#1 - Will Stewart: Synthetic Media, Embracing Disruption, Brand, LED Studio

I sat with Will Stewart to discuss the imminent disruption in the media industry, driven by technological advancements and AI. Will reflected on his journey, emphasizing the importance of embracing change, innovation, and a clear vision. He sees AI as a tool that can enhance creativity and efficiency - rather than a threat to traditional practices. 

We concluded with a discussion about maintaining quality and connecting with the right audience, emphasizing that there will always be a need for human creativity and meaningful work. Will believes that while AI can automate certain processes, the human touch and striving for something "a little bit better" will continue to hold value in the industry. 

Transcript

Sam Gerdt:

Go ahead and tell me what scares you about all of this, because that's really the best first question. You're in an industry that's about to get disrupted in huge ways. You've got companies who are explicitly coming for you saying, we want to eliminate cameras, we want to eliminate studios, we want to eliminate actors. All of that from the business workflow. And here you are sitting in a very expensive studio. So does that scare you?

Will Stewart:

To be honest, it may sound like bravado to some, but no, it really doesn't. Innovation is a part of how the world works. And when you are in a technical space, that's the name of the game. I just think about the way I got into it. So when I first started, it was about 1415 years ago, and I started doing the video only portion. I was in web and print design back in the day, and that's where my first company was. But when I was working at this agency as a creative director, video suddenly became democratized through a camera called the Canon Five D Mark II. And it was made for photographers that were news photographers. And they said, let's just do this thing where it can also record. It was a DSLR camera that could record. And they did that just on a whim. It felt like just a kind of a side note type deal, but then suddenly just kind of took off and suddenly you could get these really cinematic looking, nice looking pictures from a camera that cost $5,000 versus cameras that would cost 50, 60, $70,000. So I came into the industry because of disruption, because there was this great outpouring of people and newbies like me who could finally afford to get a video camera in their hands and do something with it. So disruption is the name of the game. And I think what people have to do and what we've done is we've looked at why do we exist, what's the reason that we're here? And if, for us, the reason that we're here is to just be a video company that shoots certain videos and only does this thing and does not change, then, yes, we are in great jeopardy as a company. But if we are here to do what our vision says, which is we amplify the voices of those who change their world for good. And if we're there to amplify these voices, and we're there to have meaningful work and human to human connection and figure out how to do that, then we see AI as an opportunity. We see it as a tool.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. So the idea of a computer being able to produce synthetic media, you're saying it doesn't bother you because you feel like you are always going to be able to be one step ahead because of that mindset.

Will Stewart:

Well, I think it's a couple of things. One thing, what we're seeing right now is AI is taking out the boring stuff. Right now, that's boring, tedious, manual labor type stuff. So in our industry, we talk about rotoscoping, which rotoscoping is just cutting out someone out of a green screen. And it's tedious, it's painful, it's hours and hours of labor. Well, there's new AI tools that our post team is super excited about that allows us to quickly rotoscope and cut anybody out of anything. And then it figures out the edges and it does it. And as someone who has spent many hours rotoscoping way back in the day, I can tell you I am very excited for AI to take that job. Please take it. You may have it. So there's those kind of jobs where it's the manual task, it's the easy stuff that's easy to do. It's like in our industry. There's the podcast type editing where it can kind of cut quickly between the wide and the close up of each of the people talking, and it takes out gaps and all that. We've looked at that stuff and have kind of reviewed it, and it's pretty sharp and it does a pretty good job. So for that kind of stuff, there's no issue because as a business owner, plus as a creative, I want AI to take care of the boring things. And I want our team to be focused more on the creative, more strategic content and more strategic parts of that journey of creating content. And so what it does is it allows us to be part of that. But you're always going to have people who say who are more price driven, they're more interested in, I need this kind of deliverable that does this kind of thing, and I'm going to use it as an ad on Facebook. And I don't really care if it's meaningful work that's done by a human. And you have that now in the industry, and you're always going to have that. But then you have that other segment of people that say, what if it could be just a little bit better? What if we stopped? What if we paused and we don't accept 80%? What if we aimed for 82%? What if we aim for 85%? And that, honestly, is our tribe. Those are the people that we work with even today, before AI really came into being.

Sam Gerdt:

So if AI enables you to have two editors, where maybe before you had five, if AI enables you to have one person, where maybe you would have had to have three, you're advocating for either hiring for more creative jobs in those places where those jobs have been essentially lost, and continuing to innovate above and beyond what AI is capable of. Or on the flip side, taking your team and streamlining it, making it smaller. Is that a possibility?

Will Stewart:

I mean, you could do both. So there's multiple ways you could do it. You could say, okay, we need smaller team, and let's focus on less in the trenches people and more in the clouds people who are the dreamers, who are thinking, who are planning. You could also say, hey, now we're going to keep our same amount of people that are in the trenches, but we're now going to be able to serve more people, and we're going to be able to amplify more voices. So there's lots of different ways you can look at it. It's going to be disruptive, and it already is. I mean, there's lots of things that are options, but you can either see it as a threat, I guess, and say, let's borrow the doors, or you can welcome it in, see how do we make this cool?

Sam Gerdt:

Sure. What about the guy whose job is already being replaced or has been replaced? What does he need to do?

Will Stewart:

I think it's like the buggy whip industry or the blacksmith. I mean, if you're someone who makes shoes for horses, but the Model T is driving down your street, you need to start figuring out, how do I take the job that I have right now? And how can I pivot? And sometimes it's a big pivot, sometimes it's one or two degrees. For people who are experts in a field where they feel like AI is really taking over, they can either pivot to something that's adjacent, or they can say, how do I become an AI expert? And that's starting to pop up. And there's people that are teaching me about how to get the best answers out of Chat GPT. For instance, that's the big one that everybody talks about. I was having a conversation with a client last week, and they gave me two prompts that I should do to help get better content out of Chat GPT. It was a game changer. It was so cool. It was amazing. So there's a lot to learn there with AI.

Sam Gerdt:

Some of those things you pick up and you level up on, and then you realize, well, I think you realize, first of all, okay, Chat GPT is not what I thought it was. It's not this magic thing that's all powerful. It does require me to use it as a tool to get the best value out of it. But then also you realize what these things could already be capable of if you just figure out those input output little tricks. Right.

Will Stewart:

And you're right, it's input output, I think is a great definition. It's a tool. It really is. It's not like a sentient. I think there's a lot of articles out there that just makes it feel like a sentient entity that's just out there to take our jobs. And it's a tool.

Sam Gerdt:

We can get off on that tangent in a little bit because I have a little bit of disrespect, some shade to throw at those who are using our innate fear of the destruction of humanity through AI as a marketing ploy to keep the Hype train rolling. I think that obviously there's warnings, and we do need to figure out certain limitations to our own hubris when developing powerful technologies. But at the same time, I think most people just need to kind of chill out and say, okay, wait a minute, too many people are taking their cues from Elon Musk and marketing in those sensational Hype train kind of tactics just to keep in the public view.

Will Stewart:

Yeah, I'm 41 and in my mid thirty s, I realized I was like, there's a lot of people who have predicted the end of the world, but it hasn't happened yet. And so after you hear so many predictions of, like, if the world's over, your job's over, the economy is over, this political party is going to ruin us. I don't know. It's lost its sting, I guess.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. And I'm not advocating for no safety measures, but at the same time, I think there's a lot that we could talk about with regards to just kind of cutting through what's hype and what's not. But I want to go back to replaced jobs because particularly in your industry, and you're not terribly Hollywood, but you're a little bit Hollywood. You got the strike going on right now, writers and actors, and one of their big concerns is AI taking jobs. And we were actually talking about this here earlier today, and I was talking about the voiceover actor. And in the case of the voiceover actor, I feel like the door has already shut, like the technology is already as developed as it needs to be. That role is outmoded. The quality of these AI generated voiceovers is human quality. Like the more recent tools I've demoed in the last couple of weeks are the inflection is there, the emotion is there. It's really incredible. And so at this point, I feel like that group in particular is just praying for regulation to save their jobs for a little bit longer while maybe they try to figure out how to pivot, or maybe while they retain this role for the rest of their careers. But how do you pivot that as a specific example, and then in your own experiences, is that something where you're still saying, no, we need to hire voiceover actors, or are you okay with AI tools in that? As a studio, as a business owner?

Will Stewart:

Yeah, that one's tricky. That's an industry that's super fascinating. If I was an actor, for sure I would be nervous. Especially if you're aspiring to be a big name Hollywood actor, and I'm just waiting for the day where there's that AI generated actor that everybody likes. What's the equivalent Tom Cruise that you have these Mission Impossible series that's done by an know Tom Cruise. There's limitations to it right now. One being cost. And just to get it photorealistic is difficult, but that's a hurdle that will be taken care of in time. And there's people that talk about basically a choose your own story where you can go at home and be like, I want a rom.com, and I want these three actors to be in it. And AI can generate a story for you and put those actors in it and watch it. That, to me, feels like the far future. Just because the incredible amount of creativity that's needed to create a good story is difficult. But mimicking the people, the voices of people, the faces of people is starting to get a lot easier. And facial expression is still they're working on it. We've kind of gotten to that uncanny valley part, and then now we're getting a little bit past the uncanny valley where now it's so realistic that people look at it goes, is that real or is that fake?

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, well, and the other example that you could give is VFX. Because in the case of VFX, it is computer generated content. It's not filmed on a camera.

Will Stewart:

Right?

Sam Gerdt:

And so the idea that a computer can generate computer generated content is kind of a given. And so you've got VFX artists, they're probably on the same wavelength as the voiceover actor saying, okay, wait a minute. Am I the next on the chopping block? There was a trailer. It's circulating. Social media right now is kind of like a Sci-Fi trailer. Three minutes of video, just shortcuts, but there's no real story in it. You can't watch the trailer and discern any distinguishable story. It's just all these fast cuts. But I'm watching this and I'm thinking, I think it was done in 8 hours using Mid Journey, and then another tool to add movement to what Mid Journey had rendered. But the VFX were Hollywood quality. I mean, it was already there. And granted, it's not long shots, it's not story, but there's a new wave of independent science fiction on the horizon by very small studios in this case, that could be very disruptive. Independent filmmaking is going to benefit hugely from AI, no doubt. It's just a matter of what does Hollywood do with it? What about all these people who are trying to get these jobs in Hollywood?

Will Stewart:

I'm sure they're going to go for the cheapest option. Whatever it is, works for them. Because it's more like we're in an area right now where it's quality over quantity or quantity over quality. So it seems like there's a streaming channel, a new one starts every month, and everybody's just vying for more content.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I was listening to somebody the other day talking, and this was probably in terms of all the doomsday stuff. This was probably the most terrifying scenario. But he was saying the way AI destroys humanity is by learning the way that we think and manipulating that to feed us an endless supply of distraction. So you picture the guy who just is just doom scrolling on social media reel after reel after reel after reel and before he knows it, 3 hours has gone by. Now imagine you have an artificial intelligence that's capable of endlessly generating content so that the algorithm never stales and knows your psychology better than you do and can feed it to you directly, specifically, intentionally. You then have this scenario where people just aren't looking up. That's terrifying to me. That's the big disruption that I think is actually grounded in some form of reality because we already see that. We already see artificial intelligence tools being used to manipulate people into not taking their eyes off of their screens.

Will Stewart:

I guess what I think about is if it were going to happen, it would have already happened. I don't know if personally for me, I've sat and doom scrolled and pre AI being anything like what it is today. Watching some really dumb stuff and being completely entertained. So I don't need a fancy computer somewhere to do anything special for me. I can get entertained with some SNL skits and a bunch of YouTube shorts and I'm good.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I think the idea is that eventually that stales. Like you scroll 20 minutes and then you see this drop off in quality or drop off at least in interest. And the idea that you could keep it infinitely fresh, that you've got this engine generating fresh new content specifically for you. You could see how maybe we aren't quite there yet in terms of compute being able to accomplish that.

Will Stewart:

I think we have to then talk about this gets really super philosophical so I hope this is where you want to go. What does humanity want? Does humanity want that? Is that programmed into our lizard brain? Is that part of our evolutionary structure that we crave? That kind of thing, that kind of stimulus? It is addictive. The doom scrolling is addictive. And I've done multiple steps on my phone to get it as boring as possible so that it's no longer kind of in my life. And it's super helpful. But I guess maybe I'm a true optimist. But I believe that humanity wants true human to human connection, and that's something that our company was built on. We do a lot of B to B work but we talk a lot about we do H to H. It's human to human. So it's a human brand, a human company solving a human problem and doing it in a human manner. So I guess I have more faith in humanity. Maybe we'll see in 20 years. Let's do part two of this podcast and see what happens. But I feel like humanity is better than that. And people are always tribal that are craving a genuine experience. And I wonder if AI is going to actually cheapen online activity and maybe drive us back to really just trusting the circle that we have of the people that we actually know.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I'm actually a little bit hopeful that that's what happens. I look at our track record as humanity, and I don't see much hope for AI saving us from these kinds of addictive behaviors and time wasting. And I see it as being an additional distraction, just like smartphones were a distraction. Instead, we put the entire internet in the palm of people's hands and now we're having conversations about doom scrolling and not conversations about people unlocking the secrets of the universe, right? We gave these tools to humanity and we saw all kinds of like one of the biggest things that you'll hear about in any news cycle is misinformation, right? These algorithms get used to manipulate us and they do a very good job of it and they're very primitive. So as they advance, are they going to advance in a good direction or are they going to keep going in the same direction? My gut says same direction. And my gut also says you'll see a fork where some people will choose community like you're talking about, and some people will choose distraction.

Will Stewart:

I mean, AI is a tool. It really is a tool. And it is AI is a tool as bright or as dark as humanity is. As bright, as dark as we hold ourselves accountable to. And the thing that does worry me about AI that I think is my biggest concern is deepfakes. I think if you drop a really good deep fake right before a political event for an election and you have some political candidate that sounds like they're advocating for killing baby seals or something, then suddenly there's a drop in the polls and if it's a tight race, then that 1% is all you need. And a week later, people may discover that it was some deep fake that was perpetrated, but the damage is done by then. So those are the kind of things because voice especially is so easy to manipulate back to your original question, that it's gotten to the point where it's very realistic.

Sam Gerdt:

So then for companies, your company serves other companies in this human to human connection, one of the big channels that you focus on is social media. And one of the things I've wondered about when I look at your company is the draw for such high quality production in social media format. Because when you think of what goes viral on social media, what gets attention on social media, production value has absolutely nothing to do with it. And so you're advocating for this extremely high production value in social media. I'm going to halfway answer the question for you and then I want you to elaborate on it because I was reading something that you wrote recently just in preparation for this interview and you were talking about the value of brand and consistent brand across every channel, including social media. So I think that's what you're going to say, but I want you to go into detail on that.

Will Stewart:

Yeah. So there's a term that I've learned about called proxies and it's simply we use proxies in our lives to help people understand. We use it as guides for ourselves to know whether we should read a book, whether we should buy something off the shelf of the grocery store. And these proxies are the labels, it's the book cover, it's all these things that we can use as indicators. And social media is an indicator of the brand of a company. And those proxies should be consistent from end to end, where if someone engages with your brand, whether it's Website or it's Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or in person, that should have a consistent message. You're right. Quality of the production value or the amount of the expense of the camera that's behind whatever content that we create has no bearing on whether something's going to be viral or not, or whether it's going to meet someone's goals. And so that's something that we really have to weigh as we work with our clients because we do the high end stuff and the strategic stuff for say, kenmore when they come to us needing a particular product launched. So we do that and then we do all the way to quick content that's just used on social media. And then people are like, okay, great, what else you got? For me, they're just scrolling. Scrolling, just like we talked about the doom scrolling. So production value doesn't matter as much as strategy does. And having all the tools in your toolbox to be able to meet that strategy is incredibly helpful. So we don't insist that clients use the highest end stuff for social media. There are certain tools for certain things and you have to just be appropriate for whatever it is. I literally just got off a call with someone who's doing product videos with an iPhone and it meets their strategy. I mean, they're literally doing this whole strategy and they're like, this is what we need you guys to do. And we're like, fine, if that's what you need, that's what you need. Then it's like, how do you use it? What's the best way to lock in the image and exposure? And there's a whole bunch of technical things around that. So for us, we believe that having a consistent message and a consistent brand helps you create meaningful work and helps you accurately amplify your voice.

Sam Gerdt:

Do you think that AI tools can do that can capture the essence of a brand and be trusted with it?

Will Stewart:

It depends on what it is. Again, when you think about so it depends on where you put, you put AI in that chain. So if you say, I want AI to help me think of ideas on how I could, say, make a drink company, really make some things pop. Well, you can use AI for ideation, but I think there's a human element of that, to be able to understand trends, to be able to understand what looks good, what people are responding to, other data that can't necessarily be quantified, but that can be understood by a human. And that part is essential. So you might get your ideas from AI, and we've done plenty of that before, just kind of like trying to see what works, see what it throws out. And you have that part. It's the curation of those ideas. It's making them human. That, I think, is where the magic is. It's that strategy part. And then there are some times where you could potentially go to some kind of I don't think anything's ready yet right now, but we're close to where you could say, like, hey, I want this this, you know, drink that's sitting on a beach, you know, and I want the camera to rotate around it and the waves to be lapping. And you could potentially knock that out.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I think you're right. It's definitely not there in terms of capturing the details, but some of the broader strokes I've seen incredible generation by some of these tools. But I have to say, I do agree with you that the humanness.

Will Stewart:

Of.

Sam Gerdt:

Some of the work is, I think, where AI is really going to I were if I were a writer in Hollywood right now, if I were a comedy writer, I would feel a lot better than if I were, say, a drama writer, right?

Will Stewart:

True.

Sam Gerdt:

And I think the guys who are probably most afraid right now are the medical show. Don't, I don't see Chat GPT writing a good joke anytime soon. No, but writing a script for a medical show absolutely. Probably today, could knock one out in 30 minutes and it would be just as good as anything on TV. So there are certain aspects of our humanity, I think, that are going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for these tools to unlock. And that's where I think business has to look and say, okay, we need to staff up. We need to get our ducks in a row here so that we can be generating that very human content with AI tools very quickly and efficiently. That seems very appealing to me. It sounds like that's the direction you guys are headed. Do you guys have specific policies in place around the usage of AI tools? Do you have guidelines that you hold to internally where you say, these are lines that we won't cross?

Will Stewart:

Not yet. I'm sure that discussion is going to be coming up. Right now we are in the explore phase. We're just trying to figure out, okay, what's out there for us to use. And there's a number of tools that we're using now that's really helping us. There's something like called Fathom that connects to zoom calls and I think everybody should use Fathom. It's a great notetaking tool that understands everyone's voice, breaks it out, knows what everyone said, creates action items, does an AI summary and it is fantastic. I use it for every column one. So right now we don't have anything in place that says, okay, these are the hard and fast part of it is because it's just the Wild West, we don't know yet what we're saying yes or no to.

Sam Gerdt:

Are you talking to clients about it?

Will Stewart:

Yeah. So we had a client that did a course with us and the course consisted of two parts. One was her talking directly to camera and then the other part was basically having an overlay of her kind of going through a website while giving instruction. The website changed and so I said, look, we got all this audio already recorded of your voice and we can literally take your voice, duplicate it with AI and literally give us the new script. We'll put that into there and then you record the screen recording and then we'll overlay that and we'll be done. And you don't even need to come into the studio. There's ways that you can use AI and powerful methods.

Sam Gerdt:

See that's where if you're the client, you're over the moon about that, right? But if you're the voice actor, you're kind of bummed out you just lost half hour of work.

Will Stewart:

Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. I mean, there's going to be losers in all of this. Anytime you have innovation, there's people that are not going to be able to do business as usual, so they have to figure out what's next for them.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, when you built the new and for anybody who doesn't know, you just built a giant new studio with a huge Led wall and it's super cool and it's very Hollywood, very unique in our region. When you built that, what problems were you trying to solve with that?

Will Stewart:

So there were several practical ones and then there was a philosophical one, so practical one was our production company was growing like wildfire and we were in basically this business park where we had expanded as much as we could. We took over the unit beside us, we knocked down walls and we had people essentially working in the lobby and just desks everywhere. And it's a wonderful memory, but very frustrating when you're living through the memory. So part of it was we needed a place to film. We needed a place where we could move cameras around and not bang into people or bang into the ceiling. So we were able to get this incredible space that we were able to renovate. And along with office space, it has a 3000 square foot soundstage with 20 foot ceilings. And then we were like, okay, well, we got this. Big room. Now we can do things with what's next. What's next for video production? What's next for the industry? Where are people going? And we thought about doing the white Psych wall, and that's kind of like a seamless white wall that goes down from floor to ceiling. That's been done since the 90s, since the 80s, probably. And you can paint it green, do green screen. But that was the past. And we were thinking, man, what's the future? And is Led technology. So what we ended up doing was creating this Led wall that's 33ft wide and 18ft tall, which looks photorealistic, and someone can stand in front of the Led wall. We have all these fancy computers and gizmos that sees where the person is in space. And then as you move the camera, the world behind them moves to match it so that it looks seamless. And now Hollywood uses it on pretty much any Marvel movie that you would see, the Batman. Many commercials now use this technology, and it immediately transports someone to a new space. So that was the practical thing, was we need space to film. This is emerging technology. Let's get ahead. No one in the Carolinas has anything like this. We're the only in maybe 200 miles barring Atlanta that has something like this. That was part one philosophical thing was as a guy that worked West Coast, East Coast, grew up in that Hollywood world and was able to film around that and learn from know, I wasn't around any kind of, like, proper filmmaking tools. When I would come back to Greenville and it was just a desert, and I wanted a place where that could be a home for a lot of filmmakers and a place that could be kind of a blank canvas for the film community to be able to come in and make great and amazing things. I love Greenville. It's my home now, and it's where I raise my family. It's where I go to church, and it's my community, and I want to make it better.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. And you've actually started kind of creating some, I guess, community movement for young filmmakers and also social media. You're kind of reaching out and offering some value to people who are in the industry. Is that something that you've seen good success with?

Will Stewart:

Yeah, I mean, I think giving back to the community always is its own reward. And our mission, or actually our purpose, is we love our team, we love our clients, and we love our community. And this building is a big part of loving our community and making it better. So we've partnered with a lot of talented people that are just incredible professionals in this area, that are experts in certain fields, like gaffing Grip and first AC and camera operating and DPS and all these different film positions. And we've said, hey, if you have a meetup that you want to do, if you have a class that you want to host, come do it. Our doors are open. We're not charging people for that, and we're just giving our space to the community to make it better. And it's one of the best feelings in the world, Sam, to have people in that are excited about filmmaking, that are part of the community, that we're having people from Charleston, Charlote, Atlanta, up in North Carolina and Asheville to come and just gather and learn. And there's a few classes that we've done, but a lot of it is just bringing the experts in and saying, like, hey, here's the space, do as you will. And it's cool seeing what happens.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, absolutely. So when does Greenville get a sphere like a giant ball Led screen? I know you just built this one, but inquiring minds definitely want to know.

Will Stewart:

There's always a chance for growth. I'm just looking for investors, so if you know anybody, let me know.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I think that thing cost a billion dollars. We can pull that off.

Will Stewart:

I'm sure it looks impressive from far.

Sam Gerdt:

A little. I don't know. I don't think Las Vegas has an HOA because it's a little obnoxious looking. I can't imagine being anywhere near that and having to could you imagine having your apartment where the only window opens up and you got like, a giant basketball or like an eyeball or whatever.

Will Stewart:

Just blinking right outside looking at you? Or can you imagine trying to put a child to suddenly they've turned on whatever.

Sam Gerdt:

Well, don't raise children in Las Vegas.

Will Stewart:

There's your first mistake.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, that's the PSA I think we're going to walk away from. How have you been able to leverage the Led screen in particular? Because I think that's the newest, biggest piece. How have you been able to leverage that for smaller businesses in the area who maybe are looking for working with lower budgets? Does this open up opportunities for them?

Will Stewart:

Oh, yeah. It's incredible what it can do. So it can do a couple of things. First thing is it can transport you to a place that is not Greenville, not the Upstate, not Spartanburg, which is pretty fascinating. So if someone needed a scene in France, for instance, it's literally a couple clicks and you're there in France, and so there's that part of it. The second is a more practical and tangible thing. So we did something for the Bonsacors hospital system, where there were people that were coming in and telling some really heartfelt stories about how Bonsacors helped them and cared for their loved ones before their passing and cared for them once their loved one passed. And traditionally, we would have gone to the hospital system, which is a very difficult thing to get into, especially post COVID, and they would give you just this nondescript ugly room that would not be a conference room, and it just wouldn't look good. And I'm sure you've tried to film in those things, too, Sam. And they're just a pain. And it doesn't do the story justice. It doesn't do that person justice. And so we were able to put up this beautiful world behind them where it looks like they're in an apartment or some kind of just beautiful home telling their story. And you would never know that they're in a studio in front of an Led wall. So that kind of thing, transporting both in a practical sense and then in a more dreamy sense, is incredible. But for industrial manufacturing, a lot of factories can't have a lot of people in there. And if you're doing some kind of internal video or an HR video, you can't do it in front of an assembly line yelling over the noise of the factory and all the forklifts that are backing up and all that. So you can literally film what's called a plate and then put that on the Led wall, and the person can stand in front of the plate and literally just look like they're there. So those are some of the ways that we've done it already, and we're just finding new and more interesting ways. I mean, we have a guy that's building an electric motorcycle that said, hey, can you make this look like it's driving on Mars? And it's like, yeah, sure, why not?

Sam Gerdt:

So it's interesting, these tools that we have, all this new tech, the common theme through this conversation, from a filmmaker's standpoint, from someone who's more creative, looking at AI, looking at all of these advanced tools, the response absolutely should be, how do we bring more of the world to us? How do we offer more of our story to our people, to our clients, our customers? And then how do we execute more efficiently? And those all seem like three very possible things now where maybe just five years ago, that was a huge challenge.

Will Stewart:

Yeah, I absolutely agree. That's what it's all about. And it's in in the service of people, people who are in the industry to be creative and to help solve these problems. You guys solve problems for your clients every day in very unique ways. If that's your mission, if that's what you're all about and want to do, then these tools are not threats to creatives. They're ways to do better work and more meaningful work for our clients.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, I agree. Super cool. So I want to kind of shift for a second. I want to go back to some of the artificial intelligence tools. I want to go back to some of your origin story. And I want to ask, you mentioned COVID earlier. I happen to know that your decision to level up came like months before COVID It did. The timing could not have been worse in hindsight. And now you build this huge studio, and AI tools are coming, and AI companies with billion dollar investments behind them are coming and saying, we want to eliminate studios. You seem like you anticipate the same level of success through this disruption as you experienced through COVID.

Will Stewart:

Yeah.

Sam Gerdt:

And I know for a fact that a number of other companies did not have your experience through COVID and will not have your experience through this AI revolution that we're looking at. So what makes you different?

Will Stewart:

So it's interesting with COVID and everything that happened there. So a little bit about my story was I spent seven years as a Journeyman DP director of photography and was able to just travel around and do some incredible things and learn from incredible people. I got to mentor with a member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Sam Gerdt:

And.

Will Stewart:

I had some really interesting projects I was able to work on and be a part of with Volkswagen and John Deere and was able to work on national spots. And you do some project and you're like, oh, that was shown during the Grammys. Okay. And it was very much feast or famine because the day rate would be 2000, $2,500 a day, and you work for four or five days and you have pre production, all that sort of thing, and you make a nice chunk of change and then no one calls for a month and you're like, okay. And so you just have those ups and downs. And I was getting just really burned out because I'd have a lot of contractors I was working with. Then COVID came, and right before COVID came, as there was just kind of like, murmurings about it, I finally just decided to take the step and hire my first real full time employee, and that was March of 2020. So, I mean, just perfect timing if there ever was. And it was a scary time for a lot of people, and it was a scary time for me. It was scary, but the way I run my business philosophically as a Christian, I spent a lot of time in prayer and just really reflecting on what God wants me to do and talking to people and made the decision. And I had the faith to believe that even though it was a surprise for me, it wasn't a surprise for the universe, and all things are going to work out. So I literally went to first person I hired was an editor, and about a month in I was like, look, man, we're going to social distance, because that seems like that's the thing people do, I guess, and then we're going to just keep working because we still have some work. And it is incredible. During that time, we started picking up recurring clients. I'd never had them before then, and these recurring clients helped us keep the lights on and the bills paid. And so, yeah, I mean, really, God provided everything we needed during that time, and then it just started growing. I think there was an incredible pent up amount of demand for kind of what our company was providing and kind of like you would pull a spring bag or pull something back and release it. Once I got my first employee, the company started growing and then I got my next one in October and started growing. And then from there when we just today, our 11th employee has joined us. So we're eleven full time and two part time. So it's been incredible to see the growth. And I don't have a secret necessarily. I think I've spent my entire life listening to the market and understanding where people, what's the feedback that I'm getting, what are the pain points. And I think just personally, as a business owner, I've tried to perfect the art of asking questions and that's really good questions. So if I can talk to somebody and just with an honest heart say, hey, what's the problems you're needing? How can I help you on your journey? What connections can I make for you? I don't know, it just seems like there's a lot of people that want to work with people that have that shared philosophy.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, that's really good. So going now into this next challenge where you're looking at disruption, your attitude.

Will Stewart:

Is, listen, yeah, it really just we're bringing people in and honestly Sam, this was a build it and they will come kind of moment. It really was. I knew as someone in this industry who understood trends, I knew that this is the trend, this is the next thing. And in two or three years there's going to be more of these in the upstate, I'm sure of it, and more around. So for us it's a strategic thing of who can we be first to market? Can we be the people that figure out the technology and get ahead? So that was one part of it, but then it was also like, I really think people don't know that this is good for them, but I know it's good for them. And so I'm just going to build it and see if people share. And it's been incredible, the outpouring for the community, people are excited this is here and are bringing work to make incredible things.

Sam Gerdt:

Do you feel like it benefits you that there's so many channels now and it seems like there's new channels every day?

Will Stewart:

Yeah, I think so. Because the way things are democratized now, anybody can make content and anybody can create channels, it seems like, or new revenue streams. And the amount of content that people consume is very much job security, I think, for people in our business. And yes, AI is going to take a portion of that. But if you think about OTT, you think about Walmart and the videos that they have to play. Someone has to make those, right? You have the big players, the Hulu's and the Netflix and all that, but that is a big portion, or a big visible portion, but you have all these other smaller channels of just ways that people need content and need to consume it. And it doesn't necessarily have to be viral or win awards.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah.

Will Stewart:

Just has to make a difference.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. One of the things that appeals to me, and I didn't understand it for a while, I think this explosion of the podcast, the podcast as a channel, I didn't fully understand what the appeal was because it seemed so saturated. But then you realize that the podcast is actually almost the basis form of content because out of a podcast, you can derive content for almost every channel that exists. That's valuable content. Absolutely. That's a strategy that obviously we've had to embrace. But I think for you and maybe this goes back to the brand thing, too. Companies are recognizing the value of brand, and then they're recognizing that there's absolutely no way that they're going to be able to, on their own, with no experience, communicate their brand effectively on the dozens and dozens of channels that we have that have hundreds of millions of users each. It seems like we get a new social media channel every week. We get a new streaming channel every two months. It's almost a market that can't help but explode. And it also seems like it's consolidating. So five years ago, every channel had its own format. And now you've got vertical video that works for every social channel out there. And you've got AI tools to help you take content and produce any format of video that you want. And you've got AI tools that can help you with writing, with editing. You've got this incredible opportunity to produce that content. But it sounds like you're really honing in on tools come second message. Brand comes first.

Will Stewart:

Yeah. I think we work with people who value a particular set of results. We don't work with people that come to us and say we want to be famous or viral or kind of buzzwordy, but people that say, we have this particular problem and we need a particular solution, and then all bets are off the table. It's just like, what can we do and how can we make it work? And I think AI will always kind of be a secondary thing to strategy. I'm curious, are you guys seeing AI as a threat in your field?

Sam Gerdt:

No. It's funny, I think we kind of have some alignment between the two of us. I look at artificial intelligence and I say, this is a tool. And then I kind of simultaneously say, we're not there yet. This is going to become more than a tool. I know it'll become more than a tool at some point, but for right now, what we're seeing is the only way to succeed in this, no matter what it looks like, because we don't know what it looks like. This whole thing, the reason I'm talking to you is to try and figure out, hey, what might this look like? We want to be upskilling we want to be learning and we want to have an attitude that you've described, an attitude of incessant, creativity, innovation, just unrelenting. We're going to focus on problem solving because it's the ones who are complacent, I think, that will fall behind very quickly and the ones who don't adapt. And I think some of the disruption will come because of a hesitancy to adapt. And then there's a bias too. The larger companies are going to struggle more because of this, because of a failure to adapt. And there are other limitations. There like some just can't adapt because of security and compliance, data privacy. There's all kinds of issues there that a small upstart doesn't have to pay attention to and a corporation does. And that's going to level the playing field a little bit. But for right now, what we're seeing and what we urge others to do is learn, listen. Kind of like what you're saying.

Will Stewart:

That's so good. You think about the railroad industry, the amount of people they moved way back in the day than airplanes made them obsolete overnight. And this analogy has been used before. But what if they had said, we are in the people moving business, not the train business? We would be probably flying on different named airplanes. Right? But now we're stuck with American. Thanks a lot, guys.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. And from a company perspective, I think the analogy is the Internet. So back in the 90s when the Internet really started getting that traction, a lot of companies were not sure what to do with it and weren't listening and weren't growing and adapting. And as a result, we don't have a lot of bookstores anymore, but we have Amazon. We don't have the Yellow Pages anymore, but we've got Google. I think that's going to be what this does, at least in the short term. In the long term, I think the disruption is far greater.

Will Stewart:

There's people who say, I want to buy a book. I want the book to show up in two days and I want to read the book. There's people that say, I want to have an experience. I want to go to a place that smells a little musty and I want to wonder the shelves and have my imagination peaked. And I want the romance of the books around me. I want to grab a book and feel it and read it and smell it and have all those kind of sensations. And then I want to go and I want to support local. It will all exist. I think innovation brings disruption, but then there's a certain percentage that say, I want it this way. And you have to either say, you got to understand which market that you're serving and who you want to position yourself and brand yourself toward and plant your flag and say, people like us do things like this.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, absolutely. And there'll always be those niche markets too. I've heard the joke that if you want a piece of human coded code, go to Etsy and pick it up. There's always a niche for people who want these old if you want to find a blacksmith, you can go to a living history place and find a blacksmith. It will have living history places for coders, living history places for video editors and voiceover artists and all these other people who might eventually be replaced.

Will Stewart:

It's going to be some guy in a padded room and then there's like a group of people just like walking past him. Like a museum is like, what's that, Mommy? That's a voiceover artist.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah, listen. And he'll narrate this for you, right?

Will Stewart:

Yeah, exactly. He'll say whatever words you say.

Sam Gerdt:

Yeah. I think for us, we're advocating for open mindedness and excitement. I think the more positive you are with changes that you can't help, obviously the better you're going to fare with them. And then definitely resist the urge to overreact to some of the tactics that we're seeing.

Will Stewart:

If I was in my early twenty s, I would immediately start an AI only video production company.

Sam Gerdt:

That's actually a really good question. We could finish up with this, but go back to you're looking at options. You're coming out of high school, maybe. What's the path? What's the path that you take? Is it college degree, video production? Do you go to one of these universities that focuses on it or do you immediately start disrupting?

Will Stewart:

It depends. It really does. There are certain people who are free spirits that will never do well in college. And they're artists who are compelled to create and they have a hard time just sitting there and doing the song and dance for four years. Then you have other people that say, no, I need to hone my craft. I want to be around people who will invest in teaching me. I want to create a network and then build my career from there. And so it really depends on where they want to go and what they want to do. And I know that's a terrible answer to give, but markets that I think that if you were in the video production world and you wanted to really break into 3D modeling is going to be, I think, huge. AI may be able to create certain things, but I think there's going to be still a need for 3D modelers and people to know how to create a shape digitally that can then be skinned and made. So 3D artists are, I think, going to be in high demand and then just figuring out how that integrates with AI. People are looking for experts who can confidently provide them what they need and meet spec. Right. So if there was someone who was a nerd that loves being behind the computer, this is the age of the nerds. So figure out unreal engine. It's a free program. That's one way you can start those kind of people are in high demand right now, and they're who we need in our studio to work there. If you're someone who is interested in doing it for a living and not necessarily, you find the art in the AI. I again think that an AI only video production company would be super cool, and I think there's only so many that can exist. And it's very hard to survive because you're not bound by location. So literally, you're competing against every single person in the world. And so that creates a fresh challenge that would be very difficult. But someone's going to win, right? Bill Gates won and Michael Dell won and Jeff bezos won. And a lot of these were there's a super interesting book about these guys, but a lot of them had the same characteristics in that they were around certain servers and certain supercomputers, and they were able to learn coding. These guys were around the same age and they were able to be around these computers to learn programming at an early age. So I think people should look around them, see what resources they have and what talents that they've been given and just combine the two.

Sam Gerdt:

And listening is good, too. Listen to what people are telling you.

Will Stewart:

Yes, exactly. Ask good questions.

Sam Gerdt:

That's excellent. Thank you. Will, it was awesome talking to you. You have incredible insight. I think you have a very real gift for what we talked about, for listening and genuinely hearing what somebody needs and delivering on that. So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity to bounce ideas off of you. And I'm hopeful that the people who hear this are going to walk away optimistic and determined to listen more.

Will Stewart:

I hope so, too. Thanks so much, Sam. I appreciate you letting me come on and be a part of this.