Pathfinder Films 2016 Reel

2016 was a great year at Pathfinder Films!

We made some great friends and reconnected with old ones.

We collaborated on important work.

We waterskied until we dropped.

Leif’s Best Books of 2016

BOOKS

The Godfather Notebook

by Francis Ford Coppola
(There’s also a great Fresh Air interview with Coppola about the book here.)

This book just came out in November. It’s Coppola’s masterplan that he used to film the Godfather and gives deep insight into his creative process. I discovered that Coppola was in his 20s and not an expert in the craft when he was brought on to rewrite the script and direct the film. They choose him because he was a “budget” director and Italian-American. Coppola spent months researching and planning in this notebook before he started writing and producing.

For those outside the film industry the book lays out how to systematically approach and solve a massive problem when you’re not an expert. I’ve only read the first 50 pages. So far the biggest insight is Coppola’s planning system for each story point: Synopsis, Textures and Imagery, Time Period, Pitfalls, Single Sentence. He wrote these out for every scene from the book. By the time he was done he had everything he needed to write the screenplay, get the producers to spend more money, fight and win on unpopular talent choices, and direct the film.

Coppola’s way of systematically breaking down a problem and distilling ideas turned him from relatively a novice director to the leading director in the industry in two years.

Extreme Ownership

by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

This is the book I've gifted most this year. The authors are a retired Navy Seal Instructors that led multiple missions in Iraq. I heard a podcast that Jocko was a guest on and I was drawn to his mental clarity when responding to difficult questions. Also, it’s co-authored by another guy named “Leif.” How cool is that!

A big takeaways from Extreme Leadership is the concept that communication should be simple, clear, and concise. The book gives dozens of examples how this is applied in training and in the battlefield. For myself I’m trying to apply that concept to how I communicate with my team both in the office and on set.

Another takeaway is that good leaders make average teams great. Jocko unpacks how ownership is key to becoming a good leader, and shared gripping examples about friendly fire and his responsibility as a leader for the actions of his team members in the field.

The book does an excellent job of incorporating examples from business into each chapter, making it easy to understand non-military applications.

There’s tons of other gold nuggets in this book. I think I need to read it twice.

Inner Game of Tennis

by Timothy Galley

This book isn’t really about tennis! It’s mostly a book about learning and how we learn. This book was written in the 1970s and its insights can apply to tons of areas of your life. I’m a tennis player, and it’s completely changed the way I play tennis and doubled the fun that I have on the court. For non-tennis players start with Chapter 2.

Biggest insight: Be kind to yourself while working on a skill, replace judgement with observation. Whether it’s losing your keys, spilling a cup of coffee, or waking up late we bark an order at ourselves to be better and fix the mistake. That’s the equivalent of trying to give your body verbal instructions on how to walk or breath. It’s not the way the body naturally learns or builds a skill. External commands often deepens the cycle of failure. Instead how can you replace disparagement with curiosity when building a skill?

Tools of Titans

by Tim Farriss

I got this book a couple of weeks ago but it makes the list for my top books of the year. I’ve only read the first 100 pages or so (less than 1/3 of the book). The book is divided up into three sections: Health, Wealth, Wisdom. The book is a compilation of 200+ interviews. Each chapter is maybe 2-4 pages and packed with 5-10 insights.

In the introduction Tim relates a story about a philosopher who was out of money and out of food. When asked what he was going to do about it the philosopher responded: I can think, I can wait, I can fast. 

The first quarter of 2016 started out very slow for us as a company. We chose to fast. We didn’t have enough revenue to pay ourselves for about two months. We could wait. We deferred everything that wasn’t necessary. We’ll cook at home. We’ll keep driving and fixing our Saab with 300,000+ miles on it. We could think. Lucky launched our first cold email and phone call campaign. We reconnected with past clients. We grew our network. We didn’t have to go into debt and we didn’t miss a payment to our crew.

Health is a topic that I don’t naturally read about. I spend 90% of my time reading about business, leadership, human behavior, sports, and economics. But often it’s a good mental exercise to learn outside of your habit loop. So I started with Health.

First insight, think of your health in terms of “training” not “fitness.” Being fit is a vanity concept that also associated with the word “diet.” Dieting by common definition is temporary. But if you think of it as “training” and eating to train. You’ve reframed the concept of health as an internal engine that drives your life forward, not just an outside way to look better.

Second, small daily habits are key. I’ve added 5 minutes to the beginning and end of my day that set me up for success. In the morning I do a specific set of stretches to fight the poor posture and muscle shortening in hips and back that sitting all day leads to (Spiderman and Cat-Cow). In the evening foam roller legs, back, feet to loosen me up before bed.

By making health a priority at the beginning and ending of the day, I’ve found it helps give me a positive outlook on life and gives me a big boost in feeling accomplished and in control of the rest of my day.

QUOTES

“Rough layouts sell the idea better than polished ones.” — Paul Arden
In a creative business like ours it’s tempting to delay, delay, delay before pitching concepts. But roughs are natural invitations for others to collaborate and imagine the final product alongside you.

PODCASTS

TIM FERRIS SHOW: “17 QUESTIONS” EPISODE

This episode can be a great goal setting exercise for the new year. During a 9-hour car ride Lucky and I stopped the podcast after each question and talked through how we could apply the question to our business or personal lives.

Asking yourself absurd questions are powerful: If you had only 2 hours per week to work on your business what would you do? It forces you to cut out all the fat and clearly define what’s important.

Another that I found particularly insightful: What’s the least crowded channel? If you’re like us, e-mail is the most crowded channel that we use to communicate, both inside our team and outside with prospects and clients. So why are we using it? It’s the least scary channel to reach out on and you can shift blame to another person if there’s no response by telling yourself that it’s their fault if they didn’t reply. For us the least crowded channel is connecting in person with our prospects in their office.

Are you chasing field mice or antelopes? A lion can easily kill and eat field mouse. But if a lion only kills field mice he’ll use more energy killing the mouse than he’ll get from eating it. A lion on a diet of field mice will starve to death. It takes a lot more effort and time for a lion to kill an antelope, but antelopes keep the lion fed for a long time. If we want to hit our production goals in 2017 should we try and fill Pathfinder Film’s 36 production slots with “field mice” or should we go after 7-8 “antelopes” instead?

RAMIT SETHI’S BRAINTRUST: “UNSTUFF YOUR LIFE!” EPISODE

This podcast is not publicly available right now, but you can get the book “Unstuff Your Life!” by Andrew Mellen that covers the same topic. Andrew Mellen is a personal organizer and theater director. What a crazy combo of professions!

Biggest insight: Having a junk drawer / junk closet is deferred decision making. It’s putting something aside while saying to yourself “I’ll decide what to do with this later.” Andrew structures organization this way:

• One Home for Everything

• Like with Like

• Something in Something Out

After listening to the podcast Lucky and I made a list of the things that we have no reason to keep. We have two plungers that have sat in our pantry (don’t ask why they are in the pantry) for over a year. Do we really need two? No. I have a car cover that I lugged around in the trunk of my car for years. I literally can’t remember the last time I put it on. It’s been years. There’s an old pair of jeans in my closet that has a hole in the crotch. I just got a new pair of the same jean, so why do I still have the old pair.

The common thread is that we told ourselves that these things still have value, maybe we’d be able to use them later, or maybe we’d find someone else that could use them. Both trains of thought are deferred decision making that crowd our home, not to mention our headspace!

A Trip to Silicon Valley

One of my favorite things about running a film company is learning about our clients. A little over a week ago we had the privilege of working with Semiconductor Industry Association, an industry association in the technology space. We worked with their marketing team to create video content for their annual meeting in Silicon Valley.

The semiconductor industry is fascinating. For the event we created a tribute video that celebrated 25 years of award winning innovators. They also asked us to come and film interviews with the leaders of many of the Fortune 500 companies that make up their membership — people like the CEOs of Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Intel.

A favorite moment from the interviews was talking with the three inventors of the microprocessor as they told their story on camera.

Inventors of the microprocessor

We had limited time with each of these high profile individuals so we needed to quickly build rapport and get great content. So that there was no distractions, I wore a well-fitted suit that matched the level of dress of my interview subjects. We had only 15 minutes with each person so we didn’t use lav mics. Finally, we had one of our team greet them at the door to answer questions and prep them on the interview format. These were important details that helped the executives feel comfortable from the moment that they walked in the room.

The tribute video that we had produced was played for a room of 250-300 industry leaders. When writing the script I spent weeks learning about the 25 past winners. There were winners like Gordon Moore who is credited as one of the fathers of Silicon Valley, and others who pushed the core science of semiconductors or worked in public policy. Any one of these leaders deserved a full documentary about their contributions.

Our challenge with the tribute video was to tell the broader story of the industry in a way that still mentioned each winner by name. For the video we sourced hundreds of historical images from each person’s life and produced a 4-minute motion design animation that highlighted their key achievements through voice and image. The audience members had lived and worked for their whole careers in this industry. We took the task of getting the details right very seriously.

The video was warmly received and a perfect fit for celebrating the 25th year of the Robert N. Noyce Award. For myself personally, being on site with our client deepened my connection to their space and what they are trying to do.

Nooga.com Features Us in an Article

We were featured in Chattanooga's news media this week! 

Read the article written by Chloé Morrison at Nooga.com — http://nooga.com/174254/local-film-company-focuses-on-continued-growth/

Watch: Turn & Burn

One morning in late July we got up at 5am and quested down river into Tennessee River Gorge, seeking smooth water and beautiful lighting.

The video clips in the above were spliced by the soft, thoughtful hands of Dillan Forsey.

Guide: Spec Work and Good Collaborations

Before working with a creative partner people want to know:

1. Can you help me?

2. Are you good?

3. How much will it cost? 

In my experience, "what's this going to cost" is the hardest question to answer. Both buyer and creative often feel like they have to go into negotiation mode and "win."

A few weeks back I did a teardown that shows how to improve the process and get good work done faster. Today, I'm going to to focus on what to do if you don't have a budget or you're trying something new.

CAUTION: Marketing is a force-multiplier designed to help you grow your results. For video, there's often a minimum viable dose. If you cut too many corners it's not effective and it might be better to use a different medium. 

Three Proven Tactics

Tactic #1: Change the Format
Videos are a high-overhead creative service; aka there's significant expenses beyond the time investment. At Pathfinder, we have a pricing floor for a live action video that's about twice the cost of a motion design video (no filming).

Just by switching the the creative format, there's a potential 50% savings. If you're curious about the actual numbers that we use at Pathfinder, just hit reply to this email.

People often worry that a motion design video is too much like a cartoon, or too childish. The truth is that the tone can be  playful or dramatic. The feel that the piece creates is determined more by the music, script, and delivery of the narration. 

Ask and your creative partner how this approach might look different and the tradeoffs this format.

Tactic #2: Trade Non-$$ Resources
There's times when you know that you have a TINY budget (aka below market rate), but quality creative is important. There's other ways to bring significant value to the partnership. 

Common trades (from highest value to lowest value): 

• Warm introductions to three people you know that can buy from them.

• Cross promotion with access to your network.

• Publicity with gameplan for prominently featuring and endorsing them.

Tactic #3: Creative Freedom
I hesitate to call Creative Freedom a standalone tactic. But when combined with Tactic #2 it can be a powerful motivator. 

Creatives love being able to push limits and try something new. Often they'll put way more work and promotion into these kind of projects because they're a breath of fresh air. 

Taking risks is a great way to get exponential results. Sometimes the risk can turn into a flop.

The Golden Rule of Trades
Cover the project costs. It's almost never reasonable to ask a vendor to spend their money on your project. It's better to plan on covering costs and put a little more goodwill back into the world. 

Wake Up & Fly #4: Wyoming

This is the fourth video in our Wake Up & Fly series. Dillan Forsey captured it while he was out West on family vacation a few weeks ago.

If you live in the Southeast, like we do, the dramatic landscapes and patterns that you see from the air can be a special treat.

How to Buy Great Creative

The budget conversation can be awkward when hiring a creative partner.

In most marketing budgets, whether you’re managing it for yourself or for a client, a video spend is going to be the largest line item. It’s understandable that it feels RISKY when talking about money and selecting the right vendor.

It’s tempting to keep numbers CLOSE to your chest: “If I keep quiet, maybe I can get a good deal.”

On the other side of the equation, when you ask a creative, “Can you give me an idea of what this will cost? Ballparking it is fine.” They’ll immediately begin to sweat and look ill. It’s like you’ve just poured salt on a slug.

WHAT GOES WRONG

By default, both parties wait for the other to flinch, hoping the budget and project will turn out better than expected. However, if you want to take your brand to the next level and succeed in the marketplace this is a TERRIBLE way to find partners.

At Pathfinder, most of our clients have worked with 3-5 other video vendors prior to working with us. Why did they leave their last vendor? 99% of the time they were:

• Unhappy with the quality deliverables.

• Blindsided with high hourly charges.

• Received inconsistent / slow communication.

These client-vendor breakups are lose-lose situations for both parties. What can you do to prevent getting your heart broken?

Many times marketing directors try to avoid heartbreak by setting up a more formal process, “We need five RFPs.” With this setup they think, “We’ll see how much this type of work costs, and then pick the vendor that’s the lowest price with the most deliverables.”

It sounds reasonable. So why do they still end up disappointed with the results and frustrated with a creative vendor?

RFPS ARE GOOD START

The RFP process is good at bringing you vendor options to evaluate. But it will ultimately fail to help you build a high-quality marketing campaign if you don’t talk about budgets from the beginning. Why?

Let’s dig deeper and take a look at how creative is bought. Sometimes Marketing Directors try to buy creative the same way they buy a loaf of bread. But unlike bread, is creative is not already baked. Bread is a finished product that you can pick up, carefully look at, and taste to know if it’s good.

Think about creatives as the baker.

If you select a vendor from a blind RFP process (no budget numbers in your RFP), the lowest price with the most deliverables will get you a bottom-feeder.

3 STEPS TO FIND A GREAT CREATIVE

1) Put together a simple RFP.
It doesn’t have to be formal, it can be an email. It should include schedule, responsibilities, and what goals you have for the project. This indicates to your creative partner that this is a priority for your team and that you’ve already discussed a plan for the project.

2) Put your budget upfront in your RFP; use a range, not a fixed number.
Plan your budget ahead of time, it can always be adjusted later. You’re actually more in control of your final spend if you take the lead on this. Be realistic about how much you have to spend to get great work and a talented partner. Higher value vendors have a budget floor where they know they can’t deliver quality work below a specific price.

3) Always ask how it would look different if you spent $10k MORE than the top tier pricing in a quote.
Most vendors will start limiting their ideas (and thus potential outcomes) based on the budget. Asking what it would look like if you spent significantly more will break your vendor out of a mental box and prevent your team from leaving potentially great ideas on the table.

Summary
Marketing is a force-multiplier designed to help you grow your results. By taking these steps, you’ve given permission to your vendor to be a trusted advisor. It’s also an excellent way to evaluate their long-term capabilities to grow alongside you.

EPB Fiber Optics Commercial

Watch the spots here.

Wakeup & Fly: Tennessee

The Tennessee River appears on French maps from the late 17th century with the names "Caquinampo" or "Kasqui." Maps from the early 18th century call it "Cussate," "Hogohegee," "Callamaco," and "Acanseapi." A 1755 British map showed the Tennessee River as the "River of the Cherakees." By the late 18th century, it had come to be called "Tennessee," a name derived from the Cherokee village named Tanasi. 

The river was a major highway to transport goods and explorers in the years when Tennessee was not yet settled. Some major towns that still exist today, and major ports at them were established by those who rode down the river, and settled along it. 

The river has been dammed numerous times, primarily in the 20th century by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) projects since the 1930s.

Historical excerpts sourced from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_River
Aerial footage all original by Pathfinder :-)

How to Make Good Videos Great

The struggle for most marketers and strategists is not how to make something that's "pretty good" or "that works," it's how to make something truly great. 

Here's how Julie, a communications director for a non-profit, measured the importance of making their video great:

"We spent 1/6 of our entire year's marketing budget on our first mini-documentary. We were nervous about it but once it was completed we realized what a great investment it was and quickly decided it was a no-brainer to produce another mini-documentary." - Julie, Director of Communications

Four Rules of Great Video

1) Identify the audience that you want to reach.
Are you crafting a film that your audience wants to see? The more relatable you can make your characters or topic to your audience, the deeper you'll capture their attention. You want your viewer to like your hero and identify with the choices your hero has to make.

Where does your audience live? (e.g. city, state, country.) How do they watch videos now? (e.g. broadcast TV, industry events, social media, mobile, YouTube, for work, movie theaters, festivals, Netflix, Amazon, etc.)

2) Understand the story that you want to tell.
Have you decided who your hero is? What's at stake for the characters? Have you painted a clear picture of what odds they are up against and what it will mean for their life if they achieve success?

A good story paints a clear villain (e.g. belief, idea, person, misconception, physical challenge). To make it great you have to show your hero's journey as they confront and ultimately overcome that villain. The more you bounce between your hero's attempts to succeed and their failure the more dramatic and entertaining your story will be.

3) Craft it well.
If you lose your viewer halfway through, it's possibly worse than if they had never watched your film. Because now they have a negative impression of your story / project / product.

Films must be entertaining if you want them to have a positive impact on the viewer. Make good art. All the elements have to work - story, performance, picture, sound, music, pacing.

4) Make a distribution plan.
Film can be a very persuasive and powerful tool, but only if people watch it. Once you identify and study who your audience is, then you can build a systematic plan to get them to watch your film.

There's many well-established ways (advertising and festivals are examples), but you need to find a way that works for the people you know you want to see it. It might be a one-on-one meeting, email, black tie event, sponsorship, media coverage, paid advertising, or guest post on a national blog.

---

One film I love that knocked the Four Rules of Great Video out of the park was by Extra Gum:

Chattanooga Perfect - The Making of the Films

For a behind-the-scenes view at what it is like to film a commercial in Gig City, check out our photo blog from "MouthTime" and "Undo Button" for the ChattanoogaPerfect.com campaign.

If you curious how the campaign did, read more here. 

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20k Views in a Week, Half Organic

Yesterday, the Chattanooga Chamber launched a second PSA film for the ChattanoogaPerfect.com campaign. It's an economic development campaign that's designed to attract tech and manufacturing companies to relocated in Chattanooga.

To date there's been over 20,000 visits to the landing page, with 40% of the traffic coming from out of the region (a big success for Economic Development team), and it's almost half organic. There's also playful social elements like a kissing quiz and listicle.

Undo is the second film to feature "Mr. Perfect," an overconfident and unaware narrator, telling the story of a fictional business that's had unbelievable success after relocating to Chattanooga.  

Also, we're honored to announce that Travelier Anthem, a brand story that we filmed last Fall, won Best in Show at the local ADDY Awards and a Silver regionally. (Below are a few pictures of Chris and friends that commemorate the moment.) 

Chattanooga’s New Ad Campaign

Pathfinder has partnered with our friends from the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce for over 5 years. And we were super excited when the Chamber's economic development team came to us in January with the brief for a series of slightly irreverent PSAs, designed to grab national attention for "what's really going on in Chattanooga."

See what's really happening in Chattanooga

Our creative team brainstormed with the Chamber developing the "Chattanooga, Literally Perfect" campaign. The campaign features "Mr. Perfect," an overconfident and unaware narrator, telling the story of a fictional business that's had unbelievable success after relocating to Chattanooga. We couldn't have done it without warm support from the business community - our friends at Whiteboard.is generously hosted us in their new office space for production of "MouthTime," the first PSA in the series.

Watch the Film

Literally Perfect is not that far from reality - see what's really happening in Chattanooga: chattanoogaperfect.com 0 Likes

Our Trek on Mt. Kilimanjaro

Happy Friday! Many of you know that Lucky and I where recently in East Africa climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a photo blog of our adventure. Enjoy the weekend!

Your friend at Pathfinder,

Leif

Tips for Making an Explainer Video

You know video is "must have" in your online marketing mix, but when things get busy it's tempting to cut corners. A quick online search reveals scores of discount providers competing with each other in a race to the bottom.

Example of Bad Video

Anatomy of a Flop

A flop is born when you decide that you don't have time for proper creative. "We just need a video, it doesn't have to be perfect. Can't we just hire a company to make a quick Explainer video?" 

The problems start with the script. Exhibit A's script is the same rehashed formula that 95% of Explainer videos use:

• "Are you having trouble losing weight?" -or- "Finding a car loan is hard." 

• Followed by, "Have you tried [insert buzzword features X, Y, and Z]?"

• Ending with a utterly horrible call-to-action borrowed from an infomercial, "Call today. Bulk orders enjoy deep discounts." - or- "Don't wait, lose 100lbs overnight!"

Red Flags

With a cardboard script it doesn't matter if you have snazzy visuals, high-quality animation, or hire a celebrity voice - it's a flop. Ask yourself, was this written for a real person or for a "key market demographic?" Your customers don't love working with you because of trending keywords or deep-discount pricing.  

How to Avoid a Flop

Instead, craft a script that's based on your understanding of why your customers buy from you. What keeps them coming back? Write it for a real person. Think of one of your best customers by name. How do you talk to them when you want to inspire them, solve a problem, set goals, or plan for the future?

Recently we worked with Exio, a service that helps owners sell their company. The script and video we created are structured similar to the first example but the language is much more nuanced. It's framed from a business owner's perspective addressing the common pain points that owners experience when trying to divest.

Example of a Better Video

Let's look at how the language is working: 

1) It describes the problem. 
"Personal networks." When an owner tries to sell a company the first place they try selling is to a competitor. That's often a dead end.
"Cheap listings." Frustrated owners turn to free listings, hoping somehow the right buyer is going to find them.

2) It alludes to how life could be better. 
"Systematic way." An owner's deepest fear is that no knows the business like they do. We use language to comfort them. With Exio there's an established process and methodical steps to acquisition.
"Increase valuation...where multiple buyers competed to make you an offer." An owner's biggest hope is that other people will recognize the real worth of their company. Exio's goal is to make sure the world sees and appreciates that.
"Shorten time on the market." An owner's major risk is spending years trying to sell their company while it slowly dies, so we're reassuring them that Exio understands that risk and has a plan to mitigate it.

3) It confidently calls them to action. 
"We'll do the work, you pick the right fit." The phrasing is subtle, and it reassures the owner that they'll stay in control of the final decision to sell. 

Now you know a few pitfalls to watch out for, so how do you find the right video agency to help you?

Who to Hire

Find a provider that's interested in your business first, and your production needs second. If your provider jumps straight into talking about cameras, style of the visuals, production days, and the size of crew; you've got the wrong provider. They're already blindly thinking about what's in it for them, not what will help you accomplish your goals. 

Hire a video provider that you want to work with across your product / service offerings. By doing this you're committing to a longer term relationship. That partner can afford to invest time in learning about your industry, your customers and what you value. You've given them permission to come alongside you and think big picture as a trusted advisor. 

Applying these two mental frameworks when deciding who to work with is a win for everyone. At Pathfinder, we've seen clients say things like: 

"Other providers look at us as a client to bill hours, with you there's trust. You able to see from the outside where we might have weakness or room for improvement. We don't have to micro-manage, instead we can focus on expanding the company."  -Roald, Founder & CEO of Exio

Travelier: The Making of the Film

A few weeks ago I sent you a peek at our newest film, "Anthem" by Travelier. Today, you can take a sneak peak at how we made it. We've been using the photo story platform Exposure.co for all of our BTS (industry lingo for "behind-the-scenes"). The folks at Exposure loved it so much it's one of their featured posts!

New Film: Spend Less Time Looking Down

What company wants you to spend less time with their product? The team at Travelier, a new discovery engine for the traveler, took the contrarian approach. They believe that you should spend less time in an app searching and more time experiencing life. That's why recommendations are tailored to each traveler - if you're into fly fishing, you're not going to be bombarded with alerts for the aquarium. Our team was excited to partner with Travelier to craft a brand story for their launch. We were tasked with capturing their mission to help travelers live a rich life in a 120-second anthem film. Scenes from the film are used as key branding elements within the Travelier discovery engine, press kit, and messaging on social platforms. Nine days of production, three weeks in post, featuring some of our favorite spots in East Tennessee - we're excited for you to see the film! Read the article - Nooga.com: Chattanooga companies help with launch of national travel website