Speaker 1: 0:57

Thank you, welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast and YouTube channel. I'm on a mission to help you cut the tie to all the things that are holding you back so you can unleash your entrepreneur. Good afternoon, welcome to Never Been Promoted. Today I'm reading from Porn for Women. Let me go ahead and take a think of this here. Honey. You pick the movie. It's pretty good. I don't turn them on every time. I'm waiting for my guest to just explode in the background reading this, I know let's go shoe shopping. Get this book for your wife, she'll love it.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Um, if you've never been here before, that was awkward and I appreciate you for listening to the following statement that we are here to help you get better at entrepreneurship. And you got to have fun, uh, and you got to have a good time and you have to understand it's going to be hard as shit to be an entrepreneur and you're going to have to cut the ties to things that are holding you back, and sometimes that's just how you think, sometimes it's just your attitude. But if you're not having fun while you're doing this man, get out of the game because you're doing it wrong. So today's guest is Boathouse Pictures out of Philly. It's. Don and Andre are joining me from Philadelphia and we're going to have a fun conversation about their journey, what they do and how they create some really cool productions, and they do it in an affordable way too. So I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Listen, if you are an entrepreneur and you're trying to get better at entrepreneurship, listen to these stories. Listen to the podcast of what we're trying to do, because you'll learn things from from the guests. You'll learn what they did well, what they didn't do well, what they had to get over and what they had to overcome to get better at it. So check out the channel youtubecom at never been promoted. It's the only same as plug I have. I'm going to bring these guys on now. We got a three-way I don't have my graphic in the background, right for a three, three-way here. Um, it's, this is the menage a trois of a podcast today. Uh, three dudes kind of weird, but that's three of us hey, it's guys, it's 2025, so women?

Speaker 1: 3:19

I know you all own this, every one of you. Well, it's a menage a trois of three dudes, and it's 2025.

Speaker 3: 3:23

So I think we're good.

Speaker 1: 3:24

You all own this, every one of you. Well, thanks for having us.

Speaker 3: 3:25

It's a menage a trois of three dudes and it's 2025, so I think we're good.

Speaker 1: 3:29

We're good. I have another podcast called Sexy Voice Guy and I did a reading of this. It is the most downloaded episode I have and it's like this part one, Like several thousand downloads.

Speaker 2: 3:43

I mean you have a very sexy voice, thomas. I mean it's nice baby, calm down, don.

Speaker 1: 3:48

When I slow it down I'm like it's nice baby, it changes the game. I didn't know I was going to be joined by Clark Kent today. Holy cow, andre, how are you doing? Take those glasses off.

Speaker 3: 3:59

Yeah, In my spare time I like to dress in tights and save kittens.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Like I said, three dudes one show. Andre, can you pronounce your last name for us?

Speaker 3: 4:13

It's Sabalet, it's French and it's not as scary as it looks.

Speaker 1: 4:21

I would have said Sabalet.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Don I keep wanting to say man, man, man, manigally. I've heard every pronunciation in the book.

Speaker 1: 4:32

It's manigally but I see that's why I said don and andrex sounds like I actually don't know how to say your last names and I was gonna. I often do this that way, it's a marketing technique, so I just keep seeing your names over and over. But uh, you guys found a boathouse pictures, this is like and you're in Philadelphia and we were talking off camera. I've spent, I mean, more time than most people normally would in Philadelphia and what I found was I always went there in the winter and so for like 15 years I was traveling there for work for different companies I work for, and I always stayed in 17th and Sansom and there's a bar called the Raven Lounge. Bar called the Raven Lounge. You know there's a nice soapy till I'd stay at and it's too uppity up, so I'd go to this dive bar across the street that does like Jenga and metal, heavy death metal music and comedy upstairs, which was weird and and I and.

Speaker 1: 5:12

But I was always there in the winter, friendliest people, the friendliest homeless people in Rittenhouse square. I don't know why you have 20. I'm like man, that's progressive. No, sir, I'm like, okay, have a good day. But I went there one time in the summer and that changed my experience of it, because there's a lot more to do, but it also smells a lot worse. But so, anyway, you guys are from Philadelphia. One of you guys take this for me. Tell me about why boathouse pictures, why you named it. Tell me, give me the setup of what this is.

Speaker 3: 5:47

I'll take that one. It's winter in Philadelphia. We're in the middle of a snowstorm. I don't know if you can hear the buzzsaw behind me, but they just decided to run the snowblower right by my window, so I apologize.

Speaker 1: 5:58

There is a lot of snow going on. My kids are excited for like a half inch here in Atlanta. They're like, I mean, they're like, oh my God it might get a half inch, Like seriously, like it's a real thing.

Speaker 3: 6:07

No, it's. We're getting hit pretty hard, which personally I'm glad we are, because we haven't seen significant snowfall in a while. So, but to answer your question, boathouse pictures, that's a bit of a personal nod. I was a rower in high school and in college I was on the rowing team at Penn State University and when it came time to come up with a name for a company, I wanted something that was iconic to Philadelphia. I wanted something that would not only identify us as a business but also pay tribute to where we were located the bell, the liberty and freedom and all of that well overdone.

Speaker 3: 7:02

What part of Philly can I just tap into that represents everybody? And I thought I spent so many days on the Schuylkill River. There's an iconic facade there, which is Boathouse Row. At night the lights light up. It's really beautiful and it's right where you can see the beginning of Center City. To the one side it's like neighborhoods and nature and on the other side it's just like a big metropolitan area. And I thought, wow, boathouse Row is so iconic, nobody else has it. Boathouse, boathouse, motion Pictures, boathouse Pictures, and that's where it came about. A tribute to myself, a tribute to the city, a tribute to um standing out among you know, like the, the noise which Boathouse Row does.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Nice, I like that and BH pictures was available tocom. Let's keep that in mind.

Speaker 3: 7:57

So funny story. We went for boathousepicturescom and there's a guy, I think, out of the Midwest who's a photographer who takes pictures of boathouses and he has that domain. So, um, we ended up going with BH pictures, which I think it's easier. Anyway, it's not as great.

Speaker 1: 8:09

I agree. It's funny, though, because when you get a good name for it's nothing, you're like, oh, I should check if I could ever copyright. And then you look and see like, oh man, something's got like a whole world around that and it's like, oh, it's like it's disappointing. But then you realize quickly, in a business it doesn't actually matter what you call it. It helps on a storytelling maybe, but it's not even necessary. It's like it's got to mean something to you initially, but no one else like not anyone else cares. But it's one of those reflective things in entrepreneurship that people spend a lot of times naming their companies or getting the logos right, when the truth is your story could be anything right, like you, like you could be like a roar. I love this. You could have called broke my war on my face, picturescom, or God it's. You know I hate getting wet in the boat. Pictures. Wet in the boat pitch right Like all these socks in the boat are the worst.

Speaker 3: 8:55

What is soggy socks?

Speaker 1: 8:57

Oh my God, Did you wrote down. Now, Don Were you on crew.

Speaker 2: 9:01

I can safely say I did not row or participate in any sport in college. I mean I went to the gym every now and then, and still do, but Andre was more like the collegiate athlete out of our group.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Now, how do you guys know each other before school, during school, after? What's your dynamic?

Speaker 2: 9:21

We met during college. We happened to hang around a similar circle of friends, some people that Andre went to high school with, including our VP art director, who's not on this call, but Mario Miele.

Speaker 3: 9:38

What's his name, marcus? Marcus, yeah, it's Mario Miele.

Speaker 1: 9:43

It's the other guy we couldn't fit him on the screen, we'd be all. So the other guy we couldn't fit him on the screen, we'd be all so slithered We'd be so tiny on the screen, we'd be like sorry, mario, you have to sit in the back room. When you guys were in college, a lot of entrepreneurs we have on here are solo. They kind of came out. We do get a lot of founders that come together, usually because they've murdered each other. By the time I have them on the show and they're on their own thing. You guys have not murdered each other yet, allegedly. Yeah, that's the key word, right, but did you know in college you were going to do something? Were you doing fun videos, things?

Speaker 3: 10:19

Did you have a moment where you're like we should do this? So I think our paths I mean so Don was doing media studies as well in college. We went to separate schools but we were in similar circles, we had similar interests. I don't think we ever thought we would be going into business together. We both through separate paths, I think realized we wanted to go into the media business in some way or another, but really it all happened afterwards. I think we built a strong enough bond where we knew each other's interests and then, when the time was right and it was time to launch, so I started Boathouse.

Speaker 3: 11:06

Um, I'll go back. I actually started working for the Walt Disney company and that's where I began my career. Um, and I started as an intern, then stayed with the company for a little bit recession was starting and was quickly learning the lack of value that large corporations have for the smaller end employees. There was like a litany of layoffs that happened when I first started and then that trend sort of continued and eventually I was going to be part of that trend sort of continued and eventually I was going to be part of that, and so when I went into business it wasn't really like, oh, this is.

Speaker 3: 11:50

I had this big plan. It was more of like a necessity. I had lost my job. I was looking for work somewhere else. I had all these skills that I wanted to use. And then I realized if I start my own business, I can use my skills and I won't let myself off, I won't lay myself off, I'm going to look for more work. But then, quickly, in just the process of building a business, you realize, hey, you can't do this alone. And so I started surrounding myself with people who had similar mindsets and goals and Don actually reached out to me. Don, you can go ahead and take from there.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Yeah, I was just scrolling through Facebook one day and this was also during the Great Recession. I mean, I had a full-time job, but it wasn't particularly one that I was all that excited about I just happened to come across an ad for Boathouse Pictures on Facebook. I clicked on it. I said, oh, film and media production company interesting, andre Sabalet.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Andre was drunk with that reaction so the next thing, I know I'm calling him up on the phone and and it's just one of those hey don, how's it going? Oh, it's good, andre, how's everything with you? Oh, great, you know just keeping busy and whatnot. I said, so you have a production company. I see, yeah, yeah, boathouse pictures. I said, yeah, I saw it on facebook. I said, um, so what do I have to do to get in? Do I have to know the secret password or is there certain? Is it one of those first rule of Boathouse Pictures? You do not talk about Boathouse Pictures kind of things.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Unless it's a podcast. Unless it's a podcast, then you definitely can, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 13:22

But yeah, it just kind of grew from there. I started going to meetings with Andre, with Mario, who we mentioned earlier, and also Aaron, who was our director of business development when we started the company that's Aaron Spence, by the way and then we just had regular meetings at Starbucks and started to throw ideas around about where we're going to take the business throw ideas around about where we're going to take the business.

Speaker 3: 13:49

I always make a joke that at some point I'd like to start a small coffee shop and like, make it as part of our lobby, because that's where we started. We started as four guys in a coffee shop, and so it would just be like a little nod to.

Speaker 1: 13:59

You should bring the interns in and make them change the set so you can continually film there as like it's a new set every time, like all right guys, new production set, and they just keep changing it. Like that's why people come back Like, oh, I wonder if the set is this week. Oh, star Wars theme.

Speaker 3: 14:11

That's a good idea. I'm going to write that down.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Then you make the interns do shit for you and you get the benefit of new production lighting. They can keep filming and that's why people come back. I wonder what that is. Cool guys, you know what entrepreneurs do? Well, it's solicit advice. They didn't ask, it was not asked for. That's what we do the best. Have you ever noticed that?

Speaker 3: 14:31

solicit advice and go down rabbit holes that you didn't know existed. Right, you just hear an idea and you just kind of run with it.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Right.

Speaker 3: 15:14

The next thing you're like you're hiring for it. You're like wait, wait, wait. We shouldn't do this. We. It was a thing of necessity. But I think part of being an entrepreneur is this refusal to conform, and it's not out of being rebellious, it's not out of, you know, being stubborn. It's something about the way your brain works, where you have all these ideas and sitting in a cubicle or sitting in like one little box isn't enough. You need the challenge, and my challenge was I needed a job. That's how it started. And then, once I figured out, okay, now I'm holding myself over what's next. This isn't a temporary thing. What do I do? Where do I go from here? And slowly I realized like I have all these ideas. I have all these creative bubbles that are popping up everywhere and this is my opportunity to actually get them done. You also have to be a little bit crazy. I think you have to be a little bit willing to swim against the stream Don did you come in going?

Speaker 1: 16:11

Oh shit, what I do, did you?

Speaker 2: 16:17

I think every entrepreneur says that in the beginning, that they say to themselves what, what did I get my end? What did I get myself into? What am I going to do? They say to themselves what did I get myself into? What am I going to do? How am I going to feed my family? If you have family, in that case, you know it's, there's a lot of questions in the beginning and a lot, of, a lot of just running around not knowing what you're going to do next, and but then suddenly you make a few connections and, ok, now I've actually got a few ideas I can run with.

Speaker 1: 16:45

Right. I mean, and the reason I say that is because you guys were probably, you know, in your 20s or so, probably when you started this, right In your 20s. I know we are in your lives at the time, but that's the time to kind of you know I can live on the floor and eat ramen for a month, like that's fine, you know I can live in this office. I'm not gonna tell anybody, right. And and that is the time to kind of get crazy, tell me about your first client, uh, that you landed when you guys were like you know you're maybe your first first client or the one that like, oh shit, I can't believe we just won. That Like what was the pivotal one? That kind of made you go oh, I cannot believe, I just we won that I think there's one for each.

Speaker 3: 17:22

Our very first client that we ever worked with was a veterinary clinic, a very large one. It's a veterinary hospital, red Bank Veterinary Hospital. They're based out of Red Bank, new Jersey, tenton Falls, very big and they were having a veterinary symposium discussing like uh studies in like canine dermatology. They were going to uh you know, they had people from all over coming in, but they were also going to record it and they wanted uh, uh to uh. At the time they they weren't going to live stream it, but they were definitely going to reproduce the symposium online via YouTube and all these different things. And they needed a production company. And it just so happened that my mentor worked for the hospital and reached out. That was our very first job and when we set off and I was like I want to start a media production company. I'm sitting there listening about like dog dandruff I was like did I, did I make the right decision? Is this, is this life right now?

Speaker 1: 18:32

But then Not sexy, but pays green.

Speaker 3: 18:35

No, it's true, it's true. And then about, I would say, two years later, we got the gig. That really just kind of changed the course of everything. And, uh, we got hired to do a commercial locally. Um, the commercial was being, uh, sponsored by comcast, which is the parent company of nbc universal. Um, and it's a local uh, it's headquartered locally, and we got the opportunity to not only make the commercial but we were basically given free reign. They gave us the budget and they said go ahead, this is a client, it's a local veterans organization. They have no media experience, so we're going to give it to you and you guys are going to consult with them and do everything. And we're like awesome, and we literally I mean it was script to screen we went, we consulted, we did everything to create the story, shoot it, edit it and then eventually put it on television. And, as of about a month ago, one of my friends called and was like hey, that commercial you guys did like 10 years ago is still on.

Speaker 1: 19:43

That's a good use of dollars. When you guys were first starting out, did you? And I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this. So the reason I'm asking this is were you charging enough? Yeah, by no means we lost millions.

Speaker 2: 19:57

I kind of charged 10 times that we missed that at least on thousands, if not millions. But you know we tried to do what we thought was fair, based on our level of experience at the time, because we thought, oh, we can't overcharge our clients. They might come back and say, well, what gives you guys the right to charge us this much? But then it's like when we did our research and saw what other companies were charging, we were like, wait a minute, we're selling ourselves short here yeah buy a lot like buy a lot.

Speaker 3: 20:26

It wasn't even like close. Um, I think I vividly remember one day we had just finished like something and then don uh in the meeting, just guys, there's something I just want to get off my chest, we need to charge more. And literally that's just how the conversation started.

Speaker 1: 20:44

I mean, but it happens right. So you don't realize your value and generally if you raise prices, you make more money. Like you rarely out-market yourself, especially if you have companies with money, because they're not emotionally attached to it, they're attached to their signing authority. Typically that's the number to know. Here's an entrepreneurial lesson I think you guys will agree with Know what the signing authority is, the person you're talking to. If it's 50K, you should be around 48.9 when you go and price something because that way they can go there, you go, go do it because because that's that's the, that's the level that matters is like, how much people can sign for uh, what? How did you what? What is your sweet spot from a production standpoint? Like, what do you guys do better than anyone? And and really, did you mean to find it or did it find you?

Speaker 3: 21:32

so, um, I think to answer that question, we really have to go back, um to like what we are right. When we started off, we were merely a production services company. We provide production services for television, for commercials, for, um, industrial videos, like business training videos. Um, we were a production company and that was our sole focus. What we did well was we had professional grade production sorry production staff, like. We had guys who worked on film that knew how to run a smooth production and we did it efficiently, and we were able to do it at a limited budget, in small scale, but really produce something that looked like it was a lot larger than it was.

Speaker 3: 22:23

Fast forward, we realized what we really set out to do in the beginning. What really brought us all together is the love of film, the love of storytelling, and so that's when we started reshaping everything and we said listen, do we just want to be a production company for hire, or do we want to be what we eventually are now, which is a studio, film production studio and now a distribution house, and that's what we've managed to thrive in the indie film market as such? Do we still get hired? Yes, the bread and butter of what we do is getting hired by other productions. We get brought in and we have a talented team that we can scale depending on the size of the production, and so our sweet spot continues to be producing high quality work at an affordable price and at scale, and that's something that at least on the East coast I mean, california has has a bunch of those, but on the East coast, especially in Philadelphia, you don't have a lot of that, and that's where we thrive.

Speaker 1: 23:31

So so it's to for me, like I'm on, I'm a little familiar with it just because I've done reality shows. I've been on the talent side of it that's a loose term for me but on the B film side of it. But also we film things like corporate events, things like that as part of my marketing agency. I'm the one coordinating. I don't produce it, I bring in a crew like you guys to go do it, the difference being is someone could send you stuff that's filmed and you produce it. That's a production services, particularly like you can say hey, there's this, here's all the social, here's all your cuts, here's blah, blah, blah blah. The studio is, let's say, I was going to go do a two day entrepreneurial reality show and I could have everyone show up to your studio and you can do the filming, we can make the interactions, you can do everything on site, on set, right there, get the set built the way you need to make it look cool and it's all done. That would be the difference between the two. Would that be fair?

Speaker 3: 24:25

Yes, and two, I would add an additional layer. We can come to you so we, if you're shooting on location, we can coordinate. We'll have a production coordinator coordinating the crew, the travel, the logistics and all of that. We'll get boots on the ground, we'll get the trucks, we'll do all the research to find the local vendors that will provide the equipment and everything and we will do a full-scale production. And it could be something as simple as hey, this is a small video for a company and it's only $10,000. Or it could be 10 million um, and really 10 million is preferred. So, if you're listening, uh, we prefer 10 million um, but it could be at that scale. We we have the experience where, um, we've worked on large format movies and we've also shot short little videos that go for on YouTube for a small business, which gets us into like our newest phase. But we can discuss that later.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Yeah, the reason I ask is because, like you know, as I look at some things we're going to do with, you know, cut the tie of the community is one of the things we want to do. Is is a an entrepreneurial kind of reality show, if you will, of like a two day competition of some sort, like do this, do that, learn that, go, do that. It's just something fun, right, and the whole idea would be produced for YouTube. So you, you do it, the idea of we know what's going on, you do the little side interviews and just create like a 50 minute video of this and there's a winner at the end. But that's like the next video or, like you know, it's like whatever it is, like you know coming out and to do that, like my mind goes, no idea, I could be the host, I could be on the talent side of that kind of driving it and get the vision.

Speaker 1: 26:10

But I think if anybody has an idea I'm trying to delineate, they'd hire a company like you to be like hey, we're going to have to charge this, which means you need to charge your contestants that to get it done, and so you can back. Because that's where I'm kind of like I don't know where the location is. Is it easier for me just to do it in Philadelphia? So, is it easier for me to fly somewhere or fly you guys in. The point is that's where a production, a full production services company, comes in they can help you with. Okay, to do that, we'll need these shots, these interviews, this storyline, these angles, these mics, these lightings, this much time. I think it takes two days.

Speaker 3: 26:45

Part of what we bring to the table is the knowledge of, like you said, what it takes and being able to do the research for you. Like you said, you have this idea, how do I execute it? And half the time we just go through a checklist and say, all right, well, what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 1: 27:02

this, and most of the time people are like, oh, I didn't even think about that well, because I think this one's like okay, I think if I had the right crew that said, hey, we're going to do this and we're going to create this production and to do the ad for it to get the right people interested, you're going to have to almost create a bullshit version of that that we're doing it like we've done it before and it might just be like three people and you're just kind of shooting it like this you come join the awesomeness with the flashy whatever. There's a pre-sequence that needs to happen to get people interested and paying money to go do it, and then you have to actually film the shit and use it.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Yeah, and I think another key part not to cut you off is like no, I just it's fun. No-transcript. So that way the people, the creative minds behind the show, can just focus on the final execution and not worry so much about, well, we've got to assemble crew, we've got to get locations? Nope, we'll take care of all that for you.

Speaker 1: 28:21

Do you guys add in like hey, you should really have like a local influencer, like so we're in atlanta, like hey, you're having this, come in, we have a connection to fill in the blank rapper that's up and coming is looking for some more opportunities. You bring them in to do something like do you guys give that kind of input as well, that we can, we can bring in other people, or does that for sure?

Speaker 3: 28:33

and I think it depends on the production, like, obviously, uh, something that would benefit if you're, if you're trying to market, say in atlanta, and you have an event that would, uh, benefit the community and there's a local influencer, local rapper, that is really popular. We can synergize the two and say like, yeah, you should definitely do this, and that it's not always the case that, like you need a big celebrity. Sometimes we say like, hey, why don't we like pump the brakes and go more organic, like let people know who you really are? And it really depends on the story that you want to tell, and that's what that's. I think, again, part of our mission is we want to tell your story, whether it's a narrative fiction that you wrote and it's a screenplay, or it's the real life story of how you started your business. At the end of the day, your story, the human experience, is what matters, and so sometimes the influencer is great, but sometimes the influencer is just like and what I'm getting to is that I have a vision of whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 29:36

I think a really solid partner is the one that goes I wouldn't do that because and I would do this because and you've ever considered doing X and the truth is because I don't know your world at all, I have a vision of something that has it's tied to a different goal, and understanding what that vehicle is to get there is just one of the steps. So. So the point is, I think, where I'm trying to show you guys as a value is you've even said like I wouldn't do that always. The truth is that you don't want them to say yes to your ideas, cause it'll probably come out like it's like you want something who knows how to make something great that people actually will watch, and that's I mean when you're doing videos and then watch it again and share that shit and be like and then I want to be a part of that. That's the emotion you want from that stuff. Not like cool, we executed his idea, but it sucked Like, even like that's like. You don't want that. You don't want your brand on that either.

Speaker 3: 30:24

Well, at the end of the day, it reflects our work too, and I think that's something that everyone that I can think of and Don. You'll know Joe Kramer. He's one of our longest running collaborators. He and I work on like a different variety of different projects and including like a show that runs on Bloomberg. I won't name it because I don't want to plug other things, but you can One thing Shamed plugs are strongly encouraged on the show.

Speaker 3: 30:55

It's called World's Greatest.

Speaker 3: 30:57

Oh, I can't believe you said it.

Speaker 3: 31:01

So one thing that I will say that I think and he does very well, because a lot of times we're interviewing these businesses and they have this idea oh, I want to do this shot. He's very good at saying like that's not going to work and like I'll do it if that's what you want, but it's going to look bad. And that's what you want, but it's going to look bad. And if that's what you want, fine, but just remember, when it looks bad, it's because you wanted it and like it sounds kind of like blunt and like I want to say like standoffish, but at the end of the day, sometimes you need to be like hey, listen, we have these shots because these are the shots that we know from experience that people want to see, and we'll do what you want, because you're paying us to provide a service for you. But, at the end of the day, what you're paying us to do is to make you look good, and so if you want us to make you look good, let us do our thing.

Speaker 1: 31:50

So this is an entrepreneurial trap and, like I told you, I think sometimes I pull these things out where and somebody who owns a marketing agency that's focused primarily, let's say, on LinkedIn or some content and social media. We run into this a lot where we have people who say hey, I really want you to do this or this, and we're like I don't recommend it because you're going to come across as spammy, you're going to come across as this or come across as salesy, and they say do it. And then it didn't work. And they get pissed at you and you're like this is because it doesn't work. And they're like but I don't want to do that. Like, well, to make that work you got to do.

Speaker 1: 32:19

And and when you're out there, if you're so hell bent on what you want, then just go do it yourself, because you're just going to blame everybody else when it doesn't work. If you, if you hire somebody who's a professional, you got to trust their opinion on it and hold them accountable for it. Right, I mean in, and I think that's where I love to hear that you guys, you do need to push back and you and I think, as entrepreneurs, you got to accept that someone's going to call your baby maybe not ugly, but it's dressed ugly and you might want to redress it. Some babies are ugly. Let's be fair.

Speaker 3: 32:47

We have you've all seen it.

Speaker 1: 32:49

Like they're pushing it. You're like, well, is that a rat? What is it? Is that a rat, what?

Speaker 3: 32:55

is it and Don, you can attest to this? Because I think one of the first jobs that we got, we got pushback and I think the lady said like I don't like the way this looks, and Don was in the meeting.

Speaker 2: 33:08

Don was fuming. I was literally just going to say that one of the very first jobs we did after the Red Bank Veterinary Hospital was filming a high school production of Grease and it was actually my old high school and they were doing us a big favor by hiring us to do the job. So I was really excited about it and we attended the rehearsals, figured out the camera setup and everything beforehand. We said, all right, this is going to be great Two cameras on each side, one dead center, plenty of options to cut back and forth. Well, when we get to the day of the first performance, we're suddenly told that one of the cameras can't go to the far. It was either the left or the right side, because that's where some of the ensemble are going to enter. And we're looking at them like, well, that's going to impact the quality of how it's going to look when it's edited together. But they were like, well, yeah, but you just you can't put the camera there no-transcript rehearsals.

Speaker 3: 34:30

We did all this stuff and at the dress rehearsal we asked, hey, is this what the lighting is going to look like on the day? And then they were like, yeah. And then we're like, okay, cool, so nothing's going to change. This is, this is the lighting setup. And they were like, yeah, everything that you see here, this cool, so nothing's going to change. This is, this is the lighting setup. And they were like, yeah, everything that you see here, this is exactly how it's going to go. We're like, okay, and then we set up the cameras. We did all the things.

Speaker 3: 34:50

It was going to look like a movie based off of, like our dress rehearsal, like we, we had the right angles to get zooms on, like specific lines and everything. Like we were going to work with spotlight. It was perfect. Yeah, on the day, not only did they move our cameras, they told us we couldn't be on a certain thing, so now we had to find the setup on the fly. But then, when the show went to start, the lighting was completely different. It was just like night and day. They like turned off lights that we were expecting to have on, and so one of the cameras went black, just because, yeah, I mean if you pre-lit it for whatever it means exposure-wise.

Speaker 1: 35:24

But this is a good point, right? So in this scenario right, this is, I think, a good metaphor for a lot of people is are you making this production for the audience or for the video? And you have to decide sometimes You're going to lose 100 people or are you going to gain to 10,000? Because, yes, the 100 people may like that lighting better, but the 10 or 20,000 that we're supposed to see it are going to hate it and they're not going to see it now. And so sometimes you have to make these hard decisions of what are you really choosing to do here? Or it would have been smarter just do the rehearsal and we'll film the rehearsal and then just do the live thing. We won't film it live because we could just we can put in the noise and the clapping and all the other stuff later, because you don't see the audience when you do these things it's like you're just anyway.

Speaker 3: 36:10

it would have been better to let us like, hey, let us shoot a show with no one in the audience, right and and and that way, like we can actually cut and say like, hey, can you do that line over again and we can like control the environment of the show. Um, but at the time we were young, we were new at this, we were trying to just like, please, everybody. And it was not long after that that we started realizing look, if we're going to do something and we're going to if it's going to reflect our work, we need to give pushback and we need to be like no, this is how we're going to do it or we won't do it. Like the idea of firing a client was something we learned early on. Just because they're your client doesn't mean you have to do work for them. You can give them their money back and just part ways.

Speaker 1: 36:49

Right, yeah, I've definitely fired a client. He was racist though. Yeah, we don't. I played Don for that, by the way, just so you know. He got mad in the meeting. It was his fault. He should have gotten mad earlier, don. You guys said you're making some direction changes. Are you moving into more of bigger production, Mr Beast, types of things, or what's the direction change for you?

Speaker 2: 37:09

So well, what's interesting there? I'd say at this point. It's now been about two years ago. We had a team meeting and we kind of said to ourselves all right, what are we doing wrong here? Are we just not focusing on the right target audience? Are we, you know, are we just not focusing on the right target audience? Are we producing the wrong type of videos? Do we need to revamp our website or social media? The answer was kind of like all of the above. We need to just hone in and focus a little more here so that people understand who we are and what our goals are as a company.

Speaker 2: 37:44

And I remember we sat in the meeting and our director of business developments kept saying to Andre what is Boathouse? And Andre would explain sort of give one of our messages that we all sort of memorized in our head Well, boathouse is a full service media production company that does X, y and Z. And he would ask again what is Boathouse? And then it would turn into well, what is Boathouse's primary purpose? And again, oh well, we want to bring work to the Philadelphia area, we want to help the community. And he would say wrong, the number one purpose of Boathouse is to make money. And that's not because we're trying to be slaves to money or we're trying to be power hungry or greedy. It's because, in order for a business to thrive, what do you have to do? You have to turn a profit.

Speaker 2: 38:34

So our decision was all right. We can still market ourselves as a production company. But what if we were to go into distribution? What if we were to help some of these independent filmmakers who, a lot like us, are trying to find platforms for their projects? Because, as Andre and I have discussed many times, anyone could submit their film to Amazon Prime or to FilmHub or anything like that, but it doesn't mean people, unfortunately, are going to watch it. So, with a company like us behind them, not only are we going to help you distribute your completed film, but we're also going to provide you with marketing and promotional support.

Speaker 1: 39:17

I like that and are you are explain distribution then. So you have channels. Are these personal relationship channels to get you explain how that works? Because I don't think, if you're not from this world like this is like huh, like I just turn on amazon. I don't know how stuff gets there, who watches it, or why explain that a little bit.

Speaker 3: 39:34

So in in film you have different phases, and distribution is how you get your film. You just finish your product. You have a finished movie. How do audiences see it? The audience can see it because a distribution company takes the, the, the movie, licenses it and then sells it to either a theater, um a network, a streaming channel or has, or all of the above. Generally, it's all of the above. You want it to go on as many platforms as possible because you want as many eyes as possible to see it.

Speaker 1: 40:04

So the distribution company is the one that makes it consider it like a publisher for the percentage of what the sale is, and the original person gets a chunk of it as well, and it's not a middleman, but it's a middleman with connections that can get it done and, generally speaking, in order to distribute something on anything that's credible, you need uh an agent to represent the project.

Speaker 3: 40:26

A lot of uh first-time filmmakers, small indie filmmakers they don't have that um.

Speaker 3: 40:32

But because of what we've done, because of our, our network and in our years of experience at this point, we've been doing this for over 10 years uh, we do have uh an agent, we do have people that we work with and we can get people to see it that would otherwise just if you, if you send something like I have a finished movie and I send it to like a24, unless an agent reached out, unless a lawyer reached out, they're going to be like, who is sending this?

Speaker 3: 40:57

And it's just going to go straight into the garbage. Like it could be the best oscar nomination, uh like oscar worthy film that you ever make, but it's unsolicited. They're not even going to watch it. So you have to be able to do it the right way, and that's where we are now uh projects that um either came to us in like a script form and now we're working with the uh writer to develop their script, or projects that uh we've had in our coffers for a while that we're now starting to develop that have gained legs, um, but then we also have projects, like Don said, other indie filmmakers have made really good films that need eyes and we're helping them. Uh, get them out there.

Speaker 1: 41:43

So what I wonder sometimes too, is if you make a good film and the idea is eyes right, so you can get money, because at the end of the day, like you said, it's money. So if you make a good film, there's good talent, good storytelling, good direction, and why not just put it on YouTube and use advertising on YouTube and just get, say, we got 10 million views on it. Then someone sees it and goes yeah, they seem to know what they're doing. You'll monetize that for sure, may not where you would have on the other pieces, but at least you own all the content. So tell me about where that works and doesn't work, maybe for independent filmmakers, because to me I'm like put the show on YouTube for free and advertise through it.

Speaker 3: 42:18

I think that's a good and I think that's a good outlet and I think that's a very great point to start from and I think we encourage it. Sometimes we definitely get submissions and we go hey, listen, I think your story is good, I think it's something that you can put on YouTube and you'll definitely get traction.

Speaker 1: 42:36

It might go viral and you'll get ad money from that If you put a two-hour video out there, that's actually a movie. I'll watch it. Shit, I mean it's good, no it's.

Speaker 3: 42:45

There's definitely an outlet for that. I think where it separates is how much do you want to grow as far as like? Because YouTube will only push it to a certain amount and you really have to get it organically Like it has to start doing well organically for YouTube to start pushing it well organically, like it has to start doing well organically for YouTube to start pushing it. Once you go onto a platform, the platform's out to make money and the platform itself say it's Hulu or Apple TV Plus. They want content that they want to market because they want to get it into the millions of people. But that's also going to require high quality. It's going to require a level of professionalism that suddenly the red tape starts getting thicker, whereas YouTube you can do whatever you want and you can have a very low budget production that you put on YouTube and someone says, oh, that's really good, and then you get work from that.

Speaker 3: 43:41

Someone might say like, oh, this director did this. I saw him on a YouTube video, it's really good. I think they would be very good to direct this project. So I think the two can work together. You can build uh from YouTube. Um, I mean, just look at uh right now. Cobra Kai started as a YouTube show, um. The production quality was very high, but it was for YouTube TV. It was one that, like when YouTube TV launched, that was one of the shows that they brought on.

Speaker 1: 44:06

Well, that's what I was thinking Like. Instead of doing your full feature, maybe you do the 20-minute pilot with the cliffhanger that goes into whatever you think it could be, like hey, this is our promo video. We did, you know, a million natural. And then we advertised and got another four million on time. People would take notice. They're advertise. I got another four million on time, people would take notice and I think we'll produce like that at least gives you legs to go to an agent so they can shop it right, like and that's actually part of a break-in.

Speaker 1: 44:28

I mean it has to be right because there's so much good content that's out there. Um, and and I, and, but what that's? Let me leave you with that because I just conscious of time, because I could do this conversation forever. This is so interesting. Um is what separates? Is it just the network? Does it come back to who knows who? Because, you know, is there a real difference in content sometimes?

Speaker 2: 44:51

There is In our industry. I'm not going to beat around the bush. It does many times come down to who you know. Connections are very important. I always tell people who are starting out in the industry you have to network as much as you possibly can. You may not be able to use this connection right this minute, but a year from now you might suddenly shoot this person a LinkedIn message and they're interested in talking to you. You know, maybe you've been putting together a pitch deck for a film you've been working on and they say, just out of curiosity hey, why don't you send me your pitch deck? I'll take a look at it. They might really like it and they might know people who have money and might want to invest in your project.

Speaker 2: 45:28

So, never, never, ever, never, ever, you know, not focus on networking. It's very important and I mean and I'm sorry, second part of the question was how much money do you want to? Give me today.

Speaker 1: 45:45

The other question it's all about money, people. No, it was what makes good from great, and my assumption is you have to have a fundamental like you can play the game and everyone knows. Like you can only go so far with limited resources, right, but if you're good, the network matters next most. So you got to hit something. You can suck. Well, you could suck with a great network. You probably still opportunity once. But if you're okay and good to great and have a network or have the network of people that are working for you, you're probably going to be all right. You're gonna have to put your time in for sure.

Speaker 2: 46:17

Yeah, the reality, the reality is you're not making the content for you, and I hate to say that. But like, yes, you want to tell a story that you're passionate about, but you're not making the content for you, and I hate to say that. But yes, you want to tell a story that you're passionate about, but you're making the content for the widest audience possible. That's what you've always got to keep in mind. You have to understand the market. You have to understand your audience. What is my demographic? Are we talking about 18 to 35 year old males, or are we talking about 40 plus females? I mean, if it's a romantic comedy, it's probably going to lean more towards a female audience. If it's if it's an action movie, it's going to be more, it's probably probably going to appeal to male audiences more often.

Speaker 3: 46:56

And I would say like to piggyback on that. Not only do you want to make sure you know know the audience that you're trying to build for, but also know the quality of what they expect. Everyone knows what a cinematic movie looks like, even if you can't describe it, and so when you go to the movies, when you go to watch a movie, that's what you expect and you can get that quality without having to break the bank. If you're an independent filmmaker, you might not have the resources to do a $10 million budget movie, but you can get um equipment that it's not the top tier equipment but it's good enough to get you that cinematic quality. Get you the right uh technicians that are skilled enough to get you that look that you need. And suddenly you made a movie for $15,000 that someone watches and they go wait, how much did this cost?

Speaker 1: 47:46

And um that's like a good YouTube video.

Speaker 3: 47:49

Yeah, and it's one of those things where, like, people are like impressed by the work you did and then that drives people to watch the story that you did. That is catered to that audience. And I think, to go back to the networking thing, um, a mentor once told me it's not about who you know, it's about who knows you. So when you're building those connections, you want to really okay, I'm really good at this one thing Don't be complacent and just being good at that one thing, be an extra at that one thing and then learn another skill. And then, if you can't learn that other skill, say, hey look, I know this guy who's really good at that thing and we work together. So if you're going to hire me, you have to hire him and suddenly that will build the brand and your brand will supersede you, like, your brand will lead you in, because they're like, oh, those guys I don't know who is behind it, but I know the name and they do good quality work.

Speaker 1: 48:54

Well, it's like. So, like you know, we're a YouTube channel, we're a podcast and we advertised and we got a million subscribers but our engagement's really not that great. But I'm like we are just a podcast. We could have relative to most million subscribed channels. But I'm also like listen guys, youtube 8%, look for business. So we're not like this entertainment show. Our goal is on the podcast side. Our goal is to get heard and there's a video component because I believe you fast forward 10 years. We're early with YouTube, so you know, even like so when I look, you should know your market and your your thing.

Speaker 1: 49:29

We don't cater everybody because I'm carrying into that entrepreneur that wants to learn and that might be 10,000 people at any given time, but that 10,000 really gives a shit in that moment.

Speaker 1: 49:38

If you're making a movie, you better be bigger than 10,000. Like, if you're going to spend a lot of money on a production and it could be like no, we are a car enthusiast that love Ford, that's fine, but make sure that you have the business dynamics of I'm going to be running ads for Ford Mustang parts through this thing and it's going to make that because otherwise it's still too small and I think that's what sometimes people listen to, like their expectations. Like I don't expect to get a million views on any video ever, but I would think if you're doing a movie that's supposed to be like like a rom-com or something, you better expect something bigger and better appeal to it. So I think I think some people got to understand where they are and what they're actually doing and I think a production company like yours can say this isn't big enough, this isn't going to hit enough ideas. And do you guys run into that where you're like this isn't big enough, it's not worth the money.

Speaker 2: 50:27

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 50:29

I would say sometimes, when you run into this isn't big enough, you need to think bigger. And sometimes it's hey, I think you're thinking too big and I think your niche, like you said, you're trying to cater to the entrepreneur. So the 10,000, it might seem small because it's only 10,000, but it's 10,000 engaged people who are going to interact and that's what we want to do.

Speaker 1: 50:49

Exactly so let's let's go back to my example of like I want to do this entrepreneurial kind of reality show, but you know, I was on one called the blocks. I got a good like that's my idea because but it's like a week long thing and I'm there, I Like, and I think we could in a different format. But the idea is that might at best break even. What you want from that are the people to go join your community, and that's where the revenue comes from. Is that people now, like they've spent a thousand bucks here where they spend 3000 to go join this community now and you're using it as a tip of spirit to be like that was lots of value, that was lots of fun.

Speaker 1: 51:17

I want to be a part of that community to do that they go, and so understand your own business model of why you create content or video and specifically, or what or how video is used to make people feel special. That's a big thing, right? Well, we've done videos where, like we'll put up extra lighting, huge boxes and we'll even get one of those big old cameras, though it's not even running. We're using like the small little, like Insta links, like right, they're the one cause, they're, they're better and you're like, but they look cool and it draws attention and there's extra lights that are going in no direction particular, Just you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3: 51:48

You're making you're, you're creating the, the, you're creating the environment, and that's that's important.

Speaker 1: 51:53

It's for the image of the set itself. Like you're actually, you're sidelighting, just so the image looks better when you take a picture of the back.

Speaker 3: 51:59

I mean it's. There's so much that goes into telling your story, whether it's a small podcast or whether it's a large scale production. Those little details are so important because you, at the end of the day, you are creating a world that the audience is going to be connecting with, so the last thing you want is someone to watch your video and just be bored, because we're especially now, we're in an era of instant gratification, like um, which is why going back to like starting on YouTube, I think starting on YouTube is great, but I would even go one step further and say, like, if you're a content creator, uh, if you're creative unfortunately, I don't know what the future is of the app, but, like, apps like Tik TOK and Instagram are very good mediums for getting an idea out. You can you can do something really well and format it to like a two to three minute video that sets up your pilot, that sets up your, your proof of concept.

Speaker 1: 52:53

Well, you know it's, I can't remember the name of it. This guy did a. I've seen this. I can't. It's escaped me. This is 49 years old in my third podcast today, but um the uh, it's it. He did like three minute videos, but they were all cliffhangers for the next one, and I'm like man, that's like a short mini series on Tik TOK, and I can't remember. It was just comedy based, but he's like what's going to happen next? And then they go in the next one, and I'm like I have no idea what you're selling, though, and so I'm kind of like eh, but um, uh, but okay, listen, conscious of time, guys. Um, who should get ahold of you? Why should they get ahold of you, and where do they go do that? Who's going to take that one?

Speaker 2: 53:33

Well, I'll start off. I mean, uh, you know, we, as Andre said, we have tons of projects in development right now and obviously these projects are not going to fund themselves. So we're obviously interested in speaking to investors, but we also, as I mentioned before, we work on the marketing and advertising side as well. Andre and myself have both worked in the agency world for a number of years. We know how to make something that's very eye-catching and that's going to connect with an audience, and we would love to work with more commercial clients in 2025 and help them take their services or their business, especially if they're a small to medium sized business. We want to help take them to the next level.

Speaker 3: 54:18

Yeah, if you're an agency and you need a production vendor, we are your guys. Like, we can definitely help your clients get to that next level that you want. And then I think, moving forward, 2025 and beyond, we're using our skill sets to not only create new, dynamic projects that we want people to engage with, but we also want to give back. And so giving back to those, whether it's an independent filmmaker or a small business or a community organization that needs quality work for storytelling and really like getting their ideas out there, that's who we want to help. So, yeah, if you're a small business, if you're an investor or whether you're a nonprofit that just really needs to get your voice out there, we're here to help, yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:11

You know, I would say, if you're small businesses should and they don't do this enough, they need to leverage cinematic storytelling to talk about their brand. And even if your brand is the most boring thing in the planet like we make pencils and we've been doing it exactly the same way for a thousand years before pencils were pencils If you could do it in nice gold print like kind of some panning, it looks better I want to buy your pencils in. So my point is use some cinematic storytelling to tell who you are as a company. It matters.

Speaker 3: 55:40

I was going to go one step further. You make good quality pencils. That's great. Everybody knows your product. Why should they buy your pencils? How did you start making pencils? What you know? Where do you resource your materials for your pencils? Those are all things that drive people to knowing like, oh man, now I really like those pencils. Now I connected with those pencils and I only buy those pencils.

Speaker 1: 56:01

Every time I buy a pencil, I'm saving a child in Africa.

Speaker 3: 56:04

That's. I mean, there are businesses that do that, but unless you tell that story, no one's going to know. And so, um, sarah McLaughlin's playing. At the end of the day, you can get a pencil anywhere. I can go to CVS and get a pencil but if I really am like conscious of like the quality work that went behind it, like it's a family owned business my grandfather started this in his garage and now he's making pencils for all over the world.

Speaker 1: 56:27

Those are the stories.

Speaker 3: 56:28

And.

Speaker 1: 56:29

Coke habit and I'm running out of cash.

Speaker 3: 56:33

Yeah, even that, even that All right, guys.

Speaker 1: 56:37

Thank you, by the way. So much coming. I'm going to put you in the periwinkle room. I'll be right back with you. Thank you so much for coming on today. You guys, I love what you're building there. I love that you're still young and you're fired up and you're, you're, you're. There's nothing stopping you, except snow today, which is good.

Speaker 3: 56:49

Yeah Well, thanks for having us, it was really a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 57:00

I'll be right back, Don't. Don't drop off. I'm going been promoted. We know all about helping you cut ties to stuff holding you back in your life and entrepreneurship. So until we meet again, get out there, go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening, Thank you.