Behind the Lens: Filming Music Festivals and More with Tommy Roark

Visual storyteller Tommy Roark spends his days (and some nights) capturing stunning video images as a co-founder of Experience Media Studios. He's filmed helicopter tours in Hawaii and spent long, sleepless nights filming EDM shows and massive music festivals like Coachella. Tommy stopped by the Long Distance Lounge to share a few stories of those wild DJ sets and sketchy travel shoots that almost ended in disaster. He also shares his thoughts on balancing technical camera equipment know-how with natural creativity in photography and filmmaking. Finally, we get a little career advice -- including the significance of continuous learning -- from a guy who is doing what he loves at the ripe, old age of 27.  

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Setting the Scene
06:03 Navigating the Pandemic and Career Shifts
08:12 Learning the Craft: From Amateur to Professional
10:54 The Balance of Technical Skills and Creative Vision
12:18 Investing in Equipment and Understanding the Industry
14:27 Continuous Learning and the Role of Mentorship
17:56 Creative Process and Client Relationships
21:59 Building a Network in San Diego
22:27 Adventures and Challenges in Filming
24:51 Filming Music Festivals: Behind the Scenes
30:00 The Art of Capturing Live Events
32:40 Multicam Challenges and Techniques
34:58 The Highs and Lows of Touring
40:19 Family Ties and Personal Motivation
42:28 Career Advice for Aspiring Creatives

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Transcript

Tim Sweeney (00:06)
Okay, first up in this new season of the Long Distance Lounge is a young guy I've just got to know in the last couple of years, Tommy Rourke. He is a talented 27 year old visual storyteller who's already built quite a name for himself doing shoots for the likes of Versace, Aston Martin, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters, Bill LaBong, and even travel partners in amusement parks like Legoland, which some of you probably dragged your kids to.

He has also spent his summer shooting music festivals like Coachella. And that is what I really want to ask him about the behind the scenes of these big music festivals, DJ sets, et cetera. does a lot of chronicling the EDM scene. So he's got some stories. Tommy is also a co-founder of experience media studios, but I'll let him tell you the rest. Let's get started.

Tim Sweeney (01:01)
All right, Tommy Rourke, welcome. Welcome into the long distance lounge. First of all, I have to ask you, what are you having to drink at the long distance lounge? It's early in the morning, so I might judge you depending on what's in that glass.

Tommy Roark (01:13)
Tim, thanks for having me. ⁓ I got a pretty standard cold brew. Usually I go black cold brew. Today I'm at my mom's house visiting my family on the East Coast for the weekend and she was like, put some cream in there. And I'm not a cream guy, but I felt like she would have taken it a little personal if I said no. So we put some cream in. So we got cold brew with some cream. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (01:34)
All right. Keep your staff happy. Keep your mother happy.

That's important. I just have a tea. It's pretty early, early in the morning for a late night creative guy like yourself. So I would have judged you if you were, if you were drinking anything alcoholic, we would have been having a different conversation. Yeah, exactly.

Tommy Roark (01:44)
Yeah. It's a lot of people. A lot of... Are you okay? Really?

A lot of people are tea people now. Like lot of my friends, they're like, they switched to tea. And I like tea, don't get me wrong, but is there a reason? Are you a tea drinker over coffee or is it just a...

Tim Sweeney (02:05)
⁓ I will

probably turn off listeners. I've never had a full cup of coffee in my life. I just don't like the taste of it. And that's the sound of people getting mad. Cause coffee drinkers get really offended by that actually. ⁓

Tommy Roark (02:12)
Damn. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (02:16)
Your visuals by Tommy, that's, that's you on social media. You are super creative guy, really talented guy. And that's why I wanted to talk to you. We met through your uncle Kevin, who I knew a little bit from some work long time ago that I did. He's a successful, let's say business builder, entrepreneur. don't, I don't, I don't want to offend him what his title would be, but he's a smart guy.

Tommy Roark (02:21)
That'll be me.

Thank you, man. Yeah.

You know, I

Tim Sweeney (02:39)
⁓ so you guys started a company together, right?

Tommy Roark (02:40)
like to say, yeah, I like to say Kevin knows a little bit about everything. He's the first person I call whether I got a question about fixing something on my car or a question of my taxes or anything in between. But yeah, Kevin's my mom's brother. He's been a huge father figure and business mentor in my life.

Tim Sweeney (02:54)
Okay.

Tommy Roark (03:02)
Um, you know, just someone I turned to and I have questions about career and, you know, it was, was a couple of years ago. He, he's worked pretty heavily in the travel and tourism space most of his life. And I was working in the creative space and I love to travel. And, know, my whole goal when I picked up the camera was to kind of get to see the world. And he was like, well, I know there's a huge need for services.

and skills like yours in the industry, let me see if I can connect you with some people in my network. And he started helping me get some of my largest clients at the time. ⁓ Just as like a favor, you know? And then we legitimatized our business and we launched our ⁓ agency together, Experian Media Studios, about called two years ago. ⁓ And it just kind of built together from there with him running, you know, the operations, let's say, side of the business and myself running the creative.

Tim Sweeney (03:56)
Yeah. So, but you do a lot of different stuff from a creative standpoint. ⁓ I want to back up just, just a bit. So grew up in the East coast where you are now in Connecticut, think UNH university, New Hampshire. And, not really a creative sort of major arts guy, like not design, not photography. You were going for kind of business marketing. What, how'd that all play out?

Tommy Roark (04:00)
I do. ⁓

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

No.

Nothing. Yeah, great memory,

man. Marketing. I like to tell people I have no idea how I kind of fell into this, and I'm really grateful I did, because it was what I always kind of wanted to do. So I went to University of New Hampshire, was in the business college there, got a marketing degree. But a couple things happened when I graduated. It was a mixture of things. I...

graduated the spring the pandemic started. So it was a really interesting time to enter the work world. So I had some corporate marketing, know, the typical, what I like to say the typical New England kid path is, is you grow up in New England. You know, I wanted to go to the University of Colorado in Boulder. My mom was like, you will flunk out. You're going somewhere where I can at least physically drive to pick you up when that inevitably happens. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (04:49)
wow.

Tommy Roark (05:13)
I made it through, but she kind of encouraged me to stay close. And I feel like most kids that go to New England, you grow to England, go to New England college, and then you may get a corporate job or a startup job, but you move to Boston or New York and you work in that nine to five space. And ⁓ when the pandemic happened, all of my marketing offers for different types of companies, whether in Boston, New York or wherever,

They got rescinded. And so I was home doing, I was working at a country club. I was a bag boy, I cleaning clubs. around the middle of college is when I bought my first camera and Kevin actually helped me buy my first drone and it was just fun little tools. I like to make cool stuff. I just was like, wow, you can take some really cool photos and stuff like that. And from there I met

This guy at ESPN, this guy Rob King, ⁓ who's done a lot of amazing things in his career. He was one of the producers or executive producers of The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan doc that won a bunch of awards for ESPN. And he was a member of the club and was really nice guy. And one day I just went up to him and said, hey, Mr. King you know me as the guy that cleans your clubs, but actually I'm really interested and I'm starting to get started in the creative world. I would be curious if we'd ever...

Tim Sweeney (06:14)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy Roark (06:30)
be willing to chat with me. And he kind of had like ⁓ a casual call with me and we just talked for maybe an hour or so.

And he said, go out and get as much experience as you can. And so I realized then, you during the middle of the pandemic with, ⁓ you know, let's move to California and figure it out. And so that's what I did. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (06:50)
Right. Right. Okay. Right.

So I guess it's in a way you have, there's no other options. And they say you do what you want to do, right? Just start, start learning. How about that learning though? Because I was talking to someone else the other day about this, that people think like I can look at your stuff and I've had other friends, I've referred your Instagram to them who are, you know, producers and filmmakers and stuff. they're like, well, he's, he's talented. Um, but

Tommy Roark (06:59)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Tim Sweeney (07:16)
Yeah, you're welcome. It's true, but it's not all talent. Like you have specifically, like I've been on shoots with people, the equipment, everything takes so much time. So I think you have to have a bit of a mindset too, like patience. have to like to learn. like I've dabbled with that stuff, but you realize how time consuming it is to get to the point where you are. So what was that process like

Tommy Roark (07:22)
Yeah.

I didn't even own a camera until I was 20. I didn't, you and when I first bought a camera and a drone, I started with the Sony A6000 and I just shot in auto and I didn't know what I was doing. And same with the drone, know, same sort of thing, the most basic settings. And at that time I felt that I was fortunate.

to have been young enough, but also old enough at the same time to be on Instagram during those early days of what I like to call like travel influencer creators. There was these guys out there and they're still around, but they were probably a lot younger at this time. This would be like 20, call it 2016. I finishing up high school, going to college. And so I was following these guys. Some familiar names would be like.

Tim Sweeney (08:12)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Tommy Roark (08:28)
Matt Como or Jay Alvarez or Sam Colder. And there were just these guys that look to be getting to travel the world for free or getting paid for it. And they just got to create beautiful content with their equipment. And I was like, I want to do that. And when I started, ⁓ I sucked and I still suck. It's always a learning curve. It's always improvement. And like the grand scheme of things, it's yeah. And I accept that. at the time, ⁓

Tim Sweeney (08:36)
Right.

Yeah, that's a familiar story though. Everyone has that story. Yeah.

Tommy Roark (08:57)
Like I look back at the first video I ever made, I went on like a study abroad program to Barcelona and got to explore Europe with a lot of friends and, ⁓ you know, shot everything in auto. knew nothing about settings or lighting or how to do anything like that. But I was just trying to capture those moments on my first, you know, real camera.

And, you know, at that time when I put together that first video, it was my favorite thing I ever made. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And a lot of people just gave really positive feedback because

I didn't really know anyone that was doing creative work like that. And so people were pretty kind. know, my friends, my friends like to call it my, I made like a creative account. My friends originally like to call it like my Finsta, like my fake Insta. And they were just like, oh yeah, this is where you just post dumb stuff. I'm like, oh, okay. you know, was going to be, I'm not a very serious person. So we joke around about it, but I was like, just, just wait guys. Like eventually you'll see the vision here. Like I, I'm going to learn how to take this hobby and this little thing of mine.

Tim Sweeney (09:39)
Yeah, right.

Tommy Roark (09:54)
and make a career out of it. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (09:56)
And do you feel like

you have like, do you feel you have like a natural people talk about a natural eye? I mean, you develop the skills of course, like, cause you shoot still photography and you shoot video. did you have mentors to learn from early on and how much of it is natural and how much is learned?

Tommy Roark (10:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

a good question. I think there are different types of minds and ways that people's brains work.

in general, also in call it photography or in filmmaking. I think some people have a very technical brain, almost like that engineer type brain where they know their camera, their settings, their every little function inside and out. And it's more of like, those people are more of like the math and science people and they know the exact numbers to put their settings and blah, blah. And then I think there's the people like me who's terrible at math that

I just trust my eye and I may not always have the best eye, but I just, trust my eye because it's what I know. And I'm not a technical thinker. I know what I need to know on the technical side. ⁓ but I learned new things about my camera all the time from my more technical minded friends. Like, do you know what this? And I'm like, no, show me. ⁓ but I feel like I've made the most of my career so far, just trusting my eye. ⁓

And it's weird because I wouldn't even say I was born with it. I didn't grow up like super creative, least that I felt like. I just felt like a normal person. And when in the beginning, when I first started out, it was really hard. Like it was hard to find inspiration and kind of find that eye. I felt like I was struggling to figure out how I wanted things to look. And I definitely just...

Tim Sweeney (11:39)
Right. Cause you, want your

own look in a way too, right? You're not like, I'm going to create my own look. You just want stuff to look viewable at the beginning. Right. So that people with a, with an educated eye will, will take it and use it because that's the thing is that the, the, the everyday lay person is looking at it. Can't see always the difference between the high quality stuff that someone like you does. And then, you know, just stuff that they do in a way, like it looks cool or, and especially today, I guess, because things are

Tommy Roark (11:44)
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (12:09)
digested so quickly, but if you to get hired professionally, the people making those judgment calls do know the difference, right?

Tommy Roark (12:18)
I think it's a mixture of having the right equipment and then just kind of knowing. ⁓

How to properly use it, you know, I think for me, like I said, I started shooting off in auto. I had to learn what all those functions within my camera could do. I had to learn everything from the shutter, the aperture, the ISO, because when I first started, I was like, oh, I don't know, I'm going to let the computer do that for me. But I realized you don't really unlock your camera until you.

get off of auto and start using it. Like putting it on auto is like playing on say beginner mode, right? Or doing the tutorial of something, you know what I mean? And then once you can fully understand how the camera works, ⁓ just your ability unlocks a lot. and then from there, that's when I noticed the biggest jump in my quality of work. And then I felt like anything that I wanted to put on a real portfolio.

Tim Sweeney (13:02)
Actually maximizing what's

Tommy Roark (13:14)
Came from there.

and once I felt like I could just have more educated conversations with maybe someone that's hiring for these roles and stuff like that on exactly how I would shoot certain things, ⁓ there was just kind of more respect that was given to me. If they were like, hey, how would you, we want this, we want there to be a motion blur on this car driving by.

do you know how to do that? And on auto, I'd be like, you can't do that. In the beginning, I would have no idea. once I could just speak to like, yeah, and I could almost like educate people on how I do things, I think there's kind of this trust that, okay, this guy knows what he's doing. And I feel like once I reached a level of learning ⁓ of just how the camera works, ⁓ once I was proficient enough, I feel like that's when the creative eye started to flourish and people started to trust it more.

Tim Sweeney (13:59)
Yeah.

And do you take ever any say classes or I guess that's a question to have. And I know people will listen to this. People who follow you, who want to be good at this stuff where they're a student, how would you recommend they spend time improving if they want to get accomplished at shooting? it classes? I'm a pretty bad guitar player. I've had a guitar for, you know, since college, but just like,

Tommy Roark (14:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (14:23)
cowboy chords, as they say. And I have friends who are really good at it, put out an album, et cetera. And he said, just, just put the thing in your hands, put the guitar in your hands and, and play. But there's also something to knowing all the basics when it comes to that stuff, you know, the scales, the notes, everything. So are you someone who ascribes to like, yeah, take some classes to learn the basics or get out, make, make mistakes, shoot stuff that you're never going to use. And then that you feel like you've wasted time. What's, what's the strategy?

Tommy Roark (14:24)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, that's it.

I think it's a balance of both. ⁓ In high school, I randomly took a very basic video production class and I got to learn the editing software Final Cut Pro, which is still a lot of what I use today. It was cool to learn something at such a young age that still ⁓ holds its own in the professional world.

I feel like a lot of the classes people take in high school are pretty useless, but that class actually way more, and I took that class because it was supposed to be easy and fun. That class, I guess more than just about anything in high school at this point has helped me more in my career. Cause then when I got to a point where I was doing this for work, I was like, okay, I need editing software. do I get? like, I know Final Cut Pro. So I stuck with that, ⁓ but I...

I feel like that class helps me a lot, without knowing it. And then once I wanted to more intentionally learn on how to do things, YouTube has everything. ⁓ You can learn anything on YouTube. When I got my first camera, I just Googled it. What are the best settings to shoot in? If I want to get good results. And you get everyone's different takes on it,

Tim Sweeney (15:51)
Yeah, it does. It's wild.

Tommy Roark (16:02)
And then a big thing I decided to get early on, which a lot of people don't do until they're getting a lot of more paid professional work is a part 107 FAA drone license. And that is what allowed me to legally get commercial work in the space.

A part 107 was, you know, it's an FAA license. It's a cool, it's just pilot's license. It's a cool, it's a cool thing to pull out at the bar and say, I'm actually a pilot, you know? And unless they read the very, very fine print, they realize that, you know, okay, buddy, you fly drones or the controller, you're not actually getting the cockpit. But that test essentially was, at least in my opinion, right? Some people might think it's easy. I thought that was one of the hardest tests I ever took. It felt like a pilot's test without having to get in the cockpit and actually physically fly the plane.

Tim Sweeney (16:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Right.

Right.

Tommy Roark (16:48)
But all the things I had to

Tim Sweeney (16:48)
Or put passengers.

Tommy Roark (16:49)
study and learn, it was, you know, we're talking, okay, 60,000 feet in a class B airspeed. I'm like, okay, my drone does can't even go that high. You know, when you're landing at an airport at sea level where I'm like, I can't fly in the airports, right? But I had to get it. I had to get that to just kind of show like, Hey, you're not an idiot. And you're not going to hurt anybody with your drone. If we hire you for this job. So really besides studying, I took like an online class to prep course for that.

Beyond that, I mainly just used YouTube and I had some mentors that I would just kind of ask. I was lucky to have, because when I first got into it, I didn't know anyone from college and I didn't really know anyone from where I grew up that was doing this. ⁓ through the power of social media, I just met some guys that were mainly all from New England and ⁓ made the time to just kind of talk with me. And I'd asked them a lot of questions, but yeah, I think almost anything now can be learned.

through YouTube. And this is before chat GPT was even around. Now you got chat GPT, you got these other things you could use as well too. But ⁓ really, even now, if I have a question, YouTube is where I go.

Tim Sweeney (17:49)
Right. Answer your questions. Right.

You have the experience media studios with Kevin and you guys are shooting resorts. You're shooting like experiences that places offer a lot of travel, get to go to cool places. People don't understand that that's a lot of work as well, but then you do a lot of music festival stuff now as well. So there's a, there's, imagine a different approach because you're dealing in a way with clients on both sides, cause I've worked for a brand on the client side where you're like briefing someone.

Tommy Roark (17:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure.

Definitely.

Mm?

Tim Sweeney (18:22)
Do you like like a really tight creative brief? Do you want tons of freedom? how do you approach this stuff? Let's say you're shooting brand related stuff. You have a brief. Okay. We want to capture this experience. I mean, I can.

You can make up an example, but you've been to Hawaii and places like that. How does that differ than going to a music festival and like capturing something that's probably very social oriented?

Tommy Roark (18:46)
Yeah,

It's like a fine line that sometimes ⁓ the most difficult clients.

can sometimes be the ones that also give you the most freedom. Like I hate being kind of confined to a box, but I also like when the expectations are set and the client knows like, at least there's been times where there's like, yeah, just do your thing. And I'm like, do my thing? any, they're like, no, you got it. And then I turn in what I think my thing is and they have a million revisions. And I'm like, see, you could have saved us both a lot of time here if you just gave me a little bit of guidance. But at the same time,

I also dislike and have been in  situations where clients, it's very, you stick to this very specific shot list and there is no creative freedom. And that makes it a little bit less fun, because it just feels more like you're just following a checklist, you know? ⁓ And so I think it's kind of this fine line between, it's like a balancing act of having a good amount of both.

Tim Sweeney (19:37)
Right. Right.

Tommy Roark (19:45)
⁓ I think the best clients are the ones that know what they want. You know, this isn't their first production They know what's worked for them in the past and they can give strong

guidance, but at the same time they want it to feel like, like me, I guess in this case, they want it to feel like, Tommy Rourke made that, you know, and kind of have my flair or my touch added to it. And I feel like those clients that I work with, those are the ones where I find the most success because I feel like I know what they want, but I also know, like I look at it and say, okay, where can I get creative on this in a tasteful way? ⁓ But each...

Tim Sweeney (20:21)
Yeah, cause they hired you

for a reason, right? I mean, they saw your work and they want that flair, that signature, I guess that you're talking about, which is what you're trying to establish in a way while also pleasing clients. it's a tricky, tricky balance.

Tommy Roark (20:23)
Exactly.

Right.

Exactly, so it's a tricky

balance, know, ⁓ but I find that the clients where it is a, let's see if we call it half and half, know, half creative freedom, half... ⁓

kind of guidelines or shout lists or just ideas on what they would like because there have been times where I've been given a complete freedom and I almost appreciate that, but I almost don't like that because there's a chance that I do exactly what I want and I get it totally. Everyone's got their own mindset of what they're looking for and if you can't articulate that and verbalize that, you're kind of just leaving it, okay, whatever you get here is what you get. And ⁓ it can just set myself up for a lot of revisions.

or just a rough time if I don't have any guidance. But I think that's something that all creatives look for when working with a company or a brand. You know, it's cool when you get to kind of make some calls on our own. But at the same time, like, don't don't let us, you know, we're all these caffeine fuel, just like late night thinkers and stuff. Don't give us too much free time to just kind of go crazy or else you're to get some really wild products. Exactly, exactly.

Tim Sweeney (21:39)
Right. Which doesn't accomplish what the brand wants to do from a business standpoint.

So tell me, some of the cooler shots you've been on for experienced media studios. Cause this is what you got into it for, right? Travel the world. said do what you love to do. any, any sort of hairball stories that got little sideways

Tommy Roark (21:47)
Yeah.

Yeah,

So we've been all over, spent a lot of time in Hawaii.

I've had some, let me say near death, but I've had some pretty fun. I'm in a lot of trouble right now. It's like the Ralph Wiggum from the Simpsons, like, ha ha, I'm in danger meme I see sometimes on the internet. That was me swimming out at like pipeline beach on Oahu with a water housing and a camera or something, trying to get shots and surfing and realizing like.

yeah, these waves, there's a reason the surfers and the surf filmers are wearing helmets to go swimming in the water here, because you're in the wrong spot. You get your skull cracked open. So there was definitely moments out there where I was ⁓ in some danger filming. There was a time I was with ⁓ one of my close partners I worked with, my buddy Cole ⁓ Parker. He and I were doing a job. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (22:34)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy Roark (22:52)
with the US Coast Guard. It was like a live water rescue, like a mock one, know, kind of showing how something works. ⁓ And they needed someone to go from the boat we were in up into this helicopter. And the director that hired us, he was originally supposed to do it, but he got so seasick, they were like, all right, they're gonna lower down the shopping cart basket. We need one of you with your equipment to get into that shopping cart basket. I will mention.

It was a rough day at sea. was raining. It was windy. They picked a rough day to do this. And I'm pretty good on boats. But Cole got pretty seasick, director got pretty, everyone else was pretty seasick. And we had to get this shot and we needed to get it fast where they needed me to get from the boat up, call it, I don't know, 60, 80 feet in the air to this helicopter that was hanging on above us. And they just, they lowered down this mini shopping cart basket.

and they were like, get in and we're gonna raise you up and you're gonna get, you're gonna out there, gonna hook you in, you're gonna lean out the door and get the shot. And it all kinda happened. It wasn't like a, I was preparing for this, it was like in the moment, like Tommy, we need you to do this. And I was like, all right, let's do it. I feel like something that helps me. No time to think and next thing you know, I'm spinning around in the air with my camera. I'm just like, all right, all right, we're getting raised up and. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (23:58)
No time to think.

Tommy Roark (24:07)
I think for me, one of the things that helps me but also puts me in this danger is when I'm trying to get a particular shot and I'm really feeling motivated, like, this is going to look really good, my sense of fear and danger goes out the window. And it's more like, okay, like I gotta get this and however I get it, I get it.

my sense of what's realistic in terms of, oh, is that dangerous or not? Goes out the window when filming.

Tim Sweeney (24:31)
Yeah.

You're going to want to watch that as you get older.

Tommy Roark (24:34)
Absolutely. I'm like a cat. I think I've used maybe five out of those nine lives so far and I'm only 27. So those last four, I got to stretch out a lot further now.

Tim Sweeney (24:41)
Yeah. You're going to run out at some point.

Um, let, let's talk about something. Maybe, well, maybe it is as dangerous, but the music festival stuff,

Tommy Roark (24:45)
Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (24:51)
this is where you have been spending a lot of time at these big music festivals, filming, you're doing drone stuff. You're probably spending a lot of late nights. How the hell did you get into filming music festivals? What is that like behind the scenes? is it just working amidst madness or how does it all go down?

Tommy Roark (25:07)
Madness is a good way to put it, man. It's,

Tim Sweeney (25:13)
Well, start with that. How'd you find your way into filming music festivals? Or is it just relationship with DJs festivals? How does it work?

Tommy Roark (25:16)
You know, yeah,

I grew up...

a big fan of dance music, EDM music. I feel like I kind of got into it, what they like to call the golden era in that time would be like 2010, 2015. So was like middle school, high school where it was really new and it was fresh and it was uplifting and exciting. And I kind of got into it then. And so I've been a fan of the music for a long time. And then I think some of the earliest creators I followed on

Instagram were

know, nightlife, I them nightlife, and concert photographers and videographers. Because it was just, were getting issued artists that I personally listened to. like, ⁓ that live show must have been so fun to get to capture that will also be in there, right? And, you know, just certain guys that I followed, I'm like, I want to be like this guy someday.

Tim Sweeney (26:04)
Right, okay.

Tommy Roark (26:14)
you know, so then I kind of just met some people and had some mentors. two of my mentors, Drew and Sam, when I first got into it, they both worked in the space and kind of just gave me some advice and helped me kind of get started, whether it was to introduce you to some people that I got some early gigs with or whatnot, but kind of just got my foot in and it's like a club. And once you're in, literally you're shooting in a club, but it's also like a social club. But once you're in, ⁓ you can kind of grow from there and it's a lot of networking and.

Tim Sweeney (26:37)
Yeah, yeah.

Tommy Roark (26:43)
It took years of meeting the right people, whether in terms of artist management, or promoters, or artists themselves. I've had a lot of random encounters, like just being in the right place at the right time that has helped me when it comes to that space. And so, yeah.

Tim Sweeney (26:59)
So take me inside like a one, I don't know. So

you spend like a weekend or do you spend a night? Like what's the prep?

Tommy Roark (27:05)
Yeah, it really

The prep is make sure you get enough sleep the night before because you're not going to get enough sleep the next ⁓ night.

Tim Sweeney (27:11)
sleep.

Tommy Roark (27:17)
So for a good example, we'll talk about doing Coachella this year. It was my first time getting to shoot Coachella and that was definitely a bucket list one. Festival I'd never been to, you everyone knows what Coachella is. But I'd never been, let alone, you know, had the, got the pass to shoot. But a friend, a friend Alex, put me in touch with another woman who's now a great friend, Kenzie, and her company, Twin Flame Productions. They do a lot of the artist relations for...

Coachella specifically for the DoLab stage and they were just looking to bring some media in and she was like, yeah, you and if you need to bring some of your team with you, go for it.

And so, um, you know, for that, were going out into Palm Springs. It was hot. was dusty and we were camping. think camping was the most interesting thing. Cause we were on site for, I think four days, three nights.

Tim Sweeney (28:08)
Okay. So

you got to lug gear around everything. Like you got to watch your gear, all that stuff.

Tommy Roark (28:11)
Yep, bring out, yep,

the Pelican cases with all the equipment and we didn't really have a place to like charge batteries. So we're charging batteries like on the grass, hoping we don't start a fire in a dry place like Palm Springs. ⁓ Just trying to do all that. And the hours are long. Like, you know, the festival starts, you know, when the first act goes on at one, you you're probably already on site, like ready to go call it two hours before that.

Um, and the last act probably done at 1 a.m. You know, that's a full 12 hours later, you know, call it 16 hours a day that you were just physically on site filming. And then it's like, you're transferring footage or you're dropping SD cards, you're plugging things into charge for the next night. We maybe got five hours of sleep each night. These were all sevens and fun. You know what I mean? There was a lot to do. And, and the people that work in those settings, whether they're media or not.

Um, the production or their, their artist teams are, they're all kind of partying. So there was a lot of fun stuff to do. Um, but it was just a sprint. I felt like each day it was like we were running from stage to stage or different artists and this, that, uh, you forget something back in the trailer. That's a 30 minute walk that way. You're like, all right, I gotta go back there and get one simple battery or SD or whatever. Right. And I wore, I like to wear this black, you gotta wear all black. So you just cook in the sun. Um,

I like to wear this black like fisherman's vest with all these little pockets that I keep things in that has been my saving grace many times just to keeps everything I need on me. And then.

You know, usually have this big camera set up where you have your gimbal, your camera, your monopods. You could get above the crowd for shots and stuff like that. Your monitor, all those things. So it's a pretty heavy rig set up. So your, your shoulders got a good workout. And I had just had like a minor shoulder surgery maybe two weeks before Coachella on the shoulder. And so that was great for the stitches. That was a really like, you know, my, my, my surgeon, when I went back to get the stitches removed, he was like, you, ⁓ you've been using the shoulder a lot.

Tim Sweeney (30:00)
Perfect.

Tommy Roark (30:11)
I'm like, no, really, I've been resting. I'm resting, but yeah, but it was a lot of fun.

Tim Sweeney (30:12)
Yes. 16 hours a day, in fact. So how

many angles are you like, let's say angles, I sound like an amateur. Are you like on stage for some of it? You're in the crowd for some of it. Are you like running all around? There's like a, there's a brief too. And how many hours do you shoot that wind up in an edit?

Tommy Roark (30:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I think for the 60 second recap video that we made, we probably cut down the selects folder to about a terabyte. So call it three to four terabytes of just raw everything, cut that down to about a terabyte of selects. And then from there, cut that into 60 seconds. And that final export, when you export that from final cut, it's maybe 1.5 gigabytes.

So just cutting, yes, hours and hours, exactly. And it's just like refining like your footage and look at the selects to figure out what's best going from there.

Tim Sweeney (30:57)
to hours of footage to make a minute.

some of the shots you get are crazy like with the with the say a DJ or something and then the backdrop is just incredible. Some of the still photos you have on your Instagram and the crowd just makes it right. The lighting. ⁓

Tommy Roark (31:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, no, there's this, right. The energy,

the lighting, the crowd, the stage design, the special effects, whether it's pyro or CO2 or fireworks or whatever's happening. I feel like I've been doing a lot of shows now where I kind of have it down to like, I kind of know when a lot of, sometimes they'll give you the cues, hey, we're gonna do fireworks on this song and this song, but a lot of times they don't.

Tim Sweeney (31:38)
Okay.

Tommy Roark (31:40)
And most of the time, at least for me, they don't. And I feel like I have a good science down in my head of like, okay, last two songs, there's been no effects, therefore there should be one here. Like you kind of just get that, at least I do. I kind of am like, all right, it's been long enough now where I got a feeling they're gonna use something here and then I'll get my camera ready. And there's a lot of times where I'm like, getting ready, I'm like, okay, let me guess, there should be some flames here. Okay, no flames, let's try again in a minute or two when the next song plays, right?

Tim Sweeney (32:06)
Yeah. Right.

But you listen to the music too. So that probably helps you. Like you kind of get a feel for when they're going to be impactful moments, et cetera.

Tommy Roark (32:12)
Absolutely.

It's always more helpful when you're getting to shoot an artist whose music you know a little bit of. I've been in situations where I didn't know any of this artist catalog and you know it's cool because you discover a lot of music that way but it's always easier I think to plan things out kind of in your head of like okay this is kind of style this is kind of the way they do things like I know these songs these tracks here so I'm gonna do it. Another thing that's really popular now

A lot of these shows, festivals, they like multicam. So pretty much you kind of have a bunch of different camera angles. Let's say someone's behind the artist. So you mount the camera on the DJ booth. You have one at the front of house, which is kind of behind the crowd. You have someone roaming in the crowd, blah, blah. You have a drone ⁓ syncing up ⁓ all of those angles in a multicam. What you do after is you're pretty much the goal of multicam is to...

⁓ pretty much show the exact show as it cuts from camera to camera. So syncing them all up timing wise, you have an internal recorder that you would have to sync up the music to it. ⁓ And then just showing the full performance cut from different angle to angle to angle for the full say 60, 90 minutes, sometimes longer. ⁓ Those are really popular right now. It is, we we recently...

Tim Sweeney (33:31)
Wow. That's a ton of work, huh? Ton of prep work and

then.

Tommy Roark (33:35)
We did, we recently did a 20 angle multi-cam with a 15 person team for an artist in LA. And that was a ton of prep work, a ton of post-production work. And then obviously if anything goes wrong mid show, you gotta, you know, there was this, there were these cages. ⁓ They had like dancers kind of like these dancers in cages and stuff. it was crazy, but it got overrun by the crowd. Like they climbed up onto this like thing. We had cameras mounted on there.

Tim Sweeney (33:53)
Of Of course there were.

wow.

Tommy Roark (34:04)
and someone sent a photo in our production chat like, hey guys, ⁓ I think there's camera and I was just like, ⁓ shit, I need to get in there and I need to get those cameras now and like running in there. yeah, security was completely useless in this case. I just ran in there and I'm like shoving people out of the way and then one of other guys came with me, Frankie, shout out to Frankie if he happens to see this. was his camera we mounted and so I could tell being in that, if I was in his position, I'd be like.

Tim Sweeney (34:14)
Right. Thousands of dollars going down the drain.

All

Tommy Roark (34:33)
they're not taking my stuff. I'm getting that thing.

Tim Sweeney (34:34)
right.

Tommy Roark (34:35)
And so, you know, he was already there when I got there and I'm like, Frank, let's get out of here. Let's get that camera and get out. And so things happen sometimes. But Multicam is really in right now. So we shoot a lot of that.

I don't love doing it. It's definitely like I've got a lot of gigs for it, but I feel like there's a lot of things where things can go wrong that are out of your control. And there's really no room for error. ⁓

Tim Sweeney (34:58)
I would imagine it's

a bit like shooting a sport actually, because there's like, there's crowd, the artists are doing, there's action, like you say, with pyrotechnics, the lighting, everything. mean, I've seen them, seen like at a music festival I went to in, when I lived in Melbourne, Australia, they have one at Giant Horse Track, like sort of fairgrounds almost. And I went to see some big killers were playing, chili peppers, et cetera. This is several years back and there's a...

Tommy Roark (35:05)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Sweeney (35:25)
There's an EDM tent and it's, I walked through it just to check it out. It was like a different world inside. Like it's middle of the afternoon in the summertime and it was like nighttime in there. Like you didn't even know. ⁓ so I can, I can imagine what, what it must be like to try and capture that. Just the light and everything.

Tommy Roark (35:33)
Yeah, there's a there's

for anyone here that's watching this, if that has been a Coachella, the Yuma Tent is famously known to Coachella for just being, hey, a great, you know.

Great spot, see a lot of cool artists, but it is so dark in there. It's like you're in a club, but you could be in there at 2 p.m. or whatever. trying to film sets in there, I remember it was really challenging, because I'm just like, it's, I don't know if you ever seen the movie Blade. It kind of feels like the opening scene from Blade in there, which is techno music blasting. And think in Blade one, it's like all these vampires at a party. It's essentially the same thing, you know?

I can't verify if they're actual vampires, but certain people definitely got that look in their eyes. Like they have no idea what's going on. They could drink some blood. Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (36:21)
Yeah, after a few days, I'm sure, yeah.

I recently watched the Avicii documentary on Netflix, I'm Tim, it's called, was sad, fascinating. I don't know that world, so, I mean, he was like a savant. It was pretty cool to see his story, it's sad also to see ⁓ sort of his path, but ⁓ it gives you like a real respect, one, for the music, if you don't know it that well, like myself, and then,

Tommy Roark (36:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, excellent.

Yeah.

course.

Yeah.

Tim Sweeney (36:50)
just hearing you talk about it, I'm thinking back to watching that documentary, which I really recommend to people because I thought it was really well done, even if you don't know him or the, or, ⁓ that scene. but the stuff he was doing was just crazy. Some of the show, like in Ibiza and places like the crowds, it's incredible.

Tommy Roark (36:56)
Great talk.

Yeah.

It's huge

crowds and the touring schedule is so aggressive. think there was a point, he was doing 350 shows a year or some number close to that, you know? There's 365 days in a year. It was almost like he was doing a show every day. And oftentimes you're going city to city, country to country. The travel that comes along with touring, it's not for the week. ⁓ It's really aggressive. I've done a little bit of touring. I haven't done any like long-term touring. It hasn't really been something that...

You know, because for the, yeah, you're with them for a couple of months. It's a huge commitment. And it's definitely exciting. It's a cool experience. And I've done a little bit of it, but.

Tim Sweeney (37:35)
Right, where you're following artists for, yeah.

Tommy Roark (37:49)
it's your full-time job. Like I would have to drop all my other clients and let go of any other work I have just to focus on this. And I love shooting music, ⁓ but I consider it just a segment of what I do. Like just part of the overall thing. You we shoot, I will go from one week, you know, I could shoot ⁓ a festival and then two days later I could be shooting like a dental corporate conference. You know what I mean? And the dental corporate conference pays more. It's just like, it's, but it, there's, know, it's, it's, it's less exciting.

Tim Sweeney (38:13)
That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Tommy Roark (38:19)
No offense to the dentist that could be watching, but ⁓ I have a lot of, yeah, like a wide variety of work that I do and that we do at ⁓ Studios. ⁓ And so the touring stuff, like, that would be, I had gotten some offers and some that I really was like, wow, I was really considering. ⁓ But it also like just the travel that comes with this job in general. Like I travel enough as is, if I was touring, like, man, I don't know what...

Tim Sweeney (38:22)
Yeah. I think they would, they would probably admit that.

No, you're part of the show. It's

Tommy Roark (38:49)
Yeah, I don't know.

Tim Sweeney (38:49)
a, yeah.

Tommy Roark (38:50)
I think just it's like you really got to have your life together to be able to sleep in normal hours, eat somewhat healthy, get to the gym, maintain any relationship. It's, know, and just on the go like that. It's hard. ⁓ I definitely think even for me, who's not touring, but I do bounce around the country and the world a lot for different jobs. ⁓ It could be hard to maintain routine for sure.

Tim Sweeney (39:14)
yeah, I can imagine that that's gotta be hard to sort of compartmentalize your life from that energy to like, you know, going to do your groceries, even if you're not on stage, but being around it. ⁓

Tommy Roark (39:21)
Yeah, it's weird. It's weird.

You know, you'll be in a setting or a scene where you're like, that was crazy. And then, you know, as soon as it's over, you know, you kind of once that kind of high wears off of like, you know, that was really cool. We just got to do that. You know, then the next day, I'm just like, I don't want to be around anyone. I want to I want to have this day completely to myself. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want anyone vying for my time or attention. Like, I want to do nothing. I feel like I kind of fluctuate from when I'm

a lot of times I'm around a lot of people my social battery has to be on to when sometimes I'm home I'm like I don't want to do anything today or I don't want anyone to bother me you know it's kind of like it just yes it's kind of like a very stark contrast between ⁓

Tim Sweeney (39:58)
Right. Yeah, you want to have just a regular routine in some way.

Tommy Roark (40:07)
at the highs of some of these festivals and just being able to capture that. And it's so much fun, but it's exhausting where then the next week I'm like, I don't want to do anything. You know, I just want to chill.

Tim Sweeney (40:18)
So speaking of that, I'm

gonna let you go here, but I know that one of the things that keeps you grounded, I've seen it on your social media. You have a cool relationship with your brother. Is younger brother? Younger brother. So you're playing some golf with him in the next couple of days. ⁓ Tell me about that or just family in general that keeps you kind of grounded and those come down from those music festival highs.

Tommy Roark (40:28)
Yeah, my older brother. Yeah.

Yeah!

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. think one of my biggest fans and supporters is my younger brother, Nick. him and I talk every single day. ⁓

And ⁓ he's, he really, I could tell he really finds the camera stuff. I do really interesting. ⁓

You know, I think, ⁓ you know, you mentioned we're gonna play some golf in a bit. know, fun thing about Nick is, ⁓ Nick has Down syndrome and loves to drive the golf cart. You know, doesn't have his license, but loves to drive the golf cart. And... ⁓

Tim Sweeney (41:13)
⁓ boy.

Tommy Roark (41:15)
You know, he, we've had some, we've had some good ones where we've, we've ended up in a few places we shouldn't be, whether it's, know, we, hit a tree or we go over a hill too fast or end up in a pond or something. You know, we've, ⁓ we've had a lot of fun. Yes. He's, ⁓ it's all, an all terrain vehicle. I think as you would say, you know, the golf cart, yeah, it's an all terrain vehicle. can go wherever, but.

Tim Sweeney (41:27)
Nice Nick

for him yeah okay water

is not a terrain that's it

Tommy Roark (41:37)
Yeah, no, ⁓ we

have a lot of fun while I'm home. He's definitely someone that motivates me. ⁓ Having a brother with a disability and knowing that as I get older and he gets older, I really want to succeed in my career. So I can be there for him. Anything that he may need as he gets older, any support or just help I can provide him. It's definitely kind of what... ⁓

keeps my butt moving. know, kind of when I'm feeling lazy or unmotivated, I'm just like, well, hey, man, like, you know, you got someone that really does look up to you and admire what you do. you know, you're not just doing this for yourself, but, you know, you're doing this for him because you want to put yourself on a path to success where it may come a day where him and I become more than just brothers, maybe become roommates, you know, and I got to, you know, help him out with some stuff. And that's just part of, you know, having a brotherly disability. And ⁓ I'm really, really blessed to have.

Tim Sweeney (42:01)
Yeah.

Tommy Roark (42:26)
someone that kind of motivates me.

Tim Sweeney (42:28)
Okay, last question,

any, let's say career advice for getting into things you really are passionate about, because you are passionate about what you do.

Tommy Roark (42:34)
for sure.

No, I appreciate that. definitely feel that way. And I'd say the number one thing for me and for people that I see succeeding and at WellRespected Industry is to leave your ego at the door. There's always going to be people that are better than you and that's okay. You know, it's not a competition. You know, in the creative world, it's just kind of about expressing or showing what you want to show and telling those stories yourself.

And just like, don't be afraid to fail. Like I have failed so many times in my career. I failed in ways that haven't hurt me at all. I failed in ways that have cost me tens of thousands of dollars. And I prefer to avoid those ones, but in the most cases, you know, they use the phrase a minor setback for a major comeback. I've learned the most from those setbacks where I failed.

and it's positioned me and motivated me to improve things, change things, do things better and put myself in a better position to succeed.

Tim Sweeney (43:40)
Thank you man. And tell me where people can find you on Instagram

Tommy Roark (43:41)
Yeah, thank you Tim.

you can see both ⁓ my work individually at visualsbytommy on Instagram, and then you can see both my work and my team's work ⁓ at emstudios.co. Dot com was too expensive to get a URL, so we had to go with dot com. Man, I don't know how. Just, yeah, keep it simple. It's ours, we own that.

Tim Sweeney (44:02)
Okay. It's yours. You own it. You own it.

Right. No, I appreciate the time. Yeah, you too. I appreciate the time, man. It's really inspiring for me ⁓ to see someone like yourself doing what you like to do. It's a good reminder as I get on in my career too, so.

Tommy Roark (44:07)
But thank you so much for having me Tim, this has been a pleasure. It's always good catching up with you man.

I that and I'm lucky to have guys like you

in my corner that I can just talk to. Not only to say, know, old guys, but guys that got a little more experience than me that I can always ask questions to and appreciate you always being a mentor to me as well.

Tim Sweeney (44:27)
Thanks. Appreciate that.

⁓ please. My pleasure. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Tommy Roark (44:35)
Awesome.

Tim Sweeney (44:38)
Okay, my thanks to Tommy Rourke. Check him out online and give him a follow and check out Experience Media Studios as well. And if you see Tommy filming at a music festival, leave his camera gear alone, folks. Trampling all over a camera is not cool at all. My thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation, please like, subscribe, share the podcast.

And if you need brand marketing work or content development or strategy work, check out twinthievesmedia.com. You can also find my Aussie travel guide on amazon.com. The book is called Yank Down Under, a drink and a look around Australia. Thank you for listening. Take care.