Era of the Creative Episode 7 Both Sides of the Lens with Juwan Caesar

Episode 07: Show Notes.

For some creatives, working in one lane just isn’t enough. Having started out as an athlete and model, Juwan Caesar became interested in spending time behind the camera too, and jumped into photography along with various other roles on different kinds of sets and shoots. He now sees his path as leading towards a future in feature film direction, looking up to the likes of Ryan Coogler and Quentin Tarantino. In our chat, we get to explore the ideas of continuous learning, why community and support are so necessary for any creator, developing self-belief, and some of the sources of Juwan's energy and inspiration. Juwan makes sure to share some powerful and practical tips for up-and-coming artists, as well as why it is so often necessary to do away with the negative effects of our ego. So if you want to hear all of this and more from a director of the future making waves today, press play now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Juwan shares his favorite cameras and lenses. 
• The passion to create, and what drives Juwan to put in the time on different projects.  
• Comparing what it feels like on each side of the camera. 
• Juwan talks about his experiences in the modeling industry.  
• The advice that Juwan would give other creatives regarding pricing and bookings.   
• Juwan's biggest personal challenges in the creative process. 
• Explaining all the important roles on set; producer, gaffer, DP, and more.
• Putting aside ego and building a great team to make the best art possible. 
• Recommendations from Juwan for building a DIY approach when starting out.  
• Using the position of PA as a springboard to bigger roles in the future. 
• Juwan compares different size shoots and the pros and cons of each. 
• Thoughts on the utility of social media, and why Juwan is not concerned with his Instagram following.  
• The events and meetups that Juwan frequents currently.
• Benefits of drawing on a network of creators.
• Juwan comments on recent moments of inspiration.    
• Thoughts on dealing with imposter syndrome and self-doubt.  
• A few things on the horizon for Juwan; new spec-ads, ideas, and more!

Tweetables:

“I can do the fashion stuff. I've been doing some acting stuff. I do like commercial stuff.” — @Its_STYX [0:07:25]

“If you're getting paid per gig, what you're worth, and what you think you should be doing, then you should be able to have time for yourself and not overbook.” — @Its_STYX [0:13:01]

“Thankfully, I don't really care for social media, honestly. For people that are already into it. It's a great way to get business and obviously increase your revenue.” — @Its_STYX [0:29:09]

“I try and write as much as I can. So, anything I can write down I do. I write down my dreams, at least the ones that I can remember in the morning.” — @Its_STYX [0:35:15]

Transcript

EPISODE 7

[00:00:00] JPE: I start off usually by asking what is your favorite camera? What's your go to camera? What’s your go to lighting? 

[00:00:09] JC: I like that. I like that. I’m a tech junkie for real. Shoot. I will say my favorite camera, if I had to choose anything or what I have?

[00:00:18] JPE: One's that you have currently?

[00:00:19] JC: Okay. So, what I have right now, I have an FX3. That's my favorite camera to shoot with. Lens, man, the lenses that I have, I would say I got a vintage Helios Russian lens 58 F2. It gives like a nice meaty look, dirty look. Obviously, Russian lenses are film lenses aren’t very clean and whatnot. That's what I love. So, that will be my favorite as far as like, if I could do anything. As far as like work lens, probably right now, 24-105.

[00:00:50] JPE: That's for a Sony. So, you’re a Sony guy.

[00:00:55] JC: I got the FX3. I got a A74 and I was thinking about getting the a7R IV, but I think I'm doing good with the A74.

[00:01:03] JPE: I love that. Maybe [inaudible 00:01:04].

[00:01:05] JC: Yeah.

[00:01:08] JPE: So, you're an interesting predicament because you not only have creative, like your shoot video and photo, but you're also in front of the camera too. You’re a model. You are an athlete. How do you have the time for any of that?

[00:01:19] JC: I mean, this is kind of how I got into this from anything. It's like a funny story. It's like I got into camera stuff by accident. I was training for, when I graduated college, I was training for the pros or whatever.

[00:01:29] JPE: Where did you go to?

[00:01:30] JC: I went to Michigan State and then I went to FIU as well, playing football.

[00:01:34] JPE: Football? What position?

[00:01:36] JC: Receiver.

[00:01:37] JPE: [inaudible 00:01:37].

[00:01:38] JC: I was like one of the big prototypes or whatever, the 6’5”. I was training for Pro Day, I got invited to be an extra in HBO's Ballers. I got invited to that. I got to see The Rock do his thing. I was in the season finale of season two, check it up. I popped on the screen like twice. And then I saw The Rock doing this thing. And I said, “Oh man, I want it be like that, see if I can do some acting or whatever.” And that led to me modeling. I met a photographer down here that was looking for some stuff. And did my first shoot, chilling, whatever. I was like, “It’s kind of fun.” Ended up going to find Miami Visual Group and created Visual Suspects. [inaudible 00:02:21], visual suspects is a creative group in Miami for the photographer's and things like that. I went to that and I was like, “Man, I don’t want to be just a model at this thing, because I’m not even a model yet.” So, I grabbed my sister's camera, it was a Canon T2i with the kit lens, with the18-55.

[00:02:39] JPE: 18-55, yeah.

[00:02:41] JC: That was like boom, out there shooting JPEG, the flash is popping up. I was shooting on auto. Everything. One of my boys, Zach Townsend, shout out to him. He was with –I had actually met him that day too. And he was like, “Yo, are you shooting on RAW? Are you doing this, that?” I was like, “What are you talking about?” Man, that I changed my life. I started messing around with it. And literally was like, “Okay, I took the camera home”, I was like, “Okay, let me learn as much as I can in YouTube University.” That was like, six years ago now.

[00:03:16] JPE: What did you like the most about shooting? From the time, starting off to [inaudible 00:03:19].

[00:03:20] JC: What I love most about it? I would say shoot, just the ability to create whatever you can at whatever you want, really. I love shooting the most like actual production. I mean, [inaudible 00:03:31], horror stories for me. Horror stories.

[00:03:35] JPE: Horror stories for a reason.

[00:03:37] JC: Horror stories, but I just dread kind of certain parts of it, the boring parts of it as far as like calling goes for video interview. But it's all fun. I love most of everything about it. But I would say the creative aspects of it, and what made me really fall in love with the images and stuff, was the boke. Boke, I love the whole 1.8m, 1.2. Just doing that, and I started to learn about composition, and for film and stuff, blocking and all that stuff. I mean, there's just so many things about it.

[00:04:09] JPE: It's never ending. It's cool, like how similar the beginnings of photography go, like for a lot of people, a lot of photographers, because I remember my first camera was a T3i, and also why [inaudible 00:04:19] at the time, and I was paying photographers to go and shoot with the model with the athletes, and it was [inaudible 00:04:31], I can’t afford to do this thing. So, I went to offer up and I have [inaudible 00:04:33] camera and the person that came up was with T3i. I could be a photographer. [inaudible 00:04:40] buying and I thought I’ve seen people who I like work with. And then that’s how I went off.

So, it's interesting how we all started off sort of like it's not even maybe not the full intention was to be a photographer, to be a creative, but life sort of lends it will to you creating, you becoming that version of yourself. What's it like being in front of the camera compared to being behind the camera?

[00:05:02] JC: Man, I think front of the camera, for me at least, is completely easy. I mean, just to me, just because I grew up being that kid that wanted to be in front of the camera. I remember, I felt like I was the kid growing up where my grandfather, he recorded everything, recorded us doing everything all the time. So, whenever camera came on me, it was like, showtime. You know what I mean? This feels good. I mean, anytime I get in front of a camera, like I said, it's like, there’s a switch. I'm like, “Okay, it's time to put on a show.”

There's also been some things where I had to learn like my first shoot, I was in drawers. I was like [inaudible 00:05:40]. So, with the first shoot that I was telling you about earlier, one of my teammates came to me. “Yeah, this photographer is out here. He wants to shoot some stuff.” I was down, whatever. I’m down being in front of camera always. So, he goes, “Oh, yeah, so we're just going to do this, this, this”, and we ended up on the beach. Actually, appearing in this area on the beach, and I'm just in my Calvin Klein underwear, like chilling, or whatever. I think I was told us 22, 23 at the time. Yeah, people were walking by us, the old folks want to take pictures with me and stuff like I was somebody famous. It was hilarious.

[00:06:16] JPE: Underwear campaign?

[00:06:19] JC: It wasn’t even a campaign. It was just like a shoot. [inaudible 00:06:19]. That’s how stupid it was. At the same time, I was just like, “Hey, whatever.”

[00:06:30] JPE: Have you ever shoot with like [inaudible 00:06:30].

[00:06:33] JC: Yeah. I [inaudible 00:06:36]. I mean, I thought I looked dope at the time. But it was it was funny, just thinking back at then. I was really in my drawers out there on the beach.

[00:06:46] JPE: Did you continue pursuing modeling before you went into being more of a creative?

[00:06:53] JC: Yeah, I was just – so, some of the friends that I met during the Miami visuals, group, the meetups and all that stuff. I told them to, I was like, “Hey, I’m a model or whatever.” And they were like, “Whenever we need somebody, we’ll do it.” So, a lot of people don't know models like that.” So, it was kind of easy for them to just say, “Oh, I need a male model. Go and hit me up.” So, it's been pretty consistent as far as working, as far as the model goes, and especially as an athlete, it was kind of easy to make that switch.

[00:07:19] JPE: What kind of modeling do you do? Do you focus on, fitness?

[00:07:22] JC: Yeah, mainly fitness, sports, that's my bread and butter, but I can do it all. I can do fashion. I can do the fashion stuff. I've been doing some acting stuff. I do like commercial stuff. 

[00:07:33] JPE: What's that industry? Because I don't know anything about the whole modeling entry from the front end, like being an actual model, being in front of the camera, what is that like?

[00:07:40] JC: From my experience, I would say it's a little different, just because like I said, like I said, people, let's say, because I'm not talking to an agency, I'm just a freelance model. So, I think that would have been a little different just going through that route. But yeah, it's been just – the main thing has been for me is building those connections with photographers, and filmmakers and stuff like that, just to say, “Hey, if you need somebody, as either a shooter or a model, I can do it. I got you.” That's also pretty fun too, just learning how the similarities are on both sides, when it comes to negotiating rates, thinking about things like licensing and all that stuff, because it's your likeness for the footage. So, it's like, okay, it's the same – you have the same rights as a filmmaker, a photographer would have to the rights to the photo.

[00:08:26] JPE: As the person who takes it or the person –

[00:08:28] JC: As the person who's the model. You're using my face for your business. If you say you're going to use it for 10 years, I should get paid for those 10 years. That's what I'm hoping at the time. So, yeah, it’s been fun, man. Like I said, modeling for me is a lot easier, just because I like to do that. It's like a natural thing for me to be in front of the camera, and to just be, [inaudible 00:08:51], yeah, man. Pretty much it.

[00:08:53] JPE: That’s super interesting. I actually want to – you touched on an interesting topic when it came to knowing your rates as a photographer, and also as a model. Being somebody who takes content and also being someone who has content taken and done, how do you negotiate that? Let’s say, I’m a beginning photographer. I'm trying to figure out my rates. I'm trying to figure out how that whole exchange works. What advice would you give to me?

[00:09:17] JC: Man, honestly, I'm still – hey, I'm right there with you. I’m right there with you all. 

I swear I'm on that boat as well, because there have been times where I've gotten certain jobs like even as I've gotten into the bigger gigs as well. The bigger commercial stuff and things like that, where you got to think about things like having a team with you. It's not just you. Honestly, I've just leaned on the community that I've worked with, and always touching on what – okay, “Hey, look, I got this job. What do you think? Hey, I got this. What do you think?” Just reaching out to people and there's been some great people that I've worked with, that have always helped me out. Shout out to Corey, Corey Jenkins, that’s my boy. He helps me all the time, like helping me price stuff. I got a producer, my homeboy, Larry Lee. He’s a producer. So, he's doing that stuff all the time with –

[00:10:05] JPE: Throwing out names –

[00:10:05] JC: Yeah. Shout out to all of them, because they helped me all the time with learning how to really price stuff and not short myself.

[00:10:13] JPE: I know so many people who struggle with that, even myself sometimes when it comes to getting proposal and [inaudible 00:10:18].

[00:10:18] JC: Well, I would say and what they would tell me is at the end of the day, it needs to be the you're happy with whatever that number is, for the amount of work that you're doing. So, I mean, if you're fine doing a photo shoot for 200 bucks, and delivering 40 photos, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you're happy with that, then do it. That's all it comes down to. What you’re worth. Know your worth, what you think your work is worth, that's what you should charge. Some people don't think it's too much. Some people think it's not enough. Are they going to hire you a hundred times? If you’re getting hired a rapid amount of times, bump up that price. That’s how I would really see it. If you're saying, “Okay, my base price for, let’s say, photography just to keep it kind of base price for like a beginning 300 bucks.” Right up the door right there.

Okay, you're doing that, and then people are keeping call you back, calling you back, more work, more work. Then I think it's time to revisit that price and say, “Hey, I'm getting a lot of work here at this price point. Maybe I'm not charging enough. I should probably bump it up a little bit.” And then see how it goes. Yeah, it's always a slippery slope.

\

[00:11:30] JPE: Yes, for sure. I made a story post, I think it was yesterday, and it was talking about not over booking yourself. Where did it come from? It is not a good issue to have, you’re overbooked?

[00:11:44] JC: As far as that, yes. Obviously, it's a great problem to have, I would definitely say that. But at the same time, it's also huge on protecting your mental health, your physical health, all things like that. So, I mean, especially when we're living at a time where hustle culture is such a big thing. Oh, hustle 24/7. I need to do this, get this money, get that. And me, especially not having a kid, got to find that balance for yourself, for your business, et cetera. So, with the culture [inaudible 00:12:17] –

[00:12:15] JPE: Yeah, [inaudible 00:12:16].

[00:12:17] JC: Yeah, he was basically saying, his last month, September was super busy month. He was all over the place, had like 15 flights or something like that, from here to London, to Cali, whatever. And he's just talking about how he's pretty much going into burnout. It's coming soon. He knows it's coming. And I think that's how I avoid burnout is that, I make sure to make time for myself. I don't want to be working every single day a week, even though that's the entrepreneur lifestyle. Apparently, you have to do this, you got to work 24/7.

Honestly, you don't have to, especially if you're charging what you need to charge. If you're getting paid 100 bucks per shoot, you're probably going to have to do a few shoots a week just to make ends meet. But if you're getting paid per gig, what you're worth, and what you think you should be doing, then you should be able to have time for yourself and not overbook.

[00:13:11] JPE: What you think is the hardest part for [inaudible 00:13:14] balancing act of working and spending time for yourself? Or is it like the creative process itself that you find it difficult to get started on a video? Get started on editing? What do you find most difficult?

[00:13:27] JC: As far as the creative part, I think the part that I struggle with the most is – it’s hilarious, is probably the easiest part but it's the most tedious and that's like, let's say I'm editing a video, just the tedious work when it comes to edits. That's the part of edits where I said I didn't really –

[00:13:43] JPE: What [inaudible 00:13:43]?

[00:13:44] JC: Let’s say, when you're cutting footage, picking all those shots, going through the hour of footage or whatever. Or if you're editing something longer, going through things like I said, hours of footage. I got to re-watch it. 

[00:14:02] JPE: What are the options? Is this too dark? Too grainy over here? [inaudible 00:14:08].

[00:14:08] JC: Yeah, exactly. At the same, the photo perspective, just going through those photos and then, it depends on how deep you get into the edit, but let’s say people that do like beauty.

[00:14:21] JPE: Every wrinkle or every hair –

[00:14:24] JC: The local dodge and burn, the local dodge and burn, all this extra stuff and I'm like, yeah.

[00:14:32] JPE: You get to the point where you have to hire somebody to help you out. After a while, you can't, it's almost impossible to have four or five trips a week and then 10 photos to shoot, and then the hours that you put on just having – I think the colors, the skin tone, and taking out [inaudible 00:14:49] and eyelashes. It's such attention to detail that it takes to get one photo done. It's almost insane that people [inaudible 00:14:59].

[00:15:02] JC: I think, that was one of the things I told myself too. I was like, man, once I get to the point where I can just hire a full-time editor, I'm not even thinking about it. I’m going to do it. Just because that I feel like, I prefer spending more of my time on the pre-production and production side. And then maybe just, because there's a lot of editors that I know that just do don't work and that I can trust to do those things. So, it's a no brainer for me.

[00:15:28] JPE: Okay. So, when it comes to like, because you shoot a lot with – what's his name? Chris in those videos, and he's super, super dope, too. And you've been from the [inaudible 00:15:37] that has worked on a team before. That's incredible.

[00:15:41] JC: Fisher Phillips? 

[00:15:43] JPE: Yeah.

[00:15:43] JC: My boy –

[00:15:44] JPE: I remember one person passing this work for years and he's so dope. And again, I've seen all the guys together, and it's like watching a movie. I'm watching this and, in my head, I'm like, how did they get the lighting like that? What camera is he on? Because there's so much that goes into the people [inaudible 00:15:59]. That's, again, like we're saying before, that's one of the reasons why I did this, because I wanted to give people who don't know about the whole production side, and idea of how much work goes into getting one shot, and how much work goes into him adding a 30-second clip. People think, “Oh, 30 seconds only, 30 seconds.” But a 30-second clip could take you four to five hours.

[00:16:20] JC: I've taken four or five hours on three seconds to the clip.

[00:16:22] JPE: It’s interesting. Actually, there's something that actually got in here that shouldn’t be there and removing – you know how hard is removing an item from a video?

[00:16:32] JC: Video.

[00:16:33] JPE: But I want to hear more about how you set up a shoot like that, like a big video production shoot, like finding location and getting lighting, and how many people are actually involved in the shoot. Because a lot of the time people think of just the videographer and the talent, not a lot of things go into it. Can you explain a little bit how that is?

[00:16:48] JC: So, people that don't know, just not behind the camera, don't know that. It truly is a team effort. It is crazy, like from beginning to end. So, I would say, normally, if it's a bigger shoot, let's say some of the bigger stuff that I've done. I would literally call my producer, one of my producers, get together with them and we start to get the breakdown with the client.

[00:17:10] JPE: For the people who don’t know, what is a producer?

[00:17:12] JC: So, in my simplest form, a producer is the person who has all the connections. So, they're the ones who put together the team to make a video, to make stuff happen. That’s what I understand. That's all I know how a producer does its work. But yeah, producer, I'll call my producer, and then I'll say, “Hey, we got this work here, boom, boom, boom, this type of video, this commercial for this client. We need three locations or whatever. We need a DP, I'm going to be the director, we need a gaffer, a grip, all the lighting type systems.” 

[00:17:45] JPE: What’s that?

[00:17:46] JC: A DP? Director of photography. So, that's basically the cinematographer, the person who's in charge of where the lighting goes to make everything look really, and also just the in charge of the camera stuff. So, to say, “Okay, we're going to use this lens for this, this camera, we should use this camera for whatever, just basically everything that has to do with the look, they're in charge of that.

[00:18:06] JPE: You said grip, too, right?

[00:18:08] JC: Yeah. The grip and the gaffers, they're in charge of like the lighting equipment and stuff like that, just to rigging everything up. So basically, the director of photography, cinematographer would be in charge of that, as far as that goes, but you got stuff like assistant directors, PA’s, everything, man. It depends on whatever you need, and your producer will tell you, “Okay, this is what we need for this. Boom, boom, boom, I can get that.” And they'll make those calls set up altogether. Also, they're in charge of doing things like the call sheets, basically getting everybody in the same place at the same time. If we need a location manager, which is the person who's self-explanatory managing the location, and things like that, we got that, but everything is, it's a team thing. It can get bigger and bigger from there.

[00:18:55] JPE: People don't even realize half of these things that exist on a set.

[00:18:59] JC: When I first got started, actually, I used to think it was just me running the [inaudible 00:19:02] too. I can do it all myself, whatever. But then I started getting really into it and realizing, because eventually I want to get into doing some movie stuff, actual film stuff, and I would watch some of the BTS from some of the bigger film, and see people working on it.

[00:19:16] JPE: [inaudible 00:19:18]. I love that, because I think I was in the same boat, too, when I first started filming, because a lot of the things that I did, just me and the model and my camera and running around and doing what I had to do. And it wasn't until I had to humble myself, like there are things that people do way better than me. There are people whose only job is to find the locations. There are people whose only job is to setup lights. There are people whose only job is to organize the set. And so, being humble enough to know that I can do it all, really allowed me to expand the kind of shoots that I did and expand the possibilities of being a better creative because you have to be on there. You have to. There are people who are so much better than you at editing and shooting and [inaudible 00:20:01] and styling, but there are so many things you can do. And then I think that the moment that you're able to outsource those other aspects of the shoot, the better you become.

I love watching – I follow a lot of Vogue photographers and movie directors that when they put on the clip, and they're adding, like they’re tagging all the people involved in that, even the 30-second, they’re tagging everyone involved. It’s a whole list of – it’s insane. There are 30 people on the set for 20 seconds, and five photos, [inaudible 00:20:35]. In my head, I'm looking at these photos, I'm like, “How did you even come up with it?”

[00:20:43] JC: It’s because you go a team.

[00:20:44] JPE: I got a team.

[00:20:45] JC: Like you said, just having those people is like, just think about that, like you said, you might be good at one certain aspect of the creation process. But there's somebody else that's better than you. Somebody else is better than you doing this. And bringing all those minds together and saying, Hey, I think this is dope with this, this, this. And let's say for example, me, I'm setting this up, I'm terrible setting this up. If I walk into a room and look at it and say, “Okay, let's shoot, that’s it.”

[00:21:09] JPE: White wall?

[00:21:11] JC: That’s it. I don’t have – even look at my house, I'm not an interior designer, and nothing like that. I'm still working on design and things like that, and decorating. Because those are the things that really make your set pop. What really makes the set look dope, people are always looking at the shots and saying, “Oh, man, the shots are so fire.” But I'm like, “Okay, it wouldn't be fire without the set design. It wouldn't be dope without this whole lighting setup we had around it.” Because you don't see that in the end result. You have no clue what's going on. So, that's the biggest thing for me is learning that putting the ego aside, because that was the thing, too. People want to say, “Oh, I did everything. I do this, I do that.” But putting that ego aside and saying, “Hey, I need a team that can help me do all this.” And then we create something fire.

[00:21:56] JPE: Everything we just spoke about, all pre-production.

[00:22:00] JC: Yeah, pre. 

[00:22:00] JPE: Nothing to do with the actual shooting. Nothing [inaudible 00:22:03]. Just setting things up. It’s fascinating how big production and that shit, and that people don’t really see that, because you just don’t see it. You see the final result, and that’s it.

[00:22:17] JC: And that's the hard part, too, the pre-production. That's where all the hard work is really done. I mean, pre and post, but the pre-stuff is, you're getting everything together. So, when you get on that location, and you're spending all that money on location, people's time to work, the production is the easy part.

[00:22:33] JPE: Bring out your storyboard and everything, [inaudible 00:22:37]. 

[00:22:43] JC: And then the editing portion, if you had an editor and all that stuff, colorist and things and it's easy too.

[00:22:48] JPE: What do you recommend for people who are like a one man show? How you started off? What do you recommend for them to expand the horizons? What should they look into adding onto their team first?

[00:22:59] JC: Shoot. Honestly, I would just say one by one, let's say, if you're going to be let's say for film, if you want to be a director. Okay, get your DP, director of photography. So, you might be a director who's good at storytelling and all these other things. But when it comes to actually creating the look of the actual set, and the actual film, somebody probably better than you at that, learning how to use light and do all those things. So, I would say that would probably be a big one and then kind of go from there, depending on –

[00:23:29] JPE: What kind of photographer or videographer? Did you ever had any bad experience in the set before?

[00:23:34] JC: I wouldn't say bad experience. It was actually fun. But I would say because I don't really have too many pages, stuff like that. But I would say my first music video shoot, we shot for French rapper, named [inaudible 00:23:48]. He’s a hilarious dude, whatever. It wasn't really a story. It was just more like –it was my first ever experience of working that long on a shoot.

[00:24:00] JPE: [inaudible 00:23:59].

[00:24:05] JC: I think we had a 4 AM call time just to get to our shows. We got to the show buses or whatever, and they drove us up here, out there, Hollywood area. And then we probably shot – we didn't wrap until, I want to say midnight.

[00:24:21] JPE: Wow, something to talk about.

[00:24:23] JC: Yeah, I got home at like three o'clock in the morning the next day.

[00:24:26] JPE: 24 hour shoot?

[00:24:28] JC: I think it was just that they were trying to crunch everything into – I wasn't – I was a PA on this one. I was an assistant, and I think they were just trying to crunch everything into the one day because we have four different locations, different scenes, different stuff like that. So, it was kind of just trying to crunch everything into one which probably should have been multiple days, something like that.

[00:24:50] JPE: Hours of shooting.

[00:24:51] JC: Yeah, we were just getting started and stuff and the director and the DP were actually friends too. So, we didn't know that and stuff like that. So, it was kind of it was a fun experience. I’ll be honest. It’s a hilarious experience.

[00:25:05] JPE: [inaudible 00:25:04]?

[00:25:06] JC: Just the people that I was with. I was with my boy Zack, my boy Lee, a few of the guys and stuff like that. There’s a video, where he was like reaching into like those late hours of the night, and we we’re like in between kind of a shot, just sitting there, it’s like –

[00:25:24] JPE: Sitting in front?

[00:25:26] JC: Yeah, by the time I knew the song. I was thinking like footsteps in the dark and something like the Isaac Brothers or something like that. And I'm just standing there like swaying.

[00:25:37] JPE: Geez. At the beginning, what do you have to do?

[00:25:41] JC: So, the PA’s job is the production assistant. So basically, anything that has to do with helping anybody on set, so if the set designer needs to move stuff around, help them out. Same thing with the gaffers and grips and stuff. Anything would like food, helping out in the gut to sell stuff, small stuff like that. And I think a lot of people who start SBA, they want to be directors in the future, or something, to DPs, anything of that nature. So, they take that time to kind of learn from the people around them, and I think that's a great experience. So, anybody is looking to start get into that, become a PA, maybe. Some people say don't do it, because you kind of boxing yourself in as a PA, because people would think of you as a PA. But I think that’s bull.

[00:26:30] JPE: I think that experience would have been fun. So, when you have this big production, the minute you saw [inaudible 00:26:35]. When going from those big sets, just doing like a one on one photo shoot. Is it hard for you to reframe your head towards that situation? Or do you still take the same mentality, all the big shoot into a small one?

[00:26:50] JC: It depends, honestly, because I think with the smaller shoots, a lot less stress, less pressure, I would say, and not having like, no clients on Zoom in the background and saying, “Oh, we need to look at this. It looks a little grainy to me, but they're looking [inaudible00:27:07] and I'm like, “Come on.”

[00:27:08] JPE: That’s happened to you?

[00:27:09] JC: Well, that happens. Sometimes, yeah, a few things that we've been on where it's happened, but it's no big deal. Yeah, when you're just – we don't wanted people just to model, or whatever, it’s pretty dope, just have vibes of just creativity. And you're just able to slow it down, because it's a little easier just to say, “Okay, I don't have a team of people that's looking at me like, okay, what do I do next?”

[00:27:32] JPE: It’s more personal, but not as personal with talents?

[00:27:35] JC: Exactly.

[00:27:35] JPE: And how often are you able to like personal shoot? Do you do that often? Or you mostly work behind the camera?

[00:27:41] JC: So, I do more like the personal type stuff, more like to stretch my creativity. So, when I'm like, “Okay, I got something that I want to just do myself or whatever, I'll do that.” So, I try and do it may be like once a month, and I think that comes to, like I said, making time for yourself. I try and do it once a month and just get whatever ideas I have out and just see what happens. I might not even post it – I might not even –sometimes I don't even edit it if it's just for fun, but usually I just do it like that.

[00:28:11] JPE: You tell me what you think too, because I’m in this spot right now where it's creating content for the sake of creating content, and then creating content for the sake of actually being creative, actually being able to take ideas and manifest them in real life. I feel that content consumption is so rapid, right? It’s like if you're not putting out new content every day or every other day, it's being forgotten or you're not keeping up with the times, with the trends and take a look at TikTok for example. TikTok is blowing up or it's so easy now and so quick to consume content, where it’s like it doesn't really matter how much work you put into it, all that matter is the next piece of work that you put out.

So, I find it hard sometimes to stay being creative because I feel like I'm just dumping out content because I have to, or because I have to make money off. Because you're only as good as your last video or last photo. Do you find that troublesome?

[00:29:01] JC: No. I feel like that's more of a thing that it's like a social media type of stress or pressure, at least from my perspective, and thankfully, I don't really care for social media, honestly. I think, it's a great way for some – for people that are already into it. It's a great way to get business and obviously increase your revenue if you're getting paid for it, whatever. But you know, for me, the stuff that I'm looking to get into, you look at a lot of people that are doing good in that industry as far as directors and photographers and stuff, they don't have any Instagram followings. Some of them don't have Instagram, and they go like Sundance and all that type of stuff, the film festivals and all that. That's the route I'm trying to go.

When I look at it, social media has nothing to do with how those people perform and how they're perceived as a creative. I kind of prefer that route. It's cool. I even tried to keep up with like doing the IG Reel trends for a little bit, but then I have a kid and I was like, “All right, I don’t care.” But yeah, as far as me, I never really have succumbed to the outside pressure or put that pressure on myself. It’s all about whatever your perspective is like, when it comes to that.

[00:30:15] JPE: Well, I think that you said, big directors and these big PPs, and they don't ask [inaudible 00:30:19]. So, how do they – their continued being found?

[00:30:24] JC: Well, a lot of them are from the research that I've been trying to get to where they are. A lot of them went that film school route, so they ended up being around those people already who are into film making and creating those films and doing all that stuff. And then they went to agency route, et cetera, et cetera. But somebody like me who didn't go to film school, who started through YouTube University, I've had to make it a point to get myself actually out there. And as far as like, showing up to film events, showing up to those networking events of showing up and introducing myself, I'm not just there, sitting around, trying to be, you know, a shy person like I normally am.

So, that's been the most important. Social media is obviously a big thing to do. People go viral, whatever, whatever. But as far as the film space, because you can't post a movie on IG. So, as far as that goes, yeah, just getting around those people that are in films at those events and kind of making money.

[00:31:22] JPE: Are there like networking events that you go? Like how do you find –

[00:31:27] JC: It started out me going. Well, it started out with those Miami visuals group events.

[00:31:30] JPE: That’s [inaudible 00:31:30].

[00:31:34] JC: Yeah, we were like 180 strong. So, a bunch of people when it comes to like directors, DPs, things like that. There are all types of creators in that chat and in that group. I'll send you the invite.

[00:31:48] JPE: Yeah, sounds amazing.

[00:31:50] JC: I’ll send it to you. It’s for a bunch of like photographers, videographers, filmmakers, things like that. And we just bounce stuff off of each other and say, “Hey, what do you guys think about this?” Or, “Hey, how do I do this?” We teach each other all the time, the learning stuff. I think it's cool that we have that community, that allows us to really – when we're stuck, but the same thing with pricing, “Oh, hey, I got this shoot with this, this and this, what do you guys think I should be charging?” And people will bounce their ideas and say, “Hey, this is what I would normally charge.” It depends on whatever, et cetera.

But yeah, that's basically, find those events, like say, even things like Eventbrite or just looking at like certain film, or arts festivals. You find them sometimes, I don't have to travel off of west coast stuff as on a film. But anyway, I can, and I'm going to get to those things.

[00:32:38] JPE: What's your situation? Let's say, you're looking back at this conversation 20 years from now? Where would this person be in the group?

[00:32:45] JC: Oh, man. So, I think my main goal would be to be that director. I look up to a lot of directors that are great. I studied Ryan Coogler. Black Panther 2 is coming out. That's going to be dope.

[00:33:01] JPE: He did the Creed movies too.

[00:33:03] JC: Yup. He did the first two, I believe, and I think somebody else did the third. I think, Michael B. Jordan directed the third.

[00:33:09] JPE: Get out of here.

[00:33:11] JC: Don't quote me on that. But I believe I heard that at one point that he was a director in that as well. Directors like that the other directors the Tarantinos, the Wes Andersons. I look at them, and I'm like, man, I can do that one day. I really believe I could do that as it's come down to just me learning every day. Because obviously, it's so much to learn, especially when you're the director in charge of hundreds of people –

[00:33:38] JPE: The money, too.

[00:33:41] JC: Absolutely. And then you got, that adds the pressure, you got people having the money on that stuff. It’s the thing, but I got to believe in myself that I can do it and I'm taking the steps now, and I'm just feverishly working every day just to learn, and just not post, just to post. I’ve been learning to really have intention with what I'm creating. Just have a daily writing challenge that I do, because I want to write my own films too. I don’t just want to pick up a script and direct it. I want to actually create my own stories and write them. So, 20 years, I think, we got to have something –

[00:34:19] JPE: Something under the belt.

[00:34:20] JC: Yeah, a few under the belt.

[00:34:21] JPE: What's the last thing that inspired, like what’s the last piece of art that you saw that you're like, “I’m inspired. I want to write. I want to shoot.”

[00:34:29] JC: That’s the question, right there.

[00:34:33] JPE: I think like us, we don't see things the way the person who isn't behind the camera. I’m looking at you right now, I'm seeing a shot, I’m seeing the highlights. I’m thinking about it in my head. I’ll go edit, I’ll make sure the light is on me, [inaudible 00:34:49], and even, looking at shadow, saturation. It’s really bright. I wish I could jot it down a little bit. We see things as [inaudible 00:34:58]. So, we got to be inspired [inaudible 00:35:01]. What’s the last thing that inspired you? Just slip a couple seconds or anything else?

[00:35:10] JC: Not something that I've seen in real life. I actually had dreams. So, I try and write as much as I can. So, anything I can write down, I write down my dreams, the ones at least I can remember in the morning. But there was a dream about – not even a dream. It was more like one of those sleep paralysis type things.

[00:35:33] JPE: [inaudible 00:35:34].

[00:35:35] JC: It was the weirdest thing because it wasn't like a weird like, it wasn't like a scary sleep paralysis. It was more like a wild type of like, what was that type of thing? It had to do with like a wolf, a white wolf running across the room. It just kind of made me think about something like sci fi type of thing to think about. I wrote a little passage about it. So far, I haven't done anything with it or anything. Yeah, that's where a lot of my ideas come from dreams. I'll be walking down the street, I see something, I’m like, “Damn, I have to turn that into a commercial, film, or movie.” It's not that I look for it everywhere. It's just that my mind is kind of wired that way now, to kind of think about, “Damn, I have to really turn that into something.” after day to turn that into something. So, I mean, just finding inspiration in everyday things is kind of dope. 

[00:36:24] JPE: It’s super dope. When is the last time you made something like a dream or an inspiration? Before you said, you know what, I’ll just act upon this –

[00:36:31] JC: Let’s see. I would say – okay, this wasn't like a grand creation. So, the Reels that I was doing, like for fun.

[00:36:40]JPE: I know you said something about Reels. [inaudible 00:36:46]. I got all excited. I got a model now. I got to pose.

[00:36:51] JC: Oh, you’re talking about the high posing. Okay, so I got a few of those in the works right now, too. I got about three more of those that have failed already. So, I need to post up. But I will actually want to turn a few of them into the YouTube stuff. But don't get me on YouTube because I haven't even – it’s been bugging me.

So, the last, I think the last Reel. It was the last Reel I posted. Yeah, the last reel I posted was about the laundry, procrastination. It was like a thing where everybody has like a chair in their house with the laundries and a clean laundry that they haven't voted yet. And I did a small little short, funny thing about it. But just little things like that, I feel like, and that helps me as well just because not everything has to be here. As far as like, my creative stuff. I create because it’s fun. I create because I enjoy doing and I love it. Everything doesn't have to be a billion-dollar movie type quality. So, that was probably the last thing that I created, the laundry procrastinator, I called it. Check it out.

[00:37:57] JPE: I think I love that, because it goes back into sort of where we started off talking. It took me a year to post my first episode of the podcast, because I just didn't feel like it was good enough to post. And the person who I was interviewing felt different. “Post it. Post it.” It took me a year to because I wasn't happy with everything, because myself, whatever, and it takes a while and I think we get frozen as creative to walk our profession. Instead of making progress, that's something that I always think to myself, progress over perfection because you're not going to be perfect and you're never going to like everything 100%. I don't know what's happened to you. But I'll edit a photo, I spent all day editing a set of photos. Wow, [inaudible 00:38:39].

I go to bed, I wake up the next day, I'll do the photos. [inaudible 00:38:45] I spent four hours finding a song for the video. And then you put it together, I don’t like it. We're striving for this perfection of nothing exists, and we can do amazing work and whenever we would be happy with it.

[00:39:00] JC: I think that's okay. So, that I would think, now that you said that, I'm thinking about it a lot because a lot of my videos that I've done with Corey or Chris have been based around that self-doubt, imposter syndrome. Because I've struggled with that, this whole time, trying to be creative and things like that, it’s this like, “Man, you got to really just let it go and say, okay, whatever.” You're going to get better at it as far as you go. Progress over perfection. Just thinking about that, I have a lot of things that I've written that are based on overcoming that self-doubt. And that little person on your shoulder saying, it's not good enough or you're not good enough or why do you think you should be doing this? That's a huge thing that you just got to really – what makes that kind of go away is that progress.

So, taking each step, because it's not just, one day I decided to be a director over here directing Black Panther. It's going to be, “Okay, I made this crappy video.” I posted it or I didn't post it, whatever. I created the next week or next day, another video. Next one next, next one. And then when you look back, you're like, “Damn, I've done some stuff here. I created something that I actually am proud of.” Because if you look at my old videos with the T2i, I'm looking at like, “Yo. What?” I’m telling you, my homies was like, “Yo, this is dope. I need a video.”

[00:40:29] JPE: Your homies are your worst people to take advice from, like crazy. I’m not going to Sundance, but [inaudible 00:40:34].

[00:40:36] JC: So, just creating that stuff and keep learning. Keep asking. Never stop asking questions, because like we said, in this film and creative space, there are so many things you need to learn that you’ll never stop, you're never done learning. So, just looking at that and creating that team, building things and just create dope stuff is what's really going to break you out of that, that kind of impostor syndrome.

[00:40:59] JPE: I love that. [inaudible 00:41:05] because it's a real thing. I know so many people who've stopped creating because of imposter syndrome. They didn’t feel like they made enough or something. You’re never going to be good enough, but I think it’s not up to you, [inaudible 00:41:20]. I feel like the great actors and directors and models and all these great people that we look up to, they're great, because we can look great. But we wouldn't [inaudible 00:41:30] we’re doing. We're not going to like everything they do. But the ones that really impact us are the ones that we take inspiration from and the ones that cause us to call them. And it's not up to us, at times to be great or to think that we're great. I think it's great to exaggerate. But I think it's amazing to feel you’re a great director, big creator, whatever. But when other people are saying that about you, it's a different level.

[00:41:54] JC: Exactly. I think, even I was looking at one of the actor’s roundtables on YouTube. I was looking at that and it was a Peter Dinklage. Tyrion Lannister, he does a bunch of stuff. He was saying that, just talking about how even him, like you said, I look at him, and he's great, great actor, amazing actor. And he's still talking about how he had an audition, like, few months ago before that roundtable, and he was terrified. Because he's having that self-doubts, “Should I be here?” And I'm like, “No, you have a career this long and you’re still kind of struggling.” So, it just made me think like that. People are just – they're scared, but they just do it scared. And then you look back, and you're like, “Dang, I'm happy that I did it.” Because I would much rather do it and fail to not do it at all.

[00:42:48] JPE: Are we going to see more work in front of the camera in the next few months?

[00:42:52] JC: Absolutely. Absolutely. I got a lot of stuff in front of the camera, behind the camera. I got a lot of stuff that I've been writing in the works, I even have a few just stick hands that I want to do for fun. Speculative ad is basically it's like a, like a mock edit. So, say, if I had fans commercial, that I want to do with the homies, and fans not paying us, nobody's paying on it. It's a passion project.

And then people take those, and then you might put it into a Reel. So, let's say if you’re getting started, and you don't have a Reel to show to clients to get you to pay them to pay you $50,000, $10,000 whatever. Okay, boom. You need to prove that you can do it. So, you do that for free, or whatever, for yourself. And then, boom, you put it in your Reel, that you got something. Even now, still in that process of still doing spec stuff. And it's just a fun time to be able to work with creatives and it also gives you that experience working with the team before – there's nobody just going to pay you for your first directing gig when you've never directed anybody. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I got a few of those on the way and just some short film stuff I'm working on. Doing that to write –

[00:44:08] JPE: More YouTube videos on how to pose now.

[00:44:12] JC: So, after we finish this, I'm going to give myself a deadline. I'm not going to say at the time right now. Because if I say on the camera right now.

[00:44:21] JPE: [inaudible 00:44:19].

[00:44:23] JC: I'm going to give myself a few weeks though, and see how, because I usually write it down. I always put the dates on my stuff and say, “Okay, it needs to be done by this time.” If I put a date on it, so I'm going to get a few of those out and see where we go.

[00:44:39] JPE: I have my notifications on, so make sure you post. Brother, I really appreciate you coming down. I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the knowledge, I appreciate the experience.

[END]