EP041: Managing Relationships In Post-Production

00:00:00:07 - 00:00:13:16
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. And today we're talking about maintaining relationships. Stay tuned.

00:00:13:18 - 00:00:32:08
Joey
This podcast is sponsored by Flanders Scientific, leaders in color accurate display solutions for professional video. Whether you're a colorist, an editor, a DIT, or a broadcast engineer, Flanders Scientific has a professional display solution to meet your needs. Learn more at FlandersScientific.com.

00:00:32:10 - 00:00:43:07
Robbie
All right, everybody, welcome back to another show, another episode of The Offset Podcast. I'm one of your host, Robbie Carman, with me as always, is my partner, Joey. D’Anna. Joey, how you doing, buddy?

00:00:43:09 - 00:00:44:23
Joey
Good. Hey, everyone.

00:00:45:01 - 00:01:10:14
Robbie
Joey. Today I had it in mind to talk a little bit about relationships. Now, that seems like, on the surface of it, that seems like, you know, like a Doctor Phil segment or something, right? Let's talk about your relationships. But it dawned on me in the past couple of weeks, as I've seen a couple different scenarios, all sort of different but slightly related of, relationships going really well.

00:01:10:16 - 00:01:38:11
Robbie
Streams on personal relationships and business relationships. I've seen some strains on some client relationships with colleagues. I've seen it all in the past couple of weeks, for whatever reason. And it just dawned on me that we've never really talked about the importance of relationships in post-production and production and, and generally our industry. And it's something I think in other episodes we've probably stressed a little bit, you know, we've said, hey, this is a relationship business, whatever, but never really explained what that means.

00:01:38:13 - 00:01:59:13
Robbie
The work that kind of goes into maintaining a relationship. Because let's just be clear, a lot of relationships you do actually have to work at, to maintain and keep them, keep them spry and keep them healthy. So I want to talk about that today. But before we go on, just the usual housekeeping stuff, you can head over to the offset podcast.com course for, to check out all our library of episodes.

00:01:59:13 - 00:02:19:04
Robbie
You can also, submit an idea for episodes. If you do have some ideas, please use the submit button over there to, to add some, some ideas to our Q also, you can find us on the Instagram, Facebook and all those kind of places. And the show is available on all the various social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram.

00:02:19:04 - 00:02:37:17
Robbie
You can follow us there. And also the podcasting platforms of course, too. And if you do like the show, I would love it if you consider supporting us by buying us a cup, a virtual coffee. Yeah, you can use this link down here to head over to the Buy Me a coffee site. That support really means the world to us and helps us, make these shows, about every two weeks.

00:02:37:17 - 00:02:56:07
Robbie
So we appreciate that as well. All right, Joey, you know, when I think about something, you you always say this to me. You always go, well, it's a relationship business. It's a relationship business. I have my ideas of that. What that means in a general sense. What does it mean? That post and production is a relationship business to you?

00:02:56:08 - 00:03:18:18
Joey
Yeah. And it's something I've been saying, you know, forever. Yeah. Because it's also something that you kind of learn and evolve with. Right? You know, I, I've not always been the most effective of a people person myself. So learning how to navigate this has been kind of a career long journey that I've never perfected. I don't think I ever will.

00:03:18:19 - 00:03:19:16
Robbie
Nobody's perfect.

00:03:19:16 - 00:03:53:08
Joey
But the the, the important thing I think, is to one acknowledge that this is a people business. We are a bunch of creative people in different aspects of this business. Creative people usually are opinionated, sometimes hard headed, sometimes a little eccentric, and you mix all of those infinite different personalities together with the needs the real world needs and stressors of we have to make a product, and we have to do it together and we have to collaborate.

00:03:53:10 - 00:04:35:22
Joey
That's a recipe for either a really good success or an absolute disaster, depending on how everybody navigates it. So it's it is. Yes. It's important to be talented at your craft. Yes. It's important to be, you know, knowledgeable. And all of those things amount to a large percentage of what you need to be successful in this business. But interacting with your fellow creatives and your clients and your, you know, producers, audio mixers, editors, colorists, everybody involved in post-production is going to come at it from a little bit of a different angle, and there will be conflicts.

00:04:35:22 - 00:04:49:20
Joey
And how you navigate that is so important to the long term success of your career that I think it's really worth kind of diving into our thoughts on that. Not to say that we're not perfect at this either. So this is not gospel.

00:04:49:20 - 00:05:09:06
Robbie
But some of you, of course, I know, of course. And I mean, I need to be clear to everybody the reason I'm I this was the top of my mind when we, when I thought about doing this as an episode is just because, unfortunately, I've been in the in some trying times with a couple of relationships and it's just got me thinking a lot about that.

00:05:09:06 - 00:05:30:10
Robbie
But to to riff on a little bit about you said two is that, you know, I always think about our business as, unfortunately, and most of the time unnecessarily a very stressful high, high stakes kind of thing. Right? Whether that's actually true or not, we can go. We've gone on and on and on about, you know, this is not brain surgery.

00:05:30:10 - 00:05:50:20
Robbie
Nobody's going to die if it shows, you know, a day later or whatever. But the general prevailing attitudes a lot of times is that it's a high stress, high intensity, environment. And then you couple that in with a lot of kind of A-type personalities in the business, people who, I don't know, for lack of better term, have some level of hubris about them.

00:05:50:20 - 00:06:07:17
Robbie
Right? I mean, it's kind of like it's hard because, you know, we do things that are technical. We do things that are artistic. And I think on the technical side, it's much easier to be right or wrong about the technical right. Like, did you make a protest file or did you make an H264? Right. Like that's really easy, right?

00:06:07:19 - 00:06:29:12
Robbie
But when you start talking about people's, creative input, their style, the things that they did that look or sound or feel good to them, and then you deliver that in a way to somebody that might not be clear to them, might have a little, you know, an edge of attitude to where like, people get defensive in our industry really quick.

00:06:29:13 - 00:06:51:12
Robbie
That is, I think, a large source of some of the relationship failures and problems in our industry is people take things really too seriously, are really too personal. And I also think that there's a certain subset of people in our industry that think that, relationships are all about to this sort of a certain degree about like dominance and places.

00:06:51:12 - 00:07:06:04
Robbie
Right? So like, you're, you know, there's a lot of, I mean, air quotes here, bosses out there who feel like they get the best out of people by yelling and screaming at them. Right. And there's a lot of, you know, artists out there who think that, like, you know, their work is perfect and how could you possibly critique it?

00:07:06:04 - 00:07:27:10
Robbie
Right? So there's this whole range of different attitudes, and I think we have to navigate it a lot, in what we do and what our audience does. But I want to start out the show by also just saying that what you kind of echo to what you said, no one's perfect at this. There's not a single person in the world that is good at all aspects of relationship.

00:07:27:10 - 00:07:51:04
Robbie
Me. But I want to continue on the rest of this conversation with the attitude of I do strongly believe in the the concept of the golden Rule, right? That I really do believe the way that you you should be treating others the way that you you want to be treated yourself. Right. So if you do find yourself bossing people, yelling at them, whatever.

00:07:51:06 - 00:08:05:11
Robbie
Like expect that to come back to a certain degree, right? So I think that, you know, we try to, you know, to varying degrees of success, try to operate with the idea of, can we give somebody a break? If they were, they were mean to me. Right? Or difficult with me. I'm going to I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

00:08:05:11 - 00:08:29:10
Robbie
Maybe they had an issue with their spouse that morning or something like that. But that's the general attitude. I think if you go into a relationship, always trying to think that the person has the out for you, that they're, you know, in the case of feedback for example, it's all about you in a personal attack. Like you're going to find problems in relationships way easier than that way, than going into it with, no, this is all good.

00:08:29:10 - 00:08:32:08
Robbie
I'm cool. Like, I'm really getting to know you kind of thing, you know?

00:08:32:10 - 00:09:04:01
Joey
Yeah. And I, I want to expound on that a little bit obviously. Yeah. Great. Golden rule treat people how you'd like to be treated. But also just to add on to that kind of my part two of the golden rule, specifically for business in general, is to never as much as you can try not to assume that something is coming from a point of malice or adversary, even if it kind of feels or sounds like it.

00:09:04:01 - 00:09:28:01
Joey
If someone comes at you with a little bit of an attitude, like you said, maybe they got something else going on that day and this is not the time to really be doing it, but they need to. Or maybe somebody messes something up and you immediately assume, oh, that's because they're a moron. And there's could be a million other things that went into what they messed up, or what you're even misinterpreting as the messing up.

00:09:28:04 - 00:09:46:13
Joey
So like, I always try to assume the best of every interaction until I'm like sometimes to a fault proven wrong, right? Sometimes like, no, no, no, no, no. They're just they're just, you know, picky. They're just trying to do this. They're just trying to do it. And then we get like weeks down the road and it's like, no really.

00:09:46:15 - 00:09:47:07
Joey
They were just.

00:09:47:13 - 00:10:12:04
Robbie
You know, right there. You know what I often think about too, as a exacerbating factor for these relationships in our business is that we are often thrown into small, dark rooms with somebody for intense short amount of periods of time. Right. So there's a certain aspect of that of like, hey, we go into that room and now we're best friends for a week while we're working on this project, right?

00:10:12:08 - 00:10:31:18
Robbie
When the reality is you might still be getting to know that person, still be getting to understand their idiosyncrasies, what rubs them the wrong way, you know, all that kind of stuff, right? So like, I tend to also think about maintaining relationships in stages, right? Okay. Like, listen, I just met this person. This is one set of behavior, right?

00:10:31:21 - 00:10:48:13
Robbie
Or one way, you know, one way of acting with them. All right. We I've worked a couple projects with them, and now we maybe developed a shorthand. Now we can maybe joke around about stuff, whatever, you know, and then the other opposite end of that is, you know, somebody I've worked with for years with and done dozens of projects, and they trust me and I trust them and that kind of stuff.

00:10:48:15 - 00:11:15:03
Robbie
So I think, you know, one of the one of the challenges is that, in our industry is navigating those stages of the relationship, but also understanding that, like, you don't want to be you don't want to assume and do too much right off the bat. You have to kind of learn, learn the relationship first because it's like, you know, if you start asking really, you know, kind of prying, you know, personal questions in the first five minutes you meet somebody.

00:11:15:08 - 00:11:31:13
Robbie
Well, I've got to give people the creeps, right. So we kind of have to kind of have to navigate that as well. So I was thinking about this, besides the big picture stuff that we just talked about, I was kind of thinking about this in kind of a couple different buckets, if you will. And I want to kind of we can go through each one and kind of break them down.

00:11:31:13 - 00:11:50:19
Robbie
And I was thinking of them as, okay, relationships with clients, relationships with vendors, in relationships with, with colleagues, people that you, you know, other artists, people that you work with. So when we start out with the idea of, with clients, right, because they're the person's peoples that matter the most, arguably to our industry and to our work.

00:11:50:19 - 00:12:19:13
Robbie
Right? Without clients, we wouldn't have a job to do the things we do. So I think these are the relationships that you have to do everything you can to be positive, the go getter, the dependable person, the, the yes man to a certain degree, or a woman as much as you possibly can. Right. These are the people who are falling over, sometimes extremely large piles of money to be able to work with you.

00:12:19:17 - 00:12:34:07
Robbie
And if you come off as difficult, combative, whatever other adjective you want to use, that is a recipe for a, a bad relationship, right? Right at the beginning of it and probably all the way through, if you have that eye to.

00:12:34:09 - 00:13:00:17
Joey
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and that's not to, you know, that's not to to say you always have to agree with everything they say and gush over them and and act like that, you know, everything is, is roses and sprinkles all the time. You do at the same time of owing your clients that amount of kind of respect because they are paying you money for your, your artistry.

00:13:00:17 - 00:13:23:19
Joey
Right. That that deserves some respect right there. But also honesty back and forth to your client, whether that's and, and you can do that in a nice way or a not nice way if you want to have a successful client relationship. Yes, you stay honest with them, but you do it in the nice way. Client says, I think this or that or this, you might come back.

00:13:23:19 - 00:13:58:18
Joey
Well, I tried that. Here's an example of it. Here's my opinion. Tell me what you think might one of the one of the best things you can do in terms of, day to day client relationship in my opinion, is to always be ready with the question of let me know what you think. Leave it as a even when you're dealing with back and forth and creative and things like that, leave it as a question of I want your input all the time, because my job is to execute your project, not whatever I want.

00:13:58:20 - 00:14:14:13
Robbie
Yeah, I think that's I think that's true. And I think that it is very rare that somebody I mean, it happens, right? We've all had the experience where somebody just says, I don't care what you think, do just what I say. I think most of the time when people come to work with, you know, a color, it's a mixer in motion, graphic design or whatever.

00:14:14:15 - 00:14:40:10
Robbie
They're looking for that feedback, for that opinion. I mean, after all, that's why they hired you is to add something to the project. But like you kind of alluded to, I think, in the way that I call this the art of telling somebody they're wrong while also telling them the, the right. Right is it's just sort of like, you know, you have to be in a way, you it's like I mean, it's kind of like as blunt as the difference between, like, that's a terrible idea.

00:14:40:10 - 00:14:49:20
Robbie
I'm not going to do that versus. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but let's try it or whatever. Right. Like there's, you see there's like there's degrees to telling somebody that they're probably wrong.

00:14:49:20 - 00:15:00:22
Joey
Or even better, hey this is what it looks like. This is what I think. What do you think? Now, granted, that's not always the option that you have because you can't you can't. Great. An hour long film 15 different ways.

00:15:01:00 - 00:15:30:06
Robbie
Yes. Yeah. So I mean, I think that I think that's part of it. I think the other thing I think with clients and this general rule of thumb in this relationship is that I think investment is a really and we talked about this on other episodes. I've seen plenty of really, really good colorist struggle colors. And other artists struggle with relationships not because they didn't do what the client wanted, not because they didn't do a really good job and create or make something that was really awesome.

00:15:30:08 - 00:15:54:21
Robbie
But they struggled because they were just really nonchalant about being a collaborator with the project. And I, I've learned that the hard way over the years myself. And that is right, is that if you don't show the, the, the willingness to be all in on a project to know the project, to understand the project, to understand the challenges and the bad and the good things.

00:15:54:23 - 00:16:04:11
Robbie
Well, that's not that's kind of like showing shows clients that you're like, maybe not for in the literal sense, the partner that they need on a project. You're just and yeah.

00:16:04:11 - 00:16:24:09
Joey
And you know, it's easy. The more experience you get, the easier that trap is to fall into on the smaller jobs. Oh, we got a 32nd spot. Oh well, I know how to do a 32nd spot. That's easy. Here you go. Great. It's wonderful. You can kind of in your mind when you're juggling a bunch of projects and you're, you're going through your day and you're doing a million things.

00:16:24:11 - 00:16:42:11
Joey
You know, a 32nd spot might not seem like the most important thing in the world at that time. And you don't want to express it like that, because to them, they're the ones paying money. It is important. Yeah. Every project has an equal level of importance and you need to present that to the in your attitude.

00:16:42:13 - 00:17:12:22
Robbie
In the bigger picture. You know, part of this with the client too, I think there's a lot of other things that go into that relationship just besides the creative work and a couple. I just want to mention real quick, the first and foremost is having, I don't know if policy is the right word for this, but like standards, practices or whatever, like one of the things besides that kind of investment that I spoke about too, is that, clients want to really know, like have something be standardized, know what they're getting time and time after, we're in working with you, right?

00:17:12:22 - 00:17:14:00
Robbie
They're like, oh, clear.

00:17:14:00 - 00:17:14:20
Joey
Expectations.

00:17:15:01 - 00:17:36:06
Robbie
I know that Rob and Joey are going to do XYZ after I engage them for the project. I know they're going to do X, y, z after I deliver the project and so on. So I think it really helps, with client relationships to really spell out your process or the process, etc.. So as you said, there's expectations about a project are clearly made.

00:17:36:08 - 00:17:56:11
Robbie
I have seen so and we've been victim to this of ourselves, to so many relationships go downhill just because something wasn't properly explained. Right. Like you know, well, you didn't deliver the screener to me on Friday. What are you talking about? Well, I thought I was getting a screener on Friday. Well, actually, I thought I said on Monday.

00:17:56:11 - 00:18:21:18
Robbie
Where did you say that? Oh, I didn't know. Those kind of stupid things. Right. Lead to distrust. They lead to fractures in relationships. So I do think it's important, no matter how you do it, just to kind of codify and really go out of your way to explain process and, and sort of it. And this can start from, hey, the first thing that we do is before we can give you a bit is we need, you know, this list of equipment that you shot on.

00:18:21:20 - 00:18:37:11
Robbie
We need references and we need a screener. That's the first thing we're going we're not going to tell you a price until you tell us. Like that could be one. It could be. Okay, after we do that, now, we get you, a proposal for the project, whatever. Whatever steps that you deem necessary. I think explaining those to a client.

00:18:37:11 - 00:18:47:09
Robbie
And then sticking to them with every client on every project is essential for consistency. So people know what they're getting.

00:18:47:11 - 00:19:11:22
Joey
Yeah. And that leads into something I think is really important, which is you want to always kind of being under promising and over delivering. You don't want to promise something grandiose that you don't actually have the ability to execute, or because of the challenges, the project execution would not be possible. Right? We can't always do miracles. And this, again, is where that honesty with the client is important because of that client.

00:19:11:22 - 00:19:23:04
Joey
If you if you push yourself up and puffed yourself up to where the client thinks that you can do absolute miracles with something that miracles are not possible for, they're just going to be disappointed.

00:19:23:06 - 00:19:43:14
Robbie
And you know what? It's actually funny that you said that, and that just rang a bell in my head to I was talking to a colleague friend of mine the other day about how, she felt like she kept getting stuck because she was bidding. She does a lot of short film, and she was bidding the bidding projects, and she always felt she was doing more work at the end of the day than she bid on.

00:19:43:14 - 00:20:05:15
Robbie
Right. And I'm like, well, how's it going with that client? She's like, well, actually, like, we're not really working together all that much anymore. And I was like, And I didn't want to say this to her because I didn't want to like, point out the obvious thing to her, like what I was thinking. But it was probably a situation where she was under bidding, under undervaluing her work, and then probably at a later date, going back to them and going, hey, yeah, you know what?

00:20:05:16 - 00:20:30:12
Robbie
Like I could can we get another hour or two out of that project and probably doing that consistently. Right. And so it's just like one of those things like even something that's, you know, as trivial as, like what you bid on a project like client consents and stuff if you're constantly under. I mean, we've had we've actually lost projects before because we thought we were being aggressive on budget on ours, etc. and they go, there's no way you can do it at that time, or there's no way you can do it for that budget.

00:20:30:17 - 00:20:55:14
Robbie
Well, and then go to the more expensive person, obviously. And it's just because like, oh yeah, okay, we should have, we should have been straight up more, more straightforward, not just trying to cut corners to win projects. Honestly, as you said, it's the big thing. The other thing I think is important in relationships with clients is that, you know, there's going to be some clients that you work with regularly, but there's going to be a lot of clients that show up, you know, once, once a year or twice a year or something like that.

00:20:55:16 - 00:21:16:06
Robbie
I think that it's really important to do that work in between projects with clients, too. I recently I've started calling this because my wife works in fundraising. And in this line of work, relationship work, a phrase that she uses all the time is stewardship. Right? And I really like that idea because it can be as something as simple as an email.

00:21:16:08 - 00:21:32:05
Robbie
Hey, how are you doing? What's new with you guys? Anything cool? Any projects that you're like, you know, like you'd be surprised how much work you can earn by just, like, checking in with people you don't rob. Thanks for checking in. I was I meant to get in touch with you in a couple weeks, but now that I have you, let's talk about this upcoming project, that kind of stuff.

00:21:32:05 - 00:21:40:22
Robbie
Right. And that kind of like touchstones as those kind of every once in a while, check ins really can go a long way towards client relationships.

00:21:41:00 - 00:22:04:04
Joey
It's one of those things where it's especially in the long day to day slog of getting all your work done and doing everything you need for your family and going back and forth and the day to day. It's one of those things. It's very easy to just kind of forget about and let it fizzle away into the background, where you don't have to think about it, and you kind of need to actively remind yourself.

00:22:04:06 - 00:22:07:01
Robbie
Yeah, and it's a balance too, right? I mean, I'm sure we're.

00:22:07:01 - 00:22:08:22
Joey
All, you don't want to be annoying.

00:22:09:00 - 00:22:16:02
Robbie
We're all probably all on somebody's email list, right? Where you open that email and you go, got this person again, right?

00:22:16:02 - 00:22:19:04
Joey
Like, come on, you're not that cool, right?

00:22:19:06 - 00:22:40:02
Robbie
So it is a balance point, but it is important. And the last thing I'll say about client relationships too, is that, I think it's really important to admit when you could have been better at something. But I also think the best clients are also those that can also discuss that same issue. Right. We could have done better at this.

00:22:40:02 - 00:22:58:23
Robbie
And I think, you know, we we we do do it, but probably not as much as we should. And that's just the idea of client debriefs, right? Like a project debriefs after a project like, you know, listen, I love working with you, but, you know, your emails at 2:00 in the morning and expecting a immediate reply, not working for me or whatever the case may be.

00:22:58:23 - 00:23:17:07
Robbie
Right. But those kind of things, like that's how you get more streamlined. It's how you improve for future projects. And you know, as long if you can be open to the idea of like, you could be doing things better, clients could be doing something better, that in itself is a recipe for a better relationship, I think. Okay, moving on to vendors.

00:23:17:09 - 00:23:41:04
Robbie
This is a tricky one. And this is why I think it's tricky because ostensibly, every other vendor you talk to you is in some shape or fashion competition, right? Right. Like, you know what I mean by that is that you're kind of all going after the same dollars. You might not be competitive with an individual person, but generally speaking, you know, if you're doing something to undermine another vendor.

00:23:41:04 - 00:24:10:05
Robbie
Well, I mean, money out of their pocket or whatever, right? Or you're trying to compete with the same work. I have found vendor relationships, other artists, those kind of things to be some of the, the trickiest things involved in a project. And I'll give you two examples and see if you have, something similar. So I was thinking back to a recent series that, we did last year where, the audio team was not so great.

00:24:10:05 - 00:24:35:08
Robbie
Right. And I made the mistake of bringing it up to the client rather than bringing it up to the vendor. Right. Thinking to myself at the time, well, I don't really know these people. I should my my responsibilities to the client. I should tell the client what's up, right? Unfortunately, the client went right to that audio vendor and gave them a mouthful of like, why are you doing this?

00:24:35:08 - 00:24:55:05
Robbie
Why are you doing that? Like, you're slowing down, right? And so what happened? Of course, those folks were super pissed off at Rob. Like they were really angry with me because rightly so. They felt like I threw them under the bus, called them out in front of the client, etc. when I was like, you know what? You're 100% right.

00:24:55:07 - 00:25:11:20
Robbie
What I should have done is the email. The phone call to you guys first worked it out behind the scenes because it looks bad. It looks like now it looks like I'm tattling on, you know, tattoo telling on you guys to the client that's making you guys mad. But it also made me look a little bad to the client to.

00:25:11:20 - 00:25:28:20
Robbie
Right? Because I was like, oh, yeah, I, I was, you know, I was kind of tattling on them. And so, you know, I think you got to be careful with that kind of thing with vendors because those people have the power to throw you under the bus for something later down the road to. And so, like, that's where it kind of get the golden rule kind of thing comes up.

00:25:28:22 - 00:25:47:05
Robbie
I think with vendors, as much as you can work it out without client involvement, the better. Generally speaking, there's going to be certain things you need the client involved for. But more times, if it's things like, hey, you know what? You keep giving me an entirely round file when I need six months. Like, the client doesn't need to be involved in that, right?

00:25:47:07 - 00:26:14:17
Joey
Yeah. And the thing I think about with this is, like I said earlier, you don't want to attribute malice by default and be on the defensive by default. You want to assume that there's a logical reason for whatever you're disagreeing with or whatever difficulty you're having. And it's not that they're out to get you right. So one big, big, big tip that I have for everybody that I do all the time, that I think goes a long way, and it's the simplest thing in the world.

00:26:14:21 - 00:26:39:13
Joey
We all get on stupidly long, reply all email chains. I'm with the entire world on them. And okay, the editors sending me EDL. The audio mixer is sending me splits and the clients on all these emails. Okay, I get one. I'm on like 15 emails deep. The editor sends me, the next spot and it's got text on it.

00:26:39:15 - 00:27:09:01
Joey
Do I reply all and say, hey, you forgot to take the text off, dummy? No. I reply on the side and say, hey, real quick. I think there's some accidental text left on this. Can you send it to me clean? And then we just work it out that way? I think. I think they appreciate that. I've been on the receiving end of that same kind of move, where I've messed up a render and somebody will send it back to me and be like, hey, can you double check that render?

00:27:09:01 - 00:27:32:15
Joey
Yes. Thank you for not putting everybody and their mother on that email, because now I only look like an idiot temporarily to you. And we both know that sometimes you can mess up renders. Right? It's a lot easier to forgive technical problems when there's not 50 people on the email. And that goes back to, yeah, we don't want to ever throw someone under the bus.

00:27:32:17 - 00:27:47:16
Robbie
Yeah. No, I, I agree with that generally. And I think that it goes back to what you said at the top of this conversation about giving somebody the benefit of the doubt, checking with them. And like I, I've made this mistake far too often, but at the same time, and I want us to be like Asterix by this.

00:27:47:18 - 00:28:13:00
Robbie
Sometimes you do need to get the client involved, right? When I do, I do think that there are times in situations where, a vendor's behavior, a Brenda's output, the DOS, whatever they're doing does endanger the success of the project. And that is this instance where it goes back to how we were talking about how we treat clients in the suite.

00:28:13:00 - 00:28:34:02
Robbie
Right. Like there's a big difference between going, oh, XYZ companies really screwing up the project. You should fire them. We don't, we shouldn't you shouldn't work with that anymore. Versus, hey, have you checked in recently with, you know, the audio guys? I'm not quite getting what I need. They've been hard to reach. Whatever. Like, you know, whatever description you put on it.

00:28:34:04 - 00:28:51:07
Robbie
Maybe, maybe you could reach out to them and see what's up. Right? That's a big difference. But it's still shows the client okay. You're not getting what you need. You care obviously, about the success of this project, but it also shows them like you're not going to throw that person under the bus. Them as the sort of the cruise director.

00:28:51:11 - 00:28:54:11
Robbie
They're the ones who should have the stern words with that vendor. Right.

00:28:54:17 - 00:29:17:12
Joey
And there's just yeah, we have to judge and we have to we have to walk a pretty fine line as colorists and finishers, because we're the clearinghouse for all the other vendors, right? Everything gets to our desk eventually. So we interact with the whole spider web. And if 99% of the time you can work directly with them and work out any issues.

00:29:17:12 - 00:29:26:03
Joey
But when you get to an issue that isn't getting resolved, then yeah, you got to go to the client, but you got to do it in a way that you're not throwing people under the bus, you know?

00:29:26:03 - 00:29:48:13
Robbie
So like you have to kind of judge those situations of when you're going to involve the client or not. I think, again, the default should be communication directly with the vendor. Right. And then if you can't work it out with the vendor, then it's, you know, maybe involve the client. But also I think in those those situations too, it's you can look at it as an opportunity.

00:29:48:13 - 00:30:22:18
Robbie
Like, I think there's a tendency to look at it as like, oh, we're I'm just gearing up for my next fight with these people versus, you know, there can be situations where you're like, yeah, now I have the I know these awesome motion graphic designers I've worked with on a couple of projects. They're my go to the people I recommend to every client that comes across my door looking for a motion graphics person, so you can look at those opportunities when you do work with other vendors as not only, a place where, you know, you can, you know, you're obviously partnering on the same projects together, but also for future relations, you know,

00:30:22:18 - 00:30:38:04
Robbie
future healthy relationships. They might, you might throw them work, they might throw you work. And that's a great place to be and to be like, oh, yeah, you know what? I got these dudes that, like, they're the guys you really need to talk to. And that's how you get a lot more work.

00:30:38:06 - 00:31:02:02
Joey
That's a great point that we haven't really even talked about yet is always recommend your your go tos. Right. The more you can recommend because like I said, we touch everything. Everything rolls down the hill to us before we do a final output. So we deal with everybody we know who's talented, we know who's really good at what styles or what genres, whatever.

00:31:02:04 - 00:31:23:00
Joey
It is a great thing to be able to recommend someone to a client and then have them be happy that you recommended them, and to have your client be happy that you gave them a good recommendation. So the more you can, you can recommend your other kind of vendors that you partner with that you know are good to your clients and to other people.

00:31:23:02 - 00:31:32:06
Joey
It's just going to do such dividends both with your client relationships and with your relationships with other vendors who might be recommending you to their clients.

00:31:32:08 - 00:31:58:23
Robbie
Totally agree. Totally agree. Okay, so moving on to the last bucket of people and relationships, and that is your colleagues. Okay. So I you know, this is a tricky one because I think that, you know, in a, in a, in a, in a perfect world, perfect situation, you know, you're getting along all the time with everybody that you work with, right?

00:31:59:01 - 00:32:20:06
Robbie
And, you know, I think this is this might be I want to be clear. This might be actually, I'm not going to think about it. It actually might be a slightly foreign concept to the kind of the new age of post production workers. Right? Yeah. Because so many people are freelancers, independents, etc.. Right? You know, they're not in facilities working with the same people day in and day out.

00:32:20:06 - 00:32:42:19
Robbie
But I do think for freelancers that, are engaging at facilities or getting hired by other places or whatever, you're going to be involved in situations where people are not awesome all the time. They're not your best friends all the time. And so, like, you know, navigating those waters are, some of them are similar. Some of the themes are similar to how you would work with a vendor or work with a client.

00:32:42:21 - 00:33:02:21
Robbie
But the biggest one that comes to mind anytime that I am, I work with somebody, like when I work with you or I work with another colorist or whatever. And that is the idea that, okay, we all have egos, we all have ways of doing things. We all have preferences. We need to put the project first, right?

00:33:02:22 - 00:33:25:13
Robbie
Yeah. And that is like team. The team aspect of this can't really be understated, right? Like there are people who I really dislike as people, but their abilities as artists are undeniable, right? And I would actually want to work with them. I love when I get to work with them, simply because it's an opportunity for them to do their thing.

00:33:25:13 - 00:33:51:09
Robbie
Now, I've learned with those people, I have to kind of sandal some of these people with kid gloves. Other people. I have to just, you know, there's no small talk. It's just all about work, like, whatever the case may be. But the idea about putting the team first, I think, is one of the ways to get around some of those, you know, internal clashes that you might have with people is like, you know, look, dude, we don't have to go get a beer and be best friends on every Friday afternoon.

00:33:51:11 - 00:34:13:08
Robbie
All we have to do is make sure that the client is paying us, like in the work, and that's that, you know, and that's kind of a hard thing, I think, for, what we do because it is a relationship. But like, we're, we're kind of pre-wired to go into every relationship, wanting everybody to be a good friend of us, friend of ours, wanting to be high fives all around.

00:34:13:10 - 00:34:29:11
Robbie
And that's just not always the case. And I think that's especially true with people that you work day in and day out with. They get to know your annoying habits, you got to know their annoying habits, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so that can be a little tricky. So I do think putting team first, is a key, key part of that.

00:34:29:13 - 00:34:55:04
Joey
Yeah. And the other really important thing about putting the team in the project first is it is confidence inspiring to the client. If a client sees multiple people supposedly in the same team bickering or competing, they are going to lose confidence that their job is getting the focus it needs. And like I said, I have been not always the most personal human being, personable human being in my long career.

00:34:55:04 - 00:35:37:09
Joey
In post-production, I started very, very young in post-production and with too much ego and too much attitude. And one example of this I remember this was probably 20 years ago. At this point I was young, egotistical, but I like to think pretty knowledgeable and talented for my age. That's why I had the overinflated ego. And another an editor that I worked with needed some help with some kind of technical challenge that God like avid 2.0 was, was giving them at the time.

00:35:37:11 - 00:35:58:20
Joey
Sure, I barge into that room, client sitting right there acting like I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm like, what did you didn't just try this button to make it just work. Come on. Thinking, oh, ever reason to think, wow, he's a genius. He knows exactly what to do. He's the king shit. You know, he's awesome. No, I look like a total ass.

00:35:58:22 - 00:36:26:18
Joey
And thankfully, we've talked in other episodes about mentorship. This was a mentorship opportunity for young Joey, a much more senior editor who witnessed this. Literally came up to me, was like, you need to go to this editor after the client leaves and profusely apologize for your horrific behavior and understand why this was you messing up. And at first, like again, like we talked about earlier, instinctively, you want to be defensive, right?

00:36:26:18 - 00:36:49:18
Joey
I'm like, no, no, I'm awesome. I was just being awesome. Don't you want us to be awesome? No. And then I thought about it. I was like, oh, like you started with treat people how you would like to be treated. I, I guess, intrinsically saw an opportunity to inflate myself at someone else's expense. And I instinctively took it and looked like a complete ass doing it.

00:36:49:18 - 00:37:16:06
Joey
I'm still good friends with that editor 20 some years later, and that could have gone a lot different if I hadn't been explicitly told. You need to at one, understand where you went wrong and to go apologize because you were being an ass. And I did. I went and I apologized, and in doing that was when it actually clicked to me, when I actually sat down and apologized, said, look, I'm really sorry for this thing that I did and kind of described exactly why I was apologizing.

00:37:16:08 - 00:37:21:19
Joey
It just clicked in my brain. I was like, oh, that makes perfect sense. I really screwed this up.

00:37:21:21 - 00:37:57:15
Robbie
Yeah. So I don't know if this is true inside baseball, but, I just wanted to vouch for you in this regard. Because I was actually on the receiving end of this conversation from you once a long, long, long, long, long time ago. Right in the early 2000s, 2005, 2006 ish. Somewhere in that range. I had been doing a lot of work with Apple and the Apple Pro training series and Final Cut Pro seven, and, it was, one of the first, you know, kind of round of instructors that did a lot of books for them and stuff like that.

00:37:57:15 - 00:38:14:00
Robbie
Anyway, the facility that Joey, worked at, unbeknownst we weren't friends or colleagues at the time, had hired to bring me in to give some of the editors because they were on a different edit platform, give them some Final Cut Pro training, which I did. I thought it was fine. I mean, it was the basics, right?

00:38:14:00 - 00:38:32:13
Robbie
It was, you know, three point editing, ripple editing, whatever. And here's Joey, by the way, Joey at the time just pick your audience. Please picture this in your mind. Just long flowing locks down to his shoulders. I don't know what you're driving at a time, like a Camaro or something like that. You know, pack of cigarets in your pocket, like the whole nine yards.

00:38:32:13 - 00:38:51:21
Robbie
Right? Anyway, Joey's right. Very opinionated. Whatever. But in the middle of the session was like, that's not how you three point edit. This is how you three point at it, right? Or some shit like that. Right? It was some it was pretty aggressive. But I will say he did come up to me later and go, hey, I might have been a little too aggressive there.

00:38:51:21 - 00:38:56:22
Robbie
I'm sorry. I just really opinionated when it comes to the correct way to edit something, right?

00:38:57:00 - 00:38:59:08
Joey
Awesome. We all know what I think about final cuts.

00:38:59:08 - 00:39:00:10
Robbie
Well that's true. That's true.

00:39:00:10 - 00:39:02:05
Joey
Too. I started with an attitude.

00:39:02:05 - 00:39:31:08
Robbie
My my point hand here. And this is kind of to to make it come all the way full circle with all three of these buckets. Is that is that last point I think is, one of the hardest life lessons, but also one of the hardest lessons to learn in our industry, too. And that is when you screw up, when you are a proverbial A-hole about something or to someone, you need to learn how to make that situation right.

00:39:31:08 - 00:39:55:00
Robbie
And oftentimes that is falling on your own sword 100% of the time. Finding your own stories, the clients. I mean, like, that's just kind of a default, status with vendors, with colleagues, you know, maybe not all the time falling into swords, but still being able to say, I'm sorry. And here's the important thing, too. Even if it is not necessarily something that you feel passionately sorry or apologetic about.

00:39:55:02 - 00:40:01:22
Robbie
Right? Like so, you'd be surprised how sometimes just saying that can save a relationship too, right?

00:40:01:22 - 00:40:17:00
Joey
And just showing that like, hey, look, I might not agree with this approach or I might not agree with how this went down, but I saw you were uncomfortable. I wanted to make sure, you know that that I'm taking that into, you know what, I'm thinking about you as well.

00:40:17:01 - 00:40:33:15
Robbie
100%. And I think, you know, I think that goes a long way. And I think that's a sign of maturity, too, when somebody can come back and go, hey, listen, you know, I was thinking about this last night and I, I realized in hindsight that I was just way more on your ass than I needed it to be about that.

00:40:33:15 - 00:40:40:15
Robbie
And I was way too difficult, and you just didn't deserve that. And I kind of blew up on you at that point in time. I'm sorry about that. Right.

00:40:40:15 - 00:41:03:20
Joey
And and it's funny because like I said, the very first thing, this is a continuing career long evolution of a of an actual, you know, skill, right? This relationship building and maintaining is a skill that you can hone. I like to think I've gotten pretty decent at it, because I've got 25 years of completely screwing it up over and over.

00:41:03:20 - 00:41:23:02
Joey
I've got the experience of kind of like, I, I've put my foot in my mouth way more times. I got an old boss of mine, used to always call it stepping on a rake. I've stepped on a rake more times than I should have. It's a it is a career long journey.

00:41:23:04 - 00:41:43:19
Robbie
Yeah. And I think that this, this, this also this kind of thing I also think is just the other thing I've learned over the past 25 years of being in this business, too, is that there is, again, I think partially because we work in intense small groups together for short periods of time. And we we tend to think that there's no ramifications from this kind of thing.

00:41:43:21 - 00:42:04:17
Robbie
But like, I do think that how you talk about others also goes a long way to how people perceive you in a lot of ways and, how they want that relationship. Right. So if you're the kind of person that's always, you know, kind of under your breath muttering about somebody else or whatever, like, that's probably not going to help you in the long run.

00:42:04:17 - 00:42:26:12
Robbie
Build a good, solid relationships because everybody's wondering, oh, when I leave the room, does he just talk crap about me? You know, like that kind of thing, right. And you also because it is a relationship business, you never are really, privy to how that kind of information makes its way around into different circles. Right? You know, it might be.

00:42:26:14 - 00:42:50:04
Robbie
Yeah. Rob, he's he's a really talented dude. But, man, all he does is talk smack about people when they're not around. Like, that's not a good I mean, I don't do that, but mostly listen, that's not a good reputation to get those kind of things. So I also think it's important to just kind of be mindful of, you know, others, even if they're not there, how you talk about them, treat them.

00:42:50:04 - 00:43:07:22
Robbie
And hey, you know, my, my, my mom used to tell me something, awesome when I was a kid. She just, you know, she would basically say, you know, something of imagine what other people say about you. And, now imagine, like, you know, you can imagine in two different ways. Imagine the imagine that they're saying nice things about you.

00:43:07:22 - 00:43:31:14
Robbie
Why? Because they have a reason to say nice things about you. Then she would say, maybe imagine those same people not saying not nice things about you. Why do they do that? Because they have a reason not to say nice things about you. And so I always, I always think about my mom on my shoulder in that regard because I'm just sort of like, is this a situation I'm going to put myself in where later on people are not going to be saying nice things about me?

00:43:31:19 - 00:43:36:22
Robbie
If that's the case, then it shouldn't be said, right? I'll just keep that tiny.

00:43:37:00 - 00:43:59:09
Joey
But again, this is a much later in life revelation for me. I have a general policy of I only talk about people. If I'm going to be saying something nice, it's got to be pretty egregious for me to to start talking smack about someone, because it doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't help. And because of all the reasons you just listed, it can only hurt.

00:43:59:11 - 00:44:16:02
Joey
So even if someone's a complete jerk to you, you don't need to go around exacerbating that by spreading rumors and talking smack and giving people the idea that you're going to, you know, talk about people behind their back. It's not it doesn't help anything.

00:44:16:04 - 00:44:43:09
Robbie
Doesn't have anything. Them. Yeah, it does not anything at all. All right. The last thing I want to end with is just that you've you've alluded to this several times, but I want to hit on hit it on the head about what a developmental learning process this this is. Right. And one of the, one of the things that, I've been trying to do more recently is I have found that, talking gets in the way of learning about the, like, the relationship.

00:44:43:09 - 00:45:05:08
Robbie
And what I mean by that is that, like, I would just say do a lot more listening than talking, and that is generally a recipe for the solid basis of relationships when when other people feel another way of saying that is when it's just about you all the time, what you think, what you say, what you want, what you do.

00:45:05:13 - 00:45:28:15
Robbie
Right. That's a very one sided relationship. I've tried to get in the habit recently, past couple of years of just shutting the hell up and letting other people talk, and it's really funny because it's harder than you sounds. I used to be terrified, especially in, like, the situation with, like, a client in the room. I used to be terrified of the silence.

00:45:28:17 - 00:45:52:21
Robbie
Right? Yeah, I used to be terrified of that. But what I found myself doing was blabbing, talking some BS or whatever, and like, it's like, God, that guy is working with that guy is exhausting because all he does is talk the entire time. And I found over the past, you know, 4 or 5 years when I've really started focusing on this, my relationships with, especially with the clients, but also with vendors and colleagues have improved significantly.

00:45:52:21 - 00:46:08:18
Robbie
Why not? Because I'm doing anything really tangibly different in the way I behave or the things that I say. But just because I'm listening more, right? And I think that for any relationship, the more that you can listen and see the other person's side, the better.

00:46:08:20 - 00:46:11:22
Joey
And this has been therapy with Robbie. You know.

00:46:12:00 - 00:46:34:13
Robbie
Awesome. Well, hey, a little outside of the normal kind of show that we do, but I think it's an important one. I think that, it is true that relationships rule when it comes to post-production and production. Being a, generally speaking, being a kind, humble, thoughtful person, is definitely the way to go than being a standoffish, difficult, you know, screamer and yeller as well.

00:46:34:13 - 00:46:49:21
Robbie
So, no doubt relationships are important. And if you guys have any, relationship advice that sounds like a dating show, but if you do have any, any other points that we may be missing on on this episode, feel free to leave them in the comments anywhere you find the show on YouTube or on social media.

00:46:49:23 - 00:47:05:17
Robbie
And if you have an idea, I think something that we didn't cover or maybe we could expand upon more, feel free to head over to the offset podcast and use our submission form. And of course you can find the show on YouTube or any of the streaming platforms for podcast. And we, are now up to I think this is episode 41.

00:47:05:17 - 00:47:27:11
Robbie
So we're, quickly coming, to 50 episodes, which is crazy. And we couldn't have done it without you guys. Our audience, our awesome sponsor, Flanders Scientific, our editor, Stella, as well. So, Good talk. Joe. I appreciate these these softer conversations. Sometimes not getting all the technical things, easier for me to understand than virtualization and stuff like that.

00:47:27:11 - 00:47:32:23
Robbie
So, good stuff. And, so for The Offset Podcast, I'm Robbie Carman.

00:47:33:01 - 00:47:34:16
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for listening.