My producing story
In this interview, we dive deep into how I got started as a producer, my process for finding new clients, why I create content, behind the scenes of my book, and much more.
This deal gets worse every day
Tomorrow, this discount will be a little worse. Let me explain.
Choose recharge, not escape
Once upon a season of immense stress (I was producing The Chainsmokers live set at Summit One Vanderbilt), I told myself something along these lines.
I launched a free course
Here’s the tagline: “Learn to turn potential clients into paying clients with discovery calls.”
Hostage negotiation with reality
“My profession is hostage negotiation with reality. Reality says “I’m gonna kill it!” and I say “no, you’re not. Listen, put down the gun, let’s talk.”
Free stuff
If you’re a reader of the blog, but haven’t gotten involved with the free stuff I offer, here are some links for you.
$150k commercial budget build
Are there any brands still paying upwards of $150,000 for commercial shoots in 2025? The answer is yes, but there are three important things you need to do win their business.
Provide the service, make the money
Instead of waiting for your client to pay on a net-30 timeline, you can apply and get paid out in minutes. They’ll only take a 3% fee for doing so…
Scrappy creative is good enough
The thumbnail image for this post shows it—we choreographed the whole thing with paper dolls taped to pencils.
Who should pay?
This pipeline of brand to agency to production company to freelancer carries a set of issues. Namely, if someone changes their mind, who pays for it?
The most money you could make
If your business becomes famous tomorrow, and clients are kicking in your door to work with you, what is the most amount of money you could make with your current model?
Everything you need to know about freelance day rates
If you read this blog post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about day rates, including who uses them, why freelancers use them, when to use one, and how to calculate a day rate for yourself.
Set meetings in advance
We’ve all had needy clients who reach out too often with elementary questions. It’s mind-numbing.
7 tools I use every day as a commercial producer
I’ve tried a lot of them—these are the tools that stuck for me.
How to make a killing with your iPhone
If you’ve ever wondered how these advertising agencies and production companies get away with charging more than $100,000 for a 30-second Instagram video shot on an iPhone, I’m about to tell you.
Beware this “budget black hole”
Creative development is one of those “budget black holes” in the production process. We don’t charge enough for it, clients don’t want to pay for it, and we spend way too much time doing it.
Accept the (small amount of) pain in advance
At the end of 2023, I got burned out on producing. A few stressful projects in a row left me feeling overwhelmed by the idea of dealing with clients and crew, and I didn’t work on a major production for four months.
Swing as hard as you can
We try to focus on everything: making good work, and making a lot of money, and treating our clients well, and finding work-life balance, and having a good brand. When we focus on all of it, we aren’t really swinging that hard at any of it.
The Definitive Saturation.io Review
Saturation is a budgeting software—specifically for video productions. And it is genuinely...incredible.
Is Full Time Filmmaker worth it?
I’ve produced online courses for half a dozen different solo creators in the past. Full Time Filmmaker blows them out of the water. It has 10x more lessons than the biggest course I ever produced.