"The Life"

This episode of the Production Prism podcast features a deep dive into the realities of the videographer lifestyle with guest Jules. The conversation explores the challenges and rewards of the industry, moving from the "invisible" labor of production to the importance of grounding one's work in faith and community.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What's up, y'all? You're locked into the production prism podcast. Today I'm talking with Jules and we're going to touch on the life. This is another episode about the lifestyle of being in this industry. In particular, we're going to talk about the importance of family. Um, we're going to talk about customer service and faith. Let's lock in. Yeah, if you could change one thing about the videographer lifestyle overnight, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

If I could change anything about the videographer lifestyle, I would say the late nights. Yeah. Why the late nights? I'm a I'm a morning person. Yeah. Um, I actually don't stay up late anymore, really. I like prefer to get up like really early um to get to it. But I would just say I guess more so the the idea of like having to be up all day and all night to try and get stuff done.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

So kind of just like that grind culture.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

I actually I I'm with you. I hate I hate late nights. Um, I hated the I hated the there's certain genres of music that kind of go with late nights. Yeah. And I hated those studio sessions. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And there are other genres of music where I had studio sessions and they ended at like 7 p.m. And I was like, bet. Yeah. But like I can, I hate late nights. Even when we on conferences, like, like once it gets to a certain point, I'm like, yo, I'm ready to be in the bed and I'm I'm ready to be like dumb for the day. Yeah. I don't care how much money we're making, unless we're having a blast, like, I'm I'm ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, pretty much. And I guess to add on to that, like, not even just the late nights. If it's one thing I could change, is that I wish it would, even though it's a uh a digital product that we produce, yeah, like producing videos, I in a in a way I wish it could be tangible.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Because when we go and shoot, people see that, but then there's the whole process that goes on after the fact.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

When, and I mean, which leads to the late nights, where you know, okay, you done shot all day. Yep, you come home, you not only you don't just like edit, right? Right? Like, it's not like you just take out your SD card now, all of a sudden you're editing. That's what they want. That's what they want. But it's like the reality is you gotta take the you know the media off of the car, you gotta make sure to back it up, you gotta make sure to do your asset management, you gotta get into your editing software, you gotta get it. You know, once you get there, I mean, if you have an actual process, you're gonna probably have multiple sequences, multiple things, multiple ways to like start your project, essentially. Yeah, and then you really get into the edit.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Yeah, yo, like um, I once looked at and read a book called Selling the Invisible, and that's really like what we do, bruh. Yeah, like that part of it is so invisible that clients just don't they don't understand it. Like they don't understand, like, yeah, you've seen us shoot, but like the day that we leave from shooting the product is not done. Yeah, like there's still hours upon hours of even just creative direction, yeah. Whether you did it beforehand or if you wait to post, you know, after you collected everything, yeah, they don't see it, bruh.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

And I mean, even the beforehand, the pre-production, yeah. I mean, just driving, driving to the gig, so it's just like, I mean, you know, the amount of hours that we put into a video or into a product that's invisible, yeah, you know, it's a lot of things that are unseen. So that that is one thing that in addition that I would be like, yeah, I would I wish that could kind of change, and not to change the work itself, but more so I feel like you know, when a plumber or like uh I don't know, somebody who's working on a car, like you could see if I come in and I show you, like, hey, like I gotta take this engine out, and here's the bolts, and here's the things that I gotta do, like there's no there's no argument. Yeah, they can see it, they can see it, but when it's you know, it's the hidden hand, they're like, oh well, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

And I even think like a part of what you're saying is like folks gotta understand that we're people, man. Yeah, like like you and I, we go home, like we both have wives, you know what I'm saying? I have a family, yeah. I'm sure you probably have a family sometime soon, but I'm saying, like, we go home, and at some point the work has to stop, and the person has to start. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and I think that's for me, that's the hardest part of it. Because to this day, I still get clients that it'd be random hours at night and they calling me or texting, texting me. And the expectation is for you to be like on it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

And it's like, I am on it.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

I am on it during working business hours. Doing working business hours right now. I'm on my wife. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

No, that's that's so real. I was talking to uh my one of my friends named Don, and um, so she works, uh, she still works a nine to five. Um, she freelances, but she was uh we're meeting up at um at the African American Museum tomorrow. That's good. And she's like, you know, when are you free? And I was like, one of my favorite sayings is like, I'm always free, but I'm always not. Yeah. So I mean I'm I'm free until I'm not. Like, yeah, I was like, even right now, I'm I'm chilling, but like I got like 20 things to do. It never is. But so it's and I mean I guess that that's life, and even outside of like the the freelance world, like you know, there's things that people gotta do, even if you have a nine to five. So I don't want to negate that, but being a business owner in general, I think just kind of makes it where yeah, you have all the time, but you you don't have any time at all.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Yeah, you don't. I mean, so how do you, you know, how do you balance that? You know, how do you balance like like you had just took you just took a trip, you know, a family trip. Yeah, and I mean it's technically part was during down season, yeah. But let's say if you take a trip in the summertime, like how do you how do you balance that hey, it's busy season, I got 20, 30 projects, yeah, that's either I'm working on about to happen, or need, you know, need to finish.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, balance that I don't. There isn't there isn't any balance. That's real. Um, I mean, one thing also, like, I mean, I'm relatively I consider myself relatively new to the media industry because I've been doing this about three a little bit over three years now. So it hasn't been like a 10-year span where you know I've kind of like this is a life I've been living for like an extended amount of time. Yeah, so I still consider it like, well, I don't think there is gonna be any balance for some time, just because I'm pursuing something that's you know pretty much new. But one thing I have been able to do the last two years is uh take a vacation in December, which is kind of like the slow season. And that kind of happened because my mom's birthday is December 18th. So last year, well, in 2024, we we uh went to Tulum. And since everybody in my family is pretty much grown, we were like, why don't we just start traveling in December? Because my brother Leroy, he's also a freelance um videographer. So during the summer, like that's I mean, really, yeah, any time uh during the middle of the year, that's busy time. Yeah, so I would say, you know, definitely trying to prioritize that, but at the same time, I wouldn't say that I've done a great job in quote unquote balancing it or have found a balance.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

So I agree. Yeah, I think I think I'm still struggling with that balance. I've been in the game for a while. Yeah, the only time I felt like I may have had a balance was like when I did work a corporate nine to five, yeah, and like and like those those projects stopped, but I was still freelancing, so my freelance stuff didn't really stop. But I'm I'm with you. I had to tell my um, I mentioned this on a on another episode, whether this episode goes before or after, I don't know. But I had to tell my family, like our summer vacations are really hard for me. It's not that I don't love y'all, it's not that I don't enjoy them, but it is very hard to unplug when I'm in the midst of like the storm, the storm, you know. Like, um, and I'm trying to be like, oh, it's cool, there's nothing happening. Yeah, and really my mind it's like, bro, you gotta do this, go that, yeah, you gotta write this, you gotta review this, edit that. You know, it's it's so yeah, like we've had some great family vacations, but I had to ask them, like, hey, can can we do a winter vacation? Can we do something in November, December, where I can really like unplug, yeah, I can really like lead a laptop at at home, yeah, and not worry about, oh man, a client gonna hit me up. And and some of these clients, and and I'm not saying like let your clients control your schedule. I'm saying I have deadlines that I've already agreed upon. Yeah, I've set with clients, yeah, and I've told them, hey, this is possible. So they're saying, hey, we want you know a mini doc with an eight-week turnaround, yeah, and that eighth week happens to be near family vacation or the week of family vacation, I'm not gonna tell them no.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Absolutely not. I mean, it's like, would you expect somebody or like your tax uh attorney or not attorney, but uh the person who does your taxes during tax season? If you calling them up and they're like, Oh, yeah, I'm on vacation, you'd be like, What? What you doing? Like, what do you what you mean you're on vac vacation? So it's it's definitely like that. Yeah, and I mean, unfortunately, there's not just like one season, it's not, and I'm not you know, not to say that your job is easy, I'm not saying that, but it was just an analogy, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, no, it was it's a good analogy because I mean, similar to us, they have a season where it's like, bruh, you got any accountants that you know, you hit them up during busy season, like, dog, I'm not doing nothing but this, yeah, and that's kind of how we are doing during our busy season. Yeah, a while back, I realized that I deal with something called creative decision fatigue. And this is think like you have a day of creating, you're either pre-producing something, you're going out to film, yeah, or you're just running your day-to-day business logistics, um, admin work, whatever. Yeah, by the end of the day, I'm typically like mentally drained. Absolutely. You know, like I got a standing desk, whatever. Sure, my feet might hurt a little bit. But like mentally, I'm drained. So by the time I get home, it's like I'm on autopilot.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Like I'll do, I'll do things around the house. Like, you know, I take care of my kids, uh, I look after my wife, but it's all on autopilot.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

But then I notice that like if my wife asks me, like, hey, can you um like can you help me plan like you know, dinner for the next month? Like, it's that's like uh trouble. And it ain't it ain't like I don't want to do it, yeah, right? But in my mind, I'm like, dang.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah. I mean, I feel like creativity is a muscle. Yeah. I mean, the way that you're exercising your mind, and even though you know it's a muscle, it might be in shape. I mean, just because you're in shape doesn't mean that you can't exhaust the muscle.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

So it's kind of like, at least that's the way I view it. Um, because I mean, I definitely feel like that as well. There's some days where you just like wifey's like, hey, yeah, help me make the grocery list. And I'm like, yo, I I like I can't even like I can't. And then unfortunately, you know, sometimes she gets mad. Oh, yeah. But it's like, yeah, I mean, I've exhausted a lot of my mental energy uh to make certain decisions or certain small decisions, yeah, small stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

But real. Yeah, and you know, I'm and I mean our wives are great, yeah. Because they they deal they deal with this lifestyle to start with, yeah. But you know, like, yeah, like my wife, she would definitely be like, yo, bruh, you ain't help figure out nothing. She's like, What if I'm not here? Like, how would you eat? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

It'd be like, I would just eat whatever.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

I hey, I'll go to the stove, get a pack of wings, bruh. I'm straight, pack of wings, pack of broccoli and some rice. Bruh, hey, that's a week.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah. And I mean, I wish I wish I had an answer for it, because you know, it's the life that we chose. It is. And I mean, I think it's probably nor uh not normal, but um to any business owner, whether they're in this industry or not, you know, there's just like a certain amount of decisions that you have to make in a day and like oversight that you have to have because there's no like system in place. And I mean, if you there is a system, like you're the one who's creating that system. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think it's very fair to be like, yeah, what did you call it exactly?

SPEAKER_03 12:32

You said mental creative decision fatigue.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Creative decision fatigue.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

This is not an official like um doctor PhD term. Yeah, I think I may have just made this up, but but you heard it here first. But you heard it here first.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

You heard it there. No, that's real.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Yeah, but I mean, I I just felt that. Um, but you know, I I don't know. In the same vein, it's kind of like trying to explain to your relatives, like how how is it explaining to your relatives like what you actually do? For instance, like we went to Miami. Some of my relatives, when I left, they said, have fun. And I'm like, okay, yeah, to an extent. But are you saying like have fun, like as if like I'm checking out going on vacation, or are you saying, hey, in between work, have a little bit of fun?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Um, I don't explain it to my family members. I mean, I my my parents definitely know, and not to say like I don't talk to my family and like my cousins and stuff, but I think I've just well, I guess in a sense I haven't had to. Yeah. Um, but I kind of just let them see what I'm doing. And I mean, if I, you know, I'm with them, then I let them know like that hey, this is this is what I'm doing, but I don't try and like explain it because not just because I feel like they might not understand, but because like I guess I'm still trying to figure out yeah what I do. Like I yes, I make videos, like I work with production, but for me, I'm kind of like big on like labels. So like just because I picked up a camera, I didn't want to be like, okay, now I'm a content creator, yeah, now I'm a producer, you know, now I'm a director. And you know, I and obviously by doing those things, you are those things, but like there, as I've been getting into it, there's so many nuances to these things and people that are doing it on on such different levels that you know, I mean, like I'm still trying to find my place, so I don't want to just be like I'm a cinematographer. It's like, well, yeah, I know how to make something cinematic, quote unquote. But I've never shot a feature film, you know. So it's like, can I consider myself a cinematographer? And I'm not here to say, you know, that's wrong or right, but I'm just saying this is stuff that I I think about for myself, and so I'm still trying to like do enough work to where I feel comfortable with whatever label that I decide that um I'm gonna announce to the world. So I just kind of let it let it be. You know, people will see the work and they'll have to kind of recognize it for what it is once I get to a certain place.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah, and it's it's you're not alone on that. Yeah, because Jalen was saying the same thing when I spoke to her. Okay, she was like, you know, she don't know what to really carve, especially with the the the term cinematographer. Because when you think about like, at least when I think about like cinematographers, yeah, I think about these cats as like I mean they Roger Deakins. Roger Deakin's like a cinematographer, like bro. Like he pulls up and you know it's gonna be nice. Yeah, I'm not saying that what you do ain't nice, or what what I do ain't nice, or what they what Jalen does, yeah, isn't nice, but but we all we all professionals, we know like there's levels to everything, yeah. You know, and uh Roger Deenkins is like Yeah, he's the top, he's top tier, yeah. Like, yeah, you're not gonna question homie like hey bruh. I'm something like hey, let me see what he's about to do. And you can go, oh dang, look at this mess. But and I feel the same way. I feel the same way about producing, about directing. Yeah. Um I mean, do you ever deal with like the imposter syndrome? You ever feel like you're not enough?

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Um, absolutely, because I think that I'm a believer that like, you know, there's there's talent and then there's skill. There's people who just like have an innate ability to like just do things, yeah, which is you know, my understanding of talent. And then there's people who have just been able to work methodically and gain the skill in something. Um, I don't necessarily think I'm the most talented individual as it pertains to like creativity, but I do think that I'm you know the type of person who's gonna work hard to gain that ability.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Um and putting putting my willingness to do what's necessary to gain it, um, I think that you know puts me in a position to where I feel confident. And I think just like anybody else, yes, I I um deal with imposter syndrome, but I'm pretty pretty big on faith, and I'm like, you know, I'd rather go go out and fail than not do. Yeah. Because it's like uh I don't know who said who has the quote or who made the quote, but try, fail, adjust. Try, fail, adjust. I mean, that's all we could do in life. Anybody who like, oh, this is the answer to life, it's like we're literally all just out here trying to do our best to figure it out. Yeah, so you know, I would I'd rather like die trying than not doing it all.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

So yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. Yeah, um, what was that? Try, try, fail, adjust. Try, fail, adjust.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, and I mean, honestly, like that's the the Mamba mentality. That's what Kobe said. Like, I forgot, well, yeah, he was like, well, one at the amount of reps that he would do. He's like, I would practice in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. So by the time that this person who is my opponent, if you're only practicing once or twice a day, but I'm practicing three times a day, after four or five years, I'm so far ahead of you that you you can't it's you can't even compete with me because it's not about how talented I am, it's about the work that I have done, and I'm so far ahead of you. So it's about the reps. But when people say, like, I don't know if you ever heard like fail faster, it's like, well, if I failing is not the worst thing because that's just kind of like showing you what you shouldn't do. Yeah, and I mean, of course, it's like, well, no, if you've just been busting your head against the wall, man, and that's not not good, but it's like that's my mentality. I'm trying to fail as fast as I can so that I can understand what works. And the faster I could get there, the faster I'm gonna, you know, operate on what works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

So yeah, man, as painful as failing is sometimes, I love to fail. Yeah. I've learned some of my most valuable lessons from failures. And that's I mean, that's industry, that's personal relationships. Yeah, like every like when I fail at something, I'm able to have this moment of reflection of looking at it and saying, like, hey, what could I what could I have done better? Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best course of action. Yeah, you know, in the business, maybe that wasn't the client I should have been working with.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Maybe, you know, hey, maybe I was a little too generous with you know with with budget or something like that. Yeah. Every time I failed, I've grown and I've I've I've become stronger.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Um, I even like just looking at folks like Kobe. Yeah, I'm a huge Jordan fan. I grew up in Chicago, so you know, Jordan, that's that's our guy, you know. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean D Rose, our guy too, but but Jordan. Jordan's.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Jordan's my guy too. Oh yeah. He's definitely my guy too.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Um, but I look at these guys because they have that gladiator mentality.

unknown 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

That's like if you if you would have put them back in time, they would have been the Spartans. Yeah. Like homies that's like just going crazy, you know. Yeah. Just it's so hard to comprehend what they were able to do, yeah, in a sport. Yeah. And I'm just so I'm so hungry to just take any any little bit of thing that they done. Like you just talking about Kobe, yeah, with getting in those reps. It's like, okay, well, how do I apply that in life? Yeah, you know, how do I apply that in business? Because that it that's the game, man. That's the game. That's the game. Like cats may say, oh, well, experience don't matter, but it does. Oh, absolutely. Like, especially, especially in our industry. Like, you probably could start off and be very talented, but talent only gets you so far.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Like, I I grew up, I played in a marching band. I played in and I played in all kinds of bands, jazz, all this stuff. Okay, it was cats that was talented. I was not talented on my instrument. I played trombone, I was trash when I first started out. Oh, dang. Like garbage. But I practiced and I gotten better, and I gotten to the point where those folks with talent were. And eventually, yeah, price surpassed some of them. But that's the same thing with this. Some folks are gonna pick up a camera and they're gonna be like salt off the elbow, like, dang, yo, like nice with it, yeah. But then sometimes people get comfortable, they get complacent in that in that mindset. But then you get a cat like you, where it's like, all right, cool, I didn't did something, but I want to do something better.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah, I want to be good because I did the work. And like, as much as you know, I might do something or make a film, do X, Y, and Z. Yeah, of course I want people to love it. You know, that's what that's why you make a film, you don't make uh a film or uh a story in general for like people to not like it. Yeah, but I'm gonna be like Steph Curry, like I'm just that good, but I like I know I'm that good because I did the reps. Like it don't really matter what else happens. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Yeah, and that you know, it's it's it's just wow, man. Like I wanna be always always talk about the reason why clients hire us is because we're gonna get the job done the right way. The first time, right? That's not that's not us going to reshoot. That's not us making a bunch of mistakes. No, it's it's like Steph Curry in at in the Olympics in France. They threw your boy the rock. Yeah. And it was daggers. And it was daggers. And he did it like so. I think maybe like the first or second time, you like you hype. But like maybe the third time he did it, like in a row, done.

unknown 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

And that's and that's how it has to be with production. Has to be like no matter who calling you, if you're taking that gig, yeah, it should be that. Execution, the way you show up, the things you do, you know, um, even outside of just filming.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

And I've always talked to you about, you know, the way that you present yourself to clients. Like, throw the camera in the garbage. Like, not saying, not saying garbage now. I'm saying like without the camera, Jules, he's able to be in a room with clients and make them feel like I'm confident that what's happening is correct. Absolutely. And that's important.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

That's very, I mean, that's I feel like hit half the battle. It is. Because I mean, I feel like we've all seen people people whose work is like, I don't want to say trash, but you know, just not it's subpar. But they're just good with clients. And I mean, that's a big aspect that I think that people should be aware of. For anybody who doesn't know my background, I was a service advisor at a dealership.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

So for six years, I was in customer service. A big part of my pay was dependent on whether I got good uh customer surveys. So, you know, you get really good at making sure that people, whether they're happy or not, they uh have been communicated with in such a way that they understand that like basically I wasn't the issue. Yeah, and or you know, whatever the case may be, that you know, X, Y, and Z. Um, so I think my my mindset has always been people focused. But I think by being in that space for six years uh before I came to the media space had really you know shaped my understanding of like how to work with people in general. Yeah. And so now that when I came into this space, I mean it's like second nature to me. Like I don't, it doesn't even compute, like you know what I mean. Like the clients there, you know, you you just gotta you gotta make it look a certain way, even if things are bro, behind this curtain, there's acrobats, there's booby traps, there's bombs going on back there. But guess what? A client's sitting right here and they will never know. Yeah. Because there's no time to sweat, there's no time to complain and yell and be upset. There's oh, there's a problem, solution, and that and that's it. And I mean, uh I don't want to say unfortunately, but I do a lot of people might not have ever been in that space to really like understand that to navigate it, um, and even if you've been in customer service, like some people just don't care, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

So yeah, because the that my that mindset, that's that's the difference between you know the Michelin star restaurants and McDonald's. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, and I mean, yeah, you can say food quality, whatever, but if you sit at that that missing Michelin star restaurant, you're sitting at that table, ain't you don't know what's happening in the back. Yeah, they could be hurling pots, pans, you know, like you don't know what's happening, you don't feel the heat of the kitchen, yeah. All you got is this nice ambiance, the person that's presenting themselves to you, yeah. You know, it's it's top tier, and that's what I always appreciate it because like with New Art Prism Studios, my company, it's that was the forefront of it. Like when I created the company, I always said, Hey, I wanted customer service to be the top thing. I got tired of cats when I was freelancing, people treating clients like like they're not paying you, bruh. Yeah, like oh man, they ask you, like, yo, like, yeah, clients gonna get on your on your nerves, but 100%. I think I think a part of why customer service is so important to me is is exactly what you said. It is being able to make them feel comfortable, even in a hectic situation. Absolutely because you got that rapport already. I mean, sure, something might fall through the cracks, but they're not gonna be as quick to take your head off if my experience has been great thus far.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Absolutely, and like when you are able to like really connect with the client, and I mean, of course, if it's like a first-time client, you might not have the opportunity. But if this is somebody, you know, either a person or people that you've worked with over and over again, you'd be surprised at what they quote unquote let you get away with. Yeah, not like you're getting away with something, but when something does happen, which inevitably it will, and you know, in whatever regard, now that you've done the work on the front end, you could kind of cash in on the back end if something does happen. Because I mean, just like I feel like I am the type of person that like I give trust on the front end, right? Like if you meet somebody for the first time and they they don't do it right, right? Yeah, you're not gonna believe that they're gonna do it right the second time, right? Like, why would you? But if that person does it right the first time, they do it right the second time, they do it right the third time, and then they mess up the fourth time, you're gonna be like, Well, I seen them do it right three times, like I'm gonna be probably more lenient. I mean, depending on obviously the the scale of what's going on, but like you'd be like, you I don't I don't think like let me see what's really going on. Like, are you okay? Yeah instead of like, man, I don't like this person. Yeah, and so it's like if you operate that way, and everything's not always gonna go right, but like one thing I also like to say is like I live on the extra mile. And I mean, really, it's a biblical principle. So, you know, I'm a Christian, I believe I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. So a lot of just the way that I operate, I believe comes from that. Yeah, um, but it says like, you know, if somebody asks you to go one mile with them, go with them too. So it's like going on the extra mile. Well, I live on the extra mile. You know, my house is my house is built there, so yeah, I already understand that it's oh it's gonna take longer, it's gonna require more. You know what I mean? If if that's already my mindset, then I feel like you know, the Lord is just with me and He's gonna take me where I need to go. So everything else is kind of just it's Kate, man.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Yeah, just Kate. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I love that. I wanna um I wanna get this question, we're gonna wrap this one up. Um so when you eventually hang up the gimbal, what do you want your body of work to say about the life you lived?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

That's a good question. When I hang it all up, which I mean I think I'm pretty far from that, Lord willing. I would like my body of work to just say that you know, I was passionate, that I had a story to tell, and that my biggest care was people.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Because, you know, I don't have kids yet, you know, I can't wait to have kids. Um, I want to be able to teach other people as it pertains to videography, but just in general about like life, um, to help people have like a strong mindset and understand that like you know, we were born conquerors, we were born, you know, to be creators, to actually like you know, build something and have community be together. So I just would pray that my work reflects that and that it makes people feel something. Um ultimately, you know, there's a lot of different things to feel, so I don't know that there's one specific thing, but ultimately that my work represents something that people could feel and be like, man, like you know, he was thoughtful.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Like that, man. That's big, bro. Yeah, appreciate that. Yeah, cool. That's it on that one. Yeah, I think we might have ran about I cannot see that clock from me.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Oh, I didn't look at what time we started.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Oh that's good. That's good, man. Appreciate it. I know we we kind of veered off. I'm trying not to make these too boxy to the point where it's stuffy, like yeah, yeah. Once we started kind of going off on like customer service, and to me, that's still about the lifestyle, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Um, yeah, I mean, just seeing how things connect. Yeah, that like, I mean, I very much yeah, I don't know what what what it I would have looked like if I didn't go through that first and then got here. Yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

No, I feel yeah, I feel the same way. I don't think anything's a coincidence. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't think that's how that's how God written our stories. Yeah, I think everything you you step through it because you you have to, yeah. And then when you try to get off the path, he'll put you back for sure. And keep you keep you going, like, okay, that's why I had to do this. Yeah, and like it don't click, it don't ever click for me. I'll I'll be looking back, like, oh yeah. That's why I did all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah, I'll be telling my wife, like, because she's reading the Bible, she has like a uh a one-year Bible, so it has like different scriptures each day, yeah. And she'd be reading and be like, oh dang, like, you know, Joseph, one of the 12 of Israel, uh, well, the 12 sons of Israel, like he went through a whole situation for a long period of time. I don't remember exactly how long he was in prison, and you know, went through the whole process before he became essentially the king or like the right hand to the emperor. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, I believe Sarah was like 70 years before they had the kid. Joseph then went through something. Yeah, so I'm just like, yo, like when we talk about our one, two, three years, oh, I'm going through something. I'm like, I mean, I'm not trying to wait no 70 years, but yeah, in comparison, I'm just like, well, it's I mean, it's temporary. Yeah, but also if it takes me five years to get where I'm going, ten years to get where I'm going, and I get to if I was poor for 20 years, it took me 10 years to get where I was going, and then from uh from 30, wait, no, yeah, from 30 to and beyond, I live like quote unquote a king essentially. Is that really a long time? No, you know, and I mean of course it's like, well, you won't until you get there, you don't you won't know, but like but I'll never get there if I don't try.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

So you have to look at I always compare my childhood to my adulthood. Like, yeah, like you think about the the time you were a child, and that's like one to eighteen. Yeah, how short that is to your adult life. That's real. That's real. And it's plenty of times when I was a kid, I was disappointed, sad, upset, mad I didn't get something, or something didn't go my way. I can't even if I try to pull some of that pain back up, I can't even feel it. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And just like how you're saying, it's like, well, y'all don't want to wait 70 years, but if I could have done that, that was 18, 18 years. Yeah. I can do 20 years on something and then finally get somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah. Still be worth it. It'd be worth it. It'd still be worth it. Because if it wasn't, you probably wouldn't have won it anyway. Yeah. Yeah.