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Scott owns a bakery, a pressure washing company, a video production company, and even more businesses. He's also a husband and a father. In our conversation, we discuss how he's been able to juggle his multiple businesses and grow his YouTube channel.
Watch the video: https://youtu.be/8fbfO0APLlE
Scott
https://twitter.com/scottwmckenna
https://youtube.com/scottmckenna
Dave
https://twitter.com/davemaze
https://youtube.com/DaveMaze222
Note: Golden Hour transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. Timecode also isn't perfectly accurate.
00:00.00
davemaze
A and okay cool I like the guitars by the way. Ah.
00:05.22
scottmckenna
Hey thanks I got a bunch of them all around this studio but this is the problem is my other angles way better. But when I'm using my audio interface and everything it's just annoying to shoot that way. So I only shoot like with this direction that you can't see as a backdrop that looks better when I actually do like videos. But.
00:15.65
davemaze
Yeah.
00:24.66
scottmckenna
It doesn't work good when I'm doing something that has to be like connected to the computer. Yeah sweet. It's awesome. Yeah.
00:28.93
davemaze
I've got my my last pa here. It's got p ninety in there. It's really nice it. This thing rips nice thick 50 s neck on it. It's an epiphone but sounds great.
00:40.61
scottmckenna
Sweet.
00:45.86
davemaze
Cool went so here we are early morning. Um, let's do this thing I know yeah I've been up since six o'clock yeah exactly? Um, okay.
00:52.20
scottmckenna
We have kids This isn't that early of the morning. Yeah, exactly this is like about lunchtime.
01:05.34
davemaze
We go hello welcome to another episode of the golden hour podcast I'm your host Dave Mays and today's guest is Scott Mckinnna thank you Scott for coming on the show. Dude this is awesome I've heard about you I've seen your stuff for years and I've kind of been following you online on Twitter. Um.
01:11.20
scottmckenna
Hey hey hey thanks for having me.
01:23.23
scottmckenna
I Know now it's good to finally meet with you. It's we It's weird how you have like internet friends and people that you kind of just chat with but half the time you never ever even meet them or even see their face so it's it's good to do this.
01:23.45
davemaze
But this is the first time we've actually met I believe.
01:34.14
davemaze
Ah, yeah, exactly Well you're still not seeing my face because you're looking at the camera lens not the not the ah ah yeah, we're we're supposed to be professional content creators here. We look at the lens man. That's what we do around here.
01:39.19
scottmckenna
I Know technically yes you are over here but it would be so weird if people like I don't like those kind of interviews personally where someone's supposed to be talking to someone but you know you get what me I know I know exactly.
01:53.74
davemaze
Um, so Scott ah yeah I mean this is really the first time we've met so I want to hear your story like I've I've seen your stuff with the wedding filmmaker with Youtube um, you know, bouncing around with different cameras I really was following your panasonic g h five ah ah drama.
02:08.50
scottmckenna
Ah, the the good old days.
02:12.61
davemaze
Yeah, the good old days of all that that's kind of when I got started on Youtube and you were doing a lot of content on the GHFive but yeah I mean just tell me who you are where you from what you do? How you started. Let's just let's just get started there.
02:14.49
scottmckenna
That is.
02:24.90
scottmckenna
Yeah I mean might I'll give you a long story but I was ah or I should say the short story. The long story short. The I was a full time musician from 2002 until 2013 and during that time we used to travel quite a bit all over the country and I naturally music was my thing but I always kind of had a camera with me or always was doing something that was just recording the stuff that we you know had at the time obviously Youtube wasn't even in existence when we first started so all that footage to this day I don't even know where it is but. Had like the little flip minow cameras and I'd always be carrying around something with me so I could just kind of document life cause I just thought it was fun but I didn't really have any place to share it at that time and then by the time Youtube came I really still wasn't into Youtube or knew what that was so I really just don't have any of the footage but over the course of doing music and. Doing video and all that I kind of started getting a little bit more into video started to get a little bit less into music just kind of the everyday just grind of of doing colleges and festivals and bars and I just kind of got tired of it. So I moved out to Arizona in 2010 and we going we were attending actually a church at that time and they had this little like film crew that came in like it was ah I called a film crew but it was like just basically what I would do these days just kind of a small little crew of 2 people that were making some sort of little thing about the church or whatever and I was kind of just intrigued watching them because I knew some video stuff but didn't know a lot watched them do this thing and I was like I feel like feel like I could. could do that like that that looks fun like I feel like I could do that as a career and I looked on their website and they were making wedding films and I was like well that would be cool cause I could do that on the weekends I don't have to really worry about you know my day job even though my day job was just music. So really I wasn't make it any money at all. But I kind of just watched them I learned a little bit about it just figured hey i. Think I can do that cause I understood video I understood editing I kind of had done some of it obviously with the last bunch of years. So I randomly decided to just start doing wedding videos and in 2013 I did my first one and then did that for all the way up until present until I just recently shut that down. But I just kind of got into that. started doing it then I started then I went full time in 2017 and then I started scaling creative which is more of the commercial video company and then for Lc Studios was the wedding company and um, then I'm just naturally like an entrepreneurial type of person. So from there I have. Own a pressure washing company now and then I own a bakery and a coffee shop and then I do some Youtube stuff whenever I can too so I just like to keep busy. That's kind of the that's the the short version of the story even though it wasn't super short.
05:00.90
davemaze
Dude I wasn't I wasn't expecting the pressure washer and baker part of that. That's amazing I Think that's that's common in entrepreneurs just like you just you see an opportunity to make money and you you.
05:02.48
scottmckenna
Did everything. It's all I'm all over the place. That's yeah.
05:16.69
scottmckenna
Yeah, oh it definitely is and to me though, it's weird because I'm not I don't do it for the money at all like I literally do it because I just enjoy the the challenge of doing something different and for me more than anything. It's just the the boredom side of things honestly I get really bored.
05:17.20
davemaze
Jump on it and it's easy to like overextend yourself and kind of spread yourself too thin.
05:36.80
scottmckenna
With things fast and I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs tend to get that way or just maybe it's just me but I just naturally start something new because I just kind of I know that eventually I'm going to get tired of something and I don't want to get to the point where when I'm tired of what makes me money then what? So my thing has been like to so.
05:39.43
davemaze
No yeah, that's why.
05:55.60
scottmckenna
Super diversify in in different industries and in different entirely different categories of things so that naturally one day if I get bored doing video I just go and I do pressure washing with my pressure washing company and then I run to the bakery and it like it's just random, but it actually keeps me from not. Being so bored with 1 thing but also I feel like it makes me better at that thing when I come back because I can appreciate other sides of it. It's not just like every day I'm behind a camera where I edit or I just get kind of really tired of things and so it helps me to kind of stay fresh.
06:27.18
davemaze
That's interesting. Yeah I mean what? what are some tips that you think a lot of video and photography- based creators who listen to this show can learn from that having kind of the non-creative work as ah is is there anything that you have talked to people about like finding little.
06:36.82
scottmckenna
Um, yeah.
06:44.32
davemaze
Jobs or or hobbies that aren't even related to a creative.
06:45.77
scottmckenna
Yeah I mean for me I mean obviously one one side of things that I like about obviously doing other things is diversifying incomes I mean I feel like covid was obviously a big part of a big kind of lightning or light bulb moment for people to realize that you can. Obviously randomly lose incomes really quickly depending on the industries you're in so for me that was part of it of like I wanted to obviously diversify income so it wasn't just you know, entirely on one company. But then I do think that there's. Something to be said about a lot of times like people start kind of with a side hustle like photography or they start with video and it's kind of isn't their main thing. They enjoy it and they kind of get into it and then they eventually start getting client work and client work and client work and then eventually they I think come to a point where they realize they're barely making anything for themselves and they're just making. Everything for clients only and it's funny cause when you first go into a business you're going in as or your own business. You're going in with the idea of like I just want to have freedom and I want to be able to do what I want with my schedule. Whatever I want and then as soon as you get more and more and more and more clients you very quickly realize that actually all the freedom. Really kind of gone to a point if you don't if you're not careful because now you're working for 10 bosses at the same time because your clients are the people that obviously pay you and if you don't take care of your clients then you lose your income so it's this weird balance of I think people really love the idea of being free in their time. But. Entrepreneurship really isn't that half the time and being a business owner is kind of sometimes entirely the opposite. So I mean I I love recommending to people that you do have some other things that you do in life whether it makes you money or not even if it's just a hobby that you make sure that you stay active with. Just keep yourself fresh because it can just entrepreneurship can be very lonely at times because unless you have other people that are going through the same things. It's hard for people to relate to you so I always recommend like having some sort of hoppies I try to outside of all those things I said I try to ride a mountain bike every once in a while I really enjoy like mountain biking. And I enjoy music and I enjoy other things that I try as much as I can to just do those occasionally even though they don't make me money because sometimes it just gets hard to step out of what makes you money and then you just don't do anything other than work.
09:03.33
davemaze
So how do you have a life with all this crazy stuff I Mean you mentioned you have kids you have a wife. Um, what's your home work life balance look like how have you been able to do that.
09:07.83
scottmckenna
Oh.
09:13.65
scottmckenna
I mean I think I'm I'm I'm as good as possible with my schedule in terms of my actual calendar and making sure that obviously I know what I'm supposed to be doing each and every day but I also try my very best to I mean I wake up at the kids every single morning I spend some time with them before they go to school. And I try very very hard unless I'm traveling or there's some sort of video project or something that I have to finish or whatever I'm very very strict on I end my day at five o'clock or five thirty and I at least give them five thirty to seven o'clock seven thirty by the time that they go to bed I always am there. During that time. So unless unless like I said there are obviously are are days that that's not possible. There are times I'm traveling or whatever. That's just part of life and my wife totally understands that but I'm not one of those people that kind of just tries to work and work and work and work and then just kind of say good night to my kids and then move but you know go back into my office and keep working i'm. Try my best to really be able to stick to times that I work and I'm very particular about not responding to clients when I'm not working because anything you do anytime, you respond at Nine P M to a client you're telling them that they can get in touch with you at 9 0 PM every day because you'll respond to them. So I'm very particular about if I see an email come in or something or or some sort of message late at night when I realistically might be right by my computer and I could respond to it I don't I don't respond to the next day so it kind of keeps boundaries so people realize like hey you you are a client of mine who I very much appreciate. But. I have to set boundaries or else. Everyone just contacts me at all times and so I tried it my best to just get my schedule in place day by day to make sure I know what I'm supposed to be doing I try to follow it I have strict stop times and then I work at night occasionally depending on what my wife's doing if she's watching you know Tv shows or whatever. Um, not a big Tv person. So she's she gets so much energy by just you know sitting at sitting and watching a show every once in a while. So if she wants to do that then I come back downstairs I work and I kind of just you make work. You know work life balance is like this weird. It's. There's no perfect formula to it and you can't look at someone else's work life balance and think to yourself all mind's way off because what matters is what your spouse or your significant other or whatever what your work life balance looks like in their eyes is actually the one that matters the most like I don't really care if someone else spends more time with their family than me because. I don't know if it's just it's my life.
11:41.77
davemaze
I I Totally I totally get that. No, that's awesome I Think having having a ah hard cutoff time is really crucial, especially when you work for yourself. It feels like you can I mean time is money so that means technically if you worked all day you would maybe in theory make more money. But.
11:53.55
scottmckenna
Um.
11:58.99
scottmckenna
Um, ah ah yeah I have.
12:01.66
davemaze
That would lead to burnout that would lead to unhappiness that'd lead to especially if you have a family a lot of issues with your kids if they never saw their father. So um, you know by getting married by having children you chose to invest in them and to put them as a priority. So it's important.
12:17.42
scottmckenna
Um, yeah.
12:20.80
davemaze
To to do that. That being said, you know when you run all these different businesses. It's like you're married to multiple things. Essentially you're not just married to your wife I mean obviously you are but.
12:26.76
scottmckenna
Um, yeah, and it's hard and yeah and and it is very.. It's a hard thing for me too because naturally I do enjoy working but because of that I can obviously I can want to work more than I need to work and I think. I'm trying to get better and I'm not always good at it. But I'm trying to get better at just being better with my time that I have in all things not just not just work with family and all that as well. I think that so many people always feel like they don't have enough time in their day but it's really just because they're not very good with the time that they do have. And they're just procrastinators and believe me I'm guilty of this too. They're Procrastinators. They're not good with their schedule. They're super easily distracted and they have all these things around them that are letting them be distracted all the time and I feel like some people should be able to get things done way faster than they do, but they just put it off. And then in turn you feel like you're nonstop like I Just don't have time to finish anything I need I need to hire so I need to do this and it's like you might not need to you might just need to get better at planning your own day because that could actually be the the thing that's the issue not as much that you need more time. Obviously it always feels like we need more time. But if you add more time you might just waste that too. So it's. I don't know just my thought.
13:39.90
davemaze
Yeah, a hundred percent now let's talk about the wedding thing. Um, the did you are you the one that bought the Craig Adams thing
13:50.50
scottmckenna
Yeah I wouldn't say bot bots not really the word but yeah Craig Craig and I we met a couple years back and talked about him wanting to get rid of wedding film school and I basically took over wedding film school. It wasn't a transaction of money it was more of a.
14:04.15
davemaze
Okay.
14:06.68
scottmckenna
We were gonna we were splitting profits basically based on what the thing did. But shortly after that time is when I kind of very quickly realized like I just I don't have a passion for weddings I don't have a long-term goal for weddings I was planning on shutting my wedding company down which I did this year. So I Just kind of was over weddings and so I realized there was no way that I was gonna be able to sustain the channel because how maybe to put content out of something that I just don't really care about much so I basically was like hey you know I just this just not something I want to do right now and then since then he has now I think but I believe he did have a transaction and actually sold it to.
14:29.57
davemaze
Yeah.
14:41.81
scottmckenna
Other people who are now running it.
14:41.94
davemaze
Okay, cool. Yeah, ah I've interviewed him for this show as well and I've met him a couple times. Um, actually now I only met him 1 time at the Sony event like an a six four hundred event I think it was right before he went to guam or something I don't remember but.
14:45.36
scottmckenna
And.
14:54.18
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's always traveled all over the place.
15:00.98
davemaze
It was during his yeah it was during his transition from ah, being kind of the camera gear review wedding filmmaker minimalist guy to then doing the travel film stuff and it's been. It's been cool to see his journey on Youtube now he's just crushing it with these long form.
15:12.95
scottmckenna
Aha was off.
15:19.85
davemaze
Ah, very simple, Beautiful cinematic you know hikes and excursions and things. It's really cool.
15:24.72
scottmckenna
And I think it's because he actually really enjoys it I feel like when when I look at a lot of other youtubers and people that are you know trying to make careers and things I think what happens is we get stuck in this idea of we know what would work for our channels. But what would work for our channels doesn't excite us and then we end up I'm I'm in that place constantly with my channel because what I really enjoy the most about my channel is just kind of documenting my process I know that doesn't actually work well for my channel I know it's why my channel has such slow growth and I know my channel could grow so much more if I actually just was more of Ah, tutorial guy or a you know behind the scenes guy that just it bores me to think about that and I think that's what I feel like Craig's done well now is he's actually really enjoying the hiking videos and they do well so he's just actually really enjoying making them and in turn he's building a really strong audience with it. But I feel like that's difficult for people sometimes because I know with me, it's like what actually would make my channel do good. This doesn't doesn't excite me that much and if Youtube's still to this day. The only thing that I really do just entirely for fun like I make a tiny bit of amount of money but I just do it for fun. And that's why I don't over I don't care necessarily how long it takes me to upload between uploads and sometimes I'll go on long breaks without realizing it and it's the only thing that I don't have pressure on and I fear the day that I actually potentially have any success with the Youtube channel to. Because I feel like I will have to do things that like that fulfill the audience and it's just like I don't know if I'd like that I don't know. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
17:03.54
davemaze
No pun intended on the pressure thing right? Um, that's interesting thing. You said there at the end and I'm I'm curious about a year or I guess a couple years ago you had ah a wedding. Um, tutorial video There's like an hour long it was a day in the life of a wedding filmmaker that video completely got hooked into the algorithm and just took off like wildfire. It's got a million views on it and it's an hour along I'm very curious I would love to look at your Youtube studio and see the revenue on that I would imagine. It's pretty good for.
17:21.63
scottmckenna
Ah, ah, um, you know? ah.
17:35.54
scottmckenna
Well, you want to know? yeah you want to know what's so funny about that video though. So there's a part I don't know maybe 30 minutes in 25 minutes or whatever we we are outside and we are talking. We are so doing the setup of the of the the ceremony and there's this guy playing the violin in the backgrounds.
17:37.71
davemaze
Such a long video right.
17:54.51
scottmckenna
And that Violin whatever he was playing got picked up from a copyright for some sort of copyright thing and so the first probably nine hundred thousand views of that video. Could not be I had to share monetization with which I never really cared about I never really paid attention to anyway. But I did all these disputes because I was like it's not you know the song or whatever. It's a guy playing and I don't really know how that's even getting picked up anyway and out of nowhere maybe like.
18:12.42
davemaze
Sure.
18:26.78
scottmckenna
I don't know six months ago or so it finally like I don't know what happened it just like disappeared the monetization strike or whatever and it wasn't even strike. It was just like you're sharing the monetization or whatever and at a nowhere it just like suddenly dropped so only now am I actually starting to.
18:42.72
davemaze
Interesting.
18:44.53
scottmckenna
Actually see money from it which is weird because it was you know it's got a million views and it barely made anything over the course of time because of that whole strike with Youtube which I don't really even you know to this day know exactly how that worked or why why it did that. But it's.
19:00.98
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
19:04.43
scottmckenna
It's like a weird it was like such a weird situation because like lifetime on that video lifetime on that video I've only made seven hundred and fifty dollars because of that monetization thing and.
19:16.18
davemaze
Are you joking.
19:21.77
scottmckenna
And that actual and in the last in the last in the last year it was 500 of that so I made nothing because of how because of that monetization thing. So so and and I really didn't.
19:27.77
davemaze
Oh gosh. Okay, yeah, ah that sucks man.
19:37.48
scottmckenna
Care at the end of the day because at that time I didn't really care about that. But it's just funny. Yeah, the watch time is 2020 s like 25 minutes or something like that. But then I have other videos that have like 200000 views that have made so much more money than that video.
19:38.10
davemaze
I know but the I feel like the watch time would be high. The cpm is high.
19:53.50
davemaze
Yeah, ah.
19:55.30
scottmckenna
It's just Youtube's just a weird place but like I've made I've made 3 times the amount of money on a video that has done one fifth of the views that is just just wacky.
20:01.74
davemaze
Interesting. Well I guess there is an indirect way that you I would imagine made money and it was through selling the course that is attached to that did that was that successful for you.
20:10.14
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah for sure and and then that's that's ultimately like the the whole thing is with how I look at Youtube in general I've never to this day I never I don't post videos on Youtube to make money from youtube I post videos to build a. Bring attention to just my personal brand and kind of who I am which enables me to sell courses which enables me to have potential brands and things but I look at Youtube as such a tiny tiny thing in my life compared to like obviously all the things I have going on that I'm just very different with Youtube in that manner that I never. I never really pay any attention to analytics I don't pay attention to how video is doing when I post it like I post it I kind of walk away then I respond to a bunch of comments from it I just never really pay attention to it. It's the reason why my channel hasn't grown more because I you know don't put my you know titles and thumbnails are. Decided in real time during the upload of whatever screen grab half the time looks better and then I maybe quickly throw something in canva like I just don't have the time right? The second to focus on it and every single time I think to myself man I'm leaving opportunities on the table and maybe I should take it more seriously than I'm like but then if I take it seriously I don't know if I'm gonna have as much fun.
21:21.73
davemaze
Ah.
21:23.89
scottmckenna
And it's like the scary thing for me like that's why I always say like I am not I never call myself a youtuber because Youtube is such an afterthought to me and doesn't mean that that's a good thing. It just means like I don't put any thought into those videos like at all other than. Random times where I have a specific topic that I'm talking about I don't script any video like I've never scripted a single video I've never used a teleprompter I've never written down any notes or bullet point like I just literally talk in real time and then I kind of make the edit and. And so they're not as good as they could to be. They're not as entertaining as they could be They're not a lot of things but I feel like I kind of I don't know it's it's just weird I don't know it's just tricky.
22:02.48
davemaze
Ah, no I mean with let me let me let me pose a hypothetical to you if you had a guy or girl who um was working for you for an affordable rate and you felt like it was worth worth it. And they were encouraging you to make videos and they helped you script write and upload and manage would you be interested in something like that if it was taken more seriously like a business or no.
22:25.69
scottmckenna
Yeah I mean the tricky part has been I have like I have a full time person that works for just me specifically on my content and helps me shoot or edit or do whatever he's kind of just an all around like swiss army knife type of person. The problem has been. In in the current state of what my channel is where it's so much more documenting and it's more kind of raw style. It. So heavily relies on me even being in the mood to film and 1 of the unique things about me is when when like. I sometimes am super like extroverted and I want to hang out and I want to make videos and I'm having a lot of fun. There are other times that I just want nothing to do with people and and it's this weird balance of if if I was doing nothing but just straight up tutorials right? Where somebody would script the thing and I'm gonna review a phone or something or whatever. I could probably make something like that work because I could kind of just sit behind the camera and do it. It doesn't seem unbelievably fun for me to do that. But at the same time the other side where it's much more you know document vlog type of style really relies on me needing to be like. Emotionally there to do it and I just have a lot of days where I'm you know tied up from morning till night with all the miscellaneous business stuff that that's why I struggle so much with my channel. So. It's like I would love I would the the idea of having someone that really would be able to come up with ideas. Create thumbnails create all that sounds amazing. The problem is I just don't necessarily even know what my channel yet would be if I actually took it serious. It's it's a really It's a really weird spot that I'm in because I have enough subscribers that I could. Take it seriously and potentially like maybe build it and do something with it but simultaneously all those subscribers have come from me. Not really necessarily putting a lot of effort into it. So it's almost like there's this scared side of like I don't I don't want to be forced to care so much.
24:24.81
davemaze
Ah, yeah, nobody's nobody's pulling your leg over here I think we just we Ah, we.
24:26.12
scottmckenna
But I do want to care like I don't it's just it's tricky. No I know but but but I always look at it like man I you know I haven't uploaded a video in a couple you know two and a half weeks since I've been working like crazy trying to do this thing with this new business and that's also super frustrating to me. It's like man There's so many opportunities for more videos and I feel like I'm missing out on opportunities and it's just but I don't know I mean if if's.
24:48.52
davemaze
I Think Ah, yeah, entrepreneurship Business. It doesn't have to be just filmmaking. Maybe that's what you got stuck in your head about is like because you built a large following on filmmaking editing and stuff like that. But you're such a round ah based on our conversation already. It seems like you have. So many different things going On. You're really an entrepreneur who happens to do creative work that is part of your business., But then you've got these other things that aren't even related to to video so documenting that and using that as basically using that as b-roll to teach entrepreneurship I think would be great.
25:13.36
scottmckenna
Yeah.
25:20.76
scottmckenna
Um, and that's kind of what it's gone into yeah like that's that's kind of more what it is is entrepreneurship is really the heart of my channel these days. It's just there's a lot of people that came across my channel not from that. That's what also is tricky. You know there's probably 15000 subscribers that came from.
25:24.70
davemaze
Tying that into courses and business business coaching.
25:36.70
davemaze
Yeah, that's fine.
25:40.30
scottmckenna
The wedding video which is like I've removed every other wedding video. That's actually on my channel just for that reason because I know that the wedding Filmmaker's not gonna love my channel for the most part. So it says weird spot.
25:46.99
davemaze
It doesn't it really doesn't matter. It's it's not enough subscribers for that to matter if you had a million subs I'd be a different story. So I think I think you could really just at this point you could do a shift and and make it happen. So um, but whatever you want to do I mean you don't have to take it seriously.
25:51.90
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:03.23
scottmckenna
No I appreciate I appreciate it? Yeah no, it's it's I like hearing outsider perspective too because some people don't and like see the inner works of my life and so they don't necessarily know the the random challenges so it's good to hear from an outsider perspective like because I'm always curious. No people people find my channel.
26:06.71
davemaze
I think I think you have a but.
26:14.17
davemaze
Um, yeah I think you have a lot.
26:21.65
scottmckenna
Obviously people find you from a certain video usually and that's usually what they're kind of potentially hoping to see more of and then you either really disappoint them because that algorithm that that you know a million people saw that and subscribe their channel then you know when there's nothing else wedding filmmaking. They kind of feel like oh there's nothing there for me but at the same time.
26:23.66
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
26:41.10
scottmckenna
I Know that the only thing that I feel like rings True consistently probably for the rest of my life is is entrepreneurship and it's building businesses and it's doing things that filmmaking I love but it's like at these days. It's one quarter of my life. So it's like the entrepreneurship is the only thing that I feel like actually.
26:45.19
davemaze
Totally.
26:53.76
davemaze
Um, yeah.
26:59.38
scottmckenna
Encapsulates everything that I do and that's so that's what I've been trying to pivot toward.
26:59.71
davemaze
Um, yeah, would yeah I mean it would take like some sort of rebranding almost like I could almost see a Youtube trailer on your channel. That's like I'm Scott Mckenna I started a wedding film business and had success with that. But I've also done blah blah blah blah blah. On this channel I'm going to teach you how to be a business creative and an entrepreneur make sure subscribe if that's interesting to you and then sell courses and then boom you're you know, making a lot of money selling courses on entrepreneurship. Ah I don't know I'm I'm always I'm always like tre I love.
27:23.98
scottmckenna
Um, yeah, yeah, no I appreciate I mean it's It's all Ah, it's all stuff that I've always think to myself would be great. Yeah, no, it's I Love it. No not at all.
27:37.33
davemaze
Just like talking shop with people. So I hope that doesn't come across too weird but I think whatever you want to do at the end of the day is what people love and that's why people you know, love your content. So just keep keep doing what you love and I can totally relate to the whole getting bored thing I did.
27:42.41
scottmckenna
I Appreciate it.
27:52.36
scottmckenna
Ah.
27:55.36
davemaze
Gear stuff for the last four years and then at indie mogul I was doing the filmmaking ah gear stuff and I wanted to get out of that so I quit and now I'm back to doing gear again. It's something that I can't get ah ah, get away from I'm just obsessed with gear.
28:08.64
scottmckenna
Ah.
28:12.00
davemaze
And I love it and I do see it as a way to actually have a sustainable income for me. So so yeah, that's why I'm back doing it. It's not something I necessarily only wanted to do but I had to kind of come with to terms with like the fact that this is what I'm really good at and it's authentic to who I am.
28:30.34
scottmckenna
Um, yeah.
28:30.85
davemaze
And people like watching it and people want to pay me to talk about it. So I might as well just do it to like pay my bills and then if I can get it up to a successful state then I could try something else. So um.
28:42.31
scottmckenna
Yep, no, and that's the problem with me too is I I love gear like I'm obsessed with gear too I just always am fearing that like I might not one day care as much about it and then I'm suddenly like ah crap's like now all these people expect gear reviews and I'm just tired to gear but I cause I love gear more than anything like I love. Love new camera stuff I'm always getting new computers and Ipads and testing like I'm a gearhead too I just yeah struggle with what what specific direction to cater the content to but.
29:00.28
davemaze
Yeah.
29:08.36
davemaze
Yeah, it's once I discovered Youtube though it really did free up my mind and and creativity just because when you're doing client work. Your client is the boss at the end of the day like you come up with ah a great pitch or a great you know treatment for a video.
29:18.66
scottmckenna
Hundred percent
29:25.55
davemaze
And then they're like that's a great idea. Let's do this boring talking head video instead you know like geez. Okay, um, and then once I discover Youtube I was like wait I can just make whatever I want sort of um you know within the algorithms preferred thing and then.
29:27.26
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, ah.
29:36.30
scottmckenna
Um. Ah.
29:43.66
davemaze
You know, finding a niche or whatever. But um, anyways I'm kind of going on a tangent there. But.
29:47.63
scottmckenna
And that is hard I think I really like recently I was watching 1 in Maddie Hapoia video his videos and I really liked this 1 thing he randomly said too which he he was talking about how a lot of people say that you know they create Youtube just. For themselves and because they want to do which is kind of what I naturally always say too but that he was very smartly saying like if you actually were filming and making something just for yourself. You wouldn't post it on Youtube because you wouldn't care for anyone to see it. But he said. But if you're actually trying to post something on Youtube you want people to see it and if you want people to see it. You kind of need to pay attention to the things that are actually making sense and working on your channel too which I was like that's a good point because if it was really just about me and only about what I wanted to create then I probably wouldn't care for people to see it like it's.
30:22.25
davemaze
Ah, yeah.
30:29.43
davemaze
Yeah, is yeah, you'd be mostly video of your family and and friends and stuff right? ah.
30:32.49
scottmckenna
It's just weird thought Yeah exactly yeah and that would be yeah was for reporting Channel ever. But it would be like exactly what I want. Yeah.
30:41.18
davemaze
And even like the the of course the old Casey Eistatt kind of era when he was vlogging every day. Yes, he was vlogging his day but it was very strategized and and the story structure was very thought out. So um.
30:57.13
scottmckenna
Ah.
31:00.00
davemaze
He was making short films every day he wasn't necessarily just vlogging whatever you know? so.
31:02.75
scottmckenna
Yeah, he did it better than anyone I mean the the way that he was able to tell stories creatively that were ah essentially a boring thought or story and somehow making that into a vlog was was and then doing it every day was just.
31:20.68
davemaze
Yeah.
31:20.82
scottmckenna
Beyond impressive like I think he changed he changed every I don't think anyone will ever be like he is again from that like there's a lot of people that have you know, been able to stay consistent with daily vlogging and all that but not to the level of what he was able to do every single day was just it's just ridiculous. Yeah.
31:27.20
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
31:35.16
davemaze
I Mean yeah, that's why he had to stop because his marriage was suffering and his life was suffering from it So and now that it's been several years since then he's had multiple interviews where he's He's kind of shared the issues with it and I think everybody kind of noticed or and or at least kind of thought to themselves like this isn't.
31:40.47
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah.
31:48.71
scottmckenna
Yep.
31:54.93
scottmckenna
Um, yeah I mean there's no way I mean how yeah how in the world. Do you do d met like he always see he said and I've seen a bunch of those interviews too about how you know you'd spend six seven hours editing and then every single day you'd wake up.
31:55.50
davemaze
This probably isn't healthy and it turns out it wasn't so.
32:09.82
scottmckenna
Thinking about what the story was going to be and just filming and filming and filming and editing like that's not sustainable for anyone and that's why it's also super important even in entrepreneurship I've realized it's sometimes so easy to look at an entrepreneur or aspire to be someone that you feel like is really successful like from the outside but you don't see the inner workings of anything happening. And in my opinion like it's not a success to me if I build $10000000 businesses and I have a failed marriage and my kids don't see me that's not success to me so I'm kind of I just try as much as I can and honestly what I try to portray my channel is that like the reason I try to pull more of. Other stuff in and my family different things is to try to show people that like you can have successful business and have a very enjoyable life and still pay attention to those things because it's really easy to just see the person. That's just looks like they are just crushing it but not realizing that their family hates them. And they never see them and they're dying on the inside and you see all these you know suicides and all these different things from people with mental health and all that it's like people don't see the inside of the inside of people and like it's not It's not success to me at all if you were to say ten years from now for me to have $20000000 in businesses and ah and no family around like that's that's. Not at all what I'm trying to do but you have to be careful as someone who really enjoys your work because naturally you don't look at it like this might this might be a bad decision down the road you look at it like I'm just enjoying it.
33:25.51
davemaze
No.
33:38.80
scottmckenna
And I'm crushing it and my family is gonna appreciate how hard I work and they'renna be so thankful that I made this money for them and blah blah blah blah blah when like my wife would tell you she'd prefer I would shut down every business except for one barely make enough money that we could survive just to have me in 1 spot and be and be fine there I don't. I can't thrive that way like it's just impossible like the way my brain works but like it's not that's not important to her none of that stuff's important. She's unbelievably supportive but she would not care at all if the businesses didn't succeed if we still were able to just pay our bills and just live a you know a very.
34:13.48
davemaze
Yeah, did she come from money did her dad work a lot.
34:15.94
scottmckenna
Very minimal life. Yeah, she came from a family where her dad worked all his her dad worked all the time and played golf all the time and was basically never home and so and then and yeah, and then worst Kate and then you know the worst thing happened is that three years ago she lost her mom to breast cancer.
34:28.92
davemaze
Um, yeah, so she she fears that you would become that right.
34:37.78
davemaze
And.
34:39.30
scottmckenna
So she lost the only person that was actually there all the time and it went to you know her dad kind of taking over that and didn't fill the role at all and is basically barely existing in in the family in life. So like I think she yes sees it from an even different perspective now of like that's.
34:47.96
davemaze
Yeah.
34:58.36
scottmckenna
You know this success now. Granted, she's the most supportive person ever like we have a great relationship everything I do every business I've purchased or started we have good conversations on like I don't I don't just be like guess what I did today I bought a bakery like we have conversations about this of what it looks like and why it makes sense and what the.
35:10.33
davemaze
Ah.
35:17.49
scottmckenna
Long-term plan was I really try to write out like what my sustainability all I try to do in all my business is is is build teams and build sustainability that I'm never having to be the one that's relying on in the first place. That's how I operate everything I don't operate I don't so there's a reason that not a single business I own has my name in it whatsoever. They all have their own names. They all have unique. They have staff. They have different people because I don't ever want something to fully rely on me because I do like to be able to play golf and hang out with my family and go on little vacations and I don't have the the ego that needs it to be. You know the Scott mechanic company or whatever I just. I want it to actually be able to operate fully without me because that gives me long-term sustainability so that even if I don't care to do video anymore or I don't feel like baking because I don't like baking the companies can operate without me and I can just use my scaling creative brain I look at it like my scaling creative video production company 5 years from now I think will be nothing but a video production and marketing company for my businesses only so you won't even be able to hire scaling creative to do video work for you I'll just use what I know and what my staff can do to build the content for my businesses to thrive and not have the client. So I'm the only client scaling creative works for and we just make video for all my stuff that's kind of my long-term plan.
36:37.75
davemaze
Gotcha that's awesome. Um, yeah I mean the only business with your name on. It is the Youtube channel but that's not a business according to you so ah and it's it's hard to scale that yeah I mean like if your name is the the brand.
36:41.54
scottmckenna
Ah, exactly yeah um.
36:53.48
davemaze
How do you I mean I used to work for Dave Ramsey do you know he is um he has had ah a really hard time finding his replacement. He was trying to John Acuff was supposed to be the Dave Ramsey ah replacement long term and then here I don't know why you would hire a guy who wrote a book called quitter but.
37:06.46
scottmckenna
Ah.
37:13.34
davemaze
Um, after like 2 years he quit or whatever and you know he's had a hard time finding ah personalities that don't have affairs on security there. Ah, there's secretaries and people who end up just leaving. He's got.
37:24.70
scottmckenna
Yeah.
37:31.39
davemaze
Rachel but it's nowhere near the the powerhouse of Dave Ramsey on the mic. He's like a ah Bill O'reilly kind of personality just like you can't replace that.
37:37.85
scottmckenna
Yeah, you can't yeah no and it and it makes it trick him I mean you look at a lot low type of personalities. You know the Howard Sternes of the world and the people that like you can't put someone else in his seat and be like welcome. So the Howard Stern show with this host, you're like well it's not the Howard Stern show this is like it's just a name.
37:46.70
davemaze
Um, yeah.
37:53.71
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
37:56.79
scottmckenna
So I've always looked at it from the very beginning to build a company. It can be entirely just a 1 ne-man operation but just having a brand name behind it rather than like your personal name allows you to pivot because for scaling creative with all my video production stuff now. It's very clear from day one when I meet with a client and when they hire us that don't expect me to be filming or editing all your stuff. It doesn't mean that I won't be it doesn't mean that I you know might not I might be there most of the time I might not be there at all. But you have to you're hiring me to trust that. You believe that I can train people and put people in place to create what you're hiring us to create and it's not about me and then I just use my personal brand to build those companies from the beginning but I don't necessarily make it so that it's obviously relying on me and I like it way better because I'm able to when I go away for. A weekend or a week or I'm gone or whatever. It's not okay I contact all my clients and tell them we're not go be able to do work for them this week because I'm traveling. It's like no, it's still gonna be operating just the way it always was because I probably wasn't doing the editing anyway, I mean I only do probably. 5% of the editing that comes from scaling creative as a company I barely barely touch the editing and I love it because I don't love editing. It's just it's not my favorite thing I like meeting with clients pitching things to clients getting excited about ideas making things happen and then.
39:14.30
davemaze
Ah, a I hate it.
39:24.80
scottmckenna
That's and then kind of being like cool. My team will take it from here and then we'll talk next month again and I'll give you some more ideas and we'll keep like I like the ideas I don't necessarily love all the execution of of all the things.
39:31.42
davemaze
That's awesome. Yeah me too I like coming up with the ideas and performing I don't like I don't like the I like shooting a little bit but I'm not a huge fan of the of editing but I do.
39:40.95
scottmckenna
Ah.
39:46.64
davemaze
Enjoy being a part of the editing process especially when it comes to humor and my stuff is always I always try to make it as funny and entertaining as possible. So I have fun with that. So um, what's your gear set up right now. Did you switch from panasonic I think you've switched to Sony is that right.
39:53.39
scottmckenna
Yeah.
40:00.87
scottmckenna
Oh yeah, I've so I've such a bunch of times our current our current gear setup is all Sony. Yeah, so we went we went from the GHFiveS to a full c two hundred setup so we had 3 c two hundred s all canon lenses. We liked that setup. It worked good. There were some.
40:05.34
davemaze
Yeah, Canon you're on Canon for a while. Yeah.
40:20.48
scottmckenna
Things We didn't love about it So we ended up more of it was like size more like just that because the majority of the work we do is more running gun style raw style. We just wanted a little bit of a smaller quicker to grab and go type of rake.
40:21.13
davemaze
Yeah.
40:38.19
scottmckenna
We really loved the c two hundred s for like their every day we loved the ergonomics of them the look of them the feel of them. We like the result we got from them so there's really nothing that we didn't like about it other than it was just you know we had to piece it together. We had to get it already. It just felt like it kind of took longer than we hoped. So. We switch to the Fx three so we use we have 3 Fx 3 s as our as our main cameras and then we have an a seven s 3 and I have an a seven s 3 for my vlog stuff and then we have an additional a seven s 3 which is like my backup for my vlog stuff and just the fourth camera and our rig if we need it because it obviously matches.
41:01.51
davemaze
Nice, nice.
41:10.81
davemaze
a ZV 1 right it's a fun it's a fun little pocket camera. Yeah, um, if the I guess if you got.
41:13.90
scottmckenna
The same to the thing he and then the ZV one is a little like in my pocket type of camera. Yeah, but that's all yeah, just all Sony and then all Sony lenses.
41:26.80
davemaze
If you switched over to all those cameras the CSeventy existed around that same time as well. Why did you not go to the CSeventy
41:31.57
scottmckenna
I mean I just like the stabilization and the autofocus in the Sony stuff right now I just think is unmatched I mean I think that I think the jhfive and the gh sixs probably have obviously even better stabilization I don't think anyone does stabilization as good as j as the jhfive but when you're talking about an overall camera from a size perspective a reliability perspective a image stabilization an auto focuss a just workhorse I mean there's I feel like there's not much that competes.
41:49.94
davemaze
Olympus. Yeah.
42:08.74
scottmckenna
At that exact price point in my opinion like the the fx three which I don't know how much it is now maybe four thousand forty two hundred dollars thirty seven hundred I don't I don't have a clue but regardless at $4000 let's just say. It's just an amazing camera for the type of work. We do like it's so small. It's so portable. It can run forever. It can be plugged into Usb Power banks to just charge remotely and never have to worry about it going dead. It's never going to overheat on a us like I ran that for 7 8 hours straight of events all 3 of them never had an issue. Autofocus is as good as I feel like anyone has in in a camera system. So it works great for me now. It's not necessarily the best camera for everybody. That's what I think I always try to tell people is like when I share what I'm using I'm not saying you should use it I'm just saying it's what I use because the type of work. We do makes a lot of sense. There are things that I that aren't necessarily good for everybody depending on the size depending on the type of work you're doing depending on how much you care what? Even the camera looks like in general there are some people in certain fields in certain parts of the country that you show up with a smaller little camera and the client doesn't love it like just because they have a.
43:17.48
davemaze
Ah.
43:20.55
scottmckenna
Bad perception. So like there's I realize there's factors that go into things but for us for that rig I mean with everything combined is probably 20000 twenty five thousand dollars total for our entire rig of cameras lenses all that kind of stuff I feel like it's it's an amazing setup for what doesn't feel like a massive price point.
43:24.88
davemaze
Nice.
43:32.88
davemaze
Yeah.
43:40.51
scottmckenna
For all, it can do.
43:40.72
davemaze
Yeah, totally what have you found that the color has been kind of solved now with Sony I feel like the kind of the older like the original a seven s 3 had pretty terrible skin tone and.
43:56.35
scottmckenna
Aha.
43:56.69
davemaze
It was kind of a pain in the neck to have to color grade it it was. You could obviously fix it and get it close but that's always been the achilles heel of Sony I personally feel they've fixed it for.
44:04.95
scottmckenna
Yeah I mean I don't feel like it's yeah I mean I feel like it's been great I mean we use for the most part we shoot a lot of just a lot of the stuff just in like asiny tone just a very clean out of camera look that we're very very happy with we still can grade it a little bit. But once again, it's.
44:14.73
davemaze
M.
44:23.50
scottmckenna
The type of work you do matters and because so much of the type of stuff that we do is quick delivery quick. You know turnaround stuff for things it just it. It works really well for what we do because we value getting something that' good as possible straight out of camera right away and then getting it delivered as quickly as possible to our clients. We're not a big production house from a standpoint of like we have you know five days worth of shoots and then we do one video a month and that's what we deliver and it takes us seven days to edit like we're ah we're a content creation company. That's we call ourselves so we were usually shooting for a day and we're. Delivering you know 2030 piece of content from that day we want running gun. We want fast. We want easy so siny tone has been great for that. Just really clean out of camera. We also will use slog 3 depending on what we're actually shooting but I've I've loved the color from them I feel like what what we've been able to dial in works. It's exactly what we would want it to look like and it's just an easy camera to use and it's got a lot of buttons and it's got a lot of like customization that is exactly what we specifically care for.
45:31.34
davemaze
I Now that now that the ah R five say that again cleaner because I had a little cough now that the R Five C is out. Ah, do you regret your switch or no.
45:43.24
scottmckenna
Now I mean Grant I haven't used the camera either. But like I'm I'm kind of at a place now where I feel like it would take a lot for me to completely switch systems again I mean you know we spent a lot of money and ding changing things around I feel like the R Five c.
45:56.61
davemaze
Yeah.
46:02.78
scottmckenna
Looks like a good camera I've never been crazy about you know some of the canon codecs and the different things that they do and the way that they some of their file stuff I've heard lots of issues about since since they've gone like with the 5 D Mark 4 and the different things that could be fixed at this time ever since we left the c two hundreds that really.
46:08.31
davemaze
Yeah.
46:16.83
davemaze
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's been fixed for a while. Yeah, yeah, they don't do the in motion Jpeg anymore and also the MM one max can handle. Yeah.
46:23.90
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, exactly So. That's yeah so I mean I'm I'm sure most of that kind of stuff is fine Now It's more just that there's there hasn't been anything that I've been using with the fx three that is maybe be like man if I If only there was a camera that did this I would look like it just it. It kind of does everything that I want that there's nothing I don't even do a lot of slowmo. But I mean I still have four K One Twenty I Still can do as you know it's everything just works so well that I just haven't had any reason to even look at what else is is is happening but.
46:59.66
davemaze
Good. That's a good place to be Well yeah I think um I think it's so easy for all of us to get wrapped up in the gear and I mean at the end of the day you could still be fine with a canon. Add if you really wanted to so.
47:01.69
scottmckenna
It seen. Um and I'm in a different place now than I was yeah so it's good.
47:14.70
scottmckenna
Um, yep, Absolutely Yep! Yep, Oh yeah.
47:17.43
davemaze
If you are lighting things well and have good audio. You could easily get away with like a thousand dollar camera or obviously the GHFive which you used a lot and you and loved it's still just as good now as it was then so.
47:32.58
scottmckenna
Yeah, its lighting is still everything and it just depends like I said the the type of work that you do depending on on how you shoot things and how you light things and how like that really is what plays the biggest factor in what camera you really need and it's just but it's this you know, catch this this keeping up with the joneses thing that.
47:37.99
davemaze
Um, yeah.
47:51.12
scottmckenna
You can get yourself in trouble with if you spend a lot of time on Youtube because everyone will always tell you the new camera is the best of the best and sure it's going to continue to get better and better. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have it because I think people also way too often use especially on Youtube use.
47:53.51
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
48:02.40
davemaze
Yeah.
48:10.89
scottmckenna
The excuse or people that want to get into Youtube especially like they they use the excuse of well as soon as I get that camera I will start to create more as soon as I do this and it's like then they get it. But then the next video comes out from someone else about this new camera and then they're like see see the problem is if I had that then then I would create and that's. You're just never going to catch up with that. It's just this year that game you'll you'll always be from behind when you're when you're thinking about that.
48:37.74
davemaze
Yeah, hundred percent hundred percent that being said, ah I have been using the c seventy for over a year now. That's what I'm using right now I've really enjoyed it. It's a great workhorse. You know I was thinking about going to Sony but um.
48:44.15
scottmckenna
Ah, but.
48:56.37
scottmckenna
You have my half.
48:56.41
davemaze
I Love the builtin indies I've got great audio built in ah you know, but everybody has different needs I wish I had I wish it could take pictures. So um, but yeah I know.
49:07.91
scottmckenna
There's no perfect camera. No Perfect camera at All. It's all about yeah, that's that's that's the thing is you could You could take every single camera and I could tell you so certain things that I'm not a big fan of and including the ones I have so it's like there's.. There's always,, you're always going to sacrifice something for something else and it's just a matter of what is what is okay me not having even though it'd be nice to have versus what do I have to have that it's That's what it comes down to.
49:24.65
davemaze
Yeah.
49:31.28
davemaze
Um, yeah, let's see what else um computers you have switched over to the m one max and Apple silicon how has that transition been for you and what software do you primarily edit with.
49:46.63
scottmckenna
But yeah, it's been good I have the sixteen inch and 1 max. It's been amazing where it's been really really good I mean I spend such a little time on my computer other than when I'm editing video I use my ipad more than any other tool that I have. Because unless I'm editing video. That's the only thing I really do on my laptop but we had it primarily in final cut. We have premiere as well premiere premiere right now. We really only use I really like their their their captioning new.
50:18.45
davemaze
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
50:20.80
scottmckenna
Captioning platforms that they have built in. It's very very good and for the type of content that we create it actually works really well to be able to like bring a finished video into there I Still don't really like editing as much in premiere just from just because I'm I'm used to final cut and I've been using it for this long time that I'm very very efficient with it but we will bring up.
50:35.41
davemaze
Yeah.
50:39.23
scottmckenna
Finish piece of content into premiere and do the captioning and let it do the transcribing and let it and change it just makes that process very clean and easy. So I like that so far we've been messing around with the new little remix tool they have in there which I think is super Cool. So I think that there now that I have the M one max. And it can run premiere without a problem. Obviously I've absolutely used it more in the last you know couple of months I should say because I'm not I'm not saying to myself this is gonna crash and this is gonna like it's been from a reliability standpoint. It's been no problem at all I mean we still. And it mostly in final cut for most projects but Premier is definitely getting better which is good. It's getting at least more reliable which has always been I think the thing that plagues that.
51:22.19
davemaze
Yeah, yeah, I've I'm primarily a final cut editor been using it since day one since the since x came out one of the one of the few people that switched you know eleven years ago from 7 and.
51:32.37
scottmckenna
Is yeah.
51:40.44
davemaze
My editor now is using premiere to edit for me and so I've been kind of diving in there kind of finishing up the projects he'll he'll take it to like 90% and then I'll kind of finish the last ten percent with little tweaks and color things and it's just. We could xml it over but it's a big pain. So it's just easier to just kind of do it in premiere and I have an open premiere in a couple years and I've been also really impressed with the captioning feature like you said and then that the music mixed down thing is crazy. Awesome. How fuck.
51:58.11
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:06.93
scottmckenna
And. Yeah, it's pretty.. It's pretty useful, especially for the kind of work that we do like fast content.
52:16.60
davemaze
Can you can you explain to the listeners. What what that is because this is the first time I ever yeah I kind of heard about it because my Editor Connor was using it just explain it to people because it's a really cool feature.
52:21.50
scottmckenna
The remix tool.
52:28.40
scottmckenna
Yeah, basically what it is is. It's just using you know the wave files basically to take a look at what a song is doing obviously songs have beats and they have they have volume. You know you can look at a wave file in music bed even and be able to look and and know what the song realistically is doing. You can tell when it's getting when it's getting louder when it's getting software when it's hitting big beats. So it's using this just ai. However, they've created in the software to basically take a file and to say I have this this video that I made and it's. 52 seconds long and you can tell it to basically cut a song to that length. You can say I want it to be 52 seconds long and it will automatically cut up all these spots like we've all done before and we edit we normally are trying to take an edit and we're so trying to say like hey that the. We actually needed to end here as let's just grab the very last beat of the song and make that end there and we're trying to smooth things out and cross fade and you could do it for the most part but this tool is kind of just like it's doing it all by itself and sure it's not always perfect, but it's pretty darn good to be able to say I want it to be this length. And I want it to have more you can I forget that the terms of what they use of how you can choose what you want the song to kind of to do but it is incredibly impressive from a standpoint of. Just taking repurposing content if you had the you know a Youtube video that was 3 minutes long and you made a 1 minute version that you wanted for Instagram to be able to just hit a button and have it kind of just create a sixty second version of that song and you can look at different variations of how they even do it. It's it's really really good and I think it's super helpful for. People that do content in multiple places because you can kind of just let it do its thing some songs it does really really well like you would never have probably been able to create it the way that it did other times there's little tweaks you need to make certain songs obviously work better than others but it's pretty impressive and right now it's still kind of in like a beta. So it's it's gonna get way better, but it's it's pretty came from all audition. Adobe Audition had it first and then it it got integrated now into premiere and it's definitely a smart thing because final cut definitely doesn't have something like that and this is a world where it's all about I have an edit that's 33 seconds long rather than.
54:37.81
davemaze
Yeah.
54:52.95
scottmckenna
You know 30 seconds or it end you just poop and it just does its work.
54:56.13
davemaze
Yeah, um I can't tell you how many hours spent over the years probably you know doing that manually trying to find the verse or the chorus and like lining it up right to the beat and cross-fading it and you know start I would cut the cut the ending out.
55:03.24
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, hitting all your markers. Yeah.
55:15.98
davemaze
Put that at the exact end so that the music ends where the video ends but then trying to make that work often just like fading in the music at the beginning in a less natural way so that it ends well Anyways, yeah, and if you're not a musical person I grew up.
55:21.31
scottmckenna
Um, yeah, the f yeah.
55:34.81
davemaze
First actually as a musician so like yourself I assume so it helps to have a little musical understanding. But if you're not a musician I would imagine it be very hard to learn what a course is where the beat is understanding temp tempo and all that kind of stuff. So.
55:40.96
scottmckenna
Um, yeah, yes, hundred percent and that's clearly obviously who they're going after because obviously you know more people than not don't have great. You know tons of musical backgrounds. So like yeah someone who's in a music. It's easy for us to create those kind of things and make up our own music for things we've done that all the time but like if we can get a tool that even makes it quicker though that does kind of what used to take us. You know a lot of cutting and pasting and moving things around I'm all for it if it can sound natural and I think it definitely is helpful for the people that don't obviously.
56:07.38
davemaze
Yeah.
56:18.62
scottmckenna
Have a background in that because it's it's it's what comes so naturally to me as a musician when I watch certain people edit and try to make those transitions. You're like oh okay I guess it's it probably is a little trickier if you don't really understand what the music's doing and what chord they're actually hitting and being able to transition that makes is is very.
56:22.80
davemaze
Um, yeah, yeah.
56:30.64
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
56:36.22
davemaze
I mean I've even considered editing in final cut and then bringing just like an export over to um and to premiere without music using the captioning tool to make my own custom captions that I can then export to Youtube for Youtube captions and then.
56:36.63
scottmckenna
Very good, pretty cool.
56:42.22
scottmckenna
Um, ah yep, oh ah.
56:55.80
davemaze
Using that music feature to add your music so you can essentially finish and premiere with those 2 features that are really you know premiere specific. So.
56:57.48
scottmckenna
Yeah.
57:03.73
scottmckenna
Yeah, yeah, and the captioning one I think is super cool cause like we use. Obviously there's closed captioning which is just like you could turn on or you could turn it off but well we make a lot with the content for our our clients is a lot of captioning that's on the screen obviously in real time for people not a turn on turn off feature just for social media. It's become you know, super. Super important because people watch a lot of videos without Sound. So I Love that you can kind of let it transcribe you can instantly change the way you want it to look on screen just have it templated and be really quick and easy where our process with final cut has been to text to type it all out or to bring something into. Ah thing like clipscribe or one of those other likes subtitles or I Forget there's couple different ones. Yeah rev Which like it's all yeah, it just takes a while and like that and it works but we usually like transcribe an otter ai because ah it's got the best transcription in our opinion and then we.
57:45.14
davemaze
Yeah, http://revrev.com is what I use for Youtube.
57:58.11
davemaze
Yeah.
57:59.96
scottmckenna
Take that file out and SrT and bring it into a clipscribe or then like it just it's a lot of steps where premiere kind of has really simplified that which has been awesome I use that a lot for my own content.
58:04.99
davemaze
It's a pain in the neck a hundred percent so if somebody's starting out right now in video production specifically what are some things that you would you would say to them in terms of how to get started looking for clients. Ah, building your portfolio should they get into Youtube even if they don't want to be a Youtuber I'm just curious to hear your thoughts based on your experience with all this.
58:29.33
scottmckenna
I mean I would say 2 things. The first thing I would say is you should spend as much time understanding how social media platforms and all those things work as much time as you do actually making videos for people in general I think that the way that we are moving. In a world of attention and getting clients to have success with videos and all that in my opinion. It's becoming less and less ah important to be able to produce a good looking and good sounding video. It's more important to understand how to actually get them to have success with the video. And I think that if you were amazing at at understanding how social media worked, you could start a video production company and dominate tomorrow by simply teaching people how to shoot on their phones or to use your phone yourself as your as your main camera more than you could more than it would make sense for you to. Have a red tomorrow and try to start a video production company with no experience because I don't care what you shoot it on if you don't get the client to have success with the video that you do you will you will lose ultimately because at the end of the day these videos that are going viral on all these platforms and that are getting brands a ton of attention. Most of them are not high quality videos. Are videos that were shot on a phone that did what needed to be done to get attention with the algorithms and it's just I think people overvalue needing to have a certain camera at a certain quality and they forget that you still need to make sure you understand where they should put this and how to build a strategy for someone. So I would say that yes sure you get get good cameras and get anything you can afford or whatever and start to you know, try to make things look as good and sound as good as possible but depending on the type of work you're going into I really just don't think that that's the future I mean I think the future is. These devices that we have carry around our hand are getting so incredible in video and at the end of the day they can do the same job that a good camera does if you actually have strategy behind it. So I would say just really understand and learn social media and learn marketing. Because I really feel like that's what separates my company or other companies from other ones is that you're not hiring us necessarily just to produce a good looking or sounding video sure we can do that and we understand how do things are we the best in the world. No, but I feel like we understand where they should put their videos to help them to get success behind it. And so and then regarding the Youtube thing I think I I think everyone should start a Youtube channel especially if you're doing video. It's a no-brainer that you should have a Youtube channel for yourself or your company but even more yourself because it it goes with you anywhere you go, but it's just a great outlet to practice. It's a great outlet to.
01:01:15.77
scottmckenna
Potentially make a career out of it. There's tons of people obviously that make careers out of Youtube and it's an amazing amazing thing that it's even possible but you usually get yourself in trouble if you go into Youtube tomorrow as a brand new channel looking to make money because it's obviously not that simple. Just start tomorrow and make money on Youtube you have to have strategy behind that too if you actually want to have a legit career with it. But yeah I mean I think everyone should do it because it's it's your portfolio. It's the best portfolio you can have and and it's in front of trillions of people like. Every every every year like it's just unbelievable. The amount of hours that people are watching that you can you no longer have any sort of thing that gets between you and the audience if you make something good. It can do unbelievable and change. You know one video can change your career on Youtube.
01:02:08.62
davemaze
Yeah, you got you got a little taste of it without that one video right? I mean it's pretty cool. What um one cautionary tale that you could leave with our listeners to anything any big mistake that you made in your career or if it's ah a series of mistakes or something that you're currently.
01:02:09.56
scottmckenna
It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, that's.
01:02:26.17
davemaze
Even still struggling with and working on just any anything that you can share that would be helpful to somebody based on your experience as an entrepreneur.
01:02:32.93
scottmckenna
I think we I mean we kind of touched on it earlier but it's simply the idea that you have to be careful that you don't overwork and that you don't aspire to be someone who you don't really know what their life is actually like. Are so many people that want to be youtubers because they see a youtuber doing these crazy cool videos and all they think to themselves is like man that would be the life look at all, they they get to just travel and they get to do all this kind of you don't see the behind the scenes of what goes into it or the work involved. You also look at all these entrepreneurs who have failed marriages and have. Terrible depression. All that you have to be careful and you have to stay in your own lane and decide to you. What is actual success to you. There are so many people that if you said to them if you could make $100000 would you be content and would you. Relax and be able to just work less and and most people would be like absolutely that's all I want I want to have my freedom and I want to do that then you make $100000 and you have your own business and then you're like oh it would kind of be nice to make even more and would kind of be nice to make even more and look what I can do with this money and this money then eventually you're making a great salary. But you're having to work your tail off just to maintain that salary because you now are living a life that needs that salary and that's where you get yourself in trouble and then you get in this never ending race of trying to chase after the next big opportunity the next big thing the the bigger income the bigger opportunity and then ultimately you're like. Remember I got into this because I actually just wanted to have some freedom and now I lost every bit of it because I have so many things going on like I face that on a daily basis just challenging myself with that and all I would tell people is to just really try to set a goal of what you want your life to look like your ideal week your ideal year. And then start going after that thing and be okay when you get there just don't chase the next thing it is extremely hard to do but it is natural when you have success in something you naturally look at it like if I could make that work imagine what I could do next and next and next. And it gets tiring. It gets really tiring chasing after it and and I think people would sometimes be a lot happier if they made a smaller salary and they just could clock in and out of a job at 9 to 5 and be super content having all their weekends then the opposite but people think that it's just this unbelievable joy ride of like man. It'd be great to be my own boss.
01:05:01.71
davemaze
I totally agree this last year I worked for my cousins. They have a wedding film business amy and Jordan Demos have you ever heard of them by the way by chance. Okay, they're photographers. So um, but they've they've made a very successful business selling courses in that in that space. Um.
01:05:01.94
scottmckenna
Not always that great.
01:05:09.84
scottmckenna
No I don't think so.
01:05:21.13
davemaze
And they hired me and that's how I got out of l a ah we were I was living in l a doing the indie mobile thing and then we moved to Nashville now we live in Nashville Tennessee um, and you think so you liked Nashville sure yeah.
01:05:29.57
scottmckenna
Best city in America. Yep I love I love na actually I like Frank I think Franklin is my favorite city in America actually but but Nashville I would I would I'd live there in a heartbeat if I if I had any family like near it because they would just be point.
01:05:39.83
davemaze
Franklin and.
01:05:45.12
davemaze
I'm from here. Yeah, that's amazing anytime you're here. Well let's get some hot chicken and hang out lots of great music obviously being a musician I'm sure.
01:05:46.20
scottmckenna
Be a pointless move but I love that is my favorite place in the country. Do absolutely? Yeah, um.
01:05:58.39
davemaze
Is one of the reasons why you love it here. But yeah Franklin has gotten so ridiculous in terms of the busyness and it's getting very overcrowded and the cost. Yeah, it's gone up to California levels honestly and it's kind of like why would I pay that to live here. It doesn't make any sense but um.
01:06:04.83
scottmckenna
And the and the cost. Yeah 9 now. Yeah, no, it's crazy.
01:06:17.99
davemaze
Yeah, we live in right outside of Nashville in ah area called Laverne which is kind of like in between murphysborough and Nashville so but anyways, ah what was I saying oh yeah, I was doing a 9 to 5 with them and I was still doing video. That's how I got the c seventy we were using it every day doing. Courses and these long form videos and they paid me well and you know they're my family I love them to death and I support what they do but being an entrepreneur my whole life and being ah a youtuber the last four years and being a you know freelance creator for the rest of the time it was like. Was just going insane like I just couldn't it was a weird mental issue of like the harder I work. Ah I'm not rewarded for it like I don't have by being efficient I'm punished because if I get this done quickly then they're just gonna give me another project.
01:06:58.84
scottmckenna
Aha just.
01:07:14.88
davemaze
So why would I do this quickly I have no I have no motivation to finish this in any form of a reasonable time so whereas with Youtube I would get it done and then move on to the next video and more videos equals more opportunity. Always equals more money. Potentially um.
01:07:15.14
scottmckenna
And I yeah.
01:07:29.42
scottmckenna
A half.
01:07:32.20
davemaze
And as a freelancer you get the project done. You go on to the next project you get paid for that one. So I just had to I just had to go back. So this is I guess now it's March but in February I finally went back to freelance and doing Youtube again and doing a course with mzed. And then the Youtube channel and this podcast you know all 3 of those combined equal. What I was making so um, anyways, it's just great to be back and I think if you're an entrepreneur and if you're a freelance creator which I think a lot of people who listen to this are but there are people who have the 9 to 5 who listen. Who do a creative thing on the side. It is hard to like mentally like the idea of going to a 9 to 5 and being done is great but I don't know if I am wired to do that. It seems that you're not either at the.
01:08:23.89
scottmckenna
No absolutely not I'm not but at the say but there are certain times that I think about that I'm like could you imagine how nice that would be like could you imagine closing your laptop at five Zero P M and being like see you tomorrow.
01:08:28.31
davemaze
At the end of the day of.
01:08:35.25
davemaze
Um, yeah, yeah, I'm done.
01:08:41.25
scottmckenna
Like it's like I can't even fathom that that's and like but I also know that if I did that two days later I'd be like this is the worst thing I like so I know I know that it's this just is how it is. Ah.
01:08:43.17
davemaze
exactly yeah exactly god I think god makes people different for every reason like entrepreneur entrepreneurs need people who can do the 9 to 5 to to make sure that their business is run successfully.
01:08:57.92
scottmckenna
Boom. Um yep, hip.
01:09:03.40
davemaze
And people people who are working in that environment are completely content and they don't want the stress of an entrepreneur. So. It's one isn't when I was growing up because I grew up in a very suburban kind of standard country. You know Mount Juliet Tennessee it was pretty country Redneck area I was definitely an outlier. In terms of being a creative entrepreneur type and I just wanted I just basically felt like I was better than everybody else I'm like you guys are idiots like this is why would you want to work at a bank. You know? so but then as I matured I realized wait. No no, that was completely the wrong attitude they are.
01:09:33.18
scottmckenna
Yeah.
01:09:42.27
davemaze
Within all their rights to be that way and they are completely content and I'm jealous of that in a way but it's also not bad for me to be the way I am like I was kind of made fun of for being different. You know, growing up in a less creative environment. That being said of course Nashville is a very creative space but where I grew up.
01:09:45.85
scottmckenna
Yes.
01:10:01.13
davemaze
Not so much So sometimes.
01:10:03.10
scottmckenna
it's it's so interesting no it's I literally saw someone the other day is um, like someone that had like an iphone 6 or something or 7 or whatever and I literally thought to myself like I am so envious of the person that can. Not care at all about like the tech like literally like I looked at him like and like the phone was cracked even my wife like my my wife just got a new phone on hers was like it's been cracked in the back and on the front for like 2 years It's been it like the battery life is terrible. She never complained about it I'm like I literally am jealous of people.
01:10:22.16
davemaze
Ah, yeah.
01:10:39.26
scottmckenna
Of people that can like that just that that doesn't matter in their life at all like it's crazy me I'm just like man that would be so nice. Everything seems so shiny and new and exciting to me like I can't even imagine what it would be like just not caring like that would be so awesome. But it's just.
01:10:55.70
davemaze
Ah I think you're I think our wives would get along because my wife is the same way and it's funny I don't know about you. But even when we started dating I noticed like she was using this really crudy pc that was just awful. It didn't hold a charge. It was just like a $200 walmart
01:10:57.90
scottmckenna
It's not in me and it never will be.
01:11:13.10
scottmckenna
Um, yeah.
01:11:15.00
davemaze
You know pc and I bought her a used macbook at the time it was like 3 or four hundred bucks it was an older one but like I was like you have to like use something else and then she had an old Android phone and I like helped her get an iphone and like she just got a 13 as well. But she was rocking an old phone.
01:11:30.94
scottmckenna
Ah.
01:11:33.50
davemaze
And like I'm the 1 doing all the upgrades for her. She's just she's not like at all saying I need to upgrade my phone I'm like it's been 3 years you need to upgrade your phone like and she's like whatever I'm I'm I'm content I'm like I don't want you taking pictures of the kids on a three year old phone. So.
01:11:37.28
scottmckenna
Yeah, you yeah, it's yeah, that's New.. That's what that's exactly that was my justification too is I Just said you take all the pictures of our kids and you need to have a newer camera and a newer phone and she's like. I don't need it I'm like I know you don't but your photos need to be better like you take them all so that was literally my justification. That's the only reason why she was okay with it honestly because she was she could care less about that. It's a little bit slower than my model like she but she does she does like the cameras being good like.
01:11:59.52
davemaze
Ah, ah.
01:12:09.47
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:14.88
scottmckenna
Not that she cares bottom but like she she definitely knows that they look better than the other cameras. So it's a man. It's I'm envious to those people sometimes.
01:12:18.32
davemaze
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that that that means that like if you if you wrap up like right now. How the 13 is did she get a 13 is that yeah my wife as well I think the image is ah.
01:12:29.31
scottmckenna
Yes, she got yeah 13 we had 13 pro actually no just a 13 Yeah yeah.
01:12:37.35
davemaze
Yeah I think yeah, they're the perfect candidate for just a 13 right? Um I think the image the image quality is great. The skin tones are great on the new 13 I have a 12 pro I actually didn't feel the urge to upgrade from a 12 pro to a 13 pro this year. Um.
01:12:50.80
scottmckenna
Yeah.
01:12:54.18
davemaze
But that being said I've noticed the color science is a little better on the newer ones. But yeah, we need to have that same attitude in 3 years it's like okay we agree that the 13 is good enough like in 3 years if they're still content. We don't need to force them to get the 15 Ah.
01:12:56.90
scottmckenna
Ah.
01:13:11.53
scottmckenna
But it's all about comparison when you when you see this 16 and you see how um how good it has gotten because that's the hardest part about tech right now is it just it gets so good that what seemed so good Two years ago now seems like a potato in comparison because of just how.
01:13:13.44
davemaze
So yeah.
01:13:22.19
davemaze
Yeah, yeah.
01:13:30.90
scottmckenna
Because of how good that that's the hardest part about tech. It's like the it's just the stuff has gotten so good that it's hard to sometimes be okay with it because you're like man but look how good that has gotten.
01:13:32.10
davemaze
Yeah I.
01:13:43.22
davemaze
There's gonna there will be a point. We're still not there yet I Still really don't think we're there yet, but there will be a point where the phones do start looking like real cameras I I understand like of course every new phone comes out people are like this camera versus the alexa and I'm I'm guilty of that I did I did those comparisons too.
01:13:55.62
scottmckenna
Um, yeah, yeah.
01:14:00.60
davemaze
And you can get it to look really good but at the end of the day. It's still like all phones still look like a phone. So ah, yeah, so I don't know if we're going to get there anytime soon. But I think there could be some interesting computational photography stuff going on that could get us.
01:14:05.80
scottmckenna
Yeah, there's because this's the yeah, the sensor the sensor size matters.
01:14:19.20
davemaze
Pretty dang close. We're we're already pretty close but when that when that time comes then it'll be a worthy upgrade. So cool Scott Mckinnna thank you so much for coming on the golden hour podcast. It was a pleasure meeting you and and having this conversation. So thank you for your time. Yeah, awesome! Alright there you go.
01:14:20.55
scottmckenna
Yep, now it's. Yeah, we'll we'll see.
01:14:32.44
scottmckenna
Yeah, appreciate you having me cool.
01:14:38.91
davemaze
Let's ah.