#74 - Nicholas Bluff - The Creator of BLUFF BOUNCE & how curiosity shaped his career and business.

0:00Nicholas Bluff:Nicholas, welcome to the Creative Gap podcast. It's good to have you. Thanks, man. It's a pleasure to be here. So when I was doing a little bit of research into you and kind of diving into your background, I think one of the things that really stuck out to me was how you got started through parkour. I think that's a really interesting kind of starting point. I'd love to kind of hear about your background and especially how parkour kind of lend itself into that. Yeah. Did you watch any of the videos? I didn't. No, I didn't. I'd actually love for you to send those to me if you can. Yeah, yeah. No, they're still on YouTube if you dig down the rabbit hole.

0:40No, when I was, I think I was like 12 or 13, I saw this video on the internet somewhere where, like, suddenly it's these guys jumping from from roof to roof doing backflips or backflips of walls and I was like wow I want to be able to do that that is like superhero movie kind of stuff you know I've never seen anything like it and suddenly seeing someone doing something like that I was like wow I want to I want to be able to do that so yeah I started training with my friends and we started to jump off things and it kind of just moved on from there. I got to meet a lot of super cool people. So yeah, every day after school I would go out with friends and I would also meet a lot of super cool guys from the whole community.

1:39It was still super underground at that time, so it was like you had to kind of explain people what you were doing, while you were jumping on these walls and people would kick you out from places and but yeah it was super cool and then we started to do videos it was like the super early days of youtube and video google and we would do like small samplers and edit together with some music and that would kind of be the style showing the the tricks and the moves and that got me more interested into cameras and what was possible and I would edit it and I would start to notice there was some sort of you could create some sort of feeling together with the what you had filmed and the move and the music and I think that led me on to like oh how could I move the camera different so I would build these small sliders I was trying at some point to build a like a glide cam it didn't work but I just couldn't balance it you know it was like this weird metal structure but um yeah so I think that led me even more into the idea of film and then it was one day I shot um a short film with a friend who was in this small kind of film course film school thing and he was like ah what do you want to come and shoot my short film because I had some camera gear I had like a something like a canon 550d um and we did this short film and it was like wow I really enjoy this you know I was trying to make it look like a movie and it it worked you know I was like like, wow, it looks like a movie.

3:35Maybe this is something to dive more into.

3:40Nicholas Bluff:And you had no prior interest in film or movies or videos at all growing up. This was sort of a new passion that you developed? I think I grew up in a very creative family. I had an uncle who was a film director, another uncle who worked in post-production. So there was always this awareness that this industry exists, you know. And I grew up right in front of a film studio as well. Like right on the other side of the road was a film studio. So sometimes they would be shooting stuff on our street and I would watch from our windows. Like, oh, what's going on? What is all this gear? But I think I was more interested in the whole behind the scenes stuff.

4:28like what is going on behind it how did they make this how did they build all these things yeah and I think that took more of my interest in the actual movies themselves but then I also after I got more into doing this short film it I started to watch a lot of movies like I would watch so many movies and sometimes two movies a day and had another friend who was also becoming this movie nerd and we would just watch a lot of movies um and then um yeah then i think it was my my mom's cousin who was like ah if you want to be a cinematographer you should learn about light like a friend of mine told you how you should learn about lies like oh okay interesting it's like ah i know i have a friend who's who's a gaffer like i'll talk to him maybe you can come out with him and then I think like a week later or something in this big commercial shoot in Copenhagen knowing nothing about anything and like go and get this stand from the van I was like okay and I'll go I would come back with a super heavy stand and like it's not that one it's another one okay then go back get another one and then at that time I was like 17 so i started super super early and then from there i started working in the in the lighting department while also helping out on loads of short films and

6:02and doing more short films with the same friend as well so i think that's kind of how it all started in the in the lighting department to get more

6:15Nicholas Bluff:towards a professional from from copenhagen what is the what is the environment like there like the film community because i know that you also you moved to brazil and you currently live in brazil now right yeah yeah so what was i guess starting out in copenhagen what is that sort of environment like and what made you sort of want to move to brazil um i think the film industry in Copenhagen is much smaller it's smaller yeah the crews are smaller everything is very reduced um so you kind of learn to make films with very few resources like the light setups are very small you use a lot of available light um I think it also has its roots in the whole dogma wave of these movies that were made very authentically you know like very few light sources let's try and go with what's available and so I kind of learned to make films like that I worked with a few DPs who were really into that as well and and I really like movies that are more authentic and organic that doesn't feel like there's someone put a big lamp you know from the side and I really that's like what I'm inspired by and drawn more towards um and um

7:41then yeah I think it was after like two or three years working in Copenhagen it was hard for me to get in to the industry because I was so young and since the crews were so small they would only take like they wouldn't really take the young guy who didn't know so much yet um but then i went with a a guy called stola um he did another round which won an oscar a few years ago he was doing his first feature film in in germany and there i met a gaffer who then brought me on to some projects he's called Thorsten Koselig he did Bardo now he did the White Lotus now he's doing like super big stuff and he would really take me under his wing and that was like a period where I learned so much about light like it was really intense but him and his crew they were like super caring to like hey let's sit and then let's look at the lenses for the lamps like this one does this this one does that let's try and test it you know so it's a really good education for you no super it was amazing and i think it was also where i realized that light is kind of like a language because in the beginning i i couldn't understand what was the difference between like a quarter diffusion or half diffusion i just couldn't see it and like what is happening when we put the flag here is like it's making a shadow but like i couldn't i didn't get it and then it was during that time in in Germany it's like ah now I get it you know it's like now I can see what is happening why are they putting a floppy on the side it's making a shadow it's making a negative and I think that was like a really great moment for me and I think that also led me to decide after that time in Germany when I came back to to Denmark it's like oh maybe I should move on to maybe work in the camera department because now I was able to be on a set and see what's going on from a light perspective without having to deal with the equipment.

9:52So after that, I went on to be a clapper loader and also doing a bit of focus pulling on some projects. And I think I was doing that for two or three years. And then I decided to go all in as a DP because I was starting to get small jobs and I thought let's let's try it

10:14Nicholas Bluff:do you think it's a do you think it's essential maybe for DPs or people that want to become DPs to get experience working as an AC or working in the G &E department do you think that's like an essential part of that sort of growth or do you think it kind of depends I think there are many journeys to become a DP but I think why wouldn't you learn from people who have done this for many years you know like I think you learn so much you know and you see how one DP does moonlight in one way another in a third way so you see how there are different ways of of doing things and and you can ask them questions you know you can I guess in Denmark there's very little hierarchy you know there's people who were chill there's not this like don't talk to the big boss or you know it's um i think it's a great place to start growing because the ladder is all also seems shorter i think it's easier to get to higher positions and kind of get permission to do to do more but I think it's essential to learn about light as DP yeah if you can learn about that without being on set that's awesome if you can learn it on set it's even better I think because I think you save a lot of time by knowing exactly what the equipment is doing rather than having to tell a gaffer like ah I want it more like on this photo you know it's like no let's bring the flag over here let's cut the light here and let's put a gel you know i think it's it's more efficient in a way it was the hardest thing for me to learn when i was starting as a dp was just grasping the basic understanding of lighting in general i could never i for for a while i would practice at home and i had like maybe two of my own lights two or three of my own little lights and i would just keep practicing and nothing was looking like how I wanted it to.

12:21Nicholas Bluff:And it just never, nothing was working. And then one day I tried something and it looked, it was like, oh, this is the closest thing that I think I've ever made to something that I see in like the movies or on a commercial or whatever. And if, for me, it was just consistent repetition practice, like just nonstop practicing. And eventually I finally got to a point where I started to understand why it was starting to look the way that I wanted it to so for me it was big about practicing and just failing non-stop no I think you can learn it that way too I just think it I think it helps a lot if you like you learn because there's so much gear right there's so many pieces of things and filters and grids and like what is all this doing you know it's and I'm still learning you know I think every shoot is like different and the house is weird or like there's no space to light it and it's like how are we gonna do this you know it's but I also think that's the fun part you know to yes it is every time it's different you know it's like how are we gonna light this can we rake stuff in the ceiling or can we light it from outside can we um yeah I think it's that's the awesome part of the job as well is that it's so different on every location.

13:44Nicholas Bluff:So why Brazil? What made you move to Brazil? My wife is Brazilian. And yeah, we married in Denmark and we lived there for five years together. And the Danish immigration system is a bit complicated. It's very expensive. It has made us a bit tired of the whole situation even though it worked out and then we were doing a trip to to Brazil and we she's from the north and we made a trip to Sao Paulo which is more in the south and which is where the whole film industry kind of is and we were there for like three days and I was like, ah, this is a different Brazil than where she is from. And I was like, oh, maybe I could live here.

14:39It's a very big city, Sao Paulo. It's like 20 million people living here. There's a lot of stuff going on. And I started to research production companies and the different directors. And I was like, wow, it's a huge industry here. so i think with that i was like ah maybe we should try and move to brazil maybe it's possible to work there as well and to do maybe bigger things that i was doing in denmark so half a year after that we've sold everything and came here with seven suitcases and a surfboard

15:19Nicholas Bluff:wow amazing yeah what is so moving there during that sort of six-month transition was there anything that you did to kind of prepare you work-wise were you kind of maybe reaching out to people at all or did you just kind of move and then hope to figure it out when you got there i yeah i started to reach out to people but it was like ah you need to you need to be there and even like trying to find apartments they're like but you can find an apartment in two weeks like because if it was Denmark it's like no you need to find your apartment three months before or like jobs also planned like way way more time in advance um and here in Brazil it's like oh can you shoot next week end of next week we gotta shoot can you do it okay let's go and then everything is much more um condensed it's a little bit faster yeah um so we arrived here we didn't have a place to to stay we stayed with a friend and and we found an apartment after one week or two weeks um and And then COVID came after three months.

16:34Oh, man. Yeah. I managed to get two jobs or one and a half jobs. I was writing everyone, like email, Instagram, WhatsApp.

16:45Nicholas Bluff:Everything. Yeah. Like just really, because there was like no way back, you know what I mean? We could always move back if it didn't work, but it was kind of a one-way take. Was the language of Bari at all? Did you know Brazil or did you know, was it Portuguese? yeah portuguese no did you know portuguese no not much i've done a few classes but i didn't know much besides hey how are you um right um but there are a lot of directors here who speaks english too and the producers and so i did manage to communicate um some crew as well who speaks english so so that really really helped but i was also doing classes for like four years to be able to speak the language, which I speak now.

17:31Yeah. What is your, is your wife in the industry? No, she works for Siemens, like tragic management. So it's completely different. Yeah.

17:40Nicholas Bluff:Yeah. Do you like the, are you enjoying this sort of culture of Brazilian filmmaking? How does it compare between, you know, Denmark and where you are now? A good question. I think I was very surprised how well it worked. I think the Brazilian crews are some of the best in the world I've worked with because they're super talented and they're super creative. Brazilian grips, they will invent stuff for you in order to move the camera. And it's been so amazing working here and I'm really enjoying it. on top of that people are super nice super friendly um there's a lot of flexibility regarding changes which i think is can be tough but also like changes in the day or changes in the overall project what do you uh what do you mean changes

18:42uh good uh it's like

18:48how can you say it like if you want to change lenses the day before it's there's no problem you know gotcha yeah and it's because they're so used to like ah the agency wants to change the house the day before two days before and so there's a lot of this flexibility where if you made like i don't know made a mistake or made a bad choice and you regret you just like you can change it without it being a huge problem. So there's a lot of flexibility in that sense. But yeah, no, it's really awesome to work here and like you also work with much bigger crews than in Denmark. So it also makes you able to do more and bigger setups.

19:31And I also had to learn here to be able to control the light more. I think that was one of the first main things that was It was like really different. It was like a guy who told me, he's called Valerio, who he was like, ah, you need to, we need to control the light. You cannot depend on the daylight coming in through the windows. Like let's close the whole thing off and make our own light. And that's also because it's super long days here. It's a lot of like 16 hour days, 14 hour days.

20:00Nicholas Bluff:It's like long, long shoot days or long days where the sun is out. Shoot days. Shoot days. The sun mostly goes down. Yeah. sometimes more as well so is that is that normal like that's the normal sort of in brazil it's pretty common yeah okay wow they aim for 12 but often it goes over and they want to try and cramp in two days and in one wow um yeah i think that's the part i don't like about shooting here is the super long days because at some point you you lose your creative thinking and you just become Right. I was going to ask that too, because I feel like sometimes even after, because in America, you know, we, we try to shoot 10 hours, but it usually goes to 12, sometimes more.

20:45Nicholas Bluff:And it's, it's easy to, you know, once you get to 10 hours, 12 hours, your mind starts to get a little foggy. And especially as a DP where you have to sort of lead people, there could be, you know, people are tired. People don't want to do anything anymore. And I'm kind of curious at like, you know, know, 13, 14, 15, 16 hours, how do you sort of manage the expectations of everybody working and, you know, people being tired and still wanting to deliver something that's really good?

21:19I don't think you can deliver something that is really good after 16 hours. I don't think you can. And I don't understand why we keep shooting so long days because I think it compromises the quality of the work.

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22:03Nicholas Bluff:That's chivacollective.com. Sign up and be the first to know when the doors open. Join the waitlist now, and I look forward to welcoming you to this community. I did a commercial a couple months ago where I was in Mexico for about a week, and that crew was one of the best that I've ever worked for. I'm not sure if it has, I don't know if it's sort of the Spanish culture maybe. you know i might be saying that wrong but uh they were so hard working and they were the same thing i experienced with the grips they were so creative on how they were able to move the camera or place it or rig it it was unlike everything anything i've ever worked and they're used to also shooting you know 14 15 hour days and we were shooting 10 12 hours so it was almost like a easy day for them yeah yeah no i think like i think what i realized after moving here is how media and news are able to shape countries in a way that is very far from the reality you know um because i when i'm we moved here or like before we moved here i was like i wonder if how the film crews are in brazil and I think it's so much shaped on how media shows us the world and what they choose to show us and then we move here and it's like wow it's like I would say almost better than in Denmark I don't know if I should say this on the podcast to offend anyone but like the crews are bigger there's more people to help you're not waiting with a camera for someone to come and help you with it you know it's like super, super high quality work.

23:49Um, so yeah, that was one of the most awesome parts of working here. I think it's, it's the cruise. Um,

24:00Nicholas Bluff:moving to Brazil and you, I mean, starting to shoot a lot more and, um, I guess because maybe it's a different environment, uh, I kind of want to transition a little bit into what, what happened in your career for you to want to create a product that was not in the market at all, like Bluff Bounce? Yeah. What made you want to innovate something like that? So it wasn't really an intention to make something. I think it was like two years after COVID, I was a bit tired of, I think, staying too much on social media, doing the whole COVID news. And I was like, ah, I read this book called Digital Minimalism.

24:42and just like oh I think I have that yeah yeah and you're suggesting you to do like a month detox where you don't go online um so I did that it ended up being like three months um I would only have like email and and whatsapp which most work related things here on whatsapp um and I was sitting one day in in our living room and I was like watching this light coming in through the window and I was like how can I create this light it's like it looks so nice it has this mix of this warmth and this blues and I'm looking out and the sun is hitting this beige building next to our apartment and then all the ambient light coming from the sky and I was like how could I recreate this because just changing the white balance might not be sufficient and and it's such a big source you know like the sky is actually like a huge source of light a huge very soft source of light and um and then i started thinking maybe if i bounce into colors instead of bouncing into white um so i went to this fabric store and just bought loads of different fabrics um and i would just clip them up on butterfly bounces and start testing um and then my gaff of a radio is like i know someone who can sew them together um if you want we can go and talk to her and she will try and make a butterfly bounce that looks like you're what you are doing um so that's how it started it was not the best quality but then i found another guy who made an even better quality and then it just built on from that um that first um that

26:36Nicholas Bluff:first iteration of what you built did you did you know immediately like oh there is this is something this is kind of what i was picturing like seeing through my window what was your sort of first initial reaction to seeing the thing that you started to build i think more like curiosity it's like oh it's working you know like yeah it's you know looking at your hands so it's like us it's working you know and looking through a diffuse window as well it's like oh it actually looks like real life is outside um and but it was a process as well like the first ones i did they were much darker blue then i realized i need to make it a lot brighter blue in order to reflect more light to not absorb so much.

27:22I also did some with more colors but then when you mix too many colors it kind of ends up just being white the light. So I ended up with these two or three colors which I noticed would give enough nuances in the in the colors that would reflect. This is almost like an LED if you look very close right it has like three colors and together whether it becomes white or whatever color you make it. Exactly. It's just like a huge LED kind of pixels, you know.

27:59Nicholas Bluff:From a manufacturing standpoint or from maybe a more business perspective, what were some like first initial challenges that you faced when wanting to start to build this?

28:14um i i didn't start selling because i wanted to sell it was like people were starting to ask me like oh how how can i get one of these what brand is this um so it was more of a personal project to begin with yeah i made it just for myself to begin with like i just want to use this for myself and then people started asking like oh what is this and like oh maybe i should give it a name and then it's like ultra brown ultra bounce and I was like a bluff bounce sounds good and I made a little Instagram and I started to post pictures there and then a guy I think from Europe Europe was like oh can I buy one and then I would send it to him and I was like I should maybe make a an online store and it was actually because I saw someone on Instagram who had made a copy they had made that made their own it's like oh i need to i need to make something out of this

29:12Nicholas Bluff:because if i don't maybe it was it wasn't legalized like you didn't have a trademark or anything at the time no nothing i just made just making it because you liked it yeah yeah and using it um so that kind of initiated this idea of like ah maybe you should make something thing more concrete and I started to watch YouTube videos on how to make an online store

29:41and I think yeah I think the biggest challenge in the beginning was because I had a product that worked like that was kind of set and then figuring out all the logistics how to send things abroad how to figure out the taxes the invoicing the brazilian invoicing system is pretty complicated everything needs to go into a governmental system before you can send it and and these were things i never heard about or have learned about um and it was hard to find out how to do properly um so i think that's been one of the biggest challenges um in the beginning at least um last or this year i changed manufacturer and i changed all the fat all the the fabrics all the details of the fabric so i made everything much more nice i think i made a new bag made like nice labels and really changed everything to to kind of also go together with the whole branding and make a product that is super high quality as well when you started like um

30:53Nicholas Bluff:I guess once it started building itself more and more and you really tried to legitimize it as a business, did you find yourself tugging on wanting to pursue DPing more, like the business side? Or did you find that you sort of had a good balance still? Was there difficulty in managing both? Sometimes. It depends a bit on the season, I think. There have been seasons where I was like, I cannot do this anymore. You know, it's too much to be shooting and doing all this logistical stuff and sending things and invoicing. Because I'm still doing everything by myself here. I have my accountant who helps with the invoicing, but everything else I'm doing here.

31:36Ordering materials, restocking, packing, doing all these things.

31:44But yeah, there have been times where it's tough. But also times where you've been so tired of commercial work and then you're like, maybe I should just do this because I can just go to my office every day. It's more calm. I can go home at five. It's not 16, 20 hours. Yeah, exactly.

32:07But now I want to find a balance because I really love to shoot as well. And I think this film we made for the brand was really a re-ignation. The prologue, right? Yeah, yeah.