A cinematographer's secret sauce for success, and a profitable side hustle 🎥
A glimpse into the Film/TV industry with Shane Collins
I sat down with Shane Collins, award-winning Director of Photography who’s been involved in the film industry for almost a decade. Shane has over 200 credits to his name and has shot for major brands including Bud Light, Hyundai, Pepsi, and more. Shane also co-founded New Sponge Media, a commercial production company working with Fortune 100 companies as well as indie musicians.
How this all started
I was younger and was just looking to make short films with my friends. We needed a name to put them out under and we came up with New Sponge Media. And that just kinda stuck. New Sponge has grown with me as I've grown in my career, and when I moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles, I've been able to develop it into a commercial production company. We’ve been doing music videos, commercials for big artists and big brands.
Your secret sauce for success
Logistics. I think the biggest thing people overlook in film and TV is logistics. Logistics is super important. A lot of people just think of films and TV shows from an artistic perspective. But unlike a lot of other art forms like music, painting, or sculpting, you can’t do it with a small number of people.
Filmmaking takes a giant team, hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands of people. You scale up to these huge blockbuster productions and that all falls apart if you can't get everyone to the right place, or you didn’t think of parking space and need to park 400 cars... For instance, you never bring your own lunch. You always get fed. Catering is a big thing and all these unions have requirements on when you have to feed people. Otherwise, you have to pay more money because you get a meal penalty because you haven't fed them on time.
There are all these little things that sound small and dinky, but over time they just add up to this giant logistical mess. If you don't have a good production team, production managers, and coordinators that run this all, it doesn’t work. You can tell how good the production team is just by how well they do these smaller things. The logistics portions give you an insight into how well they're running as a company.
Speaking of logistics, you created a COVID-19 production kit.
It's one of those things that just came about out of necessity. You need content more than ever when everyone's stuck at home. We've all been bingeing so much more TV and movies than we ever have before. It's a cart with a camera on it which can be remotely controlled with the Internet. Lighting and sound can be controlled remotely as well. Let’s say you're doing a celebrity interview for a TV show. We would have the kit delivered to your house, and we would just control everything remotely.
It's a high-quality video production, so it doesn't look like Zoom!
To start a new venture in the film/TV industry…
You have to be prepared to hear no a lot. Everyone thinks their ideas are special and they're not, a lot of people have great ideas. Actually, it's something I'm going through myself. With my partner, we’ve been trying to secure investment in a TV production company over the past years. We met with VCs and Angels to try and secure a $5M investment. It's something I'm used to in this industry: not everyone will like your idea. You just need to keep pushing through the people that say no, if you have something that's truly great and you believe in it, you just need to keep putting in the sweat equity. Keep making it until it's made.
Beware…
Many people are willing to work for free in creative industries, and that’s something employers take advantage of. It also means that you’re easily replaceable. I would recommend you think twice about the working for free thing. Your value, like anything else in any other industry, is what you say it is.
It’s serial entrepreneurship
Film is great for entrepreneurs because it's serial entrepreneurship. You start a new project all the time, and then you exit and get paid. You're constantly starting something new. You file a new LLC for each film, so you're literally starting companies and running them. Once I realized that synergy, it made me a lot more comfortable with the risk and how hard it can be in between jobs.
Organization as a freelancer…
I'm terrible at organization. I only use Google Calendar!
Did you develop additional revenue streams to build a safety net?
I've traditionally never had a safety net. In June, my wife and I started a PPE company, providing protective gear to the film industry. This is the first time I've ever had an additional revenue stream. We provide masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, etc. We've grown it into a business that does about $100K in monthly revenue, the equivalent of $1.2M a year in sales.
Starting this project was kind of a no brainer since, from my logistical side, I knew some people in importing. I got hooked up with a couple of people doing importing from Chinese markets, and a lot of their stuff come through the port of Los Angeles to get into the United States. So we're really right next to these containers of goods coming in the US. My wife and I were able to really quickly set up this company, get a warehouse and employees, and sell directly to production teams as they were coming back from quarantine, so they could stay safe on set.
Producers give the protective gear to their employees, but once the shoot is over, they all move on to the next thing. The gear doesn't come with them from project to project, so ultimately they need to order more. Every new project is a whole new customer for us.
The biggest influence on your career
I like modern filmmaking. The earliest movie I can ever remember watching was Terminator 2 (1992) with my dad. Blade Runner (1982) is one of my dad's favorite films and it’s part of my growth as a cinematographer. There’s also Drive (2011) starring Ryan Gosling. It’s such a beautifully shot movie, with wonderful colors, and a wonderful, wonderful tonal shift in the middle of the movie that I won't give away for anyone that hasn't seen it. It changes genres just halfway through the film, and I thought it was a wonderful piece of filmmaking.
Filmmaking, and other art forms, are built on the backs of others. If you see someone else do something cool, it will influence your own work. That’s why when you see something cool once, you start seeing it everywhere.
Get in touch with Shane
Instagram: @shane.shoots
www.shaneshoots.com | www.newsponge.net
Takeaways
Your value is what you say it is.
Great things are built on the backs of others. Be on the lookout for inspiration.
Your next best side hustle might be around the corner. What advantages do you have? Is there something you have access to that others do not? Who, among your network, can help you?