How to Become the Filmmaker Big Brands Actually Want to Hire ft. RJ Bruni

29:30RJ Bruni:but I was really like building a rollout for them while I was on this trip. I'm like, cool, this would be a great moment. Like let's do like a 15 second reel here. And we were just like stacking reels for them. And it was like building this massive video rollout. and what I learned was like oh man like I was the value that I was providing to my clients before was it was so like single-minded I would say like very just like we're gonna make you a hero video and it's gonna be 60 seconds that's it it's all you're gonna get and you're gonna get two cuts and that's it and no revision and no zero revisions and you can't touch anything yeah that's it but but i fully just say i'm going to change my mindset here i'm going to i'm going to take this social media approach because every brand whether you're the biggest baddest brand in the world is on social media now and i'm going to take what i've learned in making videos for that and i'm going to help brands do that um so that's really that came to life that was the first ever trip that I was like, I think this is actually going to come back to the commercial space now in a completely different way.

30:41RJ Bruni:And I didn't know about it was going to turn into fashion where it kind of gone now, fashion and beauty. But I knew it was going to look a little bit different for a little bit. It was not going to be big sets. It was going to be a ton of projects where I'm going to take all the line items. I'm going to be the director. I'm going to be the camera operator. I'm going to color. I'm going to edit. I'm going to deliver. I'm going to do all these line items. and I just enjoyed it for like for so long it was so fun like you were ideating the funnest projects you got to work with prod with companies that um they actually had budget because they were like these small companies that were like printing cash on social media but they've never done a normal production in their life they had no idea what it looked they weren't tainted by this idea of like this is exactly how it needs to look like they just liked what you you did and they just trusted you so I was just doing that for a while and then I got that was like there was a few brands that that style worked for and then I started doing a lot of close work with a brand called Dairy Boy I started doing a lot of close work with a brand called Elwood and then that would say that kind of like pushed me more into a fat the fashion space um and yeah I just I realized it all kind of this whole pivot pointed me towards really loving what was happening i would say the fashion commercial space is really interesting because it's really easy to showcase clothing it's like you just put it on your talent it's just wardrobe and often what we're making for these social campaigns are just they're just short films like that's really route like the reality of it um product integration it's not like you have to like hey now just hold this coat but you can't drink it and you can't do this and it's just like no we're just like really making things that make people feel something and that's usually the goal is just it's just to build the brand and make people feel connected to the brand so i'm like this is great i understand this space i love this space and that's kind of pushed me into where i am now so was the first spot you did with Elwood was it the golf inspired one because didn't the first no I've never done a golf one with Elwood I think was it so the first one so the first one I ever did was they did this brand trip to Wyoming okay super cool trip I remember this fucking trip yeah it was cool shit really cool really cool people on the trip got to meet a really some amazing people um And I was just there like doing like a brand recap video, but also like making a ton of just really cool reels for the campaign as well.

33:26RJ Bruni:Because they launched this more Western feeling vibe. And then they posted this brand trip at the end. So we shot the campaign and then we kind of just shot some stuff for fun after that. That was the first one. And then the second really big one was we went to England. The whole team went to England. I think that's what it was. That's what you would have seen. And it was very vintage inspired. Like it was super cool. It was to this day like one of the most fun trips I've ever been on. It was like a castle or something, right? Yeah. So the founder, Justin, his fiance, Eva, she grew up in England.

34:04RJ Bruni:And it was like this random town called Mitford outside of Newcastle. It was like really kind of in the middle of nowhere. but her family just had this connection to like this cat these people that own this pretty much this castle and it's beautiful people still like ran it and somebody like kind of caretaked it and lived in it i think um and the whole collection was inspired by this it was called the middle of mitford was the collection and it was inspired by this place and by this castle and we worked with some like really cool talent these influencers from england it was like one of our hero talent it was just a huge campaign we shot it for three days and it was just like head down for three days and it was so fun and then we all just went to london after that for a couple days and like had fun hung out like it was really really fun but that one honestly i look back on that um campaign i'm actually like really proud of that one the ideation was like we spent a ton of time ideating ideas.

35:03RJ Bruni:I think as far as a brand rollout goes, it's one of the better ones we've done. We had multiple hero videos, plus the world building was so good. We had all these side stories, these little vignettes, we call them, where it was not quite as full as a hero video, but still living in the same world, but also characters in it that weren't even in a hero video. So I would say the brand and the world building on that campaign was really cool. and I would say it was a really good template for what I do for a lot of other brands where it's like, guys, this is what we can do. Like we can shape things in a very different way where it's not hero film, 30 second cut, 15 second cut.

35:44RJ Bruni:We can do it in a different way where we can do something that feels like a hero film, but then put just as much thought into what are these other side stories that can be of more value? Because like if someone's seen a hero video, like they really don't care about a 15 second cut. Like it doesn't do anything good for them. Right. But if we can do something that feels different, it's more of like this narrative conversation between characters or something. Something a little bit more social focused and we can do five of those on top of this hero film. I think it's going to add a lot of value. So these were all I was doing this for a lot of companies and the reps were just like coming and coming and coming and coming.

36:25RJ Bruni:and that's it kind of all came together like this understanding of social media understanding of filmmaking, putting those worlds together and then kind of building more of these packages for brands that were a lot more than I would say other filmmakers were doing I think a lot of brands, this is the problem I found when kind of speaking to them like asking them what they've done in the past for video was they would get a lot of filmmakers that just weren't they weren't directors, I would say. And they weren't, they weren't pouring enough into the ideation. And they felt like everything they did felt a little bit lackluster, like they would prepare these shoots.

37:05RJ Bruni:And it was like, they would prepare like a photo video shoot. And they'd hire more of like a videographer to come. And they would capture what was happening, what was happening with photo, but they weren't there directing their own piece. And that was the problem that like a lot of these these clients were kind of coming to me with so I was like I'm just yeah I'm gonna give you as much again let's make a movie pretty much yeah I love that okay I want to I want to get into the the treatment and breakdown I'm curious though before we do that you go from posting I'm assuming on your personal Instagram like back in the day before you kind of went hard on the on the gram were you mainly using it to share your work that you were doing with the production company or was it you were kind of just taking it as like this is my personal instagram i'm just posting kind of photos or whatever yeah yeah i would say the evolution was um more just like film photos of life was like this is before the you know i would say the pivot yeah just like if you go back now you'll see tons of just like you know film photos of me and friends like hiking mountains and having fun going on vacation road trips stuff like that um and then a little bit of work sprinkled in probably because i ask i'm curious once you started posting the cinematic videos of yourself yeah how was the reception to you posting videos of you versus client work and i feel like you oftentimes see a director or dp whatever they're posting either like just their work or they're posting their personal life and then they have a separate Instagram for their work so I'm just curious was there a strategy behind posting where you're just like if I have some great photos of myself or a cinematic video I'll post that and my work if I do something for a brand I know what you're asking and I would say it's more of like something I think about now that I I see but back then we weren't getting any work from Instagram It was all like our connections within the production world.

39:08RJ Bruni:So I wasn't getting anything from people seeing off Instagram back before. And then, but what you're asking now is 100 % valid because now I would say I try to walk a really good balance. Like I think it's still amazing and fun going out and shooting for fun. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I don't want to do posts at least too much of it because my Instagram is a very strong portfolio of work. I don't want to get drowned out in this space of just seeing too much of me. Like I do want to always continue to progress in the commercial space. I'm not an influencer. Like I might do a couple brand deals, but like it's a couple a year kind of thing.

39:50RJ Bruni:So I don't want to like clutter it up too much with my face. So yeah, I understand that it's a hard balance for a lot of people. Like is this personal? Is this work? I think if you do it well, and this is what I've tried to do, If you do it well, it can be both. And I think more importantly, though, if it's just a portfolio and you don't get an idea of who you are, that's not good. I think brands nowadays and creative directors and production companies, they really want to know who they're hiring. and they want to see really good work and they want to like see they want to see like what kind of life you live and like if you're a good person in a way like sometimes you can judge like this and you can judge how this person could treat people and and if you can showcase at least a little bit of that in some manner i think is really important and then i think it's like also that bit of a social credibility if like you have a lot of mutuals yes on social i think it's like okay there's some credibility here like you know maybe hopefully all these people don't hate him but that's always the goal is like no because the bts looks crazy dude the salt and stone bts i'm like this is good shit that is where i fell into i because i don't share anything about my life on social media like it might look like it a little bit like there's some fun moments but like you don't know you you don't really know much about me and my family life or you know like i own this coffee shop with my little sister like I don't really showcase that aspect of my life like there's all these things I'm like I don't really love to share but I walk this fine line between sharing and kind of keeping anonymous in a way um but where I fell was like the parts that I'm willing to show is like the behind the scenes of what it looks like to like just be an artist and a director and that is I feel good about that because it always comes back to my work and like being an artist because that's what I wanted to like if it's just photos of me just screwing off in Italy it's just not going to do too much for me like I might get an audience from that which is amazing but it's not going to come back to my commercial work um which is like that's kind of where I want to keep growing that and I love that space so it's kind of the goal yeah I love it I love it shall we take a little peek yeah you want me to pull something up let's do it all right okay So yeah, this was a two-part series, which is kind of like, I like to work with the client closely on what does the rollout look like?

42:28RJ Bruni:And for them, this kind of made the most sense. They're doing a ton of campaigns. I've done a few for them, but they're filming all the time. They don't need a million assets. All right. Clean as fuck. Clean as fuck. Just hop people doing hop people's stuff, man. Go back to my first one. The first one? Yeah, yeah. I have a few questions. Oh, sick. Let's walk it through. Yeah, walk me through it, dude. Those were so, so. Yeah, such pretty shots. Okay. Love this shot. Let's wait. Put it on mute. Okay. How the fuck do we get this shot? Okay. The shot of the biker. Okay. Are you guys in a car that's following next to him?

43:04RJ Bruni:All right. So that's a really good question because these shots are really easy usually. Like when I pivoted again and I started making videos for fun, often like if I was riding in my motorcycle or something, I'd get a buddy hanging out of a car with a little DJI gimbal or something. And it's super easy. You just film a ton and you're going to get a cool shot like this. Now that we're doing larger commercial scales, it's harder to get these because we're shooting an RE. It's the whole thing. It's slow. But my DP, Zach, he was like, because I thought this would require a massive camera car setup.

43:45RJ Bruni:This is actually like a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. He put it, he, they kind of, him and the grip set up something in the passenger seat that was, I think it was like the camera just on a hi-hat or something. Like it was pretty basic. It just needed to be the right height. And that was it. Like the, the, the car itself is actually like, should be smooth enough to get what you want. Like this is no stabilization, no nothing. Wow. Yeah, so it was actually a lot easier than I thought like granted you can't do Shots from like looking behind them. Yes in front of them Like you can only be these side tracking shots Did you guys did you guys close down the road you just found a road that was not being fucking used?

44:28RJ Bruni:Uh, yeah, no, we closed it down. Yeah, okay And then and then we didn't close it down. Are you slightly zooming in in camera? No, no, he came closer to us. Yeah, he came closer to us. That's cool And then is this a little Dana Dolly? This is a Dana Dolly. Yeah, that's a Dana Dolly. And another Dana Dolly. We kind of worked the Dana Dolly in this one. We wanted this like very ethereal, French, noir inspired feeling. Okay. This shot right here. Yeah. Talk me through like the lighting setup to make sure that he's looking beautiful outside. We can see him clear his day. And then she also has this like street going across her.

45:08What was the kind of setup like for this?

45:10RJ Bruni:and again I owe all of this to my DP Zach he's the man he's the man but the setup was mostly because it's exposed or like we're not changing exposure outside we just have to bump it up this side I don't know exactly what light we were using but we were running I think we were just running one massive key okay through a silk coming from the right hand side um I'm pretty sure that's all it was. Yeah. We might have had something going on here on the left side, but. Wait, I want to, I have a question. Yeah. Dude, you can ask a question. As a director. Yeah. Like you have the idea for this, for the two spots.

45:51And.

45:54Did you know, like, where was this shot again? Montessuto.

46:01RJ Bruni:Okay. Yeah. So you, like, were you able to, I'm assuming. Like to know that you were going to be able to get this shot specifically where, okay, there's this open room with glass. There's the tree outside. There's the pear on the tree. She's going to be inside. Is this being able to see the photos on maybe like a pure space thing and being able to see it that way? Or is it something where you have to be able to be at the spot to know that you're able to get this shot? So we're going to look at a treatment after this. That's like a final treatment. And I wish we could kind of see the evolution of these treatments because it starts off like one way and then it changes based off a lot of things.

46:43RJ Bruni:But this was this probably just started off me wanting to do a coffee scene, like her drinking coffee outside or something. And then someone from production did a location scout and got a ton of photos. So I saw this room on the location scout and I loved it. And I'm like, this is going to be this is going to be dialed in. This is going to be cool. And we have to kind of utilize it in a way. And I was like, what if he was doing, is either me or someone from the brand like wanted the chin-ups or something. And I saw the tree in the photo. I'm like, I really think that could work for that. It kind of just lined up perfectly because that shot is kind of absurd that it works out that easily where he can just walk up and jump onto this branch.

47:28RJ Bruni:It's kind of like insane. And then the pair, the close-up shot of him grabbing the pair. Yeah, we just taped a pear to a tree. That's what I was going to ask. I figured. We didn't know pear trees. Yeah. Now, I think this is a really good project to showcase to people because we jammed packed. It's all shot in one day. And we didn't film a single extra shot. Like, there wasn't. I used every single shot that we got that day. Wow. There was no, we did not overshoot because we couldn't overshoot. and it was exactly how we planned it out on the treatment. You'll see the shot list. The shot list is weirdly close to like, it's almost the exact same.

48:13RJ Bruni:It's just other references pulled from a million different places. It's cool. But I think it's a cool example to show kind of at least the pre-production within like the shot planning, I would say. Yeah, let's take a look at that. Yeah, let's take a look at it. Sure, let's do it. Let's do it. Those are so clean. And I guess to tee up the treatment, talk to us about the initial outreach that Salt and Stone hits you up about. And how does that first initial conversation go? So I've worked with them a few times now. This was like maybe my fourth one with them. So the relationship builds, which is really helpful, I would say, because the trust builds a lot.

48:57RJ Bruni:and I know what they need and what I don't need to like fluff up. It's like, no, we get each other. We know the style that we've kind of built now. And they're probably choosing me for this one for a specific reason probably because it probably matches, you know, either my style or something we've done. So they hit me up and what they usually, this is my hope with brands, is like they have something in place. They need something. And this is like, you know, gone are the days where every brand has like a creative director, either on an agency side or in brand. Like sometimes now the brands just expect the director to also be the creative director.

49:41RJ Bruni:But luckily, Sarah is her name from Salt and Stone. She's like super talented and her ideas are like super, super great. She's with it. She understands social. She gets, you know, she's cool. so I can trust they're going to come to me with like a really good foundation of what they want so they came to me I mean the whole campaign was called Ambre and Pear it was based around a pear they wanted to be feel like it was in France and I thought this was in France I really did perfect job well done I knew it was in Montecito did you I know that house I grew up there.

50:26RJ Bruni:So they wanted that. And I'm trying to think of how far they took it. I can't remember. I think they probably wanted the love story element as well. And that's probably the last of what they gave me. Maybe they wanted a motorcycle involved. I think there was like talks of like this motorcycle man or something. And was the idea for the pair because it was pair scented? Yeah. It was like something the whole campaign is like based around the scent of the deodorant. It's like a deodorant and perfume. Yeah. Cool collaboration or kind of two part. So and that's why that's kind of where the idea of the two part series came into place where I'm like, cool, like, let's do deodorant for part one and then perfume for part two kind of thing.

51:12RJ Bruni:And they're amazing. They don't need heavy product placement. They're like, we need people to feel something and let's make a movie. so that's what we did we made like a little short movie um so yeah that's what they came to me with pause yeah what you just said there i think is super important i after watching that i'm like i could totally see this being a five to ten minute short film it's not it doesn't feel like a heavy product placement commercial it's like it almost feels like too many moments from a larger film of sorts, which I love. I love that. Appreciate that. Because that's the goal.

51:52RJ Bruni:I mean, that's the goal to just have clients also that want to do that, I would say. I mean, we're here selling products. Like, that's the reality of it. But there is this level of just brand building that, like, comes along with that. And if you get blessed enough to work with brands that, like, are really just, we want to build a brand here, that's the best position to be in. Totally. so props to salt and stone for crushing it um and i think it's like this is a good one to show because it's like i just shot it just released yesterday kind of thing so it's just good timing so i start off with just like a synopsis do you want me to read everything okay sure no go for which one no i don't i don't think you need to read everything i think you just give us a spark yeah so this one's just like a synopsis of like the story and like this is what i will I might not even put this in a treatment yet.

52:42RJ Bruni:I'll be like texting either like the producer or the creative director and be like, are we aligned with this story? It could be a short blurb. Like, yeah, yeah, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I like small updates with them. So I'm going the right direction rather than like, here is my insane, massive idea. And they're like, we just had a meeting yesterday and we're going a completely different direction for the story. And I'm like, OK, great. so I'd rather not be in that position. And I'm not pitching very often. I don't send treatments to pitch. It's a nice position. Yeah, I'm super blessed to be in that position.

53:21RJ Bruni:So it's like I don't need to send out this whole thing that's super polished and finished. I can kind of like be dripping it out and working. It's just more something for us to work off of rather than to win a project. So keep that in mind. And this one's honestly quite simple, I would say, because it's the brand already knows so much. Like they have a really good idea of their style and our style within this. So like this is really about the storytelling, I would say. Anyways, we have a little small synopsis. By now you guys know what the story is about. Then we just kind of break in who she is and the smallest little blurb possible.

54:05RJ Bruni:again it just helps us with like tiny little cues of like basically we're explaining that this girl lives here it's a summer by herself alone in this castle where she's living or like living to in the summer kind of thing linen, silk, bare feet, bored in a way only beautiful people in beautiful places can be bored kind of thing it's just like again we're living in this French noir inspired world we're doing hot people stuff we're doing yeah it's just hot people stuff that's the reality um and then him property help cleans the pool cares for the lawn keeps the grounds rides a motorcycle does not perform for her but is always performing quiet sun darkened unhurried moves through the estate like he owns it um more than she does grease on his hands salt in his skin cigarette behind his ear no she's watching and does not look up so just like setting the stage of who these characters are.

55:03RJ Bruni:And we have not, at this point, we don't have casting yet. So like this might help with casting, which a lot of the time the brand is doing most, all like have a say. But a lot of the time it's like the brand and the production company is like really doing a lot of the casting. Director's approach at its core, don't touch the page of the story, but attraction arriving before either character is willing to admit it. Film is built around restraint instead of attraction reveals itself through observation. A glance held too long a smell of a shirt, water on skin, a pair taken from someone else's hand.

55:36RJ Bruni:Fragrance becomes invisible catalyst between them. We never need to explain its effect. We simply watch the relationship to him change after experiencing it. So that's where we integrate the product is like when she smelt that shirt for the first time and she smelt the deodorant he put on and it's like everything changes. It's super cheesy, but like can we make this romantic and cool and kind of fun, right?

56:00I think also everyone can relate to smelling someone else's shirt or hoodie or something and be like, ah, that's their smell.

56:09RJ Bruni:Yeah, like the smell of your girlfriend's shirt, right? It brings you back. It reminds you of her. And then just visual style, as I explained, vintage French cinema, slow burn of a love story, told in glances, saturated heat, deep shadow, the pause before something happens. Every frame carries the weight of what is not being said. Romance, restraint, ruin. The south of France as it lives in memory. You guys were using the one shot of the male talent when he's sitting on the thing. That's just natural sun, right? You're getting that hard streak across his face. Which shot? I think he's posted on the chair.

56:47You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. It cuts back to the girl. She's soft. She doesn't look super harsh, but then it cuts to him and he's kind of like in the sun.

56:54RJ Bruni:That one, I can't remember. I think we were bouncing. Okay. Yeah, most of the stuff outside. I don't think we had any diffusion actually set up outside. It was mostly bouncing. We didn't have time to set up massive frames or anything. Outside we did. Oh, sorry, for some of the motorcycle mediums we did, I remember now. But by the time we were getting into those shots, it was like we were just bouncing light around more or less. And we kind of timed it in the day where the mid of like high heat, we were just like inside. And then when the sun started to come down or was rising, we were trying to do more of the exteriors.

57:34RJ Bruni:Four by three aspect ratio. This one I would say like, you know, you said before, take credit for this, you know, making cinematic videos. I'm not taking credit for that. But I will say this kind of this idea of we're going to post a hero film in 4x3 and then we're going to make all of these little vignettes. But we can do 916 for those. It was kind of like this. I feel like I did. You see a lot of people doing it now. But that is, I would say, my invention. Because I'm like, it literally just came out of an authentic place of me trying to convince brands to get away from 916. Because I was just doing these 4x3s for myself.

58:15RJ Bruni:because I really love that aspect of the show. It's just fun. It's at least closer to 16 by 9. So I usually do this thing with brands where we can do the hero in 4 by 3, which it doesn't hurt reach or anything. It's fine, but to walk the line, we can kind of give them asset vignettes in 916. So this one will shoot 4 by 3. And it's just, you know, we want the 16 millimeter to look kind of vibe anyway. So it kind of just works. We're going to do a two part series easy. We're going to do approximately one minute per part easy. And then we just have a readout. This is like kind of beat for beat what each film is.

59:00RJ Bruni:I don't have to read it. We watch the films. Yeah. But this is kind of just part one. And now this is pretty much my storyboard for for the whole part one. actually. So this is her waking up. This is that tracking shot. This is the only shot that we probably didn't get. I just realized we didn't need it. This is the shot of him pulling up, rubbing his engine. This is her back to her waking up. He goes back to him rubbing the engine. This is that shot outside that coffee scene. That's the close up. This is him doing chin ups. That's the pair. So it's really just a storyboard. And it's, but it's like, you can see it's like, yeah it turned out pretty similar to the way we storyboarded it but again we didn't we shot everything that's on here minus one or two shots and but we used everything there's no guessing in the edit i'm like it probably took me i don't know an hour and a half to put assembly together because i'm like it's all just right there it's quite easy yeah is there a site that you like to use to gather reference images?

1:00:01RJ Bruni:I will do a mix of frameset, shot deck, and Pinterest. I'll be a mix of all three. Especially in the fashion space, there's a lot of beauty moments that I just cannot find on shot deck and frameset. More so comes from the photography aspect of things that I can take from like a Pinterest or something. But I'll just cycle through all three of those depending on what the, what the creative looks like. And then we go here, she's doing up the sheets, silhouetted a little bit. He's smoking a cigarette. I don't think he ended up smoking a cigarette. I don't think we wanted that, but he's chilling, peeling the pear.

1:00:46RJ Bruni:She sniffs. And now they're in love. And it's just like this back, this back and forth that we end on. And then we go into part two. Again, just explaining that beat for beat. And then this was a cool story, actually. I wanted it to be him working on his motorcycle because we had this motorcycle. And someone from set, she was – she might have been a part of the grip team. She, like, pulls up in this blue Mercedes, this SL. and it was like the whole it was exact color of the campaign was this like light blue and i was like can we use your car in this scene so it was like him working on this beautiful blue mercedes like this is way sicker like added production value you kidding me so sometimes you get these like amazing happy accidents so this turned into him working on a car she hears it she runs this is almost like exactly the same looking balcony i love that i love this shot it's kind of pushing of her looking up like running out with the pushing yeah yeah did you guys did you use a crane or how were you guys up or like it looked kind of like you were high no we were just down below just down low yeah we had for some that one we had a few shots that were slow zooms so we had this the zoom lens that we were doing and then mostly were primes the rest of it but yeah we were pretty down below from his POV and then him snipping some hedges I like that shot a lot that was cool Her walking and looking at her.

1:02:23RJ Bruni:Her, yeah, pretty much the exact same. Water shots are clean. Water shots. Her coming out, eating the pear. Butter bang. Him eating the same pear. We wanted just to be like sexy and weird and kind of there's like this salt burn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not close to like. That's weird as salt burn. Not as weird. Yeah, that ending scene. Yeah. It's kind of like the same, right? That's in the extended cut. I've actually never seen it. You've never seen it? I've just heard it. I've just heard of it. Regardless, beautiful. Through the trailer, I can kind of get the vibe. Beautiful film. It's so beautifully shot.

1:03:04RJ Bruni:It sounds amazing. I fucked with it. It sounds amazing. The ending's crazy, though. Yeah, it is insane. That's also what I've heard. And then there's just this, again, he's leaving. And I wanted this, like, this one, it's tough to come across. I don't know if we accomplished this or not, but this feeling of like him get on this motorcycle looking up and not knowing if she's going to join or not. I don't know if it was hard. It's hard to do that without dialogue. That was probably the biggest challenge within this whole thing. And because I knew they really wanted tension throughout the whole thing.

1:03:35RJ Bruni:They wanted like this love tension to build. And they kind of wanted to feel like a bit of a roller coaster. And it's hard to do without dialogue. But that's what kind of the goal was here. is him kind of keep looking back up, keep getting ready for the motorcycle. She's upstairs and then she runs out and then she joins them. I love this end shot of Darje. I love references that are so different than the final frame, but you get the idea. They're leaving on the motorcycle. So yeah, that's more or less the treatment. This is a short blurb of how we're integrating the product in the smallest way of what it means.

1:04:11Sick. You said you don't necessarily pitch. Can you explain to me if you were pitching for this project, how that treatment might differ from the one that you just showed us?

1:04:23RJ Bruni:Yeah, it would be different in the sense where I would not spend all that time storyboarding. It would really be more diving into, I would probably dive into their characters a little bit different because it's you're probably pitching an idea that the client just doesn't understand anything yet. So really just going into the story, the characters, the vibe, like what does it mean? Like French inspired, like what does that mean? Trying to like sell this idea and this vision more rather than going beat for beat on shot, which it's tough because some of that stuff, I mean, so important. And when you understand it and when everyone, when the brand already wants that and they came to you with that, it's like very easy because you can spend the time on stuff that you feel like it's really important.

1:05:10RJ Bruni:Like what is the story? Like what is the shot list look like? But yeah, sometimes it's it's I would say the treatments, the pitching side of things, it's more fluff. Like it's a little bit of fluff. Like you're just trying to sell this idea. Right. So you have to like fluff it up and make it seem like really, really sexy rather than like going into like the nitty gritties because you don't know what you're going to have. if you're going to be able to have motorcycles and this and that and other and all these things, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I would say that's probably how it would differ. But, again, I don't do a lot of that.

1:05:46RJ Bruni:Like, that's pretty simple, I would say, that treatment. I don't do a lot of pitching. I'm not represented. So I don't have an agency or production company, like, putting me forward for, like, a triple bid or anything. I have. I do it, like, a few times a year kind of thing. But luckily, most brands come to me just wanting me and my style. And we can kind of work together to figure out kind of what the story is and what the campaign is. How has being an athlete in your past life helped with this career in filmmaking? Because I know Costa's not as much as myself, obviously, being an athlete. But you don't relate to it as much.

1:06:31You know what I'm saying? Kid plays one night of intramural softball He doesn't relate to it as much I know guys like us can really relate to this Being a really solid athlete You look like you're in shape I was wrong, I don't get it You heard it Come on bro I'm a Sunday warrior I play baseball on Sundays Tell me about how that has impacted And how you think about that as a whole

1:07:00RJ Bruni:I grew up playing hockey in Canada so it's it's very I would say like military mindset like especially in the hockey space it's like it's pretty strict like and and there's I feel like I learned so much from it everything from like you show up on time you're not playing like everything from like the smallest things of like showing up early to set to the biggest thing being like the work ethic it's like you know the hardest workers are the ones that are gonna progress and and get picked for the team and do the best like so i would say what i took the most is the work ethic um and i would say like i'm not the most like i've always done well in school i've always done well in sports like i'm definitely talented but you know those people that exist that are like insanely talented at like and insanely smart at like everything no matter what they touch instantly it's like insane i would say i would i was closer to the guy that just like worked really really really hard um so that's the approach i just took with all everything i do here where it's just like all right if i'm gonna do this i'm gonna work really really hard i'm gonna put the reps in and i feel like that has been lost sometimes within the filmmaking space a little bit you know I feel like we're a little bit too quick sometimes to hop on social media and and complain that we're not getting jobs when why aren't we just like outside just like making something like that's the route that I took when I'm like I wanted to change I knew it wasn't going to be like making pitches and sending emails that was going to be like the difference maker for me it was going to be I'm going to get better at my craft by like doing it so so much and as much as I can I always I mentored like kind of like I do these one-on-one mentorships with a lot of young filmmakers I always bring up this like analogy of Picasso and he did something of like upwards to 50 ,000 pieces of art like I can't remember what the math was but if he had to do if from the day he was born to the day he died even like as an infant he would have had to do like 10 plus pieces a day or something it was like insane and i'm like and we call ourselves artists and we're not making anything even close to that half the time do you know what i'm saying so when i kind of like started to put that together i'm like i really want to like respect myself as an artist it's like I gotta be making things I gotta be like progressing getting better focus on the craft of it and I'm still super passionate about entrepreneurship and business making money from it like we got to survive here all those things um I feel like I'm an entrepreneur at heart but at the end of the day you got to be if you want to be competing with the best like you got to be the best at what you do and sending emails is just not going to get you better like that's the reality so that's probably the discipline of showing up and making a lot of stuff and working really hard and and making sure i'm like bettering myself every every day that's probably what i took mostly from being an athlete that's why i love your story specifically about taking things into your own hands and even if you weren't getting quote-unquote hired for the work yet you were still putting in the reps like you just said on your own stuff and i think a very simple easy concept that didn't necessarily compute when I was first starting out was you don't have to make something only when someone's paying you to do it and I think the way that you get better is by putting in the reps like you said even if you don't have a job I think a lot of people are wondering oh why am I not getting works and yes I do think that there is apart to being creative on the entrepreneur side that maybe doesn't come as easy to people where yes there is still like you probably should be sending emails and doing pitches and stuff but sometimes the best marketing is just being really really good at what you do 100 percent what i what i realized working with some of the biggest brands is that they have all the money in the world they're going to work with whoever they want to work work with, they're going to pay for the best.

1:11:32RJ Bruni:So if that is what you want, if you want to be working with the best, the email, the pitch, it's not going to like, I get like pitching for big commercial jobs and there's triple bidding and you're bidding against all these other, I get that aspect of things, but searching for, if you want to be working with the biggest brands, you got to be bettering yourself as a creative first. Like that has to be number, number one, a hundred percent. like you got to be getting better and building a portfolio because these brands they will pay for whoever they want that's the reality of it um so yeah that's the approach that i took i'm like i i want to be working with some really cool cool companies with some really cool talent you know the people that are doing it you know well have been doing it well for a while like those are the people just i want to be working with it's not really about the brand i've never been obsessed with I need to be working with um this brand and it then it will be cool like my approach was I'm gonna do really cool stuff for whatever brand comes my way it doesn't matter like I think if if you're good at what you do you can make anything look sexy um so that was the approach I took but I do want to be working with people that are really good at what they do um so usually that comes along with like some of the bigger jobs um but yeah the approach I just took was just get just get better and i'm not saying i'm the best but every day i'm working definitely to become better every day and and that's the journey that like i love to be on well you are pretty damn good thank you man and you know that's why you're on the 505 i do want to ask how you got connected with your dp uh it was through assault and stone out actually yeah it was when we did one in the desert.

1:13:17RJ Bruni:I've never had a DP that I've worked with as closely as more recently with Zach before it was just more a lot of one offs. And it was we got connected just through the production company. And we shot this really cool one in the desert earlier this year. And we kind of shot a few since ever, like a few more salt and stone ads. He was just in Australia with me, done some more beauty stuff. um it's nice to work with someone that not only does your like style align like he has he got his start within um dp 'ing through a lot of like shooting on 16 millimeter and stuff like that so we both have this very traditional style very rooted in like traditional film i would say um And he's like the coolest, most chill guy ever.

1:14:16RJ Bruni:And I think like half of it is like, do you get along? Are they causing problems? Do you like the way they communicate with people on set? Because like when you put people forward for jobs, it is a representation of you. And you want everyone to be like representing you really well. And he does that really well. So when you find someone that you work really well together with, it's like you want to just kind of keep working with them. So any job where I'm like, I get and I sent his name to the production company and he's busy. I'm like, God dang it. That sucks. Because it's like you got to start a new relationship over sometimes rather than it's like you kind of just know.

1:14:55RJ Bruni:You know how you operate. But also at the same time, it is really good to have those opportunities to work with different people and see different ways of working and operating. And maybe you get something different and more unique out of stuff. So there's value in kind of that process as well, for sure. I love it. Yeah. This has been a fun pod. God. Episode 217? I think. 218. Something like that. Ladies and gentlemen, episode 218 of the 505 Pod with RJ Bruni. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button. Drop us a comment. Leave us a like, and we'll see you guys all next week. Thank you, guys.

1:15:28RJ Bruni:Peace.