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IFH 041: How to Craft a Freelance Career with Paddy Bird

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The Indie Film Hustle Podcast has been around for five short months. I have not had the same guest twice, until now. Paddy Bird from Inside the Edit. The last time he was on Paddy Bird dropped some major post-production knowledge on the IFH Tribe. I had to have him back.

Just as a refresher, Paddy Bird is one of television’s most prolific and accomplished editors. For the past fifteen years, he has edited dozens of prime-time documentaries, entertainment and reality TV shows for British and American television. He has even worked in war zones, spending time editing news stories on location in Iraq.

He also created Inside the Edit, the world’s best course on creative editing…period. You can get more info on Inside the Edit and listen to our last podcast here: IFH 013: Inside the Edit.

This time around we discuss how to build a career as an editor and a freelancer. Paddy goes into a ton of detail and as always delivers the goods. You may need to listen to this episode more than once. Enjoy my conversation with Paddy Bird!

Right-click here to download the MP3

Alex Ferrari 0:02
So guys, today, I'm bringing back my first repeat guest, Paddy Bird, Paddy Bird from inside the Edit, we had such a great time talking. Last time we did, which is episode number 13, that I had to bring him back. He was he's one of the fan favorites. And everybody that listened to that episode really, really loved Patty and me just kind of sitting down and hashing out to editors just hashing out old school kind of stuff. So it's a really, really cool episode of the checkout. But today's episode, we're going to be talking about what it takes really to become a freelance editor and what he did what I did, and what it really is to do to learn the craft of not just editing, we'll learn the craft of working as an editor, which is a completely different craft than just editing and how you handle clients, how you go out and get work, how you set up demo reels, how you do all that kind of cool stuff. So this episode is editor centric, obviously. But a lot of the things that we talk about can easily translate to other avenues. And other disciplines within the film industry, as far as freelancing is concerned is about getting work is about sustaining yourself as an artist and working. So don't just shut off the podcast because it's like, oh, it's just going to talk about editing for the rest of the hour. No, we're going to talk about editing but think and look beyond that. Because there's a lot of gems inside of this conversation that I wish I would have heard of when I was starting out as a freelancer. So without further ado, here is my interview with the incomparable Patti Byrd. So guys, welcome back to the show, Mr. Paddy Bird from inside the Edit. He is our first and only returning guests so far on the show. So that's how good he was the first time around that I wanted to bring him back and also his his episode is one of the best received and most downloaded episodes that we've ever had on the show. So I wanted to bring Paddy back and talk a little bit now just a warning to everybody who's listening. We are going to geek out hard a little bit hard on Star Wars at the beginning of this episode because when we're recording this the movie had just come out. So Paddy man thanks Welcome back to the show, bro.

Paddy Bird 3:21
Alex, thank you very much for having me again. It's a pleasure the first time and I'm sure it'll be a pleasure this time around. Thank you.

Alex Ferrari 3:28
So um Star Wars, thoughts. editing, how is the editing? How is the editing?

Paddy Bird 3:36
I thought his phenomenon and it was just I have to go and see it again for the ending

Alex Ferrari 3:41
And no, no spoilers, no spoilers,

Paddy Bird 3:43
No spoilers at all. But all I will say is wow I was just blown away. It was worth the wait. I loved it. I really really loved what he did. He took it he took it forward in a really beautiful way there was so many fantastic moments. The set pieces were great the action was fantastic. Just everything about it was just I came out feeling deeply fulfilled.

Alex Ferrari 4:11
As a Star Wars fan. I would agree with you. I completely agree. You walked out like I walked out of it and I was just like well you can yeah why was what I was it was quiet for probably 20 minutes I went with a friend of mine and 20 minutes we just kept like hey let's just go walk to lunch. Let's not talk about it for a minute. And that it was said it let it just let it wash over you. And the thing I loved about the movie The most is that you can tell it's basically a love letter to the franchise. It is so much love. You can sense it coming off the screen that everybody who worked on it was just in love with the there was not one guy walking around like I have a frickin Star Wars movie. Everybody probably from the PA the intern all the way up to JJ. Everybody was A reference of the material and so respectful of the material that he just I think he nailed it out of the park. I wish we could talk details about the story, but we won't. Because it's just too soon. It's too soon.

Paddy Bird 5:14
It's too soon.

Alex Ferrari 5:15
It's the way it is. I was worried, like I was worried to death because I wanted to walk. I hadn't even bought the tickets yet. And and I was like, man, where am I going to go see this? And a buddy of mine who works at Disney. Called me. He's like, hey, do you want to do? Do there's going to have some screenings on the backlog? Do you want to go? I'm like, Yes. Absolutely. When he's like, 10 o'clock on Friday morning, I'm like, pick me up, pick me up at eight so we can make sure we get a good seat. So we did that we went and the one the reason I wanted to do it, it wasn't the biggest screen in the world. It was it was a nice screen. It was perfect, you know, but it wasn't like IMAX or anything. I'm going to go back to see at an IMAX. But it was I knew for a fact that there was not going to be one person talking. There would be no cell phones. And everybody stays it's a la phenomenon. Everyone stays for the credits. Like No one leaves until the LA phenomenon. The 15 minute and credit Yeah, the 15 everyone stays and no one talks it's like it just it's just an LA thing. If you're an industry if you're in an industry screening of some sort somewhere in the world that that that would happen as well. But here it's just everyone stays and and then afterwards I went off I don't know if you saw it or not, but I took some pictures of some stormtroopers that were on the backlot and I wore and I wore my favorite Star Wars t shirt of all time. It says Star Wars number

Paddy Bird 6:33
One you really got in character than you You really did.

Alex Ferrari 6:36
Oh no, no, dude No, I there's just one t shirt dude. I saw people dressed up like full blown I was just like I didn't have a lightsaber or anything. I don't even own a lightsaber yet but it's Christmas it's gonna bring no there might be a Kylo Ren coming in my in my stocking I don't know my wife's gonna talk looking at it. But anyway, so my so I was wearing my T shirt who says number one Star Wars fan but it has a picture of the enterprise on it. Oh brilliant. It's like the most brilliant I literally walked up to the Stormtrooper and as I was walking up to take a picture the guy started pissing himself he's like that shirts amazing so anyway, I just wanted to get that out of the way I wanted to break the tension in the room let's get it out of the way

Paddy Bird 7:24
I had I had the same experience i mean i mean you know if you want to you know if your Star Wars fan you basically have to stay away from the internet until you watch it and I was not prepared to do that right? Oh no, I I have to use like most people on the planet the internet so I was like okay, I'm gonna go watch this first thing Friday at like lunchtime yeah halftime you have you have to do this otherwise you know you're done. Can we talk about it you know in

Alex Ferrari 7:53
and then the second I went online, people started talking about it like and people are trying to be as respectful as possible about spoilers and stuff but

Paddy Bird 8:00
there's always someone there's always someone there's always someone there's always somebody who's gone to the dark side

Alex Ferrari 8:10
you know what I read an article that the internet it literally the Star Wars literally broke the internet.

Paddy Bird 8:17
It was

Alex Ferrari 8:19
dropped the usage of internet dropped worldwide on opening day wow 5% in France like 7% in Germany the US dropped about four or 5% that people just were not going online because they were afraid of what would you know of lose you know getting a spoiler so I when I read that I'm like whole Lee crap man. Like how powerful is that franchise? Like it's the most powerful franchise there is. There's this and now they're gonna know the one thing I want to and then I'll get off the I'll get off the Star Wars boat. But I'm curious to see where and how they can maintain this for the next 10 years. Like we've been starved from Star Wars for 10 years. And arguably since Jedi a lot of people's opinion since Jedi we've been star from Star Wars, but but now they're going to be doing one every year. You know, every year I want to see how they can maintain it

Paddy Bird 9:16
that is that is freaky. I mean, I can't even begin to think of how complicated that is gonna be I mean, obviously, you know, like anything they kept a lot of things open on that at the end and you think Oh, where's this gonna go? Where's that going to go but I know

Alex Ferrari 9:31
it's a continuing saga and in the next next year, there's going to be Rogue One which is an anthology part of the anthology, which is just another story. I think it takes place. How how Princess Leia got the plans for the Death Star. That's the the movie Rogue One. That's the whole so that the group that went and died and did all the stuff to go get it. According to Princess, Princess Leia. That's what that movie is about. And then the next, then the next one will be part eight. And then That's the Han Solo movie. And then part nine.

Paddy Bird 10:02
Man, they got it all figured out. Wow. Well, they're

Alex Ferrari 10:04
taking their dish using the Marvel. Um, they're using the Marvel law. Business paradigm. Yeah, absolutely. And it works. It's been working pretty good.

Paddy Bird 10:14
Why not? Why not? It's worked as you say it's been working pretty good for them. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 10:19
exactly. So I did buy some stock of Disney, I suggest you all do this. It's gonna be they're gonna be doing well for them for many years to come. Anyway, so off Star Wars now now it's off, we're done. I wanted to bring you back Patty to talk a little bit about get into some deeper editing stuff. And I wanted to talk about my experiences and your experiences about about living making a living as an editor, how you started as an editor, some more detailed stuff about demo reels, and things like that. So I'm going to go way, way back. Okay, way back to when you were just a small lad. Coming up, what made you first think that you could even make a living as an editor? Because when you did it, and when I did it, that wasn't like in the popular stream of things.

Paddy Bird 11:09
It wasn't easy. I mean, it really wasn't, you know, I came in at the, you know, the start of nonlinear really the star tool in the mid 90s. And, you know, aphids, an avid, then I mean,

Alex Ferrari 11:24
I was five years old, five years old, it was avid was five years old.

Paddy Bird 11:27
And they were you know, they were 150 grand is for an for an offline, that wasn't the right one. So it was pretty crazy. So I guess I mean, I'd always sort of messed around with films and I've been obsessed with watching movies and stuff like that, and documentaries from a very, very young age. And I did a sort of I did an internship at a magazine when I was about 16. And I learned to use Photoshop and I think it was Quark Express at the time and illustrator work Express quote, yes back Yeah, I guess going back a few years. Yeah. And I just thought well, this is kind of interesting. I don't think I was very good at it. But then a friend of mine said, Oh look, you can edit movies now on on a computer. I was like Oh, that's awesome. So we started a production company and that was affiliated with a charity and we basically just because we were because we were sort of a charity or working for a charity I'm doing sort of corporate videos for charities and stuff like that we managed to get a lot of free time in Edit suites now around Soho which was pretty awesome people would let us in it sort of you know, midnight bottle of wine or something like that right right and said you know you know you just free to work until 7am until the editors come back in so I just I just went crazy on it to be honest you I was just like oh my god this is a whole new world This is amazing. And it was around that time as well that you know, a lot of the you know, the linear editors just sort of they thought avid was a fat This is never gonna last. Right? Right. I can't remember if I if I told this story in the in the last podcast, but I was I was in a went to write I was writing a script. This must have been about 10 years ago, I was writing a script. So a friend of mines got a tiny little flat, an apartment in this old village in Italy, and mountains in the Italian Alps was to go I think if a real solid,

Alex Ferrari 13:52
I think he I think he said he did tell us a story in the last episode

Paddy Bird 13:55
archived. Well, I won't go into any more. But it's what, you know, listened to the previous episode, if you want to hear the end of that story. But it was it was a phenomenal kind of change. And I didn't it hadn't really hit me at that point, how big that change was that, you know, for many, many years, it was being done a certain way. And I just took to it from the age I was I was you know, sort of 1920 and I just went bang, this is really, really cool. And I locked myself away and literally spent a year in the edit suite and was utterly fascinated by the power that you could have over narrative and I didn't know what I was doing. I had no classical training at all and go to film school. I didn't even go to university. I was just piecing stuff together and going wow. And we had all these clients coming in. And I would do anything I would I would you know, I'd edit through the night on an actor's show for you know, buy me a pizza and you know, I'll work for food because I was gaining that. You know, that whole you know, I need it. I recognize from a very young age I need 1000s of hours of experience to get my speed up to get my creative speed up so I knew pretty early on that I was in a unique position and but of course it's all changed now it's completely changed you can buy you know you get free software software for free software you can do it on your iPad you know it's it's it's a kind of crazy thing that that's happened within the country and it's awesome i mean i you know, with all my tutorials and inside the Edit I don't I'm not confined to the edit suite anymore I spend most of my time with my laptop I've got MacBook Air yeah drive and I was just like you know, I spent 1520 years editing in Edit facilities in Soho in London or in the BBC or something now I just sort of go Where do I want to edit today? And I just go to Starbucks right? I'll go to Starbucks or go to an art gallery or look at some art for an hour get inspired or a museum go and see some some old stuff and then I'll just sit and you know, make a tutorial or you know, edit something edit a promo or something like that. It's amazing. It's phenomenal. What's happened I thought I was lucky 20 years ago, but you know, people coming into the industry now. And it's just it's so amazing it's I'm blown away by all just all of it completely and utterly mobile and you're just free to create in the most amazing way. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 16:28
I mean, it's I'll tell you my quick story of when I started out I it's it's similar to your story, believe it or not, I was a I was a tape dubber in a in a commercial house and they had an avid next door to the dub dub station. So I was like you know what, let me just jump in there and start learning I literally just went in I took the avid course I got certified I took the avid certified certification course just like the two day weekend or something like that just to get it going. And I had to drive and this is like my uphill and snow barefoot story but I drove an hour a day to this to this job both ways our there our back and I would go early morning because that's the only time I could get in before the editors got in and I would stay late nights and this is something you could do when you're young and don't have a family and things like that so I and I did that for almost a year until finally I decided you know what I'm going to go off and and and make a living as an editor and it's just good stuff crazy stuff that you do when you're young like you know you now you'd like analyze stuff and like what's gonna be you know, how can I make money what's going to be my overhead before I was like, let's just go off and do it but the funniest thing Do you remember what was the first thing you ever edited was like professionally like you got paid to be an editor

Paddy Bird 17:47
Yeah, I do actually it was a daytime weight loss program and I walked into the This was the first time I was a freelancer and and I got back up pat i was getting paid to do three days tidying up it was like a half hour show it was like two o'clock in the afternoon it's for people people who want to lose weight and they put people on you know a diet and exercise and stuff like that. I've never

Alex Ferrari 18:15
heard of this this concept how's that work? I'm joking.

Paddy Bird 18:23
And I remember walking in because I had no training and I walked in and you know met the director and I was just like really? Like you know, I was really anxious and doing something Oh yeah. Great to meet you. You know the agency says so many great things about you. And I was like, Okay, I don't know what they're going to say that sounds because I haven't edited anything yet. Okay. Anything This is going to be interesting as you went okay, so let me just say about the project the the cutaways are in there and I was sitting there going Hmm I wonder what colorway is a phone a friend of mine have no idea what this is this she's using all this terminology stuff you know I just sort of worked out in my own head didn't really have a name for anything and yeah, it was it was it was pretty crazy I didn't know the software that well and then

Alex Ferrari 19:17
that's always dangerous man. Oh god that was scary.

Paddy Bird 19:20
It's dangerous she came in to go Can we put this title up and can you spin it around a bit and stuff like that and I had hidden the avid manual in the toilet and every single time you asked me to do something I didn't know I just said so I'm gonna go to the toilet and I went to the toilet and I okay, so you plot keyframes like that and then you put the title and the key could spin it around on the rotation axis. Okay, great. And they come back out. I went to the toilet about 15 times

Alex Ferrari 19:49
I was like, Oh, my God, this kid has a problem. This case like

Paddy Bird 19:52
Did he go out last night and a party or you know, did eat something that didn't agree with him? It was just but No, I didn't. I didn't know So it was it was a real trial by fire. But that's that's the thing. It's like

Alex Ferrari 20:06
you got you just got tossed in the deep end.

Paddy Bird 20:10
Yeah, and I survived. I was lucky. There were some definitely some hairy moments where I was like, she was like saying, I know what do you think about this? And I was like, Hmm, okay, I don't really know what I'm gonna say here and I just sort of, you know, made something up but she seemed to have believed

Alex Ferrari 20:27
Yeah, I'll tell you that like when I whenever when I was starting out and I was you know, in, in room with client always was nerve racking because if they if they asked for something that you didn't know how to do, or you didn't because if you didn't know the software well enough, you couldn't figure it out like and I was I became a master of BS. So I would like here watch this or do this and like while I tried figuring it, I'm like, hold on a second. I gotta restart the system. So while it's restarting, I'm thinking in my head, something wrong with the iPad let me restart the system and I restarted the system six times the first time I did it, it figured it all out and like sometimes I remember that one of my first gigs I actually edited the whole thing offline and I did not connect the timecode to the tapes. So when I went to batch it, I couldn't like all the work was gone. I had to live we have to do it from scratch. But my first my first project that I remember was and it's it's it's a little bit more fun than weight loss I have to say it was a career I was in Florida and there was a crazy guy who used to wrestle alligators and sharks now man That sounds

Paddy Bird 21:37
like fun

Alex Ferrari 21:38
Oh dude, it was I still haven't I haven't made a VHS of it in my in my closet. That footage this guy would go out and when I say wrestle alligators I'm like oh everyone sees everyone's I don't know everyone because I'm from Florida so I just assume everyone's seen a wrestling alligator match but you know you go into a pit and there's like a tame ish alligator who's like fat and doesn't move and you they kind of like and the guy will run around and jump on him and hold his mouth and all this kind of stuff right? Now that's not what this guy does. This guy would go into the Everglades into the swamp jump into the water No No dude and we're shooting a mini DV alright so it was everything we shot a mini DV should go into the water go into alligator holes.

Paddy Bird 22:22
Whoa, no, no, no, no, no

Alex Ferrari 22:25
alligator holes and drag out. Seven footers. Eight footers. I saw him bring out a third teen footer. The man was probably in his late 40s at that time, he was in the most amazing shape I'd ever seen a human being in he or maybe in his early 50s at that point, he had the grip of of a vise but when he shook your hand he was like almost a limp, very limp when he shook your hand Manny and so

Paddy Bird 22:55
this guy sounds like a proper Crocodile Dundee Oh

Alex Ferrari 22:59
no, he is no he was they call them they call them Tarzan of the Everglades and he would go in and you know just kind of go in and do the like pull this guy's out and and then one day he brought me footage by the way I had a ball with this footage like can you imagine that's your first that's your first gig and they're like yeah give it to the kid the kid will edit it and I edited this insane thing and I I brought in music you know copyright music I didn't give a shit It was like if I get mad just brought in whatever music I thought it was cool and people were like this is awesome. So that was on my demo reel which we'll get to demo reels in a second I was on my demo reel for years because people were like what the hell so the best is like one day I'm talking to the camera guy in him because we became good friends because they were brand new to this whole process and I said you know what have been good man like you know all you have is is out of water stuff I got no underwater stuff to cut to so I just only can cut to stuff outside. I have no coverage. wrong thing to say because the next the next day, I hear I get a phone call. It's the guy that gets to the front operators like Alex there's some crazy people calling you that something about the swamp I'm like oh yeah, it's Manny put them through. And I'll go back and Manny and mark the camera man's like, Alex, we're on our way. We just got this amazing footage. We went into this pit inside inside a cave with an alligator and we pulled it out. I'm like yeah, they literally came from the swamp they stunk of alligator his. his fingernails were almost pulled back because they pulled out like a 15 foot alligator out of his den. Oh pull them up onto the unlike the by the way he's never been bitten ever that it never been bitten by anything. It's insane this guy the guy has a way with alligators It was not even funny. So anyway, we go through this whole thing and then later they start jumping on like Tiger sharks and stuff in the flats of the fascinating footage. I still have a ton of it. They they went off to work with the jackass boys. Remember jack? That makes

Paddy Bird 24:57
sense. Yeah, jackass. He

Alex Ferrari 24:59
was he If you've seen jackass lazy dudes yeah if you've seen jackass you've seen Manny if like you've ever seen episodes anytime there's an animal man he's in the background he they became the Paramount hired him as like the official Wrangler. Like they wouldn't allow the boys to do anything without Manny there. So and that was my first experience as an editor. So it was it was a it was downhill from there as they say. So

Paddy Bird 25:23
unbelievable. I mean, it's stories like that i think you know, actually I'm really glad I'm an editor and the camera thing Oh, what's the stuff but I'm not gonna go out and shoot that kind of look, I'll tell you if that sounds crazy.

Alex Ferrari 25:41
I tell you what I've The reason why I became an editor was not because of I was like, basically doing tape dubber and I was playing Doom remember Doom the first person video game back in the day first first version of it and it was like we were Enter We enter we networked a bunch of computers in the office and an after hours a bunch of the geeks of us well stay around say play Doom on over Apple talk. Remember Apple talk we were over we were doing all that and then one day I said to myself you know if I get fired tomorrow or I lose my job I'm going to be pa I don't want a PA I've been I've been a PA I don't want to be a PA so I looked over there I'm like there's an editing system right next to me I want to learn that system and that was literally that was the conversation I had in my own head and then from that moment on I just stayed for like the next eight nine months just building my reel and doing all that stuff so which is an another question I wanted to I wanted to ask you how did you construct your first demo reel because that is a black art in itself especially the first one because you don't have a lot to do you don't have a lot to put on it. It's you know how did you construct your first and I'll tell you how I did mine

Paddy Bird 26:56
well unfortunately I've got a bit of a confession to make and that is real I lied for a good six to 12 months of this freelance career

Alex Ferrari 27:06
I like the highlight for the first two three years so don't feel bad

Paddy Bird 27:08
yeah, I didn't tell the truth for quite a while oh yeah absolutely the only way to go yeah yeah i mean you you know how do you make you know for you know for an agency won't represent you in I don't know it's like in in the States but in in certainly in Europe they won't represent you unless you've got three years of broadcast work and you're like okay, well how do I get three years brokers where we you got to go and get some broadcast work and like okay, well they're not going to give me any work unless I have a CV that you know, supports that so I just basically

Alex Ferrari 27:40
know a CV a CV is what

Paddy Bird 27:43
a demo yeah it's a CV we you know for long form in Europe we don't really have a demo reel of course we just have a CV you know your career is made on on a CV and what you know I had some very good advice I talked about this in the article that I wrote but some very good advice early on was look get into the you know, there's certain flaws within the system and the the flaws are based around the fact that the people who actually put you in front of the directors or the exec producers are not people who are filmmakers their production managers and people like that and so you know, it's a bit like fishing you know, you put you put your bait up and you see you see what you can catch and so I was told that a really good idea would be to go and do some very very low end work in very well respected production companies or production companies that were specifically known for the type of genre which you know, you want to get into my case it was documentary and stuff like that so and entertainment and so I did some sort of you know, sort of crappy you know, minute mood rules and two minute kind of you know, taster stuff that which no one really saw more a little making of for a DVD or something like that. And that was based and then you know, it didn't take long before I was being put forward for jobs by my agent with with my CV and you know, the production manager who's obviously always got you know, 2000 things to do in a day just because oh yeah, yeah, this guy here Oh, he's worked at that production can be bandmember Okay, yeah, we'll put him in jail. Okay, he can go for it. So it was kind of luck I mean, the amount of editors I know who have had no luck has been a real part of their career trajectory that first break you know, that whole it's, it's, you know, someone's ill someone's Miss, read your CV or something like that. It just it's, you know, but obviously at the same time, you've got to be Good at what you're doing and you know opportunity Meads you know whatever the saying is I come in mornings it's you've got to be you've got to be you got to be editing all the time so yeah I was lucky but there's so many so many friends of mine who are at the top of their game as well you know they were very very lucky as well i think it's it's like there's not one way in Oh no, there's multiple ways in

Alex Ferrari 30:32
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Paddy Bird 30:43
You just got to see you know where the cracks in the wall are and just keep on pounding and pounding and pounding but I was always told very early on to get as broad a show reel or mood reel or you know, CV is possible because that really is essential that that's the thing that's going to guarantee you work when there's no work around if you've got multiple genres on your CV so

Alex Ferrari 31:07
well i'll tell you what I mean what I heard from what I'm hearing from you You had an agency and all that that's like Rolls Royce kind of stuff for me I had no there was no thing like that in flow like I like I started my career in Florida so in South Florida so it's not like it was la so there was a very small it's a smaller market it's not a big market at all. There's a big it's a big Latino market so and I speak Spanish so that was one of my ways in actually my first job was doing a car dealership. Lincoln mercury commercial for with a baseball star. And was that through a production company? No, that was great. That was me sending out my reel. That was literally just me sending on my reel, I would just I would go to all the production companies and I sent that my put sent out meaning I have dropped off my VHS or my three quarter inch I had some three quarter inch at the time as well and dropped it off. So because I presented myself in a professional manner and what was on that demo reel is what got me the job and I'll tell you what I got what I did, I I didn't have any any real I had no commercials on and I aimed at commercial that was my that was my demographic was commercial work, because that was the only thing you can make money with in Miami. At the time, it was just commercials, music videos, we're not there yet. And they were much more of a niche thing. Long Form was so out of the word like not even close to where I could even attempt to do and I had no no way into any of that. And not not that there was much work for that promo work if you could get it at certain because there was a lot of networks there at the time, which I got into later. But commercials is where I made my my start. And what I did was and this is where the hustle of indie film hustle comes in. is like you I lied a lot. And I like to call it fake it till you make it. That's a much gentler and nicer way of saying it.

Paddy Bird 33:06
It's a gift for fiction.

Alex Ferrari 33:10
That's actually that's a brilliant brilliant it's a gift for fiction. Yes. So that's brilliant Actually, that's a really really good that's a T shirt. So I was while I was working at this commercial house in the back in like the storage area there was a bunch of raw footage, you know 35 millimeter raw footage on beta tapes. So I would talk to the directors in house I'm like hey, can I read it some of your footage on for my reel and I'll create some new commercials for you maybe repurpose some of this old footage for you make you some new fresh commercials for your reel because I'm young and hip because I mean in all honesty the guys that were being repped by the company they were in their 50s 60s these guys have been doing it forever and they were not getting the old the jobs that the young guys were getting anymore but their footage was cool you know they had some cool footage sometimes so I would go off and you know made a public a lot of public service announcements, a ton of anti drug public service because there was a lot of that footage around so I'm like all right I can and I like I put a nine inch nail because at that point is for you demo reel i didn't i didn't care so I just used whatever music I wanted Nine Inch Nails mixed in with Disney music mixed like it was I actually am going to put up my demo reel on on the site my old original demo I want to see that route it's I'm gonna put it up because it's it's I might put it up with this with this I'm not sure yet because I wanted to do a whole other podcast on demo reels but I'm talking a lot about it now anyway, so I put it so I did that and I created a few spots with that and and I made them look real I grabbed the logos from real organizations and slapped them on pretending that they were real. So wasn't outside the scope. reality that I'm like, oh, he probably he probably worked with this, you know this local Miami coalition against drugs like there's no reason to say I didn't work on that. Now what was the the coup de gras for me was de the company it was working for got a whole bunch of Spanish directors and European directors came in and all of their demo all their raw footage and all of their commercial spots came in. And the stuff coming from Europe was stunning, like Nike quality footage, like insane stuff I'm like, Oh hell yeah. So without anyone knowing I went and I just stole that shit. Excuse My French I literally just grabbed that footage because because the directors were not here. They didn't you know, I they weren't here they weren't in Miami. They were just being wrapped you know, and that would fly them in. So all their footage just showed up. I'm like, oh, I'll take that because I was in charge of it all because I was in the dub room. Awesome lesson and I reap and I built up Nike commercials I built up also I built up like perfume ads and all of these high end and then they were European companies. So it looked like I was huge. Huge in Europe. I'm hearing like yeah, I've been working on that. So if anyone asked I'm like, Yeah, I worked for that company that were to to work with. I like you know, it's like, bah bah, bah Francesco. Yeah, friend, but Bob No, yeah. But Francesca, Francesca forgot her name. She was wonderful. I just worked freelance mostly I don't work with a company. So that way they there was like no way for them to find out. There's literally no way. And that was the real I sent out. I didn't change my demo reel for two years. From the from the moment that first demo reel I sent out, even of work off offer that demo reel I got so much work that I never updated it because I didn't because all the stuff that I was working on was so subpar comparatively to what I already had on my demo reel. Even though that stuff was real, I just kept pushing. And that's where the hustle came. And that's something you can't teach. That's something that just has to come out of you. And that's what I did with that. So that demo reel. just kept selling. And then when I tried to bring that demo reel to LA that's when I got the slap down.

Paddy Bird 37:18
Oh, yeah, I know this directors. Yeah, that was a show you didn't edit this. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 37:22
that's the that's when that's when I first came to LA and I got my ass handed to me in 2000 I think it was in 2000 2001 when I first showed up, and it just the talent just ate me alive. But that's another story for another day. But

Paddy Bird 37:36
it's a great point that you know, here's the you know, here's the here's the secret that you know is very rarely talked about and that is there's 1000 very talented people standing behind us trying to scale the walls of the industry. Oh yeah. How are you going to differentiate yourself? How are you going to I mean, if you can do that if you can, and you know, I wouldn't say cheat and all that kind of stuff but if you can lie and get there I mean it's editing you know, if you take some footage and you cut it and it's good, that's it if you stolen his footage, and it looks the sequence you've created is awesome. That proves you can cut now you haven't actually got that job and you didn't actually do that specific thing that kind of doesn't matter it's irrelevant really you're just saying look, here's what I can do with this footage. You may be you know, gloss over the fact that you weren't actually the the the editor for specific commercial but you know, there's you know, is more people there's more people studying film and television there are in television and film every year how are we going to how are we going to differentiate ourselves and and go the extra mile it's it's a difficult thing and but I think it's I think it's probably more difficult to do nowadays because of you know, with the kind of stuff to tracking what people actually did and i raggy blah blah blah blah blah but it doesn't mean to say that there's some you know, there's tiny little holes that you can go in and go okay actually you know bang

Alex Ferrari 39:07
well commercial work now you within the commercial niche in that specific my that was my way in music videos you couldn't do that with because you can easily find out but commercials was this gray area that nobody really could figure out like public service announcements huge gray area like no that I mean seriously. So you can get away with things like that even today you could probably get away with certain things but it's a lot harder like you know it's a lot harder to get away with it

Paddy Bird 39:34
it's also got to it's got to do with the fact that the all of these genres don't talk to each other within an industry now that's a really good fact. You know commercials people don't talk to documentary people convention people don't talk to music video people

Alex Ferrari 39:45
there there are TV people or feature people like they it's different. It's different worlds different worlds is chalk

Paddy Bird 39:51
and cheese. They don't and it's it's about exploiting that to the best of your ability and to you know, if you can that One really good way of doing it and say are you know, have come from music videos have come from this and come from that whichever your whichever job you're kind of pitching to, because they're not going to check up and they won't know how to check up. And I think that's, that's a that's a little hole to be exploited and to try and creep through all of these little things they do matter. So yeah, it's it is a it's a great thing that none of these people talk to each other in rows within a short they do.

Alex Ferrari 40:27
Oh, yeah, absolutely. If you're a TV guy, and you try to hustle a TV, another TV guy, forget it, you won't. But if you're a commercial guy trying to get into TV, you can hustle that it's because there is that there is that weakness, like you said, there's a weakness and the defense is there. And you and you might be able to wiggle away in, you know, and I don't want to paint this whole thing as like, Oh, you have to be dishonest, or this or that. And I'm like, Look, this is the realities of our business. It is brutally, it's brutal, man, it's brutal. And it like in the perfect statement you said earlier was like, there's more people studying to be in the business that are actually in the business. So that says volumes about what the business is around the world, not just in the US or in the UK, but around the world.

Paddy Bird 41:14
Every country in the world. It's crazy. And it's like, you know, when I get young people come up to me Sorry, and uh, how do I get my first break and stuff like that, I mean, yes, I do talk about all this kind of stuff. But I also say look, the other major thing is, is the work ethic, you have to be prepared in those first 2345 years to break your back not want to go down the bar at six o'clock, seven o'clock with your buddies, because you know, that first couple of years in is earning no money and they're exploiting me and I'm doing all this work. It's I always looked at it and I got that as well. And I always looked at it as a testing period is like, you know, we have such you know, that the higher echelons in in film and television they have such an abundance of people to choose from, they they want people who only are going to be put their heart and soul into this and kind of forget every single other thing in their life. about this, so it's it's kind of like that, I always thought about it. It's like, if someone says to me, and I've worked 16 hours, and it's midnight, and I've been in there since you know, whatever, seven in the morning and come in, they'd sign up the sequence go great, brilliant. Get my coat on. Go home to bed. And just as I'm leaving the editor, the guy Oh, actually, no, yeah, you know, the three, four hours, I would never quibble I would never be like, because I knew I mean, I would now I'd be like, yo, Yeah, I know. time

Alex Ferrari 42:44
as you as you as you get older, like I don't know, if you if you know the comedian, Wanda Sykes. As you get older, less of a shit Do you give exact like, when you're 80 years old, you'll walk out naked and just go What? Like, you don't you just don't care problem problem is ever, so things you would never do in your 20s you completely don't give a crap about your 30s and your 40s you just laugh at so

Paddy Bird 43:10
I mean, that's the thing you're building that real you're building that should show rule that you're building that CV and it's like, you have to go through that, you know that trial by fire because that's what separates the wheat from the chaff. You know, that's that's, that's what the senior people are looking for. They're like, okay, we're going to test you and we're going to explore you. But if you come through that and that that's the thing, which so many people drop out they're like, you know, oh, god, they're, you know, they're not taking me I'm the next whatever.

Alex Ferrari 43:41
God please.

Paddy Bird 43:42
You can't you just can't do that because the guy okay, fine. We'll just you know, if there's literally got a 500 at CVS, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 43:51
There's 500 people sitting at the door. It's camping out to be it's like fight. It's like Fight Club. Literally, you have to stand outside of Fight Club or to get into the house to fight club. It's exactly what it is like, and they'll come out and they'll berate you and they're like that and like oh you're still here. Only those guys and girls who hang in are able to go through the rough parts can come out the other end it's like Shawshank at that point. You're going through that pile of crap to get out of the other end and it doesn't it does it does it does it does look I like my first internship when I my first internship, but the one that got me my job I worked for four months for free driving commuting an hour every each way every day. no hope of getting paid. And my friends are like why do you keep doing them like what else am I gonna do stay home at least they're I'm learning stuff I'm meeting people I'm and one day when my boss left he quit. Everyone looked around like oh he's been here every day when we give him the job. And I made and I made my $23,000 a year I was so excited.

Paddy Bird 44:52
It's not always apparent what were those breaks are gonna come it's like you know if you just sit there in you know if you sit there at the front You know, waiting for that break, it will come. People do notice this, and that's 90. It's not a, you know, it's not a

Alex Ferrari 45:08
people do notice people do notice. And they might, it might take some time, but people do notice, if I may quote Woody Allen 90% of success is just showing up. And it's true. Like just if you if you're not the most talented person in the world, if you don't have the genetics or the like, if you're going to try to go out for certain like, Look, you've I'm sure you've seen the movie Rudy right.

Paddy Bird 45:33
Rudy, I don't think I have seen the movie to do that.

Alex Ferrari 45:35
Okay, first and foremost, need to stop this conversation need to go and I'm joking. You need to look up Rudy,

Paddy Bird 45:40
let me go on iTunes. Okay, you

Alex Ferrari 45:41
got to look up Rudy. Rudy is a story about this, this, this this, essentially a psychopath. But no, it's about this kid who was obsessed with Notre Dame football, college football here, Notre Dame specifically. And his whole life he wanted to play on Notre Dame. But he was five foot three way he had no athletic skill. And he just did not get just would not give up the dream. He literally when I give up the dream, he did everything he could to get into Notre Dame. So like it took him forever, he didn't have the education, he didn't have the skill, to even the knowledge, like the mind, the intelligence to get in first, you know, he went to like, he did so many things to finally get into Notre Dame. So he got accepted, then he was on the practice squad. And then it took them forever to like to, and I won't ruin the movie for you. But you know, he just kept going. And like, if you're, you'll just tear up watching this was a brilliant, brilliant movie. But that's the thing you have to do. You have to just keep pounding it. And that's an every every discipline in the film industry or any discipline in general. But you just have to, you just have to just show up. And just every day, if you show up to a place, if you're working for free, and you show up to that place, and you do your best job you can every day, like I was I was interviewing Robert forester for the podcast, and he had this amazing He's like, Look, no matter how small the part is, just show up and do the best work you can. No matter how ridiculous the audition is just show up and do the best work you can because you never know who's watching. You never know who's gonna give you that shot. And and only good can come of you doing the best you can. That's and that's the best that's the thing you can do like I'm sure

Paddy Bird 47:29
you awesome advice. It's awesome is it you have to have an iron will I mean that's the thing that people no one gets through. No one's skills, the walls in whatever wherever you're, you know, whichever

Alex Ferrari 47:42
you got to be anti drug, you have to be anti the free and you have

Paddy Bird 47:45
to get you have to have that iron Will you have to say how badly do I want this and the amount of times I've been on my knees exhausted when I'm working with a director who's been a real pain, expletive. And you're just sitting there going, it's going to be worth it. It's going to be worth it. This is good for my real this is this this is this and you get to a point where you go Actually, I can turn down these jobs. But it's like, it's that you need that iron will is no one else is going to come and save you. No one else is going to push you no one else is going to, you know say oh you know you're the creative genius of the generation that those things happen to one or two people in a generation or 20 years. Yeah, there's only so many Tarantino's or prima ballerinas there's a great line and madmen I think it was series four or five and he was saying was a cat remembered something around? I think his wife was his name, the main character his wife, yeah, married and she was she was saying oh, you know, I really want to be a famous actress. And he basically he just said in there's only there's only one or two prima ballerinas per generation and then is that thing it's like, you know, a lot of things within the industry or, you know, within films, they sell the idea of, of this lottery ticket, you'll be discovered and it'll be the lottery. Yeah, but no 99% of the, you know, 99.9999 recurring of all everyone else has just had, you know, real fire in their belly and a real gut determination, a real iron will to drive through no matter what happens, no matter what the obstacles are, and just jump over and go, I'm not going to accept anything else apart from victory. And I've always had that I was like, you know, the amount of times I've just been, I can't handle this, this is too much. I haven't, I haven't slept for three days. We're broadcasting to 15 million people in you know, 36 hours and we've got, you know, hours of work to do. It's just like, you know, and and the directors having a meltdown and showing me it does take it does take that persistence and having that having that kind of you know, No surrenders I think it's probably watched too many martial arts movies in the 80s when I was growing up Bloodsport plus it was no retreat no surrender obviously or Nathan was no retreat no surrender to which is a better movie

Alex Ferrari 50:17
how you could improve on the first one is beyond me but with the ghost of Bruce Lee it's I mean seriously It was such a such a brilliantly bad movie

Paddy Bird 50:29
it was so terrible it was wonderful. One of those things

Alex Ferrari 50:32
it's when when a movie becomes so bad it just the needle kicks over to good Yeah, and there's a special play that's a special thing that only a few a handful of things a handful of movies can do but and this

Paddy Bird 50:44
is when you got six year olds who could spot continuity errors and you haven't made a good film. Yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 50:52
Exactly. Nobody you were saying about iron will like just to explain I've made a live I made a living for God 10 years or more 10 to 12 years or more in the South Florida entertainment business as an editor like that. That's insanity and I only knew how insane it was once I got to LA because once I got to LA I was like oh my god I can't believe I've done what I like you didn't know any better it's kind of like the person who lifts who can lift a car up because they've been lifting a car up since they were five like they don't know any different like that's just what they can do. And it's similar because when I got here I was just like oh my god like this is insane. I couldn't believe that I've been I was able to do what I did at the time I was able like it wasn't like there was a plethora of production and stuff like that going on in South Florida it's just amazing you sit there thinking like and not working in the system I was completely outside the system. I didn't work in agencies I didn't work at networks You know, I've been fired from a couple of my network jobs gloriously fired I always say gloriously fired from my staff my staff my staff jobs This is years ago I mean I'm not this human being anymore but I was so I was so full of myself when I was a kid I mean I was 23 years old and I was making I was making about 80 grand a year in 19 dangerous and they Oh is it and living at home with no overhead and I was making 80 grand a year and I had I was doing infomercials like these long format infomercials weekly weekly infomercials basically and I literally was it was like cut it was like cut and paste number like it was paint by numbers for me like I literally would just cut the whole thing and literally just put dissolves on every cut just like across didn't there was no pacing there was like just because they didn't care they were just that's fine so there was no nothing to do and I had so I was making so much money at the time and this is back in 1990 god this is 9697 This is a couple years after I got out as a freelancer so I'm making this kind of crazy money. I have no overhead my ego is I can't even I cannot ignore her DOM is like small like it was so out of control. It was like I was the highest paid person at the company. I would walk in with like you know flip flops and I like I was just so arrogant It was amazing. so amazingly arrogant like all the guys like all the other guys like hated me I was the only editor so I was the creative so I thought I had to play the creative and the other guys wearing suits and shit like the sales guys

Paddy Bird 53:47
and came in in a beret and a Hawaiian shirt and I'm like come on I'm like and I show up

Alex Ferrari 53:51
at 10 and leave it for because I that's how long it took me to do my job. And then I'm like yeah, I need two days off a month because I really don't want to burn out. Um, no, it's I it was immense. So finally I just they kind of just let me go and I was like Okay, great, it's fine I'll just go off and be a director and commercial director and then I spent a lot of money in my demo reel and it didn't work out that quickly for me and that was life and life actually beat me down which is what I think anytime I see someone who's like that I'm like don't worry

Paddy Bird 54:23
I said amazing the universe's oh it's the greatest teacher every single time oh man you you rise a bit too high with the ego something comes in and goes boom oh actually.

Alex Ferrari 54:37
Actually that's not actually no no we're not gonna let you do that now sorry. And pay Yeah, here's the here's some pain. And oh yeah, dude, I could I can go on and on about that. But that was my first job I got fired from and then I didn't go to another staff job four years later, but and then I was fired promptly for being the highest paid editor again. I was an arrogant that time I was just the highest paid I was I was being paid 40 grand more than anybody else in the entire world. Yeah. And it was because I negotiated that deal with the guy and then a new a new, a new supervisor showed up and looked at the numbers like Who the hell's this guy? And they're like, well, we got to work. We got to work our way out to get get rid of this guy, cuz he's costing us too much money. So it was like,

Paddy Bird 55:22
it was good while it lasted. Oh, it was it was one and then two days later, I

Alex Ferrari 55:25
opened after I got fired two days later opened up my business, opened up my post, my post house. And the rest, as they say, is history. So we've been off, we've been kind of going all great material we've been talking about this is all good stuff. But I'll go back to what we were talking about originally. Now, when you first were starting out. How did you market yourself? Like, how did you get out there? Did you have the agency was the agency? What did it for you?

Paddy Bird 55:50
Well, again, I was very, very lucky. One of the Edit facilities that I used to do nighttime work in just practicing. I've got friendly with one of the assistants, who was there, you know, on the night shift, making tea and getting crumpets, crumpets teas and crowns on whiskey for the the heavy drinking editor's, yes, I we became kind of friends. And you know, we went out, you know, partying and bit and the, and then she just sort of rang me and said, oh, I've got a new job. I'm working on agency. So I'm probably not the best person to talk about because it was all luck. It was like, I just made friends. I mean, that's, if I take anything out of that. It's like, you know, I'm constantly surprised by how quickly people's careers move in this industry. And it's like, you, you know, I've been in, I've been in Edit suites with directors who talked to the person who's bringing their tea and toast in the morning, and they talk to them like crap, and you're like, Dude, that could be in two years time, that could be the exact producer you're working for. Never, ever, ever talk to anyone, and always make friends with everybody, you never know what that person is going to be doing in six months. And this was a prime example.

Alex Ferrari 57:10
Yeah, I completely and totally agree with you, and 100% you never know, you never know. You just don't know. And that's something and I was gonna ask you about networking, and relationships. As far as part of your business, you know, growing up, starting out, it's everything, without relationships without networking. with people, it's,

Paddy Bird 57:32
it's nothing, it's nothing one's gonna sit and sit there with a big golden hand and touch you on the shoulder and go, it's you, you're a genius, we're gonna give you, you know, millions of pounds to do whatever you want, and you're free, you'll get final cotton that it doesn't hurt. Like, you've got to go out there, you've got charm people. You know, be friends with people Chompy build relationships, build discussions about you know, filmmaking and editing. Be humble, yeah, editing, directing, whatever camera, whatever you're going into, and be humble and be passionate and, you know, be willing to work 24 hours a day, but I think, you know, is that it's definitely it's like, you know, creating a network as quickly as possible and as large as possible. And, you know, when, when two people working at the edit, edit facility, or the production company or the broadcast cell, you want to come out for a drink tonight or you want to go we're getting a bunch of us go for coffee or whatever, I would always say yes. And I would always try and charm people and you know, be friendly and stuff like that, because the amount of leads and the amount of Oh, man, I guess what someone's dropped out, I thought of you, you know, based on that conversation we had the other day in that bar, or in that coffee shop, or when we went out for pizza, wherever that that's what it is. It's like, I'll tell you this is a classic thing in in, in editing is like, I remember my early agent told me this. One of my early agents, who gave me so much great advice, he said, Listen, you're going to be locked in a room, this director is going to be locked in a room with you for two months, or a month or six weeks or three months, whatever how long the project is, they you know, they don't care, you're a genius. They're not interested in that whether you think that you're a genius. They would rather work with someone who's average and a really nice person, someone who's a genius and a real pain in the US. And that really sunk in for me it's like okay, I get it. You know, if you're locked in, in a room with someone, a dark room, watching the same thing over and over and over again and making tiny adjustments. If it goes wrong, that's like doing a prison sentence, you know, oh, we've been there not cool. It's not cool. It's like it's really important to to to be as cool person as you can. In anyone. You never know who You're going to meet, you never know what they're going to say. And the other thing about editors, as well as that you're never in the room when decisions are made, you know, you're always out, you're not on the shoot, you're not in the production meetings, you're not in any of these things, which pretty much everyone else in the process is, we are isolated by ourselves. So all we've really got his AR abilities, but secondly, our personality and our charm.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:24
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Paddy Bird 1:00:35
And that is really, really important. So, you know, when a bunch of senior producers come in and watch a car, and they're really dismissive, and they don't even look at you, it's not about getting really angry about that. It's about Hey, man, you know, how can I be as cool as possible? Because, as I say, we we are, we are probably the only people who are just by ourselves within the industry. We were not party to all those conversations and all those meetings and all that shooting and production.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:03
No, absolutely. I'll tell you a quick story of once I worked for sky, it was like a sky MTV or something like that. And I was doing promos at promo work, and the production manager calls me up. And she's like, Look, we have a gig for you, the producers a little bit of a pill Do you mind? And I'm like, No, I don't mind that. Like at that point. Again, I was so confident in I had been already editing for four or five years, I was very confident in my abilities. And I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever, man, I'll get along with whoever and, and whatever. So and I'm like, I need the work, sir. So I went and I sat with her, and her name is kita. And she came in like a, like a, like a, like a bull in a china shop. And I literally just whatever she said, I'd be like, yeah, that's fine. And I just would just roll with what she had. And then occasionally, she'd send me to do something, I just wouldn't do it. And I'm like, yeah, this is the way I'm gonna do it. And she just didn't know how to handle me. She had no idea. Fast forward, we've become with Trisha, one of my best friends in the world. And she got me jobs, for years to come from, she jumped from company to company to company, she became the head of direct tv promotions. So I got work from her there, she produced one of my short films, she is just like, all of this stuff purely because of that one gal engagement encounter with her, that built that relationship up and that could have gone very wrong. And I wouldn't have had her as that resource years years to come like, even recently, six months ago, you know, so it's,

Paddy Bird 1:02:41
it's amazing. It's amazing. It's like, you know, when you impress and charm someone, and, and you get in on that level, and they like your work. And they like you, you know, people, you know, directors would rather change their brand of cigarettes or football team. Yes. You know, the people never actually do in their whole lifetimes. They will stand by you. And that's really, really important. On it's like, you know, that time when, you know, sorry, I know you've got to meet, you know, your wife or your girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever. But can you can you cancel it because we got to do this work? And it's like, yeah, no worries, you know that that has that money in the bank later on? That really is it? People recognize those type of sacrifices?

Alex Ferrari 1:03:29
Absolutely. It's happened to me a million times.

Paddy Bird 1:03:33
Yeah. But I've got some of the best work I've got out people who were hashey app directors who are not very nice people. Not you know, but you're just cool with them and you're like and you do your best for them. And even though they can be quite obnoxious, not all of them. I'm very glad to say a low percentage of the people I've worked with over the years have been a noxious but it doesn't matter what industry you work in, you're always going to get those type of people because they love your work and you're easy to work with and you you know in you let them know that they're in charge, but also give them options and stuff like this. They'll give you work for years to come. It's just It's amazing. It's I totally agree what you're saying. It's phenomenal.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:15
I mean, look, there's a crew they've been worked has been working with Michael bass and bad boys. And Michael Bay's legendarily a pain in the ass as far as I'm using the word pain in the ass is a very light way of putting it. And same thing with James Cameron. Like, you know, there's there's a group of people that work with James and understand how he works. And he can be a pill and so can Michael Bay without question, but there's people who he can get along with, you know, and it's fascinating. I always find it fascinating sometimes when I was with someone like that had that reputation, who we were cool with and then they throw somebody else in the mix. Just and then I'd be like, oh god, it's like throwing fresh meat to ally and I just sit back and watch it like, man. Don't say that. That's not good. That's not gonna end well for you sir that's not gonna end well for you so um when you first started was first going into the going out as an editor Do you only knew avid right you didn't know anything else

Paddy Bird 1:05:12
there was anything else at the time I mean I think premiere was around but you know Final Cut didn't really come on the scene until

Alex Ferrari 1:05:22
the 90s no no till now excuse me knows now that 2014

Paddy Bird 1:05:26
as of I think version 4.5 they cut Cold Mountain on but it worked

Alex Ferrari 1:05:32
Yeah exactly.

Paddy Bird 1:05:34
It wasn't till version five ready that was sort of

Alex Ferrari 1:05:37
starting to stable Apple yeah starts there.

Paddy Bird 1:05:41
Yeah, it wasn't really I mean it wasn't any good for

Alex Ferrari 1:05:44
my type of now Exactly.

Paddy Bird 1:05:47
It never has been really any any good for what long form I'll go I'll

Alex Ferrari 1:05:50
go back farther and it was it for me it was avid and media 100 Media 100 Yes. Media 100 and I was I edited one thing on media 100 I could I afterwards I couldn't go back. So it's like this is just like you need me to do a dip to color I need to go into Photoshop. I need to make the color who I need to import import the JPEG throw to dissolves on it and now I have a dip to color. I'm like, Are you insane? Like sir like are you in Santa? It's like insane so there was maybe 100 video cube I don't know if you remember video q i remember that was sort of it was there for a minute. It was it was a minute it was a minute it was out for a minute video cube I learned on the montage. I don't know if you even know what the montage is. It was on Windows 311 that's what was in my film school. And it was strictly offline like strictly strictly offline I never learned Lightworks either I've never even seen a light works machine. They do mostly feature work with that.

Paddy Bird 1:06:52
Yeah, yeah it's so feature dramas Yeah, it was specifically made for

Alex Ferrari 1:06:58
for free or for filmmaker yeah it was before avid before avid

Paddy Bird 1:07:01
yeah was able to be known steenbeck since the fly that was

Alex Ferrari 1:07:04
right it was before avid took over that bit but so as a freelancer I think it's very important to us know understand as many today specifically to understand as many editing software's as you can because it opens up your ability to work because you know now I have it now I have a post suite and I'm like I do the way things I want do I want to do them and generally if someone comes in like this is my system this is what I work on and you know if you want to go I call her on da Vinci if you want to call her on scratch well I can't help you like it's not I'm not gonna have a scratch system in here as well. So it is what it is and then people generally have never had anybody walk away because I'm editing on Final Cut or or editing on or doing color and in DaVinci but but as a freelancer like if you're going to place the place to place you got to know premiere you got to know avid you got to know the old Final Cut and the new Final Cut and now Da Vinci's editing system is you know something people are starting to use and what and I think we'll grow into something in the next year or two probably into something more significant than it is now. So I think it's very important for for editors specifically to understand as many different understand Photoshop I mean seriously do you understand you do Do you know Photoshop?

Paddy Bird 1:08:21
I haven't used it in years I mean, yeah, I you know, I

Alex Ferrari 1:08:25
Well, you're at the upper echelon right now so you're at the top of the mountain us guys down here still struggling.

Paddy Bird 1:08:31
We're still I mean I use I use nine buttons on my avid right I use jkl Yep, you know, stop play play reverse mark in mark out insert, overwrite and lift and extract Yep, that's it. I mean, I don't use anything I wouldn't know anything else to be honest you that that's just I think that comes from being in reality TV for the first part of my career. You're not doing a lot of effects you're basically working at 400 miles an hour all the time churning out churning out churning out every two hours they change the tapes or the discs or whatever and they got bang and you got to be cutting an enormous amount of fruit so you're like Bang Bang, bang, all you're doing is and this is what what we what we teach in inside the Edit which is it's all about speed creative speed, you know, learning the software fantastic it really you know, and I totally agree with you, it really why would you limit yourself in the options because you don't know if you're gonna get a phone call tomorrow you meet someone in the corridor, that edit facility and they're gonna say, oh, oh, Ash, can you help us out? Someone's falling out? It's on Premiere are so I don't have to use premiere. You know, why would you limit yourself when you're starting, I mean, you're in the first 234 or five years, your career. It would be crazy not to just put in, you know, you know, a couple of couple of weeks just to learn. I mean, these programs aren't that hard, you know, they're not difficult to learn and they all pretty much with the exception of Final Cut x, they're all the same. You know, the same buttons, that same logic, it's a timeline, it's a couple of layers of video. You know, a couple of layers of audio and you know, moves left to right. It's not brain surgery. So yeah, no, I totally agree that it's, it's essential. But I think, you know, what's more essential is creating is what I call creative speed. Being a fast cutter, being being able to look at, you know, it doesn't matter how fast you push the buttons, what matters is, you know, how fast you can cut this in your head after, after watching this footage, that's where the real speed is, you can actually press the buttons. Head really, really fast. Because the films made in your head, it's not made in, you know, Van golf, always used to say, you know, I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream, you know, it's caught in your head, it's Oh, yeah, if you if you can do that, if you can, if you can exercise those creative muscles in your in your mind. You know, because you've only got a certain amount of time on a project, whether it's a two minute music, video, or corporate film, or commercial, or, you know, 90 minute documentary or drama, you know, you're, if you're fast at cutting, you're squeezing more options into that, two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks, six months, whatever your duration is. So if you're faster climbing, I think that's, that's the thing that's going to turn your film, from a great film to an excellent film is that you can try out more things in that same amount of time. But, but, you know, going back to your initial point, which is I totally agree with today's fast moving environment. And we don't know who we can't, you know, the press has always been, you know, always full of, oh, avid just leading, you know, premiere in the market share or final cuts coming up because, you know, MTV have just bought, you know, 50,000 premieres, we you know, it's nobody knows what's going on. And it's just like, for us down here, you know, actually making the films, it's like, it's so important to know, right, every single one of them really, otherwise, you're potentially canceling yourself out for for working as well, you know, you put that on your show, or you put on the CV. It's so important.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:10
Now the the business that to just one of the points, you say, being fast, being a fast editor, I was known in town as being an extremely fast cutter I could cut very quickly. So as on a business standpoint, that hurt me because at the beginning, I was doing hourly. So I would be cut, I would be done something that would take another editor, maybe eight hours, I'd be done in three or four. And I wasn't I wasn't making as much so I started doing like, I only do day rates. So you know, I will only do a day rate. So I would do I'll give you an eight hour day rate, I don't do hourly anymore. And people back then when there was money flowing in the 90s. Still, all the residuals of residual of the 80s was still flying around, there was some money in the 90s flying around. So that worked out that worked out well for me. So now tell me that so obviously, you are the founder of inside the edit the amazing inside the Edit as far as teaching you the creative process of editing, which there is nothing else on the planet like it and I advise and I always preach it from the top of the mountains, anybody who's interested in editing or storytelling to take the course. And it's not a course really it's a movement it's a religion really, it's it's like the

Paddy Bird 1:13:28
religion come and join this cult though because the

Alex Ferrari 1:13:31
way you shot it, it's like it is so beautifully shot and dark and this downstage with the, with the way you see the light with the honeycomb over you and I'm like, Man, this is like a like a circle religion is like inside the edits the religion. So um, so you should definitely check it out. So for people who don't know about inside the Edit, please tell me a little bit about it.

Paddy Bird 1:13:57
Yeah, sure. I mean, it's, and we

Alex Ferrari 1:14:01
only have an hour left. So please keep me

Paddy Bird 1:14:03
now and I'm joking. Can we can we get an hour and 10? No, I mean, inside there is. It's basically you know, I looked around, and I started looking at film schools, training centers and books at basically everything on the net companies like lynda.com and all these. No one was teaching the craft, no one even if you spent three years at film school, no one was teaching the craft and if people were teaching the craft, they were not a list people, no disrespect, but they would not people who are at the higher echelons of the industry. And the other thing was is that editors learn in isolation. There's no film school that you go to Well, there's no training center or anything like that or book that gives you all of this stuff which each individual editor crazily figures out for themselves, all of these couple of 1000 things which are instinctual Within the creative process, everyone figures it out by themselves. And I just thought that's crazy. We need to do something about that. So I sat down and wrote a million words over three years, 200 tutorials, 20 chapters, and I pulled out my brain, it took me a year to just rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and just summarizing and conceptualizing basically stuff which had never been written down before because editors earning I learned in isolation and this this I checked out all the you know, the perspectives of all the film schools that no one was teaching this stuff no one was teaching the craft and the art form. So I just thought, Okay, this this is something that could be pretty, pretty cool. So I sat down and wrote, you know, essentially the most in depth look at editing the industry has ever seen the war and peace of this the war, the war and peace This is war on peace to write the revenge.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:04
Now, the Electric Boogaloo actually says the electric

Paddy Bird 1:16:10
breakdowns, right? Yes,

Alex Ferrari 1:16:11
it was the candidate a candidate.

Paddy Bird 1:16:16
So, but now, also is it's like what you say as well. It's like I looked at all the other costs, like lead.com, and all these online stuff. So okay, well, we were going to do this in a non run environment, because you can learn anywhere in the world, as long as you got decent internet line. And I just looked at everything else. And it looked like all the other people who were doing it, all the other companies, they looked like it was so corporate, it was not cinematic. And I just sat there and thought Hold on a minute. Exactly what the key demographic is filmmakers, you know, this should be a cinematic experience, it shouldn't be like you're trying to sell vacuum cleaners, you know, this is all this looks terrible. So there's no sizzle, there's no sizzle, as a whole, it's like, yeah, it's like this has to be a cinematic experience. So we spent a lot of time and a lot of money on the look, in every single tutorial is basically shot and cut with all the high end aesthetics of a high end documentary is like, you know, there's 200 documentaries, essentially, some of them 510 minutes long, some of them two hours long, depending on the complexity, and we've broken down the creative process. So we do a whole load of very, you know, interesting techniques and theories that are laid out in really, really, really cool looking graphics. But then we also go into these, these, these features could watch me edit. So we've learned all this stuff, let's go try this out in some footage. So we go into a live environment. But we've also spent a lot of money on animating the interface with the tutorial in avid. to basically do what no one's ever done before, which is making the interface of any editing software doesn't matter what you're using, because we teach the craft, not the buttons. It's another character in the movie. So we've treated the whole process like a movie, a movie, you're watching a movie every single time. So not only do you get all this stuff, which has never been written down before you actually really enjoying the process. But then the other thing as well is that, you know, you know, going back to what we talked about, you know, at the very start, you know, how do you get a real together? How do you get a real because no, you know, it's very hard to get high end footage. It's, you know, no production company in the world has ever released broadcast footage. So we went out and we shot, a feature length documentary, a really, really high end feature length documentary. So you get access, you get all of that footage, and you can use it copyright free. And to you know, this 45 scenes, you get 35 hours to download. And you can cut it in 1000s of different ways. And you track through the course you're basically cutting a primetime level documentary. So you get that you will get all the you know, all the stuff that you get in a pro edit suite like all the interview transcripts, the log notes and the directors, everything you get tons and tons of technical stuff in PDF form. But then we partnered up you also need music so we partnered up with what I always thought was the you know the best music library in TV and film and that's Universal Music, Production Music and you get hundreds of tracks as well which you're free to use, you can build your own reel and you can use it on your Vimeo channel and your YouTube channel. So not only do you get all this unbelievably in depth craft knowledge, which I've never found anywhere, but you get all the everything you need as well footage, music and all that technical information. So it's a complete package. It's the it's the world's first ever complete package for editing. So, you know, we're we're really proud of it, it's taken a lot of work a lot of hours, it's taken three years to build. But you know, we're in we're in over 50 countries, we've got filmmakers in over 50 countries in the world and it's, the response has just been phenomenal. It really, really,

Alex Ferrari 1:20:24
it's been around for what a couple a year now you're in change. Just

Paddy Bird 1:20:27
just yeah, just over a year, just every year. So yeah, it's, it's going really well and we, we, we basically, we're in a kind of TV production schedule, so every week you get a new tutorial 1020 3050 100 minutes long. And yeah, I mean, we've got loads of very, very cool stuff coming up in 2016 2016 is gonna be a big year for us.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:53
So let me ask you a question. Will this ever end like I mean, will this ever end like as far as like Will you continue to just put more and more tutorials on are just gonna eventually go and now you know, everything

Paddy Bird 1:21:05
I mean, it's like, you know, there's, it's we're gonna be doing inside because this is basically what we cover in inside the moment is everything apart from drama. And then we're going to be doing drama.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:18
I'm sure you could do a commercial version of music videos, versions

Paddy Bird 1:21:22
videos. So basically the whole premise is you know, we're going to get guest editors in excuse me, who are at the top of their game to come in and basically do what I have done in in documentary entertainment and kind of use and all the things that I've worked in I cover about six seven different genres so we're going to be getting a list people in with a list footage and coming in it and just getting the absolute you know, you will never get this type of in depth theory, wherever you work in the world, whichever production company whichever broadcast and no one's going to sit down over your shoulder and tell pour out their brains for hours and hours and hours about everything. It's

Alex Ferrari 1:22:01
like it's like it's like being a fly on the wall when Thelma Schumacher is editing with Martin Scorsese something along those lines

Paddy Bird 1:22:08
exactly that's that's the real you know, that's the real the goal for us you know that the whole thing the whole premise was round was based around the fact that there's no a list people teaching editing,

Alex Ferrari 1:22:20
no really no I think it's a few board workshop here their stuff

Paddy Bird 1:22:25
Yeah, but they only come in to do an hour and give some big kind of you know, inspirational speech about you know, when I was in speech when I was in the edit suite with Steven Spielberg blah blah blah blah blah there's no none of them pour out their brains for 20 3050 100 hours of content none of the no one has ever done that not even in film school. Right so that was the goal really that's that's that's the aim to have that kind of in depth and bring in a load of really talented people to help us achieve that so yeah, no it's it's it's a big goal but you know we're working we're working our way towards it to making

Alex Ferrari 1:23:05
this into a brand essentially which is which is amazing you've actually created a brand and you're you're turning it into the one stop shop for editing any any eventually you will have covered every every genre that you can every kind of you know from webisodes to music videos to commercials to high end professionals and and each of their disciplines but you're creating a brand you know a Rolls Royce brand if you will, an apple of you're creating the apple of editing knowledge.

Paddy Bird 1:23:37
Absolutely. Absolutely. And with that, you have to have high quality high end oh yes that takes you have to differentiate yourself differentiate yourself from you know, the Lynda dot coms of the world and all the other kind of you know, you have to put in an enormous amount of time money and effort and creative effort and I'm very lucky to work with some extremely talented effects guys and people like that who made that happen is a high end brand it's like we are the bar is you know, way above yeah yeah it has to be because you know, how do you differentiate yourself in a market you know, you can't just have amazing amazing theory and concepts and stuff like that anymore. You have to you have to go the extra mile and and provide a whole experience I think if you know if the Apple Store is now hold us anything Jesus you're you're part of a lifestyle, a community a life choice, you know, it's a it's an amazingly powerful brand and we've actually taken that concept and tried to do it with inside the Edit. So you, you really get you know, you really get the feeling that you're getting a lot more than what you're paying for. You know,

Alex Ferrari 1:24:54
it's funny enough that you say that like I've actually start creating one of my first courses you know, indie film, hustle. Soil is grown as quickly as it has because because of what I've been I've been trying to put out content like this and I in a similar way with what you've done with inside the Edit not nearly the expansion or the growth of the size of what you guys have done but in my small way I've been trying to put out content that is at a level that no one else is talking about like there's and like this conversation we've just had it there's volumes of great knowledge in there and tips of that you don't hear you know you and I have been around we don't hear this they don't teach this you know how to put together a demo reel like you know really how do you do it you know how do you go out and hustle this or how to hustle that so I'm trying to create that with indie film hustle and I think it's one of the reasons why it's grown so fast and it's starting to gain respect within the niche of independent filmmakers but I'm also

Paddy Bird 1:25:53
respond to quality that's that's the bottom yeah the fact that you've created something which is totally unique and such high quality people are not suckers they're not idiots when I'm when I'm buying products I'm into into that kind of you know I look for the quality above anything else and you know I you know I can I'm I'm flabbergasted by how quickly inside the Edit is grown but I'm also I'm I'm even more flabbergasted by how quickly you know indie film hustle is going but you take you take two minutes have a look at it and the content you like oh yeah well of course it is. It's such high level and it is It's that thing it's like not nobody's teaching this stuff no one's giving you this original content to this level. So no,

Alex Ferrari 1:26:41
It's I'm actually taking I'm taking your template of inside the edit and I'm actually going to create my course my editing course is called inside the editor no I'm joking No no, I'm creating courses on things that are you know that I do well that and one of the specific things the first course I'm going to do is how I was able to do social media and how I've been able to great grow to 20,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram within 90 days and and true fans like real people and how I'm able to focus that and get traffic from that and how to build that relationships up and how not only the techniques to get there but also how to maintain it, how to grow it how to get content, what the content is blah blah blah blah blah. So I'm actually creating that course right now and I'm thinking about how I'm going to be putting it together and then I start looking at inside the editor I'm like okay, well I'm not I'm not crazy I'm not doing 200 tutorials, but that's just mental as you say. And I'm not writing a million words on this subject matter because there are other people talking about this but not at the level I'm doing and definitely not at the level for any I'm going to do two courses one aimed at filmmakers and one aimed at everybody else. And it is I'm using you as a template I'm like okay, I need to I need to hit this quality level on my stuff because that's just I can't just throw up I see a lot of these courses like you were saying like you go to Lynda and you like it Welcome to creative editing 101

Paddy Bird 1:28:15
This is the trim tool

Alex Ferrari 1:28:17
This is the trim tool now i i've been editing local car commercials for 2627 years, not that there's anything wrong with editing car commercials every one I edited car commercials for four months, so I know how it is but not at the highest echelon of the craft let's just put it that way. So it's the sizzle is something I try to teach as much as I can and people don't get that that you need sizzle without in today's world without sizzle even if you have the greatest content if you could have made this content and that sizzle nearly as much and the content would have still been amazing without all the great graphics without all you know the packaging this the cinematic vibe of it you could have gone down to Linda route wrote if you wanted to and and just put out great content and you could still have the exact same scripts the exact same content but not nearly presented in that this beautiful way that you've presented it and and it's an inspiration to me like okay, well if I'm gonna do my stuff I got to take it up a notch I got to you know I can't shoot it on my iPhone Not that there's anything wrong with that but I'm not going to shoot it on my iPhone I'm going to be shooting it on a cinematic camera I'm going to call it great it you know I'm gonna do graphics on it and all this kind of stuff to make it look as cinematic as possible without going stupid the crazy like you did. Because you're crazy. You're absolutely nuts.

Paddy Bird 1:29:42
A little bit not so then there might have been that now. It's done.

Alex Ferrari 1:29:46
I can't even imagine the conversation. I can't even imagine the conversations you had at the beginning of this. Okay, so this is what I want to do. Like I like to the first person, that's the first person you talk to you like Okay, so this is my idea. It's gonna be cool inside the edit and I'm gonna Do this this and this and people are like what are you absolutely mad you know but but you and I both have something that is is fast and I don't know how you feel about it but to be able to create as a creator because you and I both are creators and we're both artists in our own ways to take something that did not exist inside the Edit was in your mind and there was no inside that calm there wasn't even there wasn't even a history of you doing this kind of stuff. It's not like it's something there was no history about it at all. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show

Paddy Bird 1:30:47
Hyperlink was when I started this internet company I had no idea the whole internet thing just passed me by but right it's like I knew nothing about it but you know everything's in your mind filmmaking is anybody walk out onto the street right now wherever you are in the world everything that's not green or Brown was made right off in someone's mind you know and to bring out from nature is cement you walk on the car, the television the advertising board the scenario is everything Everything Everything Everything is in your mind and that's where I certainly the big battle I've I've been I've been you know fighting for the last year of inside the Edit is fighting against not fighting against books certainly just sort of going Oh, hold on a minute, you know, I don't care that this is 4k or I don't care that this is Scott 64 bit background rendering. I don't care about any of that stuff. Um, you know, as john lennon said, you know, I'm an artist you give me a tuber. I'll get something out of it. You know, like it's the artistic side is deeply underrepresented in today's world. It's all about the technology and this and that and does it have this lens and that and

Alex Ferrari 1:32:02
The gear the gear porn?

Paddy Bird 1:32:05
Oh, yeah, yeah, you know that manual inside out. But it's like, can you tell a story that's that's what, what ever. The whole industry is in deep, deep, deep need of its people who can tell stories. No one cares, whether you've memorized the manual to that stuff, there's 1000 people were 10,000 a million people within the industry can do that. Better than you it's concentrating on being a storyteller and that's what we do in inside the edit and it's concentrating away from all of that all of that that tech techno porn it's just I I'm still flabbergasted by it but

Alex Ferrari 1:32:44
It's it's it's it's definitely a sub niche of a niche of the filmmaking niche without question and what I was saying earlier like the I can only imagine the immense amount of I don't know what the word is but that you've been able to create something from nothing and built this huge community and you're helping people and this is all came I literally out of your head and I love it and I've been able to do that with indie film hustle in my small way that literally there was nothing there was no URL I would I was out of the game doing other things for three years I was still in and out of business you know still ran my post house but I was not in it heavily. And I literally came back out of nowhere and launched indie film hustle and turned it to what it is now and now I get fan mail and I get texts that text but tweets and Facebook messages and emails of people like man thank you for that last podcast it's it's changed you know really changement I had one guy email wonderful feeling Oh my God,

Paddy Bird 1:33:44
That love and knowledge

Alex Ferrari 1:33:47
I started printing out the the emails and at the end the messages so I can have them in a book somewhere. So when I get down, I can just go back and read because there was one one podcast I did with on crowdfunding. And I forgot the person's name. But they emailed they messaged me and they're like, you know, I wasn't even going to continue going down this road. But after I because I just was so disheartened. Like, I can never get my movie made. I can never get it out there. But after I heard this interview with you, and Emily, you guys told me that I showed me that I can do this. And I'm going to go off and you know, do my dream now. And I was like, I was like, Oh my god, like that's so amazing. So it's a high that people don't understand unless you're doing it. And that this is you know that this podcast has turned into the number one podcast in filmmaking on iTunes and that is how many months that's that was in about two and a half months. It took about two and a half months to three months around. To get to the

Paddy Bird 1:34:43
What you're doing is is is 1,000% right, Alex. I mean it's phenomenal. It's just like you've found something and created something again, out of absolutely nothing, which now you're just wanting like oh no, this is phenomenal. I mean, I I mean, I haven't even heard that type of growth before.

Alex Ferrari 1:35:02
Well, it's and it's an Oh and by the way, it's not only in filmmaking I have it in like, if you type in cinematography, I'm right behind the ASC if you if you type in visual effects I'm number one if you type in a film, like there's certain keywords that like all these big keywords, I was like, What? Like, how am I? For a moment I was ahead of the ASC I'm like, I have two podcasts about cinematography, how is this possible but because of the the growth and the strength of the entire brand or the entire show, it kind of overpowers even smaller niches like that. But it's fascinating and it's so humbling honestly it's humbling and 2016 is going to be an insane year I can only imagine if the if I can continue to grow like this like you have like what you've done in a year is insane but if I could continue to grow the way I'm growing in the next year and make my movie that I'm planning to make and go through that whole process it's going to be an interesting interesting journey so

Paddy Bird 1:35:58
Absolutely no doubt that you will Alex I really it's phenomenal what you've achieved in in in four months it's amazing it's another year God imagine we're going to be

Alex Ferrari 1:36:09
I can only imagine where we're going to because it's starting to You know what's funny about our what we do is it snowballs it literally snowballs like the little bit like you know you start like okay, I got 20 followers on Twitter I got 155 I got 100 followers on Twitter and then all of a sudden you like Oh, I got 10,000 and then once you the thing that that people don't understand is when you start gaining momentum in any aspect of your business, whether that be an editing whether that be a filmmaker it starts to grow and it's it starts to become a little easier to grow and faster to grow because

Paddy Bird 1:36:41
More creates more it always has

Alex Ferrari 1:36:42
It's just fascinating to us I was just fascinated to watch that all of a sudden now I'm inundated with interview requests like I have so many people wanting to be on the show and and now I'm like I literally have shows for four months out now. And I'm like you know it's like insanity and I got content coming in like crazy so I've got all this high end content coming out and it's like how you grow it's becomes easier so it's just started it's like they always say is like you know it's easy to Be a Millionaire you just gotta get that first million

Paddy Bird 1:37:14
So they say isn't the first one is the hardest, the next 10 is.

Alex Ferrari 1:37:19
And that's it. Same thing with financing a film like if you got 100 grand, I can get you another 300. But getting that first 100 is a is a bitch. But But I want to thank you man, I wanted to thank you for coming back on the show, I wanted to kind of go into a little bit more detail about the the black arts of not editing, but of being an editor, and actually the survival of being an editor and a thriving of being an editor. And I think we've thrown out a lot of good gems and I just love talking to you. I'm sure I'll have you on the show again soon.

Paddy Bird 1:37:50
It was a pleasure. And it's always nice

Alex Ferrari 1:37:55
And then I'll put a link to And guys, I'll have a link on the show notes for inside the Edit where you'll get a special discount indie film, hustle discount, and I'll have that in the show notes as well. So I'll get you all that information soon. Batman. Thank you so so much for being on the show again, brother. I really appreciate it.

Paddy Bird 1:38:13
Hey, man, absolute pleasure. I really really enjoyed it. And yeah, very best of luck with indie film, hustle. It's gonna be weld. weld, domineering, I'm sure.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:25
May the force be with you, sir.

Paddy Bird 1:38:30
Take care, brother.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:31
Now, I did warn you that we were gonna geek out and we definitely did without question. I hope you guys picked up something from that episode, because there was a lot of wonderful gems in there as well as the last episode that I did with Paddy. It was just too old editing dogs sitting down and talking. But I would have killed a bit in that conversation when I was starting out in my career, whether being an editor or in any kind of part of discipline within the film industry. So I really hope you guys got something out of it because I had a ball I think you know, I think you feel that through the earbuds that you're listening through right now. So thanks again for listening guys. If you want to get the Show Notes for this episode, head over to indiefilmhustle.com/041 and you get all the show notes there. And don't forget to head over to filmmaking podcast calm and leave us an honest review of the show it helps us out dramatically So thank you again so much guys. Oh and a little update, we should be releasing the Twitter hacks how to get 10,000 true fans in 10 weeks course in the next week or so. So I will get keep you guys all informed about that through either my social media, if you're on our list, we're going to be emailing you out about that. And of course if you want to get on our list, just head over to indiefilmhustle.com and sign up because you get a bunch of cool stuff when you sign up. And you get up to you keep updates with what we're doing at indie film hustle and get you a lot of great information. as well, so keep that hustle going. Keep that dream alive and I'll talk to you soon.

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