Tips for Great On-Camera Interviews

I’ve spent hundreds of hours interviewing people, everyone from the CEO of Intel to a homeless man, and still I fell into the Memorization Trap.

Earlier this year I signed up for a conference in Chicago because the main speaker was someone who had a major impact on my career. Leading up to the event, the speaker offered limited access to one-on-one coaching. This was an amazing opportunity for a small business owner and all I had to do was apply with a 3-minute video.

Piece of cake! What could be easier than grabbing and iPhone and pitching to camera? You see I have some unique advantages:

• I’m an expert at making great videos.

• I’ve interviewed hundreds of people.

• I’ve been interviewed on live TV.

I wrote out an outline, ran it by my team at Pathfinder to make sure the approach was good, and PRESTO! I’m ready to record.

That’s when things took a wrong turn…the iPhone started rolling and my mind went blank. I looked at my notes, then back to the iPhone, then back to my notes. A voice in my head said, “This is not going to end well...”

I started speaking, but it was like I was in a wind tunnel -- I couldn’t hear myself. I’d get 70% of the way through a thought and forget the next word: “What’s the word? What’s the word?? It’s the word we use to describe how we get clients….” Nothing. I took a sheepish look back to my notes, “Oh yeah, referrals. The word is referrals.” UHHHHGGG!

Cut. Start over.

I was stuck in the Memorization Trap, trying repeat exactly what I wrote. On the next take I made it all the way to, “clients”... and my mind went blank again.

Cut. Start over.

After 60 minutes I still didn’t have anything usable, let alone good. My ears were pulsing in time with my heartbeat, my throat was tense and I’m angry with myself.

Why did it feel like such a big deal? Why couldn’t I MAKE MYSELF do better? I’m just a guy sitting in his own office. I had all the time in the world to get it right.

Let’s take a look at how the Memorization Trap might happen to you.

You know you’re going to be on camera and that there’s stakes. You want to look good and sound smart, so you write out your thoughts. You review your notes by focusing on keywords and phrases. Then when it’s time to deliver on camera your mind goes blank. After the first mistake you feel even more nervous. It feeds on itself until you’re left feeling ill, angry, and embarrassed.

Often you’ll find that the Memorization Trap catches people at the worst time: A high-pressure environment with tens of thousands of dollars on the line. The classic example is when your organization has hired a camera crew for a day to interview your co-workers, or the CEO, or when you're trying to document a customer’s experience on camera.

With the clock ticking people in the room will try to help out: They’ll tell the interviewee, “Relax. No stress. You’ll get it.” The person will nod, laugh nervously and try again, only to stammer to a stop even sooner. Feeling like they let the whole room down, the interviewee berates herself for the failure. “Stupid. Dumb. What’s wrong with me? Just get it right.”

Someone will then try and help by offering a line, “Why don’t you say it like this…” For the first 5 seconds the interviewee does beautifully, all of the sudden just as you think she’s about say it just right, the two ways of phrasing the thought collide mid-sentence, and the words come out in a jumble -- like a slam poet reciting a terrible haiku.

You want to help but somehow can’t, and the interviewee feels defeated. They think, “I’m terrible on camera.” Or, “I’ll never do that again.”

I’ve seen this type of experience haunt capable and well-spoken people for years.

The good news is there’s a simple mindset you can adopt to help even the most nervous person overcome the Memorization Trap and do well on camera. It doesn’t require media training, an executive coach, or a psychologist to reconstruct their psyche!

How to get amazing on-camera interviews from almost anyone

There’s a couple of basics before you start filming:

• Plan on editing. Don’t expect yourself or your subject to deliver a 5-minute speech word-perfect.

• Have subjects look at the interviewer not the camera. Most people aren’t comfortable having conversations with inanimate objects.

Now that the easy stuff is taken care of, it’s time to help people shine.

1) Focus on conversation flow, not specific words and phrases.

People read nonverbal cues before registering what the person is saying. If my voice cracks while I’m talking about our value proposition, the first thing the viewer thinks is: “This guy is nervous. Why is he nervous? Is he credible? Does he know what he’s talking about?”

The best way to get a great result from someone without media training is to help them have a good conversation. The more comfortable you can get them, the smoother the conversation flows and the more confident they become.

2) “Coach” with good questions.

Have an interviewer coach them through the conversation while they are on camera. (This can be a professional or someone on your team.) Warning! Coaching is not feeding them lines. A good coach is someone who can get them into a flow by asking questions. It’s okay if they miss something. Keep a mental checklist and circle back around to it later by asking again in a different way.

Note: Avoid the scenario of supervisors interviewing subordinates. The power dynamic is too transparent and the interviewee will come off as defensive.

3) The Warmup: Start simple. Build to complex.

The easiest way to get someone into a good flow is to start simple. Don’t start by asking about the most important thing. Begin with what they had for breakfast, ask them about their drive to work or what they’re going to do with kids that evening. Then piggyback on their answers -- tell them about a similar experience that you’ve had or share what your day has been like.

We don’t expect opera singers to jump on stage and sing a song from Figaro without a careful warm up for their vocal cords, so why do we expect that an untrained person will be able to jump right into a smooth delivery on camera?

Tip: A good warm up can often do more than the “perfect” question at helping an interviewee succeed.

Interviews are a performance

Even though we don’t think about it this way, interviews are a performance. The next time you watch a great interview, pay attention. You’ll probably find that the confidence and flow of the delivery far outweighs perfect sentence construction or how many keywords they use.

A video with great interviews (and it’s funny)

When your creative feels a little flat what can you do to fix it?

Case-in-point: Interviews are something that I’ve thought about a lot because it’s a skill I rely on. I’ve had to interview everyone from a homeless man to the CEO of Intel. Interviews are used for brand stories, in testimonials, and yes, in documentaries.

Despite their versatility, 99% of creatives start to die inside when they hear the word “interview.” It’s easy to think about interviews like the cardboard of storytelling — you need it to ship the package, but boy is it dull.

How do you take something as common as cardboard and make it feel fresh?

Enter Little Tickets. With this video JetBlue’s creative team took the concept of the interview and made it special again.

I know what you’re thinking: Round of applause for JetBlue, they spent a fortune and made a great ad. Okay, okay. So you’re not JetBlue. And maybe you don’t have a bucket of money to build a Lemony Snicket storefront on the streets of New York (although, that is super cute).

You don’t need to be at that level to take a worn out creative format and made it great. Let’s nerd out a little:

Lesson #1: Do the Opposite

The creative brief for Little Tickets could have been, “interviewing prospective customers about airline travel experiences.” That sounds pretty dull. I’m imagining a series of adults talking in annoyed tones about uncomfortable seats and overpriced bottled water.

JetBlue made interviews fresh by doing the opposite of what you would expect:

• Instead of adults, JetBlue interviewed children.

• Instead of deciding for them, they treated the children as the decision makers.

• Instead of kids getting a gift, the kids got to give a gift to their parents.

They were so thorough at doing the opposite, that they even built a whole tiny world as the interview setting for the video.

Lesson #2: Plan a Surprise

Little Tickets also leveraged off of a planned surprise. At the end of each interview the children were given the actual trip that they had dreamed about. It was a surprise ending for both the viewer and the children, and the twist kept the interaction fresh for everyone.  

Lesson #3: Lead, Then Follow

The interviewer used a subtle skill that elevated Little Tickets from amusing to heartwarming. Can you guess what it is?

He listened. A good conversation starts with empathy and a genuine desire to understand what the other person is saying. The honest answers the children gave could never have been scripted.

Hive-five to Little Tickets for reinventing the interview!

Tagged: little tickets, interviews, creative

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This Video Made Engineers Teary-Eyed

Great videos are hard work.

As you'd expect in East Tennessee after a summer rain shower, steam rolled off the asphalt. The humidity was 100% and I'd sweated through my short-sleeved shirt.

Greg, the company's president, had arrived from the airport 20 minutes before. He was dressed in slacks and a blazer, and the location for filming was a 10-minute walk through a non-air-conditioned manufacturing plant.  

It was lunch time, stomachs were growling, and we were trying to find a spot out of forklift traffic with a nice background and tolerable noise to film Greg's line. He whipped off his blazer, wiped his forehead and said, "Okay, let me see if I can get it right this time." 

All that for one shot in a video that we filmed across 13 locations, 6 states, and 2 countries. Let me underline it: Great videos are hard work.

So why did Mueller Company believe that an internal marketing video for employees was a good investment? 

They knew that inspiration is exponential.

Inspired employees are loyal, they're problem solvers, and their enthusiasm is contagious. When employees are energized by a mission they become ambassadors for the brand, and they create an environment where a product will start to "sell itself."

After watching the internal marketing video employees said things like:

"It gives everyone a great sense of pride to see where we have come from and where we are going."

"The response to the video was extremely positive this week and people are asking if they can have copies to share with friends and family."

"Everyone in our group felt a great since of pride being part of the Mueller Company. Something I have always felt during my years of service, and it’s good to see the connection affecting others."

Working on a video that has that kind of impact is always worth delaying lunch and sweating through your shirt.

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See our photo blog for more moments and people that inspired us while filming Mueller® Brand Essence: 
https://pathfinder.exposure.co/mueller-company-reliable-connections

How to Make a Brand Essence Video

When developing creative for a video where do we go for inspiration? A while back we were asked to make a brand essence video. Here’s what inspired us while we were on the hunt for references!

AUDI - It Couldn’t Be Done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad6YiHeDhzI

WHY WE LOVE IT: Audi does an amazing job showing its company history. With a fun little voice over nursery rhyme that tells the story, we see the evolution of the car company throughout the last century. It makes great use of archival footage to give an authentic feel. Even though it’s 90% archival, surprisingly, it feels fresh and current.

Siemens - Wind Project 60

https://vimeo.com/102576431

WHY WE LOVE IT: Siemens chooses to highlight the people they serve and the people who work for them in this creative video. The video, filled with beautiful cinematography, has an equally beautiful transition with the video portraits of members in the community to the manufacturing staff.  Using wind to re-create Strauss’ Blue Danabue is also a unique way of bridging the service and the people it serves. It has a strong sense of place and community.

Honda - The Power of Dreams Failure: The Secret to Success

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAq6drKKzE&feature=youtu.be

WHY WE LOVE IT: Although this is the longest video on our list, this video is definitely one of our favorites. Honda uses a visual symbol as an ongoing motif to demonstrate failure and success. This references Thomas Edison’s personal failures with inventing the lightbulb. It uses real stories from race car drivers, to engineers and designers, all sharing their failures. What’s more important, is that it clearly shows the company’s philosophy and mission to be a learning organization in practice.

Dodge - How to Change Cars Forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gogQLQNrDds&feature=youtu.be

WHY WE LOVE IT: Process is everything. This shows the behind the scenes process at Dodge. We are able to see how the idea became a product. With fast paced editing, fun visuals and a great VO, Dodge was created a fun video that shows the company’s innovation. There was also a lot of coffee, and what’s not to love about that?

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All these videos were used as reference for a project we produced for Mueller Co. You can check out that video HERE!

The strategy the Chattanooga Chamber used to win “Chamber of the Year”

When I got up yesterday I didn’t know the exciting news I’d find in my email that afternoon. One of our favorite clients, the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, was named “Chamber of the Year” -- the highest honor in their industry. On top of that a special award was created just for them, the “Literally Perfect” award.

[The] campaign was all anyone could talk about at this convention. Every single person I talked to wanted to talk about Mr. Perfect as soon as they heard I was from Chattanooga. — Jeremy, Creative Project Manager

What does it take to win the highest honors?

It takes doing something that you’ve never done before.

After you’ve won awards it’s easy to look back and credit smart decision making and solid strategy. But in the moment, doing something you’ve never done before is risky.

A case-in-point example: One of the Chamber’s missions was to recruit businesses and people to relocate to Chattanooga. The normal way is a package of materials:

• Beautiful pictures of the waterfront.

• Some charts and graphs.

• A testimonial video from someone who moved to the town and liked it.

All those things are important, but if you’re a mid-sized city in the South, sandwiched between Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Asheville, doing it like everyone else is doing it may not be enough to cut through the noise.

The Chamber opted to take a risk.

They decided to use a format that no one else in their industry was using, irreverent comedy.

The result was created a multi-year communications campaign called “Literally Perfect.” The face of the campaign was an iconic character, Mr. Perfect, a endearingly oblivious spokesman who kept getting it wrong.

They produced videos that featured two fictional companies that were having problems, the companies relocated to Chattanooga and had wild success.

It worked. There was buzz, online engagement, and the media picked it up.

The Chamber learned that by disarming people with humor they could cut through the noise but they saw ways they could do it even better.

The Sequel Conundrum

Here’s where things get tricky. When you go to double down on your past success there’s a problem that I like to call “the sequel conundrum”.

The Sequel Conundrum is a war between two opposing truths:

1. You’ve built a world that people love, killing it would be throwing away what your fans love.

2. The death of every bad movie sequel is doing more of the same, think Shrek 3-4. Diehard fans will watch it, but it will never be satisfying like the original.

Instead of creating another installment in the series, the Chamber raised the stakes by taking Mr. Perfect into a new genre: musicals.

The Chamber also doubled down on their launch. Their best results came from Facebook, so they put 90% of their effort into that platform, getting smarter about how they pushed it out. They created a surround sound effect piggybacking off of pop culture spoofing the Oscar success of the movie La La Land, by calling it Cha Cha Land. They built a really smart microsite for the campaign: chattanoogaperfect.com. They went to the airport and welcomed real travelers with by cheering them as they arrived.

The results came back thick and fast:

• Nearly 100k views on Facebook.

• National press from publications like City Lab calling it a “city branding campaign we can get behind.”

• Facebook reach was up over 2,500%.

The good news is you can use some of same strategies in your company:

1. A few weeks ago we wrote about the free storytelling hack that both the Chattanooga Chamber and Super Bowl ads use.

2. If you think that musicals are big budget extravaganzas reserved only for Hollywood, they’re much less scary than that. See for yourself in the Making of a Musical post.

So what does it take to win the highest honors? It takes risk. It takes doing something that you’ve never done before.

Super Bowl ads use this free storytelling hack, you can too.

“Hello, ladies, look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me.”

You would have to be living under a rock, without internet connection to not have heard the reference above. Old Spice created something fun and entertaining to help reinforce their brand and make it memorable.

This is a classic example of the advertising hack that you can use too. So what’s the super-secret free hack that Super Bowl ads and other really smart advertisers use to stand out?

THEY CREATED ICONIC CHARACTERS.

What is an Iconic Character?

An Iconic Character puts a face to the brand. It’s like a walking, talking, living logo for your company.

Paired with positive comedy, the character becomes engraved in our memory, and what else comes with that character? You guessed it! The brand that it is associated with!

They have been used both for online campaigns, like the Chatbooks Mom, or for tv spots. It's even been shown that digital campaigns using iconic characters have outperformed Super Bowl spots (without the mega expensive broadcast fees).

So… How do I make one?

This is where you get to be fun and creative! Creating a character to associate your brand with allows you to open up a new world to your audience.

It’s like when you went to Build-A-Bear Workshop as a kid. You find what kind of bear or what kind of animal you would like, but in this case, you're finding what identity you want this character to have. Do you want a “Mr. Cool Guy” type character like Old Spice Guy, or someone who is a little bit more silly, like the Trix Rabbit?

Remember, this identity will reflect YOUR IDENTITY also. The character should embody a message that reflects your values. If this character is the embodiment of your brand, they should reflect positively on what you’re all about.

Lastly, the important thing is to keep them memorable. That’s what you want: to be remembered!

What will make them stand out from the rest of the noise? Do they have a catchphrase or tagline? Maybe they do something ridiculous like smash through a wall, and say “OH YEAHHHHHHH”. I'd give myself 1 out of 5 stars for that idea.... :-)

How can I use an Iconic Character?

Now that you’ve created this character for you brand, it’s time to put it to action! You can put your character through situations or scenarios that can prove your product or service’s worth. Seeing your character use your product in a playful way can motivate new people to check out your brand!

Your character also can become your spokesperson. You don’t need famous actors, athletes or musicians. You already have somebody in your back pocket that you can bring into the spotlight who is armed and ready to share good tidings of great joy about your brand to all who may hear. Gloria!

Characters? Identity? Memorability? All this seems overwhelming!

We get it. This can be confusing and weird. Especially if you're like 99% of the people we work with. They know a good idea when they see one but God-forbid if you have to imagine from scratch.

After all, hard facts, numbers and statistics are things that are easy to measure and comfortable. So it's totally normal if you feel that dreaming up iconic characters is out of your comfort zone. 

Not really sure how to do it? That’s why we’re here. Helping busy people produce amazing video content is what we do, and we can help create an iconic character cuts through the noise and makes your brand memorible.

You can check out Mr.Perfect HERE to see how an iconic character can be used in a campaign.

Now it's your turn to test your knowledge: 

MATCH THE ICONIC CHARACTER
Mr. Whipple for Charmin
Mucinex Man for Mucinex
Flo for Progressive
Mayhem for Allstate
Kool-Aid Man for Kool-Aid

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

Answers:
A. Kool-Aid Man for Kool-Aid
B. Mayhem for Allstate
C. Flo for Progressive
D. Mucinex Man for Mucinex
E. Mr. Whipple for Charmin Bathroom Tissues

Cha Cha Land: Making of a Musical

It's been just 13 days since Cha Cha Land was launched and we've got some great results: The Atlantic's CityLab.com published an article praising the campaign, calling it a "A ridiculous city-branding campaign we can get behind." And the campaign received 60k+ views on Facebook! 

See how we made a musical in a "tiny" mid-sized city with 100% local talent. Our blog has a behind-the-scenes stroll through Cha Cha Land: Making of a Musical. 

Watch “Cha Cha Land” a Musical Ad for Chattanooga

It's new. It's the debut. It's a musical. It's Mr. Perfect in "CHA CHA Land!" Fest your eyes, friends and cinema lovers. #CHAperfect

Film Synopsis: Last year, Mr. Perfect took us on a tour of some unreal companies who moved to Chattanooga and were unbelievably successful. Now he returns in a musical extravaganza. And this time he'll have to convince his toughest audience yet that Chattanooga is, literally, perfect for her.

2016, You Were Good to Us

It's awards season! Unlike the Oscars there was no major faux pas at the Chattanooga ADDY Awards. :-)

Last year we were honored to get to work with some amazing people, both clients and crew. Together, we won awards for: 

• Judge's Choice & Gold - "Chattanooga Perfect: MouthTime" - Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce.

• Gold - "Robert N. Noyce Award 25 Years" - Semiconductor Industry Association

• Gold - "Have It All" - Hamilton Community Church

• Silver - "2016 Showreel" - Self Promotion

Thanks for a great year!

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.

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