Grow Your Video Business with Ryan Koral

If you're a corporate or wedding filmmaker, are you setting yourself apart with your style? A lot of filmmakers, especially wedding filmmakers, feel they don't have the freedom they want with weddings, but that doesn't have to be the case. Today we're talking with luxury wedding filmmaker Kevin Shahinian about having a vision and being directorial as well as finding high-end clients who are willin...

How are you approaching growing your client base? Are you focusing only on what your needs are? Often when world searching for our ideal clients we tend to focus solely on what we need, and not what we can do for others. This is a big mistake. Today we're talking about the power of community, and how there are more important skills than simply being good at your craft that will keep your pipeline...

Have you ever put any thought into where you're allocating your time as a business owner, and how that investment will help you continue to grow your business in the future? As creatives we're often either hyper-focused or scatterbrained, which, if we're not careful, can lead to stagnation or subpar work. This episode is chock full of good information, but among the most important topics we cover...

When did you last set aside some time to think strategically about the direction of your business, assess what you've been doing well (or not) and set goals for where you want to head in the future? We know that this can be a difficult commitment to make, but Matt and I both believe it's one of the best things that you can do for both your business and your personal life. We're guessing that if yo...

Have you allowed fear held you back from pursuing your passion? As creatives we often find ways to talk ourselves out of diving into passion projects, despite our, well… passion for them! While he certainly faced challenges and doubts, especially as the scope of his project ballooned in front of him, today's guest Jason Aron stuck with it, and the resulted documentary Back In Time became the top-r...

There are certain discoveries we all make in our filmmaking process that stand out as milestones, and mark a new level of quality in our films. There are few level ups as drastic and impactful however, as incorporating professional-level sound design and music placement in our productions. As today's guest explains, this an area of film production that truly separates the pros from the amateurs, a...

For many of us as storytellers, we have ideas for passion project documentaries that we would love to get out into the world one day, but don't really know where to start. Today's guest is the go-to documentary filmmaker for women's rights and is always shining the light on the strength, courage, and dynamism of women around the globe. Her latest documentary, Little Stones follows four women who a...

Do you know how prospective clients view you and your work? Have you placed everything you have ever created on your Vimeo or website? You might be unwittingly making some mistakes that are keeping you from presenting yourself and your capabilities in the best light. But today we're going through all the dos and don'ts of how to present your body of work. Cody Dulock is the Director of Content for...

Well, we've made it to episode 50, and what a ride it's been thus far. When we started Studio Sherpas in 2015 and this podcast a year ago, we had no idea the impact that it would have on us and our own businesses. We were driven by a desire to share our stories and knowledge to help struggling filmmakers to run better businesses and bust through obstacles that were keeping them from producing the...

It's no secret that drones are currently one of the most hyped tools we have in our arsenal as filmmakers, and it's no wonder why. In the past decade, affordable drones have unlocked cinematic shots that we were only accustomed to seeing in huge Hollywood or commercial productions. The thing is, there's a lot more to the world of drone cinematography than just those cool shots. If you're anything...

We all have those evil little fears that roll around in our heads and try to get us to give up, or worse, not even try in the first place. These gremlins of doubt and uncertainty will keep us from achieving or even reaching for some of our biggest goals and dreams, often things we know we have the talent to achieve. Well in today's podcast we explore these fears and get actionable steps to conquer...

Many of us started our careers focussing on the wedding film industry. And while many filmmakers eventually expand their businesses to include corporate and commercial films, getting established in the wedding in the first place is something that often gets glossed over. If you're looking to make the leap into the world of wedding filmmaking, maybe leaving your day job in the process (woot!) Matt...

What do you do when the struggles get to be too much? How do you deal with the fears and frustrations of being an entrepreneur? We have all been there, and they will happen throughout your career, but today's guest Whitney Powell has some insight and inspiration to share that will help you break free. Whitney began her career in LA after graduating from film school but soon realized that the Holly...

How often do you feel like you are overworked and underpaid? I'm sorry to say this, but you only have yourself to blame. Today on the podcast, Matt and I (Ryan) are opening up about the struggles we've faced in our businesses, both early on and more recently, and how we overcame them. We cover a lot of the info you probably never though about when you got into business in the first place including...

We all want to be big business moguls like Mark Cuban or Steven Spielberg. We all want to scale our businesses to the upper echelons. But first we have take tiny steps before the big leaps, and to do that, we need to surround ourselves with people we can lean on, rely on, and laugh with. Do you have those people? Dan and Dana of Gnarly Bay are a team of young and ambitious filmmakers that make uni...

If you're like me, and most other creative business owners, you're really good at starting projects, but not always at finishing through on them. You have a ton of amazing ideas but most of them never get acted upon, and it feels like if only you could find the time to actually implement these thoughts your business would be unstoppable. If that sounds familiar, this is completely normal. You're m...

What's the first thing you think of when I mention the word "lawyer"? It's ok, you can come out from under the bed. I know most of us creatives are easily scared off by the thought of lawyers, contracts, accounting and the like. We've all heard about hourly rates that are waaaay out of our price range, and we work with such great people that we'll never actually need a contract to enforce to prote...

Do you ever feel like if only you could convince your wedding clients to get rid of the photographer on the wedding day your job would be so much easier, and your films would come out better? As videographers, most of us have felt this way at some point. But as today's guest, Sachin Khona points out, the problem is not that there's a photographer there vying for the same angles and moments as we a...

I know as well as anyone that it's only too easy to focus on the tactical, hands on aspects of dealing with clients, chipping away at the never-ending to do list, and practicing our craft in an effort to maintain and grow our businesses. The thing is that when we do this, we often tend to get sucked in, overwhelmed, and burned out. Adrian Koehler is a performance coach who helps high-level entrepr...

If you've been hanging around Sherpa land for a while, you know how passionate we are about building teams around ourselves so that we can live the lives we want and not be overwhelmed by our work, no matter how much we love it. Jordan Bunch is an Austin-based wedding filmmaker, and host of the Wedding Film Academy Podcast, who realized early on that by hiring a team, he could free up the time to...

Have you ever heard the phrase "content is king"? It's a phrase that is sold to creatives the world over encouraging them to continue to put their best work. We're told that if we do, sooner or later, we'll catch our break and get discovered. The thing is, it's not enough. Sure we need to be putting out quality work, but our work alone, no matter how good it is, will rarely get us where we want to...

Do you ever find yourself watching TV, and when a commercial for a big national or even international brand comes on, find yourself thinking, "I could've shot that." Many of us believe we have what it takes to produce that same quality of work, but we have absolutely no idea about what it takes to break into the world of commercial advertising. If that sounds like you, do we ever have a treat for...

Quick question for you. If you wanted to take 8 weeks to volunteer in South America with limited wifi, is your business set up in a way that you could do it? If you're anything like me, and most small film companies out there, I'm guessing the answer is no, and if that's the case, then this is the perfect episode for you. Shannon Avery is the founder of Hoo Films, a California-based wedding film c...

Ok, so first off I want to share that Matt and I were called out by one of our followers a couple of weeks ago about the lack of women we have on the podcast. This was by no means an intentional decision but rather a result of us just being better networked with male filmmakers and educators. We're super appreciative of the feedback and we're going to be making a much greater effort to find talent...

Ok, so to be completely honest, I don't even know how to sum up my conversation with today's guest, Dane Sanders. I left our call completely jacked up, inspired, and motivated to be better, and I have a feeling this episode is going to do the same for you. Dane spent 12 years as a professional photographer before a "leadership book [he] snuck into the photography community" took off and helped him...