Part of "Where We Live"

So there's this internal push to make a photo zine or at least a longer-term collection of images around a theme. I've been diggin' this idea of "Where We Live" for the last bit and I've got a growing pile of images from around the Oklahoma City urban core. It's certainly still a work in progress, but I figure putting the idea out there will surely help keep me moving forward with the project.

These images are from a recent walk around the Paseo neighborhood with my RB67 and a roll of Kodak Gold 200. No clue if they'll end up in the final project, but a few of these were more than just hot turds out of the roll of 10 images

On the Road Again

There's a good reason why it's been so quiet on my end these past seven weeks. 2024 was looking to be one of the worst years I've had in terms of work and finances, but luckily several jobs made it my way and helped put me back on track.

Starting that first week of August, I spent one day in Bentonville and two weeks in Orlando on a shoot with Walmart via Vista Productions. The last week of August I was in Indiana on a project with a scientific instrument company and working with clients from Boston and Quebec. The following week I was back in Bentonville with Vista, this time shooting content for a Sam's Club event.

Thankfully I've got a few more weeks of work booked and a couple other potential jobs on the horizon. There are also a few days in NYC for a Filmsupply event and the yearly NYC NAB show.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't considering other career options the past couple of years. It's been a weird time in this industry and long gone are those bloated pandemic-era production budgets and streamers trying to outspend each other in creating new content. Crazy thanks to the clients and connections recently that've gotten this freelancer back to work.

Heartland Emmy Winner

Stoked that I got a chance to be included in one of Cherokee Film and OsiyoTV's 2024 Heartland Emmy wins. This is now my first win and second nomination for the Heartland Emmys, one of 19 Regional Chapters of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences that recognize excellence in local and statewide television.

I've won several Telly Awards over the years, but I've never purchased the physical trophy. For the Emmys though, the actual statuette is included if you win. It's now Monday morning and I've put that fresh Emmy on top of the bookshelf in our living room. Pretty sure I'd freak out seeing an Emmy with my name on it near my desk staring back at me with the constant pressure of "When are you going to win another one?!?"

The Last Few Weeks

The last couple of months have had me bouncing around with work, summer stuff with the family, and other responsibilities, but I haven't put as much effort into this blog as I had been. Thankfully my health is somewhat back to normal after a couple months of a hot mess of dizziness and vertigo, so obviously that's preferred.

At the end of June, I was in Indiana with Vista Productions and DP Nathan Maulorico. It's the second year I've gotten to help shoot the International Thespian Festival at the University of Indiana Bloomington. We were filming on Sony Fx9s and Nathan's DZOFilm Catta Ace lens set. I'm still surprised and impressed with those lenses, especially given the price. I also got to spend a week on the SmallHD Ultra 5 monitor and that workhorse certainly won me over. Here's the recap video from that weeklong event:

I've also been wildly busy with responsibilities outside of working behind a camera. A few opportunities have opened up with consulting work given my MBA skillset. Hopefully, I'll be able to share more about those soon.

We'd been planning to buy an electric vehicle (EV) later this year, but an opportunity came up in late May that was hard to pass up. Given the current $7,500 federal EV tax credit and a 60-month 0.99% promotional APR, we were able to buy a 2024 Tesla Model Y. In doing all the math ahead of time given the trade-in value of Anne's 2018 Audi Q5, that wild 0.99% APR, the cost of gas vs. electricity, maintenance, insurance, an EV charger & installation, etc., I realized we'd be spending just slightly more per month with this new EV over the life of the 60 month financing period compared to what we were paying with her current car.

Monthly Costs
MONTHLY COSTS Audi Q5 (2018) Tesla Y (2024)
Maintenance $101.661 $25.002
Fuel $149.451 na
Electricity (kWh)3 na $30.00
Charger Cost4 na $38.13
Loan Payment $550.00 $700.00
Insurance $153.22 $163.22
Total $954.34 $956.35

1Based on actual 2020-24 monthly average
2Not sure I trust this estimate, but it's based on the July 2024 data at caredge.com/tesla/model-y
3Estimate based on $0.06/kWh

 

A few other things worth a quick mention:

We're in deep with FX's The Bear. It's such a great show and actually gets me excited about filmmaking. There's so much basic or boring or just bad TV out there, so anything that breaks out is just so exciting. Last night we finished season two and hope to start the newly released season three soon.

 

Just so you know, I'll get behind just about anything Donald Glover is involved in. Super excited about the Brando Stone & The New World trailer. The Childish Gambino world tour is opening in Oklahoma City this summer and I hope St. Anne the Wife and I get to go.

 

The trailer for the F1 movie with Brad Pitt came out yesterday. I've got such high hopes, but not quite holding my breath just yet.

 

There's good reason why Inside Out 2 has been killing it at the box office this summer. We saw it in the theater with the kiddos and it had me bawling multiple times. There's plenty to go into behind the business side of things and the value of theatrical vs. streaming releases, but the film itself is exceptional.

Creatives Building a Business and Community

It seems appropriate that I got ahold of both of these works of art around the same time. They both go into creativity and building a business along with a community.

First off, thank goodness for Gregory Kolsto's book The Art of Oddly Correct.

"...Oddly Correct is a coffee roasting company located in sunny Kansas City, MO. We've been roasting and serving coffee in our neighborhood for over ten years as of writing these words."

I'd come across Oddly Correct over the last couple of years in the course of my rubber stamp hunts. I'd had a job in Kansas City and made sure to stop by. They don't use rubber stamps, but Kolsto does run their coffee bags through a linocut process using an early 1900s block printing press and hand-carved blocks. There's a 2014 spruge.com article that goes into more detail about his block printing process if you're interested.

The book itself is full of some of the art that's come out of Kolsto's experience running the Kansas City coffee shop over the years. For more about Oddly Correct and a peek at his printing process, check out the video below.

My obsession with rubber stamps and coffee shop art had me instantly nerding out with his block printing process, but in addition to the prints, the book itself was chocked full of inspiration for other art kids interested in furthering their work while also building a business and a community.

"You don't need the best gear to get started. You just need to start."

"When we started, we never had the best brewing gear or the finest building materials. We endeavored to be as honest as we could with what we had... We wanted to be a small but mighty company."

 

Second, it's worth your time to go watch the new Jim Henson documentary over at Disney Plus.

There was quite a bit I didn't know about Jim Henson, specifically his advertising background and how he took advantage of those paychecks to make his experimental films. Good grief I'm glad to have benefited from his creativity via shows like Sesame Street, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Dark Crystal, etc. Thanks to David Bizzaro for the heads up about the film.

2024 Heartland Emmy Nominee (& Marketing Efforts)

Back in early July 2022 I got to work with the Cherokee Nation on a project about one of their citizens being awarded the Medal of Honor. I've already posted about that trip, but I did find out this past week that the project was nominated for a 2024 Heartland Emmy award.

From OsiyoTV's YouTube description:

A hero to countless people, Dwight Birdwell sees himself as just a former strawberry picker from Stilwell, Oklahoma. He is also the only Native American recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in the Vietnam War. We hear his story of heroism and the selfless actions that led to him finally being awarded this prestigious honor.

It's been a hot minute and an entire graduate business degree since that shoot, but I'm still thankful for the opportunity and I look forward to the next one.

Normally I shy away from straight-up self-promotion, but that's probably not the most ideal marking strategy. I've also got mixed feelings when it comes to participating in awards like this. This is now my second Heartland Emmy nomination and I've got a handful of Telly Awards.

We're told those accolades look good on a resume and I'm sure those statuettes would look good on a shelf, but they should also come with some kind of asterisk saying you paid for the attention. If I were to have a local project I wanted to submit to the 2024 Heartland Emmys, the entry fee starts at $135 for the primary entrant, and then $85/person for names 2-6, and $135/person for names 7-12. That doesn't include the $65 yearly Heartland Chapter membership fee; Non-members' entry fees start at $235/person. If you get nominated, congrats, but then be ready to pay the $125/person early-bird ticket price to the awards gala. We're talking $450+ to be a member, one named person on an entry, and tickets for St. Anne the Wife and I to go to this year's Heartland Emmy Awards Gala. It's hard to look at that cost and not think about how else that money could've been spent, e.g., additional on-set production assistants, a month of health insurance for me and my two kids, 100+ cups of coffee, etc.

2023 Heartland Emmy Nomination

Cost Breakdown of
2024 Heartland Emmy Nomination
Entry Fee1 $135
Yearly Membership Fee2 $65
Gala Tickets (two tickets at $125ea.) $250
TOTAL $450

1 Fee for one name only
2 Heartland Chapter Yearly Membership Fee

This is where my business school nonsense starts to kick in and I'm reminded of my marketing and strategy classes.

A quick Google search would bring back the idea that a business-to-business (B2B) marketing budget should be around 5-10% of its yearly revenues. For example, if my yearly revenues are around $100k, that should have me budgeting $5-10k/year in my marketing. Suddenly that $450 doesn't feel so bad – roughly 0.45% of my yearly revenue and just 6% of a $7,500 yearly marketing budget – and it also includes a networking opportunity with some of my target audience and a fancy date with my wife. All that said, it's worth keeping an eye on whether or not your marketing efforts are actually working. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you one client relationship I've earned thanks to the awards I've won over the years.

Dang you business school for actually helping me do what I'd hoped you would.

OU Grad and Resident Drunk Toddler

It's been a hot minute since my last check-in. I'd wrapped up with my actual grad school classes and got started on two different work projects. One had me on an ad campaign for an OKC non-profit I've worked with for years. The other had me out in Los Angeles on an industrial piece with a group based outside Boston. Both projects are now in the later stages of post and will be finishing up soon.

This past weekend I graduated with my Master's in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Oklahoma. The week before all the pomp and circumstance had plenty of events and opportunities to meet some of my online classmates in person. It's still wild being on this side of a personal goal I'd had for 15+ years. My mom busted her tail in getting her master's degree when I was young and St. Anne the Wife has two graduate degrees of her own. Education has been important in our lives and we're trying our best to model that nonsense for our two house fires.

Another big deal that's happened since mid-March is my dealing with some health issues. Obviously, the last few years have been stressful – grad school, work, family, and generally being alive – but it seems to have finally caught up with me physically. Since early April, I've been dealing with dizziness and at times nearly debilitating Vertigo.  

My resting heart rate had been around 50 BPM and a few low-40s, but my doctor wasn't concerned since I'd also been training for the OKC Memorial Half-Marathon. The doctor had me wear a heart monitor for a couple days, but nothing was out of the ordinary. While I was out in LA, I got wildly sick after what I'm assuming was related to caffeine, but thankfully that nonsense didn't flare up during my client shoot.

If you've ever dealt with legit Vertigo, you know how debilitating it can be. It's almost like a switch gets thrown and your sense of balance just stops working. My inner drunk toddler seems to spin up when I'm dealing with loads of stress and – unfortunately – coffee (caffeine). It's too bad those things have essentially fueled the last 20+ years of my life. Being in the dark and dealing with lots of motion can also throw me under the bus, so again, good thing I make a living behind a camera and I'm constantly paying attention to light and motion.

It sucks thinking about health concerns interfering with what you do to provide for your family. It's scary. I'm intentional about my health and I'm planning on being around for quite a while. I'm also excited about the potential of my newly minted business school degree. I promise you I'm trying to end this post on a positive note, but I don't have a neat bow to tie to what it's been like the last few weeks. Still, I'm okay with that.

See you on the next one.

Data-Based Insights & Decision Making as a Creative

It's not difficult to track data, but effectively using it in decision-making is something else.

Since late 2015, my Filmsupply stock footage portfolio has generated 1,276 individual licensing fees. As a Contributor, that revenue gets split with me (currently 45.1%). 2020 and 2021 saw my revenues up 150-200% compared to previous years, but those two years were outliers due to COVID-19 turning live production on its head. There was a solid period in that mess where my cut of that revenue was $6-7,000/month, but those days are long gone. 2023 was a dumpster fire and my average monthly licensing revenue was roughly 47% below my 2022 numbers. So far, 2024 is looking up, but I'm hesitant to be holding my breath.

The chart below helps me feel somewhat better in terms of trying to explain the significant swings in my licensing revenue. As the U.S. Federal Funds rate decreases, it becomes cheaper to borrow money. As that rate increases, borrowing becomes more expensive, making it harder for businesses to finance their operations. That said, I wouldn't say I'm qualified as an expert in this nonsense so I'd take this chart with a grain of salt. If you've got the time, go check out Tyler Vigen's Spurious Correlation where he features charts of correlated data that actually have nothing to do with each other. "Correlation is not causation."

Having a solid understanding of this nonsense has helped me to make better-informed decisions when it comes to investing in new film projects and/or equipment likely to contribute to my stock footage portfolio.

 

Investments in Projects & Equipment

As of last month, I've made a 13% return on the actual money I've dumped into my unfinished rubber stamp project. Based on my previous data, I was confident I'd make a decent return on the licensing fees from the raw footage. My film has elements of small business ownership and the existing clips in my portfolio around a similar theme have done well in the past. I also know I'd be traveling quite a bit while making this film and I've had a good experience with drone footage of city skylines.

Keeping my fixed costs low has certainly been helpful; I own the gear I'm using and I've kept my additional crew expenses to a minimum. Still, I've had major expenses including a week-long road trip to Washington D.C., a couple NYC shoots, and a trip out to Amsterdam with a couple local crew hires. This project still hasn't been released and could honestly be a hot turd, but the reality is that it's been profitable and will continue to generate revenue via stock footage licensing.

Another example is looking at the licensing revenue generated by my DJI Mavic 2 Pro. Currently, I'm not tracking the revenue generated by each piece of gear with my client projects, but I do know what gear was used for my stock footage clips. There's been a 53% return on investment (ROI) with my Mavic 2. In April 2022, I crashed that flying chainsaw to death and I replaced it with a Mavic 3. I do have some stock footage sales connected to that new drone, but considering I don't have as many clips associated with that gear yet, I can imagine it'll be a hot minute before I see the same types of ROI via licensing fees.

 

Forecasting

As an MBA student we learned how to use different forecasting models and I've done some nonsense with my existing licensing data, but it's nothing I'd lean too heavily on. It's important to remember that it's impossible to forecast with zero error, meaning forecasts are always inherently wrong. My stock footage sales haven't been exactly stable the last few years and a level of data stability is necessary if it's being used to forecast. Still, I have a good idea of where I'm at and what to expect.

 

Cool, So Now What?

Do realize that none of this nonsense is directly related to generating additional licensing revenue but simply tracking what's already happening. It's possible to increase the search visibility and potential sales of each clip through search engine optimization (SEO) tools, but I didn't talk about adding more assets to my portfolio. Now that I'm wrapped up on my MBA, I've got the additional margin to go out and create new works that could generate additional licensing revenue.

All this nonsense is helpful in gaining insight and making data-based decisions, but at the same time, I'm fully aware of the fact I'm still a self-described "art kid" out here trying to make creative work. It's a fine line trying to convey a feeling or tell a story while still being profitable.

Shooting Kodak Tri-X 400 at 3200 ISO

At the moment my default in shooting black and white (B&W) film is pushing what's typically a 400 ISO film two stops to 1600. Even when I'm shooting outside with plenty of light to justify the 400 box speed, I still push that emulsion-coated plastic those two stops. That extra sensitivity keeps me from shooting wide open on my Mamyia RB67 and instead lets me stay closer to the faster end of my shutter speeds – 250 & 400 – as well as having a deeper depth of field. There's also the ongoing fantasy that my family and I still live in Brooklyn and those grungy and grainy Lower East Side photos I'm pretending to make are just a short train ride away.

This past Friday afternoon I headed out to the OKC Fairgrounds to try and make something. There's seemingly always an event happening out there, and this past week started the 2024 Oklahoma Youth Expo (OYE). According to their website, the OYE is the "World's Largest Youth Livestock Show." Something like 7,000 4-H and FFA members and their 13,000 head of cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats. Pro-tip: The pig barn smells the worst.

The exhibition barns are ginormous, but the lighting always sucks. There are all kinds of weird light fixtures to try and match, so this made for an easy choice to use Kodak's Tri-X B&W film. It's also weirdly dark, so a great excuse to push that 400 box speed film much more than I would normally.

Try as I might, I couldn't find much of a consensus regarding the developing time for pushing Tri-X 400 three stops to 3200. It's also surprisingly difficult to keep my developing chemistry at the recommended 68° F considering the temperature of my house, so I've always developed my B&W film at 75° F via a Sous Vide machine.

Massive Dev Chart has been my go-to for quite a while, but seemed like it contradicted itself with its push processing. On one page they mention an 11-minute development time to push Tri-X to 3200 using D-76 at 68°, but then elsewhere they elude to a 27-minute development time. Then I found a somewhat official-looking PDF at what looks like a Kodak website laying out yet another approach to developing Tri-X film. They break down the development time according to temperature and push processing, but they were nowhere near the same development times I'd gotten used to over at Massive Dev Chart.

That's when I built out a spreadsheet – shocker – based on Massive Dev Chart's figures and their standard developer push processing compensation advice: +1 stop = x1.5; +2 stops = x2.25; +3 stops = x4.5. That ended up being 20.5 minutes in a stock D-76 solution while agitating the film development tank every 30 seconds to push my Tri-X 3 stops; essentially almost an entire episode of Rick and Morty per roll.

In the end, I decided none of us know what we're doing and we're simply making this nonsense up as we go. Next time I might use that official-looking PDF from Kodak. Still, I ended up with a handful of photos I dug from those two rolls of B&W film. Surely they'd most likely been better used by someone who knew what they were doing and saved me $20 plus the developing gear and chemistry used. If nothing else, I can use the "it's a vibe" phrase with the nonsense I made.

Got my MBA. Now What?

Oh man, if only I had an actual answer to this one. The whole reason I went to business school was this idea that as creatives, we cut ourselves off at the knee because we don't understand the business end of the creative work we do. It's not like business school was a golden ticket or anything, but now that I've done the thing, I've got a diverse set of new business tools that'll carry me through the rest of my career. At least that's the plan – and what I told St. Anne the Wife.

Being the analytics nerd that I am, I kept track of my time as a graduate student in fifteen minute increments. I'm proud of those 1,700+ hours of class and studying these last 18 months though I'm still bitter about that one B I got in Managerial Accounting.

About two years ago I got serious about pursuing this MBA nonsense and it's been a dead sprint ever since. I finished my last classes this past week and it's now the first Monday I've had in 18 months without a load of classwork. It's wild trying to realistically get my footing again as a working professional now that I'm not also a full-time student.

In addition to wrapping up my graduate work at OU, I was in the DFW area this past weekend with the OU MBA program. We heard from a handful of Dallas-based businesses like Texas Health Resources, 7-Eleven, and PepsiCo. I headed down early and got some face time with a couple of my contacts in the DFW area. Sai Selvarajan is a documentary filmmaker and an editor with Camp Lucky. We had lunch Thursday and talked shop about a few of his recent and upcoming projects. In 2021 he released The Unlikely Fan, a short documentary about his mom and her wild love of basketball. The film got accepted to the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and landed Sai some additional opportunities. He's got another film in the works and I'm looking forward to seeing what that leads to. I also met with Micah Austin who's been my go-to at Filmsupply over the years. Seem's like he's just as much an analytics nerd as I am, so we got deep in the weeds with that nonsense.

There are several creative works I'll start spinning back up this week in addition to pre-production work on a couple of client projects. Surely I'll have more updates on those as they get going again. Since I don't have any of my own nonsense to share at this point, here are a few recent podcasts and news articles I've gone through that are worth your time: