They say if you're not embarrassed of your first product then you launched too late. Well...I guess that means we launched too late. Because we're absolutely stoked with this very first video we ever produced, even if we had zero technical skills or business acumen at the time.
Meet Harry. At the time he was a pilot instructor at Thaden Field. We thought it would be fun to follow him for a day and just see what his life was like. We were right.
While we're at it - just check out this still from the next video we made with Emma, another pilot over at Thaden Field. Don't question the quality because THIS IS CINEMA. THIS IS ART!
This probably goes without saying but we shot this one an Iphone 7.
Just Make Things.
Listen in all seriousness, the reason we love this video (and Emma’s too, btw…) is because we made this for sheer pleasure. We weren’t trying to get paid. We were trying to make sales. We weren’t trying to even impress anyone. We just knew we wanted to start playing, and that this subject was going to be a super fun one, so we went for it. We knew nothing about lighting or color grading or sound design or marketing. We had one working camera between the two of us,(which was primarily used for photography at that point), an iPhone, a fun idea, and a few laughs.
The point wasn’t to get anything out of it, it was to give. We had access to a unique life (Harry is Hilary’s husband), and we had a hunch that some people in that world would, at the very least, find our little video charming in some way or another. What we didn’t know is that it was going to actually make grown men cry.
And I’ll tell you the biggest lesson I personally learned as a filmmaker, creative person, story teller, and even business owner for that matter…
It’s not the gear. It’s not even the talent or skill. It’s the perspective. It’s the joy and the passion. It’s the drive to play and do something for others. THAT’S what moves people. THAT’S what gets you real jobs. THAT’S what keeps people coming back. I’ll write a much longer post about this exact thing one day, but for now, that’s the main takeaway.
That’s not to say that talent skill and proper gear aren’t important. At some point you really need to hone your craft and be professional, but that’s the icing and the sprinkles and pretty packaging – the real meat of a thing is in the love and the fun. And if you just keep doing things you love and you think are fun, eventually the skill will catch up to the joy until they collide and then you’re the real deal, posting about your humble beginnings on the internet…
And you wanna know WHY
you should just make things?
Because of this silly little passion project, we caught the attention of an incredible pilot named Christian Bolton, who, at the time, was working for Game Composites. Yes, THAT Game Composites.
Christian, a Red Bull acrobatic airplane pilot from Chile, saw our little video and asked us to make a video for his company, an aerial airplane manufacturer who needed to show off their impressive planes and skills at freaking OshKosh. That’s an INSANE job opportunity for even the most seasoned of filmmakers. I’m talking actual BUCKET LIST job. You know what else it got us? A paid gig with Fly OZ. Yes, THAT Fly OZ. And what did that job get us? Our first retainer clients with Women of OZ. Yes, THAT Women of OZ. And so on and so on…
All because we just started making stuff we liked.
