Tae: So we’re with Adam Hislop, the owner of atomic Spark, which is a video production company. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you specialize in?

Adam: Atomic Spark is a commercial video production company, and we work with all different clients to create video content for them. We do a lot of public sector work in the health and education spaces, and we also work with manufacturers and other companies and not-for-profits, and it’s a lot of variety, so it’s a lot of fun.

Tae: Great! What inspired you to start your video business, and how has your vision for it evolved over time?

Adam: Well, my wife forced me to start. Ha ha! Actually, I worked in video production for another company for a number of years, and I really saw some opportunity to do some things a little bit differently. And I think there was a need there in the industry, and that’s partially what inspired me. Plus, I just really wanted to build something that, you know, I could shape and, you know, deliver a sort of service the way I wanted, and be able to create content that I really enjoyed working on, and, you know, work with clients that were fun and made it Interesting. And that’s kind of what did it!

Tae: Yeah, good, good. How do you structure pricing and packages, and what kind of factors influence the rates you use?

Adam: So we don’t have set packages. Typically for projects, what we do is we price each job individually based on what what’s needed for the job, who all is involved: if there’s an agency involved, or if it’s just the client. One of the big factors we have to consider is how much project management, how much planning, pre-production goes into it, because that’s really, in a lot of cases, where a project is won or lost. And if you don’t consider those factors really well you can quickly get into the red without accounting for all those hours.

Tae: I can imagine how much you would lose out on with a job if you didn’t correctly guess how much time is needed for each project.

Adam: And it’s really substantial, and usually happens when you’re either new in the industry or not familiar with it. It’s really easy to kind of think of the main thing we do as shooting and editing, but it’s really not. A lot of what we do is managing projects and planning things and all that.

Tae: Same with me… I mean, for photography. The actual photography part of it is just a small portion of the actual job. A lot of it goes into, you know, planning what you’re you’re going to do, where you’re going to do it, and with who, and then afterwards, there’s a lot more time spent on the post production and retouching images and so forth.

Adam: Yeah, exactly. And that’s something that you have to charge for, because it’s a service you’re providing, and it adds a lot of value to a project. And I think that’s why I think we generally have a good reputation, because we can deliver on those things. We don’t drop the ball. We get back to people on time. And that’s not always the case in the creative services world.

Tae: Reliability is a huge part of creative jobs. I think a lot of creatives are not the most reliable people, but seems like you are.

Adam: Well, that is, yeah, a big, big factor. And that was one of the needs that I saw when I was working elsewhere. The need for a company that could really deliver what they promised and not drop the ball in any way.

Tae: So when you go out on these shoots, do you prefer to keep it simple and just go out yourself and shoot stuff, or do you prefer to have a crew that goes with you? I’m sure that would be more complex and a little more logistically challenging, but maybe it makes things easier as well.

Adam: It’s pretty rare that I’m out alone with a camera, unless it’s just something very, very simple and quick. But typically, sort of our minimum is three or four of us, and then sometimes that grows to, you know, 10 plus depending on the project, it’s not uncommon for there to be five or six on a crew. We do try to keep crew sizes in check, because it’s really easy to have a lot of extra people hanging around. And not only is that expensive for the client. It’s not really necessary. Occasionally, if it’s something small, if we’re just grabbing some B roll or something, it’ll just be a couple of us, but for the most part, we’ll shoot with the crew. And yes, it is more complicated, but, you know, were with a group that we work together frequently. We know each other well enough we can kind of finish each other’s sentences. So it’s really easy to, you know, you see a need, someone setting up something, and you got a minute, you can help them with it. You kind of read each other’s minds, right? You can anticipate what their needs are and anticipate how you can help them and kind of work together.

Tae: What is the most MacGyver thing you’ve ever done on a shoot to save the day?

Adam: We haven’t done anything too outrageous, but there have certainly been times we’ve done some strange things for shots or things that might look odd. I can think of times when we’re trying to get a moving shot and you got someone lying on a cart, like a Rubbermaid cart, and someone’s pushing them down an aisle in a factory or something, because you don’t have a dolly. And, you know, sometimes those things actually work really well. Also, I think every person who’s ever worked in video or television can relate to forgetting a tripod plate.

Tae: Yeah, I’ve definitely done that too.

Adam: And I’ve definitely gaff taped the camera to a tripod. Not proud of it. But in the 1000s of days of shooting, you know, we’ve had have something like that happen once or twice. We’ve definitely had lights go down and you try to make do with something on site. Sometimes you get into some weird rigging situations. It’s always a balance depending on who the client is and how silly or crazy you’re willing to get and balancing that with safety and things like that, right? You see photos online of people doing really stupid things to get a shot. I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Tae: Okay, so I know a lot of your work is for companies that want to improve their brand and their brand awareness, and they want to create videos that show who they are, and explain to clients what they do. So in regards to that, what do you think is the biggest missed opportunity companies make when they create brand videos?

Adam: Hmm… I kind of have a couple answers to that. When we work with companies that are smaller typically the biggest thing would be not knowing what they’re going to do with their video content after it’s created. So they’ll say, “Yeah, we want to create all this content.” We’ll go ahead. We’ll shoot a bunch of stuff. It’ll be wonderful. And they’ll put it on their website, and that’s it. And you kind of say, “Hey, are you getting any results with that?”. And encourage them by saying, “Hey, this is how you can use this. This is how you can use that.” So we’re really trying to work with clients more to create a little bit of a plan, or at least ensure that they have something of a plan, because otherwise they don’t see the value. And the opposite of that is when someone does have a plan or uses things well, then they come back to us and say, “Oh, we want to do more because that was great and we saw results.” It did help, you know, boost awareness or sales or whatever. So that’s probably the biggest single thing that we see. Secondly, on larger campaigns where you have more people involved, like experienced marketers, maybe it’s part of an ad buy so you know they’re spending oftentimes six figures on paid advertising, I think the biggest thing that happens is clients can get lost in the weeds and can spend more time tweaking graphics and doing silly little things that you think, “This isn’t going to make a huge difference.” Or may you should create an alternate version and then AB test them. Put both out there and see what performs better, or if it even makes a difference. But oftentimes people are lost in those little tiny details and neglect some of the bigger picture things that they should really put more time into.

Tae: What’s one thing you wish potential clients understood about marketing videos versus viral videos?

Adam: Viral is not just a formula. There are certainly best practices that will get you closer to having something viral. But an actual viral video is a lot of luck, just like wild success in business or other areas of life. You talk to any really successful person and they say, you know, I did this and I did that right, and they list all the things they did, and it’s wonderful. But they almost always say, I also was super lucky or was in the right place at the right time and it got picked up by someone, and that is how it went viral. So viral is not a formula. However, there are a lot of best practices that really work in making content that’s shareable, content that people want to watch and not skip, and that’s very doable. A big part of it is listening to all the people involved. And if you’re working with an agency, listening to their expertise, and also giving us a little credit that we know what we’re doing. One of the mistakes you see all the time is just making content that’s too long and contains too much information. People should try shorter content and more of it.

Tae: All right, so if a business says we don’t need video, do you assume they also use dial up internet?

Adam: Ha, ha! No, I think I would say almost everyone could benefit from video. There are probably some cases where that’s not true. Professional video production is not always a good fit for all business budgets. If you think of a small mom and pop store or something like that, they can probably create their own videos and use that. And they probably don’t have the budget to spend on us creating video for them, nor should they spend their money on that. And then there have been times where I’ve seen, you know, where people have come and said, “Yeah, we’re really interested in doing some video.” And you talk to them about it and realize like, hey, you can probably create at least some of what you’re trying to do yourself and save the money, because, like when we’re working with people, they typically have marketing budgets that are, you know, substantial. Oftentimes, their overall budgets would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So it’s not a problem for them to spend a good bit on video. But, you know, a small organization, I don’t want to see someone put all their money into one small video, and then if it doesn’t perform the way they want they’re stuck, and they’ve wasted their money. Sometimes it needs to be a mix. It’s also and evolving process. You create something. You see how it performs. You can adjust it. You see how that performs. When you’re doing it right that’s how it works. It’s not just put one video up there and you’re done for five years. I don’t want to see people wasting their money. I think also, there’s lots of times where people should worry about other things more like getting a good website, maybe looking at online sales. Photography is another thing we have people come to us and..

Tae: You know any good photographers?

Adam: Ha, ha…people come to us looking for video, and we’re thinking, “Well, you know, maybe get some better photography too.” So I think it could benefit just about everyone, but I totally understand that it’s not the right thing for every business organization to spend money

Tae: Totally get that. All right, what’s your biggest client red flag that no one talks about but you secretly run from, hmm?

Adam: Anytime a client really wants to handle a part of our production process themselves that they’re not qualified for. Like we’ll sometimes have people say, “Hey, you know, we need you to shoot this stuff, but we’re gonna look after the editing.” If it’s someone with a good editor on their team, that’s understandable, but if they don’t have a good editor, or they say, hey, we’ll shoot some stuff and we’ll send it to you. Or they say, you know, we’ll look after all the writing and planning and all that, um, that that’s often a red flag that, because unless you know they actually are qualified why are they not wanting us to do that? It’s like hiring someone to, you know, build a house, or something like that, saying, “Oh no, I’m going to handle the drywall myself.” Unless you have a good reason to do that, it’s a bad idea, and you’re only going to make it worse. We have a pretty good process, and we’ve done this a lot of times over the years, so we know what we’re doing and can get good results. That’s often the biggest one, the other one, obviously, as with many industries, is if they come to you and they don’t have enough budget, And I’m not talking about have a low budget. I’m talking about like, clearly don’t have enough to spend on a project, and are looking for ways to either cut corners or trying to convince you to do it, because you know it’ll be ‘good exposure’. The thing we’ve all heard loads of times in our career, and that’s definitely a red flag.

Tae: Okay, that’s fair. I totally get that. So what’s one thing you’d ban forever if you ruled the video production industry? Or a buzzword or a marketing phrase?

Adam: Well, I’ve never liked the term videography, to be honest. I don’t know that there’s any good reason for that, other than it’s in my mind. There’s always buzz words, you know, ‘authentic’, ‘storytelling’, things like that, that are way overused. And I think if you’re using that and know what it means, and are actually practicing that, then that’s fine, but we need to find other words to use, because everybody says they’re a storyteller. Everyone says they’re authentic. Everyone says they, you know, create brand experiences. And I get frustrated with marketers that are in creative fields that are more full of themselves than than they should be. Like, it’s really about clients, it’s not about you. I think there’s a lot of people that like to make it about themselves. But I just at times say, hey, just do good work!