Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Dec 2005
- Posts
- 17,315
- Location
- Bristol
Rhys's thread was a nice idea and I fancied doing one for a bit of self-reflection and potentially give a bit of hope at the end of the tunnel to anyone still going through the education, lower end of the media process or just stuck in a dead end job wanting a change.
For me it all started with education. I always wanted to work for an ad agency as a creative, but loved animation so studied Photography/Graphics/Maths/Computing at A-Level and went on to study animation at university. Turns out I hated it so I switched to their film course for various reasons.
I met my now business partner back in the first year (2005) and in the run up to graduation were weighing up our options. The natural route for camera ops is to become freelance and the problem with that is irregular wages. We then had the idea of doing wedding films - everything we'd seen out there was awful, we could work normal jobs alongside Saturdays and it would give us guaranteed future cash.
We did our first wedding whilst still at uni with uni kit for a friend and it went from there very quickly, winning a national award within 3 months of doing our first paid gig. Cue archive newspaper cutting...
At the time I was working for a marketing agency and my business partner was freelancing for broadcast. Eventually the opportunities and wage that we'd get by going alone were more than people were willing to offer us - I was on £14k at the time.
The weirdest thing about this part of my life is that I was completely (bar weddings) unemployed for about 7 months before I got that marketing job. Without sounding arrogant I'm pretty bright/quick and had my interests differed when I was younger I could have landed up in any old job. At the time I was so desperate for a job I was applying for literally anything, as far as management roles within the MOD and officer training with the RAF. I got through various stages for those but eventually didn't make the cut (probably because I didn't *really* want it), but the thing I find weird with life is the decisions other people that can sway your life one way or another.
Anyway, that was 5 years ago. In that time we've won 7 awards of varying kinds and now cover around 50 weddings a year. Here's this year's showreel:
It's good fun, get to see lots of nice venues and the best bit is having the opportunity to experience loads of different cultures and traditions. We've covered Jewish, Arabic, Nigerian, Turkish, Chinese, Cypriot, Hindi... the list goes on. I don't think many people can have experienced as many unless your friendship group is ridiculously diverse!
At the same time we pushed our B2B offerings and we now produce films and shoot photography for a range of clients including the NHS, Ovo Energy, Clifton College, Cornwall Council and the like. Equally we've filmed kids potties in dank studios. We've grown organically to be specialists in the independent school sector and work with quite a lot of private schools and colleges doing photography, films and a bit of social media.
We've now also got two full-time employees - an account exec and video editor - which has really helped but its a big change going from just me and essentially a mate two years ago to managing two people with no real training or experience. Also the wage aspect. Every £1k going to them is £500 each not going to us. When that adds up to two full-time wages it's a big gamble and lots of very nice holidays per year we otherwise could have afforded!
On the side we've got a specialist aerial photography/videography company which we've invested about £15k in and will be officially launching in the next few weeks, and we've also just started wedding photography (SO much easier than videography!) with 5 booked so far for this first year, and we're now Google Trusted Photographers which will either be a complete waste of time or a nice little side earner.
We've also hired out all our kit this time whole through a separate brand, and we even have a porn star as a repeat client!
I think the thing that's helped us going is lots of fingers in lots of pies. We rarely turn down work and have always been quite diverse (whether that's our product offering or our client's markets) and also do well with repeat business, which is pretty hard to come by in this industry anyway; it's not like many companies need to outsource new video content that often.
Well, I hope that drivel is of use or interest to someone!
For me it all started with education. I always wanted to work for an ad agency as a creative, but loved animation so studied Photography/Graphics/Maths/Computing at A-Level and went on to study animation at university. Turns out I hated it so I switched to their film course for various reasons.
I met my now business partner back in the first year (2005) and in the run up to graduation were weighing up our options. The natural route for camera ops is to become freelance and the problem with that is irregular wages. We then had the idea of doing wedding films - everything we'd seen out there was awful, we could work normal jobs alongside Saturdays and it would give us guaranteed future cash.
We did our first wedding whilst still at uni with uni kit for a friend and it went from there very quickly, winning a national award within 3 months of doing our first paid gig. Cue archive newspaper cutting...
At the time I was working for a marketing agency and my business partner was freelancing for broadcast. Eventually the opportunities and wage that we'd get by going alone were more than people were willing to offer us - I was on £14k at the time.
The weirdest thing about this part of my life is that I was completely (bar weddings) unemployed for about 7 months before I got that marketing job. Without sounding arrogant I'm pretty bright/quick and had my interests differed when I was younger I could have landed up in any old job. At the time I was so desperate for a job I was applying for literally anything, as far as management roles within the MOD and officer training with the RAF. I got through various stages for those but eventually didn't make the cut (probably because I didn't *really* want it), but the thing I find weird with life is the decisions other people that can sway your life one way or another.
Anyway, that was 5 years ago. In that time we've won 7 awards of varying kinds and now cover around 50 weddings a year. Here's this year's showreel:
It's good fun, get to see lots of nice venues and the best bit is having the opportunity to experience loads of different cultures and traditions. We've covered Jewish, Arabic, Nigerian, Turkish, Chinese, Cypriot, Hindi... the list goes on. I don't think many people can have experienced as many unless your friendship group is ridiculously diverse!
At the same time we pushed our B2B offerings and we now produce films and shoot photography for a range of clients including the NHS, Ovo Energy, Clifton College, Cornwall Council and the like. Equally we've filmed kids potties in dank studios. We've grown organically to be specialists in the independent school sector and work with quite a lot of private schools and colleges doing photography, films and a bit of social media.
We've now also got two full-time employees - an account exec and video editor - which has really helped but its a big change going from just me and essentially a mate two years ago to managing two people with no real training or experience. Also the wage aspect. Every £1k going to them is £500 each not going to us. When that adds up to two full-time wages it's a big gamble and lots of very nice holidays per year we otherwise could have afforded!
On the side we've got a specialist aerial photography/videography company which we've invested about £15k in and will be officially launching in the next few weeks, and we've also just started wedding photography (SO much easier than videography!) with 5 booked so far for this first year, and we're now Google Trusted Photographers which will either be a complete waste of time or a nice little side earner.
We've also hired out all our kit this time whole through a separate brand, and we even have a porn star as a repeat client!
I think the thing that's helped us going is lots of fingers in lots of pies. We rarely turn down work and have always been quite diverse (whether that's our product offering or our client's markets) and also do well with repeat business, which is pretty hard to come by in this industry anyway; it's not like many companies need to outsource new video content that often.
Well, I hope that drivel is of use or interest to someone!
