seeing an increase in that sort of content being created?

DAVE: Yeah, I've definitely seen a lot of it and I think particularly when you look at podcasts like what we're doing now, you know, all the old pull the mic into the shot type podcasts that everyone's doing. 

Can I tell you, I'm actually not a fan of the pull the mic in the shot thing. I'm not. Visually, I think it looks messy. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, but I just think that there's enough technology out there to not have a microphone in the shot. But yeah, that in a way is thought leader content.

A lot of the podcasts that people are doing out there and, you know, what we're doing right now is kind of on that level as well, you know, talking about a subject matter expert.

Content marketing and artificial Intelligence (AI)

LEONIE: I'm thinking it's going to become more valuable now, that type of content. I'm seeing a lot of people are scaling up content production using AI because they can, but often producing horribly mediocre content. So is that going the same happening with videos? What sort of AI related shifts are you seeing, good or bad?

DAVE: Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm seeing, I've heard and seen some horrible things being done with it. I've also experienced and heard of some good things happening with it and I am embracing the good things that I can do with it.

So for instance, where I might've originally got what was recorded and sent it back to someone who was maybe involved in the interview, I would originally have got someone to decide what is required to come out of the interview. And now that can still happen, but there are some mediums out there where I can just put it through a filter and let the AI decide what the best parts or the best takes were. And look, it may not be right every time, but I think it's one of those things where it can help you start. 

And particularly when I look at things like ChatGPT, creating a storyboard, maybe I could just create this storyboard from scratch off the top of my head, or I could tell ChatGPT what it is that I'd like to construct and see what it comes up with. I may completely ignore what it comes up with, or I might take parts from it and say, all right, it's a starting point. Let's use it as the first version and let's create version two, three and four based on client and my own input.

And so I think I look at AI more as a accelerator than a replacement tool or an assistant rather than a replacement, particularly in our industry. 

And I know that there are image generators and things that people are very concerned about, but I'm not too concerned about it because end of the day, if you're in a business and particularly let's go back to the example of someone creating a product like the heart pump that saves people's life in the hospital, do you really want to show that heart pump as an AI generated heart pump? 

Or do you really want to show it actually making a difference in people's lives and actually showing it in its environment? I know which one I'd prefer to be seeing. 

If I was the hospital purchasing officer, I'd be turning off the AI generated one going, well, that's just rubbish and they're spamming me. And this one over here looks quite genuine. And yes, there's real people speaking about that. And there's a real patient saying how they recovered. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm now buying into that.

And I think your audience is smart enough to work that out. But if you're a marketing manager, considering cutting a corner the other way, you've got to weigh that up. And you don't want to assume your audience are really stupid people, basically.

LEONIE:

Yeah. It's quite interesting, isn't it? I mean, we're seeing a lot of AI content and we have a bit of a laugh because there's a whole lot of people, they do a first draft of something in an AI tool and Chat GPT and they publish it. And 9 out of 10 times, it's got a very similar first sentence. And it uses the same phrases throughout. 

So you can quite often tell immediately that somebody has put an article together using AI. And it's quite a turnoff for me as a reader because it's lost the authenticity as well.

But I think probably in terms of what we do, most of our work involves interviews and that sort of thing. So we're not using it, it wouldn't work for us anyway, using it because it's not at that stage yet and it doesn't have any original insights to share.

Most of what we're doing is the thought leadership level content where we do need to be getting the insights from somebody with experience and able to share their opinions.

But I've got nothing against the AI. I'm actually finding it quite helpful for a lot of things, especially around generating ideas.

And as you mentioned before as well, if you let it go and suggest the ideas rather than trying to direct it too much, then you're sort of broadening your own horizons as well. So I think that's good.

And the other thing I've discovered is that it's actually a very good cook.

DAVE: Ah, I haven't used it for cooking yet.

LEONIE: I've used it. I do quite a lot of cooking and I've used it frequently to ask it to give me some recipes around a particular set of ingredients or to adapt that sort of thing.

So yeah, quite good at that, but not so much at the writing.

DAVE: Yeah. Well, and I think that's the thing, like it's like the old plagiarism thing when you're at school doing your homework, you're meant to reference these things, but not plagiarise these things. And I think that goes for this as well. Even when I run the filter to see what it thought were the best takes of the recording, I'm going to take some of what it thinks, but I'm also referring back to my original IP and my original content and then using it as a template just to I do or I don't agree.

I like what it said, but I want to add also X, Y, Z to that, because I think that gives it more context or whatever it is. And that's the role that you want to be playing. I think, you know, and I think you just not to be telling people what to do, but the way I tell myself to think about AI is don't look at It as a replacement tool. Look at it as an assistant. It's here to just make me focus on the bigger picture as opposed to the nitty gritty fine art detail.

LEONIE: Yeah. I think it's good for that, isn't it? It's not a do everything for you miracle.

DAVE: No.

LEONIE: It's just something that will empower you to do a little bit more and spend less time thinking through things that you might normally spend a few hours piecing together.

DAVE: Yeah. And if you think about it, like we've been using it for a long time before Chat GPT anyway, because Siri and everything that people have been using for voice prompt is exactly that, you know, and I've been driving for years asking Siri to create that thing or do that thing or send this thing or email that person. 

And yeah, it's not always accurate, but you know what? It's efficient. And I'll explain most of the time to people when there is a spelling mistake or there is a unfortunate slip of words that I was using. 

Creating efficiencies with technology

LEONIE: I was actually going to ask you about that because I know you're quite a tech savvy multitasker and I can only admire that because I can't multitask. I have to focus on one thing at a time or I just completely lose track of what I'm doing.

I know that you're always on the move and I'm sure that you've found some really great tools to improve your productivity around admin tasks. So I thought you could share those.

DAVE: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think, you know, between my calendar and EVERNOTE, they're where I live and obviously a lot in Zoom like we're doing today. I think for me, it's just whatever is in my mind at that time, I have to get it out somewhere on a note or in a calendar so that it's scheduled and it's reminding me to do it when I need to do it.

The minute I see a bill, I forward it to Xero or forward it to EVERNOTE to remind me on X, Y, Z date that it needs to happen. So yeah, I wouldn't say it's fully automated. I'm still controlling the strings, but it is set up in a way that I can have those processes so that it's not playing on my mind because otherwise I just can't stop thinking about, you know, I need to do that, I need to do this and I can't be creative anymore if I am distracted on those things.

So we actually share that, I think. Even though it looks like I'm multitasking, I'm kind of I am focused on one thing, but I've delegated the others.

LEONIE: Yeah, perhaps we just do it in a slightly different way. I'm still a big fan of the notebook and pen, which sits next to me all day long and if I have something that comes in that I know I need to deal with, but I don't want to deal with it now, on the to-do list and then later it makes it from there onto my calendar.

DAVE: Yeah.

And, you know, sometimes I'll hit a, you know, miss something. It's not always perfect, but yeah, having those set up as like the go-to things, I suppose, yeah, it's just a process and I follow it.

LEONIE: So what does a busy day look like for you and how do you deal with it?

DAVE: Time management, scheduling, again, that use of calendar and lots of note-taking and really just, you know, passing on all that information to the team that are around me working on things.

So if I'm managing 20 crew to be at a certain place over a course of time, then everybody has a call sheet. Everybody knows what their role and their time is.

I got kind of criticised back in the day of Erin and my wedding, criticised slash made fun of, because I was in a way the bridezilla because I had a schedule for everybody.

And it wasn't like the bridezilla that like, oh, nothing's perfect. It was more like everything's going to be perfect because I've written this down across three run sheets. The crew have a run sheet. The family have a run sheet. We all know what we've got to do. Let's go do this thing.

And that's kind of my approach to most things in business. And any project I take on really, like personally, we've recently bought a little teardrop camper and I want to use that teardrop camper both in the business, but also occasionally travelling around the place. And I'm not the guy that's going to fix that teardrop camper, but I'm certainly able to project manage and budget that thing and get someone else to do it.

You know, so for me, I'm always happy to project manage. I haven't done a house yet, but eventually, you know, that could be something down the track.

Favourite movies…

LEONIE: So I've got a random question for you, because I just have to ask, because you're a videographer, what's your favourite movie of all time and why?

DAVE: Oh, yeah. I didn't land on one, actually, when I thought about this yesterday. My go-to would probably be Zoolander. Most people are going to cringe when I say that, but I think for me, just the fact that it's just so out there and crazy. It says a lot about me, I think, when you think about Zoolander's personality. But I love that whole, the fact that he's poking fun of the, you know, the whole beauty industry and fashion and modelling. It's so good. And I just think it's done so well and it's super cheesy, but I don't know.

It's either that for me or a Tarantino. So I'm very extreme. I'm either full comedy or full horror, sometimes a little bit of comedy horror in between for those ones that are a little bit, you know, left of field. But yeah, I'm also not the sort of guy that's like, oh, you know, I'm not,

I wouldn't call myself a big movie buff, which is funny to say, considering what I do. But I think I'm just also so busy creating other people's things that I don't actually always get to watch things for myself. So that's probably half the reason.

LEONIE: Yeah. I'm a bit of a left fielder as well. My favourite one is The Fisher King. Do you remember that?

DAVE: I don't know if I've seen that, but I've definitely heard of it.

LEONIE: It was Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams. And I know a lot of people don't like it because they say, oh, I couldn't watch it. There was too many subplots. I couldn't keep up with it.

It was just for me, it was just so brilliant because you could watch it 10 times and you'd see something the 10th time that you'd never noticed before. It was quite interesting.

I'm going to put up a slide with your contact details for anyone who'd like to have a chat with you about a video project. And I've just got one more question for you as we finish up.

DAVE: Sounds good.

Tip for success on a video project

LEONIE: For marketing managers or CEOs who might be about to commence a video project.

What tips or advice would you give them to help ensure a fabulous outcome?

DAVE: I think the tips that I give to any CEO or business owner out there, it's all about planning, just like you've done in your business in the first place in planning. 

Don't just go into videos, you know, run and gun. The only time that might work is if you've got an event that's already structured and planned and maybe we're running, gunning and capturing just what's happening, fly on the wall.

But most times you need to have a strategy and you need to engage the professionals to think about the strategy with you, bring in your marketing people around you. Don't just keep it all in your head. 

Outsource as much of it as you can. You may have big visions in your company about what you want things to look like, but also be prepared to take input on it, because sometimes what we have in our head isn't necessarily the right thing that's going to work for the audience.

So I think it's just about being a good listener as well as a good leader. And we'd love to be able to help with it.

LEONIE: Fantastic. Dave, thank you so much for having this conversation and sharing your thoughts today. And we will see you again soon.

DAVE: An absolute pleasure.

Thanks for listening to Content with Humans. Host Leonie Seysan is the director at Article Writers Australia, a Sydney-based writing agency that specialises in articles white papers, case studies, and website copywriting.