How to Build a Content Agency in 2026 (That Actually Lands Clients) ft. Lanre Ako

28:22I can't name a single thing, but I wouldn't change a single thing because I'm happy that the chips fell the way they did. And that I'm not where I'm at. That's so fair. Yeah. You're like, this is going to be the line. And it's like, actually, you're going to fucking loop around here. Isn't it amazing on a company, though? You can hire better people. It's great. It's nice. It's amazing. I'm like, oh, you're a way better fucking photographer than me? Great. Yeah, we got a job for you, dude.

28:48Lanre Ako:Basically, the goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to be like DJ Khaled. Yeah, exactly. I'm just a connector. I'm a dot connector. Yeah, you know? Yeah, yeah. Dude, that's what our production company is. They're just dying. I'm just like, who could do this way better than me? Yeah. They're going to do it. It's great. It's rewarding, too, because there are, and I'll always say this, there are people who are better at me, you know, at, you know, any given thing that don't necessarily have the same opportunities that I do. Totally. You know what I mean? And so it's almost like a tragedy seeing that, like, oh, dude, like you, you should be working, you know, you should be getting more jobs.

29:23You should be working on bigger projects. Like, you're so talented. But now I'm in a position where I can put them into those, give them those opportunities that, you know, I wish I had back then. And then seeing them crush it and seeing them have a great relationship with whatever artists I connect them with. I look back on that. I'm like, OK, that that feels really good. What do you feel like are the biggest attributes that a creator needs to have to crush it with an artist? One, you've got to be damn good at your job. That needs to be undeniable. like you can't there can't be any there's no personality higher in this you know i mean the content's not getting done you're it what's what's the point what are we doing here you know what i mean but personality higher in the sense that you do need to be able to get along with your artists match their energy know how to you know be in rooms where you know big famous people can come in and you're not going to be weird you know or or and further than that like you know if Like if they have a family, like how does their family feel about you?

30:21You know, how do their friends feel about you? How are you in the room? How do you, you know, do you keep the energy up? Do you bring people's energy up or do you bring people's energy down? You know, because especially when you're touring, energy is kind of everything because you're always tired. You're always moving from one place to the other. Morale has to be up. You know, you can't like you can't have someone in your career that's always a Debbie Downer because then it just sucks the energy out of everyone and everyone is, you know, becomes worse at the job. Have you felt that on tour sometimes?

30:48You don't have to obviously name the people, but have you felt that and you're like, ah, that person, then they like get them out of there? Yeah. Yeah. Several times. Wow. Yeah. It's a very, and that's, that's the tough thing. Cause you could be the most skilled, talented photographer, videographer in the world. But if you can't be in the room, if you can't be around, you know, the people that you're servicing, that's, I would say almost just as important because, you know, then, then you're, you're not able to, to, to do your job. And then you're just making your artist's life harder. You're making everyone on the team's life harder if you can't be a good person to be around.

31:25I'm so with you, though, dude. If you come on the shoot and you're annoying and you're just a pain in the ass, it's like, bro, I'm paying the checks, man.

31:32Lanre Ako:Yeah. I don't want to be around this. But it's also your reputation. Totally. And now that you're in the business of connecting a creator with an artist, your reputation's also on the line. Absolutely. So now it's not just can Lonerate come and shoot the show and give us the content. It's is the people that Lonerate is bringing into our world like of a certain caliber, not just from a skill set standpoint, but can they kind of hang with the crew, act like you've been there before and also deliver at the highest quality? Yeah, exactly. Like I think a good example of this is my my my really good friend Austin used to be a real estate agent here in L.A.

32:11I don't know if you've watched like like who the Altman brothers are. Yeah, so they have that Netflix show, I think. And it would be, he works for the Altman Brothers. The Altman Brothers are these mega, super huge real estate agent mogul people. But when someone wants to sell their house, like, oh yeah, we'll go with the Altman Brothers. They're not going to get the Altman Brothers every time. Most of the time they won't. They'll get someone that the Altman Brothers have hired, that have vetted, that they feel comfortable stamping their name on. so then you become a representative of the person who's giving you this connection and that's a lot of um you know what i've been learning in terms of you know when when you know an artist wants to hire me and i and they necessarily and i don't necessarily have the time or they don't have the budget then i can you know bring someone else be like okay i trust this person and i will only put people on like i will only put them on uh through me if i genuinely trust them and they can like take direction and kind of understand, you know, the level of quality that we need to maintain.

33:17How do you vet them?

33:18Lanre Ako:Is it putting them on maybe like a lower stakes show at first and seeing how they work? And are you always, to be able to trust someone to go without you on a show, do you have to first shoot a show with them, see how they work, vet them in that way in person, and then they kind of prove to you that they have the chops, then you can send them on their own? Yeah, yeah, for the most part. And a lot of it was kind of done already, because, like I said, with John, we were doing a lot of, especially when we're abroad, or in just anywhere that's not, you know, LA or Miami, we're hiring a lot local. So it was a lot of me finding people, okay, yeah, we got a staff, five person multicam.

34:03How do I find five good creators in, you know, near or around this area? and how would you just instagram a lot of instagram yeah just like iso uh videographers multi-cam operators in amsterdam bang yeah and then send me your portfolio wow yeah get a guy shooting 30 or 60 frames like sometimes an artist will want um it's typically between 24 30 um and then you know what but like when when you shoot when the artist wants their videos in 24 you can you can shoot in 30 and get away with it right it just might look a little choppy but like you know that's fine if an artist wants something in 30 and you shoot in 24 then you're fucked you know because it's just like because it's just like doubling the it's like for every i don't know it just it looks horrible brother i had this happen on a shoot and i'm not gonna say the brand but it was supposed to be in 30 it was filmed in 24 and i was using all i was trying to figure out like how can we do it and it actually ended up working using um artemis an ai plugin to blend the frames on is that through topaz i believe so yeah yeah the artist yeah and it totally it looked perfect and i was like searching reddit forums and apparently it's a big thing in commercial because a lot of the time they'll shoot like a spot for let's say social or something and they're like in 24 or and then they're like broadcasting it in 30 so it is a common thing that happens because i was like bro like what if this has to like other people have to have like had this happen yeah yeah it's kind of that like it's like you know when people complain that they have like the motion smoothing on their on their tv yeah try to watch like a movie and it looks like a soap opera you know i mean like that's i think that's the same technology that like now you can it's crazy now they can do it like it was insane i was like wow this looks great yeah so you can save it for sure yes it's just a for an hour set for yeah or like a three hour set you're like okay every time i cut to this angle oh my god this 24 takes 45 minutes takes an hour yeah for the multi-cam stuff do you have someone watching each camera like if something is on sticks are you like you're

36:15Lanre Ako:not moving for this two-hour show you're just fucking making sure that this camera's recording the whole time when budget allows yes so i mean when there's times where you'll do a multi-cam and you'll have like two shooters, right? But then you'll still want two at front of house, two cameras in front of house, and then one over the decks, obviously, and then one person behind the artist and then one person roaming. The person roaming is typically responsible for setting up the front of house, starting the record, making sure everything's in place to a point where, you know, a fan can't come and turn the fucking record off.

36:49And then, you know, going out to the crowd to do their roam. But, you know, in a perfect world, you would have a PA monitoring everything that's on sticks because then you'd have in a perfect world you'd have probably more than just front of house on sticks you'd have one maybe on the side of the stage or out in the crowd or up in the bleachers you know what I mean so for those yeah you definitely need someone to to monitor um do you sync with time code or what do you guys do syncalia syncalia yeah have you know what that is no it's a software that um it syncs everything by audio oh cool so there's like a built-in audio sync in in final cut but it gets um it kind of breaks after you add more than three angles you can throw 30 um 30 angles into cinquela and you don't even have to be recording the entire time like it'll take like just a little second of recorded for a minute i shoot in bursts always oh you're not shooting one long thing no i don't know that i at first it's like a i don't know why i don't like it i just don't like it okay i'd be able to put my camera down and like just bring it back up when like the moment calls for it oh i see what you're saying so you might mob around you might be recording you'll bop around a new spot record again yep okay exactly and then it'll take if you organize in your timeline it'll take every single clip and then just sync it to like your recorded audio and then all of your and then it'll just it'll spit out like a multi-cam so for so for the set you auto or recording like if you were shooting with john john's recording the whole set up on the decks or no is that uh well we are from uh yeah from front of house okay with like a zoom literally like zoom h4n or H6N or whatever.

38:22Yeah. So we get the clean audio from there. And then... Did you hear the crowd really or not really? What's up? Do you hear the crowd with it or not really? Well, sometimes we have crowd microphones that we just route into the Zoom for like ambient noise. Yeah. So we have one channel that's just straight clean out of the mixer. And then one that's like a microphone that was in the middle of the crowd that you can hear like... Oh, that's cool. All that stuff. That's so interesting. Yeah, it's tricks of the trade, man. Yeah, man. And then when you don't have that, like actually made a video about this where if you are recording with a microphone on the stage and you have clean audio then you can just go in into your um into your editor kind of duplicate it change the audio source to your microphone layer it under the clean audio and then just take an eq and cut out all the low frequencies so that all you hear is a and you don't hear like like the kick i saw you do this video yeah that was a good one oh that's so interesting yeah

39:16Lanre Ako:There's a lot of little nuances. Nifty tricks. Yeah, that you find from you shooting a thousand shows. But knowing all those nuances is a big reason why a lot of these big artists trust you guys. Yeah. Talk about your decision to position yourself specifically in music and how that has allowed you to work with the level and caliber of artists that you've been able to work with. because there's a lot of, we teach this in the DCA cohort that we do, but like positioning is so important as a creative, as a photographer, videographer, production company, agency, whatever you're doing, because if you specialize, you know, those nuances of how to get content to look a certain way.

40:02Lanre Ako:And that's why you're able to actually have a company and charge a premium rate because you know, those nuances and it goes back to the trust thing that we were talking about. Yeah, exactly. It's really, I'll say the biggest things that allow me and my team to work with the caliber of artists that we do is trust and experience. And trust comes from experience, obviously, but there are people who you can have a super long career and maybe not be as reliable or maybe not have picked up on things, maybe just be going through the motions that don't earn you that trust. but then you know at least in my experience you know you learn all these nuanced little things you know when something goes wrong how can you fix it or you're just like oh damn no it's all it's all gone you know like no like there's ways to like salvage things right or and then you know knowing how to you know manage personalities and like like be be good energy in the room like i said earlier um you know it's it's really that just comes from it's something it's not something that you can really learn in a book is you have to learn by doing and i i did a lot you know thousands of shows in in like the most hectic environments and so now now when you know we're doing these whether it's a one-off show or like a light tour where it's not as as as hectic it's not as like scary hours you know then you know you have a much clearer head and the experience comes in and it's like okay yeah the these artists are going to trust me because i've done this a million times and I know, you know, the nuances of, of, of, um, you know, what, what can go right and wrong in this industry.

41:36And then, you know, me teaching people that, you know, I'm putting on like, like my intern, for example, like he, he's, he's doing his first festivals. He's learning all these things on the fly and I'm just helping him, you know, okay. Yeah. Like, okay. And I wish someone told me this when, when I first experienced whatever it may be, you know, putting them on in, in ways that you know they don't have to make the same mistakes that i did and then you know that just one takes their career further and then gives me you know gives us a more well-rounded team that can have i guess the benefits of my experience kind of now it's everyone's experience you know what i mean and so that kind of gives the the the agency a more you know bit more of an identity as opposed to just being me you know what i mean let's talk about coachella because

42:24Lanre Ako:this is fucking epic uh fig and i were both there but uh just in ga just enjoying the uh just enjoying the show not shooting anything yeah just frolicking around the desert um when the opportunity to produce content for coachella came about how many artists did it start as and how many did it end up being that you were creating content for like how many um how did you source your team and how did you pull off shooting coachella in an environment where service is asked you're dealing with multiple artists it's as high stake of a performance as you can really get as a dj walk us through that experience yeah so prior to coachella i think like well well in advance like months in advance um we had booked three artists um and there were artists that we like already had a prior relationship with you know so they kind of just like oh like because i think i've really publicized the the work i've done at coachella over the last three years because you know i've shot fisher and chris lake and then john summit and then disco lines and so i really put all that stuff out there and then i think you know from that and then from, you know, just our experience, I was, you know, the first person that they would want to go to for this specifically.

43:45We had booked, I think, yeah, three artists in the months prior. And then, you know, as things get closer, you know, like surprise sets start to start to get booked, you know, like, like Disco Lines did the campgrounds, which was a surprise. John did the do lab, which was a surprise. Um, and then, you know, and then more do labs that start coming out, which is like, like, you know, instead of doing two performances across both weekends, it's, um, it's every artist does it on, on one weekend. So, um, uh, my friend Kyle Goodfella, um, who was like been blowing up with this, with this, uh, with this new song, it's called morning coffee.

44:22And just like been changing his career. Um, got books at a really prime slot at the do lab, reached out to me and said, yo, this is a huge moment for me. Like, is there any way that you have the bandwidth to work together. I was like, yeah, yeah, of course. And so at that point, it comes down to, okay, I'll take on more artists if these set times don't conflict, obviously, because for the most part, I'm going to be at all the sets and directing or shooting. And then there's a lot of times in between where I'll get asked to just do social UGC stuff because I have, like I said, this reputation for being the phone video guy and so people want like you know you can't just throw anyone in there and like yeah here's a phone go film you know like it won't look the same it's not gonna look the same and so um so yeah that's so i pretty much did that for for uh for john and for disco lines and then for for anima um uh on one of the weekends and then the rest of it was kind of directing multicams.

45:25So with Adriatic, they had a big, huge production at the Sahara tent. And then with and friends, they were playing, he was playing at the human tent. And so it was a lot of, you know, luckily, the way it shaped out was I wasn't, we weren't doing too many sets on any given day. Right. So we did have a lot of time in between to to get the content kind of dialed in, you know, like we would shoot the set, dump all the footage. If it was a daytime set, you know, we'd get out a couple clips and then to post like in the green room. And then we go about the rest of the day, get back to the house and then, you know, give them the full folder the next day.

46:10So of all. So it's like it's you're delivering social clips, the full set photos, full set. No, like full sets take for it yeah it'll take a while and um and yeah we typically don't do full sets for uh coachella that's more so for like you know like uh artists like headline shows i see and stuff um but yeah it's it's um pretty much like most of the deliverables are like an album of photos and then um a couple uh multi-cam clips in like real and and carousel format formats so

46:44Lanre Ako:When you're forming the team, do people need to be hybrid? Do they have to be able to do multiple jobs? Or are you bringing on people where because it's so fast-paced and the turnaround time needs to be so quick, is it this person's just shooting and then you're dumping footage and having someone cut versus edit photos? That varies depending on artists and budget. it. So like there were a couple of people and a couple artists that, that, um, that reached out and, you know, we had conflicting set times, but I was still able to connect them with somebody that I trusted. And they'd be like, Hey, like we have X amount of money and we need, um, raw video, raw clips and photos.

47:27I'm like, okay. Like I could either give you two people that do just that, like just photo, just video, but would like their, their caliber, like would warrant that small rate, or I can get you someone that's like really good at both, take full rate and then, you know, just kind of do both. So in those instances, yeah, it's good to have hybrids. But when it comes to, um, you know, especially like when, when I direct teams, I like to have, you know, don't not give anyone too much responsibility in terms of their, their, their objectives, you know, if like, Hey, I want you to get this specific angle.

48:01Cause I know you're really good at, at handheld, or I know you're really good with the gimbal. Like that should be all they're doing you know and in terms of so that they they can be the best at you know whatever you know we delegate them to do so yeah it's good to have the skill set of a hybrid shooter um you know because then it kind of opens more doors for you but at least you know when when when i'm building out teams i like to give everyone their their specific assignments what is that

48:30Lanre Ako:range of like what is an artist willing to pay for a multi-game because you now said it's kind of like the standard every artist uh wants it and it's kind of like it's needed um what can you charge for a high budget multi-cam so when when i say multi-cam it's a lot of um it's it's a wide range of what it could be right because like just the more peeps more manpower yeah exactly and then bigger production more ambitious uh you know camera angles and things like that but like just the concept of a multicam of multiple cameras filming a set is kind of the baseline for any any show so they're not going to be dumping huge amounts of money into like uh a middle of the tour kind of show like when you're doing this a bunch right so but i guess at the base it's like you you'd ideally have at least two people and that you can get five angles out of two people behind the artists over the decks two at front of house one roaming and so that's kind of the baseline and then you're you're pretty much paying that roamer's day rate and then um you know handling the edits and stuff so that that's the camera rentals too like do you have you need five cams yourself so i'll have mine a lot of times the roamers will have other bodies okay we can just put it front of house um and then sometimes we may just have to rent one or one or two just depending do you have two now or what do you what do you rock with i have two i have a 7s3 and an fx3 wow okay yeah but then i haven't really ever needed more than that because you know if especially if you're in a pinch like just share grid it and then you know toss it up there um and then over the decks i usually just use like a like a action camera oh an action camera yeah oh interesting it's just not usually that much space like in front of the decks right yeah yeah and you a lot of times you don't have a lot of time to set up yeah like if i had all the time in the world i'd put fx3 on there you know with like a 10 mil lens and it'll look you know it'll look great but then if you're like if the changeover from like you're the artist playing before you sometimes there's no changeover sometimes they're literally just like okay yeah you're done slide over the next decks and then you have like 10 seconds go record okay go you know very stressful recording hope it centered yeah yeah and so but with like a gopro or a dji it's really it's a lot easier yeah because you can kind of no focusing you don't have to focus it's just like okay like can they see the my hands up here can they see the decks cool shoot you know dude with a sony it's more like okay yeah fuck i gotta where's the lebron's chalk toss on the night of the record fucking fan bumped my camera and i had a manual 10 mil on and it was just like kind of their shoulder because i was like in the crowd for the toss and i was like i didn't have a monitor it was just on the ronin like super tiny on the c70 and i'm looking at i'm like i feel like that's focused bro but like i'm peeking on i'm like feel like that's focused but i can't really tell and it was like all happening so fast and then it went i look i'm like just totally soft yeah just totally soft never i'm like can we redo the chalk i'll never not have manual focus anxiety oh my god no matter what made me so mad right now as we're recording this you just got you got to be wary of the fans man the fans can like bump your lens and it's just like the most micro little turn i'm like no that's that's happened several times especially with like with front of house cameras when like it's so easy someone's head will just bump it like okay and then the rest of the shot is gone yeah and you can't even you're like looking at you're like be like that's it get a monitor dude yeah buy a big monitor i promise you i'm gonna let you ask a question you promise okay but real quick on the topic of day rates just so we can kind of maybe people maybe this episode will start getting spread to people in the industry can you share numbers as far as like what is for maybe a beginner intermediate advanced what are standard day rates for concerts when it comes to video and photo you need to determine what you think you're worth you know what i mean like you need to be like, okay, yeah, I believe in myself this much, or I believe I bring this much to the table.

52:41And then at that point, you know, other people will tell you how much, sometimes, like, not everyone's comfortable with sharing their rates, but like, you'll start to learn, okay,

52:50Lanre Ako:yeah, like, what's my caliber? Do I bring as much to the table as like the next person who's charging this much? Can I justify this? And then those are the conversations that you have with the people on the management side who are booking you. Okay, yeah, why do you want to raise? Or why do you think like this justifies you know xyz and then if you can bring them a compelling argument then you know then they would have no problem paying it in an ideal world you know but yeah i'd say like 200 ish for like beginners you get up to you know a couple years under your belt then you get up to like the five six seven hundred dollar range and then you know like the the true like oh geez i've been doing this forever and like you know or like like hands down the best it's gonna go up to like 2k you know what i mean so and but then that's i'm speaking of just like individual day rates yes they're they're the greatest that's what they do yeah exactly but then at that point you're typically not just by yourself you're yes you're the team yeah exactly then there's like like production costs um and then you know like per diems and then all these different numbers that you're dealing with there so that that number gets a lot um bigger in that sense but then you know when it comes to day rates and stuff that's kind of that's what i would say is the general gist of kind of i think that's helpful from people you get like a general gist of where you can take it because i feel like in in dp land i didn't really understand how it worked and how much they were charging but like i'm the company so i can kind of like we can kind of dictate like what what it's going for but i've seen people say like oh i'm 500 bucks a day and like the very best or like 5 000 a day for like insane insane people yeah they're like people making feature films all the time so it's very interesting to see just like the range of you know of things and then it's so different if you own a company and you're delivering them all the assets and you have employees and insurance and all that stuff it's like that all goes into the cost that i don't think people understand and you know and as the company you're the advocate for them i think people don't understand that someone um someone's asked me this the other day they DM me and they're like, yo, I got hit up by this guy to do this photos, but I, I want to know like what he's getting.

54:57And I'm like, well, is it, is it, does he have a company or like, what's the vibe? And he's like, yeah, he has a company. And I was like, I would take whatever you're comfortable with under the company. Cause they're going to be, they have the insurance that I'm assuming you probably don't have. They have the gear, they have the client that you don't have. You don't have this. Like if you had it, you would do it. Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, you would do it if you if you had them you don't have them so you should do it and they also your advocate like i was thinking about that the other day like we had a guy who's like editing some stuff for us clients pain the ass instead of them having to bitch out the client we can go bitch out the client and be like yo like you guys are fucking being ridiculous like this is fine and you're you're like on their team instead of it just being like solo one man one woman band versus big conglomerate yeah you know which is great it's that that's something that i've been i've been learning a lot in, in, you know, this, in this agency world now is that, yeah, now I can, you're the advocate.

55:49It's, it's on, on, yeah. On, on like in an instance where you do have to go, you know, be mad at your client or something, then yeah, you can go, you know, argue on their behalf. And then even before that, like when you're at the negotiating table, you can get them more, you can get them way more as opposed to them going, it's like, oh yeah, it's I'm Rick and I have an a7s3. It's so different, dude. It's like, you're, you're gonna get you will get way less money trying to go around than you will likely with an established business going through them and you'll get dish more dude because you can go as as made media

56:25Lanre Ako:our our um our shooters get this amount yeah yeah like because they're of this caliber because i truly believe that they're of that caliber yeah you know what i mean so no it's not it's no longer just like a one-man band freelancer being like yeah this is my rate yeah well it's because like you do have to, you always got to watch out for, I mean, not, and I don't mean this in like, like a, like a super negative way, but people get taken advantage of. Yes. For sure. You know, people can look at, Oh, like, let me look at this super talented kid who maybe doesn't have as much experience. And if we just go straight to him and are like, Hey, we want to do ball, ball, like intimidate them.

57:04They'll just get, they'll just low ball us and then we'll get a good rate and then we'll stick it. And then, you know, I can come in and be like, okay, you know, this is, this is our guy this is a skill set this is experience and then based off of that here's his rate and then i like and i'll stand behind that obviously i'm not gonna like just pump up the numbers because i have an agency because how long is that gonna last like oh that that'll just expose you in in no time you know like oh this guy's just trying to i don't know hike up the rates that's not what it's about it's about like okay no this i believe in this creator and this is why the budget is justified.

57:39And then when it comes from someone who, you know, speaking as the head of the company, but also speaking as someone with this experience, you know, I think that goes that plays that goes a long way when, you know, trying to develop trust with a person trying to hire this person, because they don't necessarily know what experience it takes to be good at the job. They're kind of a lot of times are hoping, okay, yeah, like this kid's really talented, I hope that this goes well. But then when they're vetted by, you know, people with experience, then they can go, okay, like, those are the people that know exactly what it takes to be good at this job.

58:15And if they have this person's back, then I can then I can trust them more. And then you know, then they're more comfortable, you know, paying whatever rate, you know, may be justified. What do you feel like it's been the hardest part of going from just a solo shooter to now managing people and building out a company? The hardest part, I think...

58:37That's a good question. Because it's... The hardest part for sure is delegating work. And I'll say this. Like when I was touring with John, most of what I was doing, a lot of what I was doing, was producing his vlog series, which was, you know... Great vlogs. Thank you. Yeah. Like documentary style, run and gun, kind of capturing all the stuff that happens in between the shows. And I really enjoyed doing that. And we had a really great rapport when it came to that. And then I was also helping out with media as a whole. You know what I mean? Like sometimes I'd be the main guy on tour and then like directing multicam.

59:17Sometimes I'd be part of the multicam team. You know, it would vary. But then John and I had a lot of conversations about like our careers, you know, because we had a lot of similarities in kind of how we approached Arizona too, right? Both of you? No, no, no. He went to U of I. oh we went to use for you were both irvine no no illinois oh illinois yeah uci is irvine but you

59:40Lanre Ako:were deep in the corporate world yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah we both we you know four-year college and then working in corporate and then taking a chance on ourselves to enter you know the music industry you know so a lot of parallels there and there's a lot of things that we could relate to in that in that sense and so you know and that's what that's what i really really enjoyed about working with him and still do is that, you know, there are those parallels. I can kind of, we can see, you know, I can see a lot of my career and kind of how he's gone about it. And obviously he's taking it to incredible heights.

1:00:13And so there's always something I learned from him on a day-to-day basis, especially over like last summer, we had a lot of conversations about, I would go to him and be like, okay, here's just with ideas and thoughts about my career, like where I think I want to take it next or whatever. and he would give me a lot of encouragement in terms of like yeah you at this point in in your career and with how skilled you are and your reputation like you should be having a team like i know you're not just going to be you know the the solo guy forever like he he would say that to me before i even like you know brought that that concept up um and so he gave me like a lot of really great advice on how to to to go about you know doing what i'm doing now which which was super appreciative.

1:00:53But when it came to while I was still producing that vlog series, trying to learn how to delegate that work was a huge challenge because I'm so used to doing everything myself. I'm so used to, okay, I know exactly how to shoot this conversation or when I should run out of the room because something might happen or someone would be coming or when to be a fly on the wall when to get the person the subject to talk to the camera all these things i never learned from a book or a class i just learned from experience you can't either you have to just do it and like to do it understand vibe and like when to ask and when to not when to feel if they're like they're being like they don't want to be talked to right now and not be like yo so tell me about where city we're in it's just like bro yeah yeah and then you can't teach that though you can't And well, you, I don't know if you can like, like in, in just in the, in the sense of the word teach it.

1:01:51Yes. You definitely. But you know it, you know it for sure is the shooter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like it's hard though. Like, yeah, you wouldn't be able to, to write that down for somebody. No. You'd have to, they have to feel energy. I would have people shadow me. Yes, exactly. So like, like, especially when it came to like the shooting part, you know, I'd have like Cole, for example, would come to ACL with me. And I would, it was almost like I was shadowing him in a way because he would be the one filming, but I'd be behind him being like, okay, yeah, go get that. Go ask him a question here. Or this person is coming into the room, go get their entrance, right?

1:02:29Okay, now just be in the corner. Okay, now after they're done talking, now go up to them and say X, Y, Z. You know what I mean? And then he'll always be like, okay, yeah, what do you think? Like here, she'll do this. And I'm like, yeah. That was probably the best experience I've had in terms of learning how to delegate that. But then when it comes to the editing, that was something I had a lot of – it was a huge challenge to teach someone how to do. It's very like taste-based. It's very like – I don't really operate in terms of like – I don't know how well I would do like editing a movie with a team and like with like systems and stuff.

1:03:07I don't know any of that. Like I didn't know what an L cut or a J cut was. I just did it because it felt right. Do you know what I mean? And then I found out later, oh, there's a terminology for this? No, I just edit like on vibes. And so. That's the L 'Anre cut. Yeah, exactly. That's an L cut. But then it gets tough when you like, when I'm like, okay, here's all the footage. And then here's some example of, you know, the work I've done. Try to match it as well, as much as you can. And they'll give you notes after it. Then there'll be things that were like, okay, like that audio cut out really abruptly.

1:03:43Or like this is framed incorrectly. Or this is exposed. Or this isn't color-grated the right way. Or there should be music under here. Why aren't the cuts to the beat? Why is like your transition between one song to another one not on the grid? All these things. You know what I mean? And so that was really tough. And I think in terms of, yeah, going from being a solo, to running a team, being a connector, having an agency, that was probably as hard. Learning how to delegate was probably as hard as learning how to create videos in the first place. But that's kind of what makes it fun. That's kind of what gets me out of bed is because it's a new thing that I have to learn.

1:04:29You know what I mean? Like I can do the solo video thing all day. Like it's my bread and butter. I can do it with my eyes closed. You know what I mean? I'm not like necessarily learning how to do this anymore, even though like, yeah, I'll pick up skills here and there. It's important to stay updated, but it doesn't. I wasn't ever really like on a day to day basis learning how to do new things as as much. So as, you know, now with delegating work and managing people and, you know, making sure everyone's taken care of. It's like it feels like the next logical step. and the fact that I don't know 100 % how to do it is what motivates me to learn.

1:05:10Do you think it's, in my opinion, I'm curious to you, I feel like it's not one or the other, it's all. It's like, you shouldn't just be on lo-fi iPhone. No. It should be, oh, like you want your brand to feel premium? It'd be weird if it was all lo-fi iPhone. Exactly. It should be high quality as well. Maybe they don't do as well, but now it's associated with your brand, like being high quality stuff. And then, oh yeah, we do the phone. We'll do photo carousels. but like maybe you do film one day but it's not the whole thing is just film or just iphone i think in i say 90 of the of the content i produce is a healthy mix of both you know i mean like i like if i do a multi-cam right like there could be five fx3s out in the crowd and then me on my phone not sometimes not even in the log you know but like throwing it in there you would think oh yeah like it might not match it might not be exactly whatever but then you put you put it in and it's like this it's close it's like it doesn't it's not like it's like objectively bad or objectively good yeah one it makes it unique two it's like not like you're shooting on a on a iphone one and it just looks like shit you know i mean it's a great image and then yeah but then like and also with like recaps and stuff like in the vlogs right like it would all be horizontal obviously we're shooting horizontal but then if we recorded a funny moment on our phones just throw it up there with the black box it it the authenticity is there you know what i mean when when people and and i made a point about this in in my um in this video i made about this topic exactly um it went from because like in the beginning when like you know like 5d mark 3 and like a7s2 are coming out was like the first time that like really high quality made it to our feed made it to our feed and like made it accessible like i can get this image out of a two thousand dollar camera for the first time ever a7s2 was a fucking go to camera yeah that shit was ahead of its time way way ahead of its time bro decade ahead of its time and then yeah so everyone starts doing that because you know that's like okay that's the best way to kind of portray your like if you're an artist that's the best way to portray your your image look how high quality my my videos are look how close to cinema or how close to you know whatever like a super high polished big artist is, you know?

1:07:19And so, but then over time, you know, TikTok becomes more popular. Instagram has become more popular. People are going viral. Everyday people are going viral and they don't have, they're just using their phones. You know, these like very low quality kind of whatever, smudged camera, whatever. Like what mattered, what made them go viral was what was happening in the video or maybe they're funny or maybe it's a crazy moment, but then it's shot on a phone. And so I think it's a mix of that. And when you're like, you know, the everyday person, when they're scrolling through, you know, all these reels and stuff, when they see something that was filmed on a phone, you know, even if it's filmed like maybe like a video that I take, like at Tomorrowland, I did all phone stuff, you know, but when people come across it, they kind of have this subconscious feeling that they're there or that they could have filmed it.

1:08:09because they have the same exact camera in their pocket. They're not going to film as good of a video because we are well-versed in using professional cameras, but it just becomes easier for us and it becomes more relatable to the audience. But then when you're scrolling and you see something super sharp and super well-produced and you know what I mean, you're going to think it's an ad. So you're kind of preconditioned now because you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. So true. That's what I think it is. That's why I think this shit on the phone for our ad specifically did way better is it's because your guard goes down.

1:08:43You don't feel like you're being sold something. And I'm not wearing like a fucking State Farm shirt right off the rip. So you're not like auto brand. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think the ads that I've watched from like, damn, that was a good ad, bro. Gox just did an ad on YouTube. This fool had to catch a bag on this dude. Did you see this? It was like posted yesterday. It was for Coinbase or something. And it does. Maybe you didn't see this. okay first of all it doesn't really feel like an ad for like 15 or 18 seconds and i'm like wow i bought another gox video man then it's just like credit card pops in i'm like yeah damn that was clean you got us bro you got us and that's a good feeling man like when i'm like when like when i find out it's an ad at the end of the video and i'm like oh they got me he's good dude all right yeah let me check out this company yeah you know it's as opposed to like when you start off like hey like here's this is presented by yeah yeah boring boo you know but i think yeah people especially like kids that grew up with tick tock yeah right like big i got 500 videos to scroll there i'm not gonna like every time an ad comes up you're like okay yeah next next goodbye next if it even looks like an ad next yeah next like yeah we're just conditioned to do that which is frustrating when you know you you spend so much time and and and um and energy into okay how do i make the most cinematic clean looking image because there always will be a place for that you know what i mean like you're not like you're not going to toss up a vertical black boxes video on on on a super bowl commercial yeah i mean unless you probably could but in some instances but like you know what i mean like like in cinema or like high production yeah uh commercial work that'll always be there yeah you know but it's when it comes to social it's a lot more what are what ends are you trying to achieve that's more important than the means that you take to get

1:10:28Lanre Ako:there there is there is a skill set though when it comes to filming with the phone i love when you do the voiceovers of you being like okay we're at the artist now we got the crowd now we're zooming out a little bit yeah and it's like dude i'm pretty sure i've seen you do where you're like at 4x or 8x of the artist and then you know the fireworks are coming out so then you fucking hit the 0.5x like yeah that takes skill it's it's fun to know ball man you gotta know ball yeah Yeah, exactly. Because you're like, okay, yeah, there's like a 0.5 second latency when you press the button. So like, you can't do it right on the drop, you got to do it right before the drop.

1:11:03So that like, it zooms out as the fireworks come up. And then like, then it looks, you know, as intentional as possible. Yeah, there's a little skill in that, you know, I mean, it's not just like point and shoot. Yeah, and you're good. And, you know, I think that's important for, for even people that are thinking about starting a video career, and they feel like they can't start or they have to wait until they save up the the five grand for fx3 in a lens it's like you can start learning skills with your phone like with the camera in your pocket now it's not going to make you good at using an fx3 but that'll come later yeah you'll already have like a certain at least like a base level of like okay the concepts there the concepts the the composition like when to shoot like like like you can work with different frame rates you can shoot and log and learn how to color grade i've seen i've seen a bunch of kids in college making videos of the game from the stands and they're great and they're on the phone like they're awesome very well composed like you got depth of field it's you know different shot selection and i'm like wow you you like you could do this one day like you know you're getting it with the phone so that's my my um i think i might know what exactly what which video you're talking was it the the colorado video yes yeah so the guy that made that is my intern now oh no way that's crazy so we did a i i'd seen that go like a little viral pretty much the the video was um the prompt or like the thing on the screen was when you don't have a media pass for the for the football game so you use your phone great and then he just made this crazy super convoluted edit all with his phone stuff and I was like yeah this is great like this is like what I've been preaching you know for like just use the camera that you have and you can make something really compelling and then we went to we went to Boulder to do a show with John like a big headline show and this kid Jack who made the video did a run club with us because like we filmed John doing a run club with the students and he was I guess in the run club and then he came up to me and was like hey dude like like you're one of my favorite creators like you know I'd love to work with you sometime all this stuff I was like yeah yeah great just like you know shoot me shoot me your Instagram all this stuff and then he goes is there any way I can get like a meaty pass for the show I was like, no.

1:13:14No, no. Like, one, the show's tomorrow. Two, like, I just met you. But then I go, but you're the guy that made that phone video of the football team, right? He was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, do that for us. Like, and I'll see what I can do for you in the future. And then not like the very, like, not even like well into the next day, like early the next morning, sends me over an edit that he did with his phone with the same prompt. like at john summit showed on the media pass all this stuff i was like this is really good and i sent him back like a round of notes of like okay yeah this hook should start here this should go blah blah instantly just just takes him and goes and goes and goes and goes i'm like okay yeah this kid's good and then i give it i send it to john john goes wow who is this this is this is really really good i was like all right all right this kid this kid has this kid has the sauce and so yeah and then I um and then I and I brought him onto the team um to kind of because he you know obviously has these ambitions of of being um you know in in the music space and and you know whatnot and you know I see him like he I want to give him opportunities that I didn't have when I was in in his position and I know that he has the skills at least like you know these base skills to to build on and and to grow and so yeah he's been he's been helping out a ton been bringing him to, you know, a bunch of big shows that like, you know, it's his first time being at this and that and, you know, showing him how to navigate these things.

1:14:41And, you know, just trying to try to help him out as much as I can. And he's been a great help for me too. And yeah, I think it just goes back to that using your phone can get your foot in the door in a lot of places. You know, you don't need necessarily to have, you shouldn't be like discouraged if you can't afford certain gear, right? Like use what you have, use that to build up your skill set. And then eventually the bigger cameras will come then you'll figure out what you want to do what how you want to go about it and then you'll have a you'll bring a different approach than the people who weren't using their phones before you know what i mean it's it's all it all i don't think there's a right or wrong way

1:15:16Lanre Ako:to go about it the gear not having a certain camera is no longer an excuse it just isn't like that excuse that that excuse went out the window probably five years ago yeah the cameras are just cameras don't need to get any better no we're good yeah they don't need to make you don't to buy them dude just whatever's out right now yeah i was saying this too i was like like they've gotten so like i feel like over the last 20 years we've tried to um like it was like a race to the top of like trying to get us as 4k as realistic as yeah 4k 8k yeah 12k all about now it's like yeah cameras have gotten so good that they look like real life and they just don't impress us make them shittier yeah no but like you know seriously like that's why that's why like when you see VHS footage.

1:16:01Yeah, I know. It feels nostalgic. It feels nostalgic. It feels like it has character. It feels like we're kids when we're not in the 90s, dude. Your moms or something filming you and shit. Yeah, exactly. So different. Exactly.

1:16:10Lanre Ako:Let me ask you this. Besides using your phone, going to a show with no media pass and DMing you, what advice do you have for someone listening to this who might want to get into music or get on tour? Because I used to get that question when i was on tour and my answer was work with local artists hit up openers but for the for the tour game i feel like it's so relationship based it is that it's kind of hard to give a a specific answer as to like do this and you'll get on tour and work with big artists Yeah, there is no like four-year curriculum program for getting into touring. Four-year plan. Yeah, no.

1:16:56Everyone that I know that has been touring for a significant amount of time, everyone has their own story. Everyone has like some way that they met somebody that knew somebody that was at the right place at the right time, all these things. So it is – I will say there's a lot of luck involved like in terms of getting to wherever you want to go in life or in your career. Like I got lucky a lot of times. But you can't just rely on luck because success, like you get success when luck meets preparation. Bang. You know what I mean? Like I got lucky that I had gotten hit up for the first Fisher job just because the stars had aligned.

1:17:34And I knew someone that was working on the team. And then like something happened with their old photographer. And then everything just had to line up perfectly. That was all luck. There was nothing I could do about that. That just happened. but because I was prepared to do it, I could take advantage of that opportunity. And so that's, so is it like, did I get lucky? Yeah, sure. But if I just got lucky and I wasn't good at like the job, then I would, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere. You know what I mean? So it is, yeah, luck is involved in certain things that are out of your control, but the things that are in your control are how much you work on your craft, how much you put yourself out there, how many people that you meet the relationship that you foster that will put you in a position to when you know when lightning does strike then you'll be ready to go you know what i mean that will set you up to be lucky in the in the future you know yeah you were prepared you got on base and they liked you and they're like dude this is a no-brainer like you have to you have to be prepared for when that opportunity has come because you shit the bed it's going to be very unlikely that you get another op like that again you know because like if i had gotten my first tour opportunity like i don't know like three years before i think about shit like that all the time like you get the you get the thing i'm like damn if this was a few years ago i wouldn't have been prepared for the moment would have been too big yeah i would have i wouldn't have been ready for it the lights would have been too bright would have folded yes i mean the even the fact that you have a company blows my mind how you've gone to this is insane dude it's crazy talk about luck dude okay i got i got one more for you okay last time we're here like you were in the middle of chasing the dream like you're on tour but you're smack dab in the middle of it now you're building the company you've came out of these crazy to this crazy tour life what do you know now that you could tell lanre back then that would help you kind of bridge this gap in the journey bridge the gap like like it could be it could be professionally it could be something that you wanted to tell yourself that maybe from like a bandwidth standpoint or a workload standpoint what's differently anything along those lines that you would like to leave yourself with back then as you continue on nothing that would change it nothing obviously hindsight's 20 20 yeah like if you could have a conversation a little convo a little lifeline if we were back at 505 yeah yeah um that's a good question i think nice you finally got one been a few pods since you've gone yo good good question i think because i mean at least at that at that point in my career i knew that i was i mean you guys know i was never home right i was sacrificing yeah you literally you didn't live there i like you know what i mean so but like and then i'm kind of watching life go by in a sense where like i'm so busy going on tour over and over again and like things are happening in my friend groups you know that i'm not there for you know what i mean i come back and i'm like oh you have a girlfriend oh like this like i've like i've missed weddings i've missed birthdays i've missed you know all these things and so i was struggling a lot with that um you know thinking okay yeah am i is this going to be like the rest of my life am i going to have to have this time commitment be boots on the ground forever in order to sustain a career in music and so i didn't know what was possible you know i mean now looking back um i can say okay look like you keep putting in the work yeah the sacrifice right now sucks but the payoff in the future you know to have agency over your um over your time because now i can it's more so like being beholden to um an artist schedule or or any kind of schedule to now being in a position where I can prioritize.

1:21:26I can just go do the shows that make sense for me to do. And then if I need to be home, if I need to go see my family, if I need to go do important things, I'm now in a position where I can have someone else that I trust fill in. So I'm not getting burnt out and I can have more of a well-rounded lifestyle. And back then, I genuinely didn't know if it was possible. I didn't know if you could be in music and have some semblance of a well-rounded lifestyle. Now I do. But it only came, I only have this luxury because of what I sacrificed back then. Because of how much I grinded back then. So it's like you kind of, you have to put your head down and grind so that you don't have to anymore.

1:22:09If that makes sense. That would 100 % make sense. That's why we're investing, dog. That's it. Come on. Shit.

1:22:17Lanre Ako:you've you've toured with two insanely massive djs you've worked with some other incredible artists as well i want to know you know there's certain shows that stand out where you're like oh this is a big show for like the artists and this was really quick capture one of my favorite moments just because i'm a fan of both of them was the moment you captured backstage with fisher and Martin Garrix. Oh, yeah. When I think Martin Garrix had on some sort of like... The shoes? Yeah, some shoes. And Fisher was blaming him. And it was so fucking funny. Oh, mate, what are those possum stompers? So I want to know, like, do you have a...

1:22:59Lanre Ako:And this is my last question for you, but do you have a favorite moment that is not show-related? A moment that you've captured of an artist that you're working with backstage, whether it was after a show, the in-between traveling like do you have a favorite moment that you've captured that has stuck with you i think there's there i mean and this is like a no i don't know if i would say this is the most because there's so many to choose from but the thing that popped up in my head just now um was um tomorrowland with john because i had done tomorrowland uh you know with fisher in the past. And he had done Tomorrowland, you know, several times, several years before that.

1:23:40So I understood how massive, you know, obviously a festival that is. It's one of the biggest festivals in the world. People who don't even listen to electronic music know what Tomorrowland is. You know what I mean? It's a very global stage. It's a very, everyone from around the world comes. It's huge. And it was his first time playing, it was John's first time playing the main stage. So it was like a very, very monumental moment for someone to play that stage, like the biggest stage at this huge festival. You know what I mean? And so, and I don't know if you saw this, but that year, last year, the main stage burnt down.

1:24:19Oh, it did. Yeah, it burnt down. And so that was before the first weekend. So on the first weekend, we played a different stage. It burnt down and they were able to salvage it and like create, you know, like a makeshift kind of stage. And then by the time Weekend 2 came around, they had built it out a little more. And so, but the main stage of Tomorrowland is a very, like you're up there, you know, it's not really intimate. You know, you can't really see the crowd. But then now we were like up close and personal to him. And so being able to see during his set, people's faces and people going, like actually seeing the emotions on their face.

1:24:55Oh my God, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, John being like, what the fuck? Like, because we've done so many big stages and all this stuff you know i mean so like we're not like you don't get as like um i guess starstruck by the moment but that was a moment where we're like we're like oh my god dude like look at this getting that crowd to like like jump up and down and dance to your to your music is you know a huge huge monumental feat and then after that just kind of being like oh my god that just happened i'm like whoa you know what i mean like obviously for his career but then like that felt like a monumental moment for my career too you know what i mean just like it just it just felt really special.

1:25:31And so, yeah, I'd say moments when you can capture your artists, I guess, biggest moments, like biggest kind of like, like things that separate, you know, like monumental points in their career that they'll always look back on. That's what I treasure the most.

1:25:47Lanre Ako:I remember when I was touring with Loud Luxury, they did their biggest headline show to date at Brooklyn Mirage. And it was during my birthday weekend. And I remember having a similar feeling because I had never seen a venue like that where like the screen wraps around, there's pyro in the middle of the crowd, which is crazy. I don't know if you've seen this. Crowd was huge. Like crowd was going nuts. And it was different than a festival. But I remember being like, whoa, whenever it's your birthday, you kind of look back on like the past year. So I had that reflection moment and seeing that it was their biggest show to date, not in terms of people, like they've done bigger festivals, but their own headline show.

1:26:32Lanre Ako:I remember being like, man, this is really cool. And like certain drops they would go and the crowd would go crazy. And they would turn back to me and be like, holy shit. I'm like, this is fucking crazy. So I relate to that. But yeah, not Tomorrowland. But I didn't know Tomorrowland was two weekends. Yeah, two weekends. Sick. Yeah. We'll do this as well. Unreal pod. Unreal pod. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been episode 209 with lon rey ako please hit the subscribe button drop us a comment leave us like we'll see you guys all next week peace good buddy old roommate lon rey can you believe it here dude i want to kick off my shoes because it's you know it's ppd time ppd time get comfortable i want to get comfy get locked in here you know what huh this is the after party yeah you know who's always at the after party tell me lon rey yeah oh filming brother is always at the He lives at the after party.

1:27:25That is his thing. I mean, Sketch Boy Hours was invented before we met him.

1:27:29Lanre Ako:But it's so funny. There was a few times where I woke up slightly earlier when we were living together and he would come home. Yeah, all the time. It's like, oh, I'm up at seven. He's like, oh, Launeray's just getting home. Launeray would tell stories of his time in Ibiza when he was touring with like Fisher and stuff. And they just they don't be sleeping much. These guys on the road, man. It's a brutal game. But this was a super fun episode. very full circle because obviously when we first met lanre he was in the hustle and bustle of tour life and now you know he's been in the game for damn near a decade i think at this point which is pretty crazy yeah it's funny because i i went to go to his youtube channel to see if he had any like recent youtube stuff because i know that he's crushing the instagram and he has his old recaps of shows that's funny and they're just the classic like 2015 2016 b-roll speed ramp stuff.

1:28:23Lanre Ako:What's also ironic and full circle about this is none of us had an agency when we lived together and we did the episode when we lived together and now we all do. Isn't that crazy? It seems like the wave. We're just building agencies, man. It was cool, though. I think my biggest takeaway from this pod, as well as many of the others that we've done, I think, is just how important relationships are. I think that there's no secret that everyone that we've had on the show is really talented. What's interesting about the relationships, we were literally talking about this on the car ride here, of how relationships is everything.

1:29:02Lanre Ako:There's so many talented people, especially here in LA. Everyone's talented. That building trust and building the relationships with people who can get you hired and the actual artists in his situation is so key. But you're right. Relationships is everything. And just the process for how you shoot whatever the thing is that you want to do really well. Yes. I think whether it's sports, concerts, commercials, every time that you do a shoot, I read this in a book one time and it really stuck with me. And we do this after all of our shoots. We write and we do this after every launch of the DCA. Anytime we sell something, it's like what went really well?

1:29:40What went poorly? How can we learn from it? And this document should always be getting bigger and more in depth and more detailed for the things you do so then you can teach someone else how to do it because it's really pointless if it all lives up in your head and you can't tell someone hey we're shooting an interview it should be a three light setup here are the lights we already have them here are the settings like don't mess this up and so then eventually you can start to pull yourself out of every single

1:30:03Lanre Ako:task it's funny because he was talking about how there's certain things that he felt as though he couldn't really teach it it's like no system it's like i shoot the show it's just my brain i can't copy and paste my brain or my taste that one in particular though for him and at least for when i was shooting sports like i don't know if you could teach it like i get what he's saying it's like there's a way in a body language that you have to be able to read when you're shooting someone like that or a high caliber athlete where if they get blown out by 30 they don't want to do a walk off tiktok sure you don't want to be like hey dude can we can just pull you for a second we just got blown out by 30, man.

1:30:45You know what I mean? And I think there's just something with like energy that you got to be able to read on how a person's feeling.

1:30:52Lanre Ako:Something I wanted to bring up during the episode, but I'll bring it up now. Danila Lewis, before I ever shot my first ever show for Loud Luxury, I've shared this story before earlier on. So if you've been listening to the pod for a while, you know about this but Danilo was the only person in the music space who I had any sort of like mutual connection to I remember this yeah and so I called him up and one of the pieces of advice he gave me because he gave me a lot of his time and I'm always super thankful for that but he goes we could sit on the phone for two hours and I could tell you every single thing that I've learned in the music space but at some point you just have to realize that it's it's a feel but you can't learn unless you do it totally and i learned that as well through my time touring is knowing when to have the camera out anticipating moments anticipating plays when you're shooting basketball understanding how to navigate the green room how to navigate the room with celebrities and family like shows your hometown shows are are different than you know shows when you're on the road at a festival or or uh there's so many different situations but it's such a feel and i remember when i shot edc i bumped into danilo and he was so calm and i was shitting my pants i was so fucking nervous he's like another day in the office yeah in my head i was thinking man like how is he so calm uh-huh he has like a drink in his hand camera in the other hand he's like walking with the artist i'm like dude this guy's the coolest guy ever um but it really is such a feel thing and similar to how building relationships takes time getting really good at the craft especially when it comes to music and sports i see a lot of similarities in shooting both um but yeah it just it takes a lot of time and trust is really the most important thing and that's what he brought up is you know there's one thing to be able to get a cool shot.

1:33:00Lanre Ako:But can I trust you if I send you out with an artist that not only are you going to get the content, but are you going to make me look good? And that's what comes with building an agency when you're not just a one man band show and just a tour videographer. Thousand percent. I also thought something that was interesting in terms of pricing, because we we teach a cohort, right, a few times a year where we teach videographers how to basically make an agency and price higher. Yeah. And something that doesn't really matter, regardless of the space, sports, concerts, whatever the heck the thing may be, you're limited by supply and demand.

1:33:33And what I mean by that is let's say, you know, you're in concerts and you're in a butt fuck town in middle of nowhere, right? Sure. If you go to the concert hall, you're going to be able to get what? 150 bucks for a show, 200 bucks, right? Okay. There's not a ton of demand there, right? As you get better, if you're in it for eight years, 10 years, five years, whatever, like you have years under your belt. You're really talented. You're super good at a specific thing. When you go and get a bigger opportunity, you have more leverage because the person is now wanting the thing that you have. They're like, I want that.

1:34:08Now the demand for it goes up. Now the supply is constrained because you're one singular person. The price can go up to, you know, to fix this whole situation. So when I was starting out, every time I get a new job, I would start out. I remember like 500 bucks or 300 bucks or whatever it was. And then I'd be like, okay, now it's 700 bucks. And now it's nine. Until someone told me, no, that's too high. And I was like, well, maybe they're wrong. Maybe another person would give me that. And then if they wouldn't, another time I'd be like, okay, maybe I need to adjust the rate. Because where I'm at right now, the demand, there's demand here.

1:34:40But the price is not working for me. So I need to lower my price a little bit. And maybe I'll start getting booked again, which would happen. And same thing goes for now, where we really don't have to compete on price for the most part. Like there might be a client where I'm like, they don't have as much money, but I really want to do this. We can lower our fee. but for the most part we can command a premium because we create really good work and there's a lot of people that are involved so think about that with whatever you're doing if you're like yo i'm not booked right now when i was in college i wasn't booked and i remember someone was like i'll pay you 500 bucks to do this and in my head i was like my rate is now 8 50 or whatever and i said no like i was like i'm not gonna do it and i remember calling my cousin jeff and he's like that's stupidest thing ever you you're not rich like that you should do the 500 job and i'm like, you're so right.

1:35:25That's so dumb. Called him back. So I was sorry. They're down. I was like, you know what? Some shit opened up. Nothing opened up. Did the video. It was great. And I learned

1:35:32Lanre Ako:something, but just had a cancellation, a huge cancellation. And now the price is not 750. It's 500 bucks. And I'd love to do it. Actually, I'd love to do it. But it's a great example, though, wherever you're at in the game, in your business. It's like looking at, you know, how booked are you? Do you need a little bit of bread for rent? Or are you fine? Are you have you been booked for 15k this month and you don't need anything else then the price can go up you're like it's double because i'm booked it doesn't matter like i i think that that is very important there's not going to be a one size fits all for rate and nor will you find it online someone's like oh what's your rate like and you're building out packages for companies it's going to change every single time yeah you know i also think going back to the trust thing i think trust is also a huge component that allows you to charge more in whatever industry you're in agreed i remember seeing a video randomly of this guy he was in the maldives i forget what hotel he was at but he was explaining he goes do you know why i get called back every single year to come shoot this hotel in the maldives he goes there's so many people that would jump at the opportunity to shoot this me fucking included um but he's able to he said i'm able to charge a certain amount and they're bringing me back for the seventh year because they trust me that i can get the job done and i'm a pleasure to work with and in a industry like music where you're spending so much time with the artist i was seeing joe and andrew more than i was seeing my family yeah because i was on the road with them so much you want to be homies with the peeps exactly yeah so specifically in the music industry trust is so important because the artist has to trust that um they can artist has to trust you that you can get the shot they also trust that you're going to be in the lobby to make it to the flight on time and they trust that you're not going to act like a stupid fuck when a celebrity comes in the room and you can act calm cool and collected so there's so much there's so much importance on trust and it's this weird thing that you can't really measure you just you get the opportunity by getting really good at your job at shooting the content at first you get the bigger opportunities and then you build trust by executing when you do get those bigger opportunities um and lanre what's cool is he's now in a position where he so badly wanted the opportunity before he was on tour with fisher and he's like i just need someone to to trust me enough to come shoot one show if i can shoot one show i'm gonna crush it and you'll probably want me on tour um and so now that he has the agency he's able to put on younger artists i love the story that he told about the kid the yeah the colorado iphone the iphone colorado kid he said yeah that's a beast can i get a media credential yeah absolutely not man get in the back of the bus um but yeah that's it's awesome it's really cool too because that's something that you don't really realize when you start a company like that you don't go in thinking like oh i'm going to create these opportunities and because of the connections that he's built you get to put people on and give them opportunities that you probably couldn't have when you were first starting out you know but there's so much like young really good talent out there it's also cool that he's built an agency because the music industry is such a grind and most people are just freelancing and then they get burnt out and then they pivot or there's just certain photographers or videographers who they just love it so much and that's their life and they are freelancing and they're making you know a decent six-figure income a year but you're still so on like the hamster wheel it's really cool that he's thought bigger and he said that john john summit was really supportive.

1:39:46Lanre Ako:It's cool. Which is rare. Yeah, I can't think I can't. It's cool that John he said that John even brought up the idea. He was like, I, I see myself in you. I could I knew that this was going to come and he was supportive in that, especially because John seems rad. He seems really cool. But yeah, especially when when trust is so big, it's it's Lon Ray saying, trust me enough to bring somebody else on that's going to help us keep this vision intact and execute to the level that you want but it is really it's really awesome that lanre has gotten to the point where he has taken himself he's removed himself from like the day-to-day week-to-week grind of what the music scene really is and especially there's different levels to touring just like there's different levels to shooting sports djs is a different ball game i mean you're shooting so many shows and they're so late like if you go on tour with a country artist completely different ball game because the show's over at 11 that seems like a vibe you know versus that seems like the vibe the show starts at 11 with the djs yeah yeah this is a fun one this is like very very full circle I hope you guys are liking the creators back in the game dude we're back in the pit man we're back in the pit we're in the pit, we're in front of house what else have you been working on?

1:41:14couple commercials we shot a really cool thing we rented an Alexa Mini it's fun, thing's heavy as shit dude this is actually crazy, I'm gonna put you guys on this isn't even paid, this isn't a paid ad I rented this thing called the Mantis straps onto an easy rig okay okay it's like an elastic thing it's basically like you're paying for this like thing that attaches to the easy rig and it's like this elastic cable this thing saved my back

1:41:40Lanre Ako:and more so than just a regular easy rig the easy rig genuinely doesn't really do shit if the camera's super like it's not meant for like it's good for the fx6 once it gets heavier than that how much heavier was the alexa mini to the fx6 the alexa mini was probably like 35 pounds 40 pounds once it was rigged out with the glass and stuff. And the FX6 is maybe like 12 when it's all set and down. Maybe 15 with the monitor like max. The FX6 body is like very light. And you haven't been that consistent in the gym. So the Alexa Mini was probably a little bit. It was a little heavy for me. Yeah, I was trying to like, you know, move around.

1:42:19Lanre Ako:Dude, it's fucking heavy. You know how you know a camera is heavy? When you go to do heel-toe and you're kind of like bouncing into your second foot, You're like, yo, there's a lot of weight around me right now. But it was great. It was honestly a really cool. But this thing saved you. Yeah, this thing saved my life. What's it called? It's called Mantis. Okay. It's cool. I think this company called Blackbird. But it was great. Really cool. That was really fun. We rented some sick glass. I rented Cook Pancro's. Oh, my God. The lenses? Oh, my God. They're so sick. Yeah, they're like just gorgeous.

1:42:55They're from like, I think the 60s, the 70s. So they're super old school and they rehoused them to make them easier to use. And just such a difference in the fall off. See, when I'm looking at like Sony's, for example, and I like Sony, but it's digital looking. That shit looks digital, right? This shit looks like a movie. And it's the difference, I think, in the bokeh like on your iPhone. It's like that fake bokeh. Sony looks obviously better than that, but it's similar. It's like still has like a digitally look. and then the Boca Fall-Off's a little different. It's not as like kind of dreamy.

1:43:30I don't know. I don't really know how to explain it. It just looks different. Yeah, until you look at it and you can tell, oh, like that's what's going on. Even when I was at Cinegear this last weekend, there was a Chinese company that I can't remember the name of, but they had basically figured out, there was this one movie with Emma Stone this last year where she was like a Frankenstein kind of thing. Do you know which one movie I'm talking about? And this lens was like a swirl behind her. Sure. Do you know what I'm talking about? I think so, yeah. Maybe you guys will know what I'm talking about, but basically the bokeh makes like a circle around.

1:43:57Yes, I've seen that. Okay, you've seen that. This Chinese company at Cinegear had made a lens that did the same shit.

1:44:04Lanre Ako:I was always wondering how they achieved that effect if it was in post. No, bro. It's like in the mechanical engineering of how they make the lens. Well, anyways, these guys had reverse engineered it, figured out how to do it. The lenses weren't crazy expensive either. They're like$2 ,500. I wish I knew the name of the brand. But they were showing them to me. And I'm like, damn, bro. this like i see the differences now of these lenses that have character they had like we were even checking out super even older glass uh that it just it looks different like yes the older the lens it not as sharp it's a little more character in it comparatively to like a g master where you want to like tack sharp it's different you know so that was fun and just a really great crew that we had on that i'm really excited we're like deep in the edit right now should be done with it like in a week and a half.

1:44:51Lanre Ako:You could get into voice acting. You think so? You had a little voiceover on there? That was just a placeholder, man. That's not going to be the real VO. No, but it sounded good. I appreciate it. What did you record that on? Phone. iPhone, wow. Yeah, no Adobe podcast because Adobe, can we talk about that? We got to talk about this, you guys. This is bullshit. Adobe been training off our voices and shit and then say paywall. It should be included with Premiere, bro. A thousand percent. Adobe is on some fucked up shit. So Adobe Premiere, in Premiere, you can enhance or auto enhance the audio. It's not nearly as good for whatever reason as Adobe Podcast.

1:45:33Lanre Ako:Adobe Podcast, up until maybe a few weeks ago, you could have full control over it. Now they're charging you for it. You have like the default mode, which still sounds good. Adobe pisses me off. What the? I'll tell you what. What's going on, man? Listen, listen. So I went out, I was just on a shoot. We were on a little Venmo shoot in Washington, DC. And one of my editors, shooter that we work with all the time, he's like, yo, I think you need to switch to DaVinci. And I bought DaVinci to color something like last year. I'm heavily debating it because I think the subscription shit is bullshit. I think the monthly thing is a bunch of shit.

1:46:10Like I think that's whack. And I think that it should be three or 500. I get the model. Sure. I get the model. but i think as subscriptions on every single thing just keep adding up it makes me less and less want subscriptions especially now that we're paying for like seats so you got other people that are sure i don't like that i would way rather have like you buy the thing and it's done and i also think that they really haven't updated it a ton it's kind of bothering me i think that he showed me his workflow in davinci and i was like this is not hard i also like really the only thing that makes me not want to switch is the speed and i'm just being a little bitch because i know that it probably will take like a week and then i'll have it down you can also switch the keyboard on da vinci to premiere so i would do that but i'm like heavily heavily debating switching over and you guys let me know in the comments what your thoughts are but everyone that i talked to that has switched

1:47:03Lanre Ako:has really liked it um i've i've messed i have da vinci i bought it the reason i bought it is because they have an incredible denoiser built in and i was using the a1 to shoot a music video i remember this and i thought that the dual native iso on the a1 was 12 8 it's not but it's actually 4 000 it's great so i shot everything at 12 8 because it was at night and it was so grainy damn but it helped a lot and it helped like it saved it to the point where like the client didn't even say anything which is insane but it somehow it interprets the color or the actual image different like you just can get you can get a better different look off of or in da vinci than premiere i don't know i don't know enough about color yeah to be able to to talk about the science yeah but i'm switching over i think you've decided yeah it's gonna take you a little longer i'm not gonna do i'm not gonna do it until i have like a week of nothing sure because i need to just be so you're never doing so i'm never doing it but i'm gonna do it when's the last time you had a week of nothing never but in between a job starting i'm going to sit down for like probably 72 he he told me it just took him one video i trust him because that's how premiere i vividly remember going from final cut to premiere wish i would have stuck with final cut to be honest and not paid and just called it off into the sunset because final cut's easy easy to learn bro this is this is this is my experience with da vinci there's been a few times where i've used da vinci and then by the end of the video i get it oh okay and then i don't open up da vinci for another while and then so then i'm like fuck i forgot yeah but i think that if i was just to make the jump you would just understand exactly how da vinci works um but speaking about camera stuff tell me do i try to once this weekend again you you what i try to venice this weekend oh my god it's so sick well this is interesting that you brought up a venice because it's sony and once again you did not get the invite to sony kando but your boy's back your boy got the invite to sony kando after being away didn't get the invite last year they realized they were missing something i heard it was i heard sony candle was so bad last year and they they came together and they said what was missing what was missing yeah they said definitely not brayden but costis is the reason what i think happened is it's like a b team situation so i feel like they've already sent out emails and then they're like oh it was the a team they're like b team can come back a plus team costi's allowed to come back and weird because i think the thing is I'm not so I'm not like a content creator they think of me as like a cine guy so that's why I feel like you're making commercials I'm making commercials and shit so I'm like I when I went I talked to the Venice sales guy I go yo how do I gotta kiss ass to to get a kando and he kind of looked down on me like oh you want to go to you want to go to kando it's like for the content creator guys and I was like no no man I want to buy a Venice so like am I in the right place if I'm not mistaken he shook my hand if I'm not mistaken if I'm not mistaken the reason you went to cine gear was to try to make content in exchange for product for these film companies i'm not i'm not a i'm not a content creator all right what do you consider yourself something dude something but i i i asked him about whose ass do i actually have to kiss i said that and he laughed he's like this is cinema stuff man we're talking about the venice too okay he's a candle guys that's the alpha team over there and i was like okay i'll go talk to them and the booth was busy, dude.

1:50:53But what I was going to say about this Sony Venice, it was crazy. They have a connector now that they built that converts it to 65 millimeter. You should see this, dude, the sensor is the size of a bus. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen. It's crazy. But they also had this really cool thing. This is not new. It's called the Rialto. And it's basically like an extension of the Venice sensor.

1:51:13Lanre Ako:Yeah, Jordan was telling us about this. Yes, he had the Rialto. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, imagine I have an FX3 size little deal, right? They had a motion crane thing. And it was just going around this dartboard. It was going like this around the mic. Like, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. Crazy shit. So they had a whole setup so you could see the cameras in action. They got good shit. Dude, Sony had a great booth. Okay, let me tell you. Let me kiss a little ass for Sony real quick. They had like a Western-themed booth, which they did last year. Same shit as last year. But it was still cool. And then they have their whole lineup of cameras around it.

1:51:44So then you can go up to FX3. And compare. FX3, FX6, Verano, Venice, Venice 2, and just kind of check them out.

1:51:51Lanre Ako:and is the venice or venice 2 it's nicer than the burano correct the brano is like 30 grand the venice 2 is like 100 i don't know really why they made the burano i guess like the in between from a six or an fx9 to a venice 2 it's like kind of you're getting into it you're spending a shit ton of money i don't think it's that much different than fx6 speaking of kando huh because not getting the invite yeah it's a bummer that you're not there but do you think that they're finally going to release the fx3 mark ii if they're smart if they're intelligent they will i think that that camera seems dope i don't need it but it seems dope and the mark ii yeah yeah yeah like i i genuinely with all my heart think that all the cameras that are out right this second unless you're trying to shoot a movie they'll never you never need to buy something that is different like if you have a c70 level of camera fx3 level of camera whatever that's all you need yeah you don't need anything better like genuinely you do not need anything better even it's funny because i was talking to a colorist friend and we were saying that like ton of the stuff right now that this person's getting a shot on like the sony lines or like a c70 or c80 whatever he's like obviously he loves the nicer kodak or whatever but he's like it's just what shit's being shot on right now and it's easier faster less space i mean shit that was one thing that was talking to sony guy about i was like dude it's like it actually doesn't create the craziest biggest file size which is pretty cool but i'm like if you get this camera it's not just oh i spent a hundred thousand bucks on the camera it's now it's the the cards that are the okay two grand on the cards oh great and then an extra because they're gonna break probably in a couple years they're gonna break you need to have a back up sure it's like you're just spending you just get up the lat oh you want to buy a cage it's two thousand dollars for the cage yeah it's like every little thing is just knocked up what i've realized about owning a production company is like the camera shit's like the wedding game bro it's all inflated like all of it these stands and shit shouldn't be a thousand bucks but at the same time they last you like forever i think if you if you go to the the rental house those stands have been there forever they look like they're fossils but they still work great and i think that that is the other thing about the film equipment shit it's very expensive but for the most part that stuff shouldn't break the camera shit breaks all the time cord dude i just had a cord break the other day 200 cord just i have used it twice did i just rip ass in the pod leaving it in dude dude braden's something's going on brain stomach dude you brought up tell me the wedding game okay and i'm an open book here okay you know you guys know i'm getting married yeah i'm engaged was originally going to be getting married in north carolina okay can't do that anymore we met with the wedding planner okay i think we had like a ballpark of what we thought this venue was going to cost okay it was going to be way more so we're pivoting and i think boom rocks i think we're going to get married in italy oh we haven't locked in a new venue but it's much cheaper to go abroad which is really cool and that was always like my dream um but for whatever reason we we decided to keep it here because we thought it would be easier for people to get to the wedding in north carolina versus somewhere in Europe.

1:55:25Lanre Ako:But we're pivoting, and I think we're going to go abroad, which is exciting. We still have to plan the bachelor party. We do. Where are we going to go for that? I don't know. I think maybe... We're like Joshua Tree. Yeah, Joshua Tree. I think maybe somewhere tropical. I think it would be really cool to maybe go to Costa Rica. Costa Rica would be fun. or Cabo or El Salvador or something like that, where you get like a sick villa. It's not that expensive. And there's a lot of fun activities that we can do. ATVing, surfing, that kind of stuff. But speaking of Mexico, I'm really excited because this week I got confirmation on two hotels for a coastal shoot, which will be super cool.

1:56:15And what I want to say about that is first shoots out of the US, which would be really sick. Pretty dope.

1:56:24Lanre Ako:We're international with it. And LinkedIn, underrated. I wasn't on LinkedIn for so long. And now I started connecting with marketing managers on LinkedIn. I'm telling you guys, if you're not using LinkedIn, it's the move. You've been preaching it forever. Dude, you know what's crazy? you don't got to be big no you don't need a lot like you don't need a lot bro i had a video the other day get like 30 likes someone dm me off it that's all you need like you don't need a thousand like everyone's oh you need tens of thousands on instagram like bro that's the place also everyone's content linkedin for the most part sucks sure you're going up the bar is on the ground so if you have any sort of creative ability you're you wow the feed yeah because it's everyone's just doing text it's also all written by ai it's all dog shit content so it's like one person actually saying real things that are helpful for a space it's like ah this is i like this i'm gonna chat with them like way easier yeah you know it's been good i need to be more active on there i feel like i'm not active enough but it's tough because it's tough to do 64 things it's tough to do 64 things Because I also, I have found that content performs so much better if it has some piece of value.

1:57:43Lanre Ako:No, some piece of like a photo or a video to go along with it. On LinkedIn. On LinkedIn. Agreed, agreed. So you can do the written stuff. If you're a good writer, I'm also like, I'm not the writer guy. Yeah. I write how I talk. It's not good. But I think the play for LinkedIn is you don't need to stay crazy consistent on it. But anytime. I think a couple posts a week. Anytime. Yeah. Once a week. Anytime you shoot something new, post it. You can post the, you know, the final spot and maybe some BTS. Share your thoughts about the shoot, whatever you did. And just start connecting with the people that can get you hired, whether it's the marketing managers or producers or DPs or agency owners.

1:58:26Lanre Ako:The people who you want to network with and connect with, they're on LinkedIn. I know that's all I have to say this has been another epic episode of the 505 pod 209 wow unbelievable we're getting up there anything else to add DM us some creators who you want us to have on the show we got some cool stuff coming up we're running it back with a lot of with a lot of creators OG505 it's been it's been like three plus years since we've had some of these creators on and the thing with the podcast is you're constantly wanting to get new guests but some of the guests you guys love and it's been enough time where it makes sense to have them on again.

1:59:14Danny Gevertz is locked in for Thursday on Friday. Zachary Guy. He's on YouTube. DP. You guys know him. He's awesome. We also got dom the dp had like nfl films sick crazy cinematographer shot all the nba finals super bowls like elite oh dude what i didn't even we didn't talk about this another thing you didn't get an invite to i went to press publish la calling and samir i kind of got an invite

1:59:42Lanre Ako:it was a charity oh yeah yeah i was working i was working you guys this is so i was working man do i just try to get you a plus one to everything dude brayden had a shoot i had a shoot i had a big shoot i had to lock in yeah man i had to lock in but i gotta tell you guys this story though before we go okay listen to this book this location in hollywood hills okay oh yeah yeah yeah this is actually insane the hill after we booked the location the guy who's the the director dude who's organizing the house he goes by the way i got this sociopathic neighbor who tows cars and i oh this is the day before so it's not like we're gonna find a new spot yeah I debated on like disputing it on my credit card and then saying like, unless you guys refund me type thing.

2:00:32But I was like, we won't have this. Like the house is perfect. So I'm like, this, you've really fucked us. But I called him. I was like, you got to understand that if you have a crew this large, you can't rent the house. If this was a photo shoot, it's like five people. Like, sure. There's 20 something people. Like, what are we doing?

2:00:53Lanre Ako:it like what what what was like going did anyone get their car towed no because we were we parked what we did we parked at my house and had a pa shuttle everybody oh that's smart because we live like we live close to the hills like we're not very far away so it's still like five minute like five minute drive so it wasn't a problem but bro i'm like come on like this is unbelievable i'm about dude i'm about if we book a house anywhere like that i'm gonna knock on the neighbor's doors you know this guy this guy cool what's the vibe around like i'm not soliciting yeah dude i mean just unreal but she went really well so sick you want to while we're just bullshitting you want to hear a crazy neighbor story did i ever tell you about this no growing up or this is like growing up i was walking home okay from the third street promenade because i lived right up the street okay i was walking home from a movie we watched bridesmaids i was daytime nighttime nighttime i was with two of my buddies we were walking never seen more cop cars outside of a house business anything i'm talking like news walk by i go what's go what's going on here they go oh they just caught whitey bulger he's top 10 fbi most wanted he's been living here for like a year and a half no one block no down from my house i grew up what did this guy do though was it like a murder or like fraud?

2:02:19Lanre Ako:Do you know the movie the Johnny Depp movie Black Something? Oh let me find it I'm blanking on the name Black Something Let me see

2:02:40Black Mass?

2:02:41Lanre Ako:Yes. Have you ever seen that? No. Anyways, Johnny Depp plays that character. But this guy was living for over a year. Oh, he's a mobster. Yeah. James Whitey Bulger. Yeah. Oh, wow. He's a mobster. That guy was a block away from you. A block away. Dude, that guy was slinging drugs a block from you guys. Oh, yeah. Killing people. Yeah, for sure. They were people tied up in the basement. Anyways, fun story. That's insane. Well, this has been an insane pod. Love you guys tons. We'll see you guys all next week. Banger episodes in the chamber. Get ready. Let's lock in. See you guys all next week. Peace.