The case for NEVER giving discounts.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (1s):
Hey guys, it’s Den Lennie here host of the How to Scale a Video business podcast. And this week we’ve got Darren Mostyn who is an old friend of mine from the Online Creative in Brighton England. Darren runs a post production facility and is a colourist and online editor. And Darren actually worked with us and back in 2014 on the office of a launch film, and I’ve worked alongside Darren and many shores all over the years, IBC and AB, but what’s interesting is Darren has been running an online post production facility for 21 years since the infancy of tapeless production, you know, nonlinear editing.

Den Lennie (37s):
And so what I wanted to do on this show was he was asked to Darren, and what was it like to build that business? How did he evolved the business? And what are some of the challenges she faces? Also, its really interesting is, you know, how much of his work is for K eight K and HD? I think the answer is all a surprise you, so to make sure you listen to them. The other thing we think is interesting is, is how he is very clear about his pricing strategy. So if you’re interested in understanding how a top Pro in the UK, his billing out post production, but I think you’re gonna get an awful lot of value from this episode.

Den Lennie (1m 10s):
He’s also got an amazing YouTube channel where the teachers really highend Grading Tips so we will link to that blue this episode as well. And please as always, I would mean a great deal to me. If you could leave a review or a comment for us on your podcast app of choice, we would be great if you could share this episode as well, and I’ll leave you with this week’s show. Good morning. Darren how are you mate?

Darren Mostyn (1m 37s):
Morning den very well, thank you for inviting me.

Den Lennie (1m 40s):
Oh, thanks for being here for that. For those people who don’t know what the back story here, Darren actually graded the Alpha 7S a launch film for us way back in 2014, he was actually during that week that we got the call from Japan. I think it was a Wednesday is saying that you need to come to Japan tomorrow because the For care films f****d, what we need to really be s**t. That was pretty crazy. But Darren, you’ve been running a post production facility in Brighton and England for 21 years. And that is, that is no mean feat because Post is a very, very cutthroat and challenging space to be him very competitive.

Den Lennie (2m 19s):
Do you want to join it out? So you bet of your backstory. It is how, how you got to set up an online creative. Yeah,

Darren Mostyn (2m 24s):
Sure. As I started out at linear editing, so it was a very much to take, to take every thing and then got an opportunity to work for a company called fast who a very leading edge in nonlinear editing. So this is when this is in the days when I would play a clip back from a hard drive and spend most of the session explaining to people that it’s really coming off of a hard drive and not a tape hidden somewhere. People just couldn’t believe that you can play video on a hard drive, a car. That company was amazing.

Darren Mostyn (2m 54s):
They really, I didn’t know anything about computers and that sort of stuff. So they really trained me up on all that side of, I got really In with the a R and D department in bringing my editing skills too, their development skills So they, they, they were brilliant at making software. I was reasonably good editing. So the too, you know, married really well now that company was a really great company to work for and they ended up being brought by avid. I forget what by pinnacle. So yeah, you can, you could attribute some of a avid success too.

Darren Mostyn (3m 26s):
Some of that company successful. I think that that was a great opportunities to me and, and met a lot of really good people in the industry who were all pretty much still friends. Now, you know, at these people are still around their all at different companies’ now, especially in the past doesn’t exist anymore, but that was a real good stepping stone for me in starting my business. So I knew people at so many, I then got in touch with people at Mercedes Benz world cause they have so many installations going on. So it started building up some good clients. And I just thought, you know what, I’m going to go out and do this on my own and set up a Online Creative and 1999, I started doing quite a training as well.

Darren Mostyn (4m 3s):
So I’ve always enjoyed the training and teaching people in sort of demoing and that’s sort of stuff, but I’d picked up, clients were really quickly and I’m, it sort of, you know, took off to have a sponsor to produce videos. We would start by doing a bit of a early animations stuff. I was getting it. I was a very, I’ve always been very technical. So I’ve always loved the tech and I’m a Creative geek really. You know, I just, you know, I can brows technology for every thousand. Sure. You can. Can I keep a head of the game, which is really a, you know, it’s something that really sort of pride myself on that.

Darren Mostyn (4m 36s):
Yeah. I’m always open to new technologies. Umm, you know, when, when people would start filming on video and I was going to disc, you know, it was very embracing of them, but I think my, one of my big breaks came in 2000. I’ve got invited to be the editor on the ATP tour and this was the first ever avid unity outside of broadcast. There was ever done in the world. And I spent a year on the road, literally hoping this avid unity thing would stay alive.

Darren Mostyn (5m 9s):
Cause we were literally broadcasting life and it was brilliant. We had a, well, it was it a successful, we had are avid engineers on sites, you know, with their fingers crossed all the time. But its a really good opportunity for me and that actually open up a whole new world of getting into the sport editing. Umm, which I didn’t realize was a thing until five years later when I realized I’ve just been editing, sneaker golf. I did, I did two world cups, which was fantastic. We went out to Japan for six weeks and then did the German one for six weeks and it still looking at for my other clients.

Darren Mostyn (5m 40s):
So it was still looking after, you know, Sony and other people that and by corporate clients as well, cause we do corporate stuff. Mmm yeah. And it kind of went from there. And then I realized I was doing a lot of sport and it was on the road and I wanted to be more grounded. Yeah. We are starting a family and a, well my family getting very established buy, then I’ve got picked up by a D Oh so sorry. Before that. So with a sport, what we started to find in those days was we were sort of chopping out, but people want to start getting it better production value.

Darren Mostyn (6m 12s):
So we would move on to the symphony. So he started doing the online thing and color grading is really just starting. Now we don’t have, the tools are getting a bit quick and our enough on, we are getting quick enough on the Antilles to actually start doing a bit of touching up because Brian, this, this is still the infancy of nonlinear. So that stuff wasn’t very fast and quite impressed. So we’ve now got two, a point where we can do color Grading in the time allocated to before we’re not going out these highlights and you know what broadcast deadline’s or like is you got two minutes I’m so we just stopped polishing. And then when we started playing with, do you know, you have to get through a few Sapphire plugins and things start to look a little bit glossy.

Darren Mostyn (6m 46s):
And it got really into the, the online thing and the, the color and you know, the finessing. And I was chatting with some guys at digital vision who had film master. And then they said, you want to come and do some work with us, but this is back in 2007. So since even 13 years ago and they trained me up on their whole film master suite and which was just fascinating for me, that was my first real, I’m just color grading. I know this is fabulous. Our latest thing obviously, but I’m just getting into the real world because of Grading with the advanced panel’s and stuff and they ’em and they sent me off to train people.

Darren Mostyn (7m 23s):
So I started meeting these amazing colorists and I’m training them how to use this bit of kit. And I’m picking up all these, all this tips from them, you know, it is like that. I always find with training you, you still always get something back. It doesn’t matter what level you’re training. Even today. When I am training students, I, I always find it. I get something back then. Someone will come up with the little technique or little something that you didn’t know you now. So that’s part of a thing I love about draining is a you’re giving, but you always getting back. And so I was meeting these fantastic Colourist. So I’m going out to India. We would looking at what they do, all the Bollywood films.

Darren Mostyn (7m 56s):
And it was just an amazing time and it was really good, fun. And then a rude I realized I just, I really liked to get into the culture side of things more and more. And this is about 10 when Apple color started reading his head for the brief area that it did. And so I invested in some more technology. So by that point, I’d move to Brighton would set up a set up. This guy was still in same facility now. So we have expanded from the warm room. We’ve not got two sweets and a half production office.

Darren Mostyn (8m 26s):
So we’re not huge would keep it small, but its all top notch gear. I like to think that we’re a so hope our facility. Umm, so yeah, so we were, we bought the Apple cutter. I bought a Sony BVN 32 inch CRT, which is a beast have a thing that they were in every grade. Yeah. Everyone I’ve met a secondhand, but it umm, but it was a, you know, that was great when he got that thing in and it’s like right there, I’ve a nice, beautiful calibrated mine.

Darren Mostyn (8m 57s):
So I’ve still got it downstairs. Yeah.

Den Lennie (9m 0s):
Was that the SD or HD? It’s had its HD. Yeah. So like wait what? Yeah.

Darren Mostyn (9m 7s):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We are not even thinking about 4k yet. So now it’s HDD and you know, I’ve still got to and you used it on the job basically for an ITV. We had a lot of archive footage and all of the interlaced and some of it not interlaced and that moment is still great for looking at that stuff. Yeah,

Darren Mostyn (9m 24s):
It’s just sad. If anyone wants it, it’s taken up a lot of room downstairs. I’m just getting up BVM, get an Apple colour on and I brought a tangent, what is it? A tangent wave. Umm, so it was just, you know, so I just had a little control surface. I just started, I started doing some Grading and I think my broadcasters, so it already been broadcast editing on my broadcast break in Grading came from, I edited a documentary yeah. For the BBC. So it is yeah,

Darren Mostyn (9m 55s):
One week at it and had done it. I sort of first grade on it, just a, just a, you know, first look just to get it balanced For preview and what not. And I remember going into Soho or with the director too, go to the grade, buy a well known Colourist who are weren’t named M and we did the grade and the director actually preferred my grade. So we kept mine, which was, which is great. Sorry. Now I got my first Colourist credit I’m in broadcast.

Darren Mostyn (10m 27s):
And that just carried on that. I’d built up a, a, a sort of a nice rapport with the BBC. So this is BBC Scotland. So, or the RNA actually in Brighton there in Scotland. So it was a man that was my biggest client at the time. It was actually a 700 miles away, which is the B to B. And in Brighton it doesn’t matter where we are. And we know that now after a lock down, of course it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you know, and as we’ve kind of always worked at a little bit remote I’m that yet. So that was it. So then, you know, really wanted to move on and then black magic, a black magic design.

Darren Mostyn (11m 2s):
Umm, I know that those guys really well from my early days at fast, so this is Jenny, how it sort of comes around full circle. You have contacts has everything in my mind and building up a contact for that and keeping them and a stone in such is really important and like magic invited me up cause they just bought DaVinci system’s and created Resolve. Mmm. So this is very exciting because this Resolve was what $300,000 at a time the Resolve bought out and he was going out for a $30,000, you know, an overnight this system became more affordable than they invited me up to have a look at it.

Darren Mostyn (11m 38s):
I’ve gotta be honest. It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t that blown away by it, to be honest, it was the, how can we put it? The potential was there for sure, but I wasn’t quite ready to bite with it yet. So I waited about six months and they released version seven and I thought let’s have to go in and had a BBC documentary coming up again as a grade. And I thought, do I wanna stick with what I, no, I’m an Apple color, but I also liked to embrace these new technology. So I wanted it to be, you know, good for my word.

Darren Mostyn (12m 10s):
And I spoke with the director and he said, we can get, they can give us an extra couple of days on the Grade, which I won’t charge for it. But because I’m just going to be a little bit slow on this system. And we actually locked before the weekend. So I thought right now I’m going to go into the, at the weekend, just work, work, work on Resolve and just check everything’s happy. And what Resolve did at the start of the team at black magic, they offered me tech support over the weekend. So if anything goes wrong, cause the, I actually Then found out that, Oh, I’m the first person who have done a long form program on Resolve. So this is effectively the world’s first longform program going.

Darren Mostyn (12m 43s):
And so it was the one hour DOK. So we are looking at about eight to 900 shots are coming to me. Is that coming to us with something like that? And umm, and it works. I was on the phone a couple of times, But it? It works. And I was really pleased. I’ve been absolutely in love with the Resolve ever since.

Den Lennie (13m 3s):
So you, it talks about contacts, I guess what you’re talking about, his relationship, doesn’t it. So, I mean, yeah, but how, how, how, how have you built this business from a commercial standpoint? Because I understand you’ve done a lot of connections and a lot of contact and a lot of kind of tech stuff, but that, what about the day to day? What about kind of like keeping the lights on, you know what, there’s a lot of money that goes into investing and a post production facility. I mean you’ve got high and monitors and high and computer suites and then although people like black magic have democratized the cost down from 300,000 to 30,000 and you still got the $30,000 panels, right.

Den Lennie (13m 36s):
It’s like, how do, how do you go? How do you, how do you balance all of the tech geekery if you like with business, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got a decent, a decent sized space. You’ve got rent you’ve got and all of that side of the business.

Darren Mostyn (13m 50s):
Yeah. I mean, I mean, networking is for me is everything I keep, I keep in touch with everyone. Always. I don’t wait for the phone to ring, so I’ll keep in touch with people. How are you doing, Hey, by the way, we’re doing animation now, or send him an animation reel. I’ve got my MailChimp. So we keep her, we could MailChimp. So I would every now and again, and I’ll just drop. I’m just, Hey, here’s what we’ve done recently is just a, just a few little things. I don’t like to make it long, keep it nice and short. So if someone can just opened and go, Hey, Yeah, Darren, you know what?

Darren Mostyn (14m 22s):
That looks nice. They didn’t want to read tons of stuff. Just a little something like a, like a, Oh, so every year I do our year in 12 months and it just be January one. So there is only 12 things that we did. Obviously we might’ve done 150 jobs, but it was 1200 hours. And I made sure that there are all different. So at one point to be an animation wheth, that was the best thing in February or not. I’ll make sure that one is an animation. One is a training session. One is an event I did because I do, I sort of speak at events and things like that as well. We’ve got to see, have we do yes.

Darren Mostyn (14m 52s):
Trainings animation. So we quite diverse as well at what we do. And I think, you know,

Den Lennie (14m 57s):
And that’s that one of the, is that one of the secrets to your success that you’ve, you can’t afford that, just do one thing because you are only if who does not understand that UK they, so Brighton is what, 60 to 50, 60 miles South of London. Yeah. And treat it like, you know, another lifetime away. So this is a perception isn’t though, you know, if you are not in London, but you can’t be sustainable.

Darren Mostyn (15m 23s):
Yeah, absolutely. And there are still, Mmm. Obviously part of the company, don’t just sit in this seats all the time on, so I could go up to Soho and work in Soho as well. But most of the time I’m here at the, I want the work to be here at a, that they are paying for me and their pain for my sweets, as opposed to just paying for me. So I am keeping my thing’s in London. It’s a tricky to get them to come down, even though its 50 minutes on a Trane, you know, they, they don’t want two. But as I’ve said, one of my biggest clients of the two years ago, it was BBC Scotland. And it didn’t actually matter.

Darren Mostyn (15m 53s):
I hope that my reputation has enough to get people down. You know, I, I deliver what a promise. I’m a hell of a game. I do keep on top of the technology. If I’m still here on Apple colour, you know, w well, it doesn’t exist anymore, but an example, but you know, I embraced nonlinear straightaway. I embraced, you know, cameras are going to, I’ve not to take it to, to digital. We know we were there when that technology ready and, and shout about it, you know?

Den Lennie (16m 21s):
And do you find that from a pricing perspective, you have to adjust your pricing and be more competitive because your not in London. Is, is that something that impacted you or over the last 21 years?

Darren Mostyn (16m 35s):
Very interesting point. So are in the last, the best thing that I did it particularly post-production so you, you know, people come in for a colored grade, they want to know don’t want to be fixed price. They want to cheat, you know, all that sort of stuff. And I don’t do that. What, what a change to be about five years ago with an hourly rates instead of a day rates and do an hourly rates So and send me, it just, I mean, an outline, if your job and I’ll guess how many hours that is going to take normally, you know, plus, or minus an hour, I know how fast I am.

Darren Mostyn (17m 5s):
I’ve graded enough programs to know that what sort of level it needs. Grading. And so I give him a quart on that. And if I finish earlier happy days for the client, if we finish later than that, I guarantee you that’s generally not my fault. It would be a minimal changes doing the job is a bit more complicated than they first said. And so everyone’s happy. I’m still, you know, I’m not working an extra 10 hours when I’ve not quoted for that 10 hours. So I’d give them a guide price. And what I think is important is I don’t drop my rates.

Darren Mostyn (17m 38s):
You know, I think, I wouldn’t say NEVER depending on a job, I’ve done a few sort of charitable things and, you know, ah, projects of passion. I could be generous then if I have time, but I don’t drop my, what I’ll do is I’ll maybe give them a couple of hours free. And I think the important thing now is if you, if you keep your rates, their clients are very, they’re very quick to forget that you’ve discounted. And then as you know, the next time you come back and you say, Oh, hang on last time, it was 95 pounds an hour. What was going on? And if you can keep your rate, but give it away a few extra hours, they notice that you’ve put the few extra hours in.

Darren Mostyn (18m 11s):
So when I go to sleep

Den Lennie (18m 14s):
Rather than discounting, which was something that I always req people do it. And the only thing we want to just touch on that, which is something that you mentioned, which I think is really what or, and holding on and going back to is that when you’re doing graphics or Grading often times any challenges in time, AR are very rarely because you are not fast enough into it. When it comes to graphics and it comes to motion graphics, it comes to Grading. People can’t make their mind up about two. They want it warm.

Den Lennie (18m 44s):
Where do they want it cooler? They want it more red. They want more than blue. And I have had situations where, ah, we did something a few years ago for a client and they literally went full circle. They went, can we take that green out of their, and can we take it that orange out with them that can be put it in here. And then 24 hours later, they’ve gone round all the stakeholders. And we ended up re re Grading it exactly the way we had first done it, which are, which happens a lot. It’s part of the creative process. But it sounds like that something that you’re very big on, its just like great and graphics by the Arab because then they are paying for every hour.

Den Lennie (19m 21s):
You’re not, you’re not in your profit. Yeah,

Darren Mostyn (19m 23s):
Exactly. And also, you know, sit down at the beginning and if the client’s here, I mean appreciate it. I have to look down and things have changed a little bit. Maybe we got this at the back of my studio, so I’ve got the panel in front of me. So it’s definitely bigger than two meters. But I’ve noticed in the last few jobs are remote people aren’t coming in. But normally I would sit down with the client at the beginning of a session, explain exactly what is going on. And after a half an hour have Grading it’s like, yeah, they might not have said too much on mine. Are we, are we going to the right direction now? Or you, are you happy? You know? And please don’t be afraid to say, if you don’t know if I even say some, if you don’t like it, but you don’t know why it just say don’t like it I’ve been doing it 21 years.

Darren Mostyn (20m 2s):
I can take it. It’s not, you know, I don’t see. Yeah.

Den Lennie (20m 4s):
When we, when we did the, the a seven S our broad Smokey’s film, I’m pretty sure the, I wasn’t even at the Grade I think because we actually, we did cause we, we shot a 4k film and we shot that and out of it and I sent it to you and you started having a go at Grading that I think we were actually shooting the main film. And, and that’s when he discovered there’s a bit of a problem, because what happened was the engineers have told us to expose the S log to at a time at 6,100 ISO, because it was pre released pre pre firmware version one, what we should have done been recording at a 3,200, I guess, or, and they haven’t, I think, and ultimately settled on 6,100, but we should of been recording at that at 200.

Den Lennie (20m 54s):
And they hadn’t told us where to set the middle gray and the white point. And so it all came back about underexposed, not through any fault or wrong, because it was consistently under the house was. And so that’s where the engineers has got back in touch with them said, actually we’ve realized there’s a problem with the S log file. You need to come to Japan. So we, we weren’t even in the sweet, and then I think we came down to do something with you for a couple of days, but I think that was it where we had to fly at the Japan.

Darren Mostyn (21m 23s):
What does that go? Walking around Edinboro wasn’t so, yeah,

Den Lennie (21m 26s):
Drew and I had to fly to Japan and we left you to grow. So I think that that, that the, the, the, the value of you may be not be in London, but we didn’t actually need to be in the suite because we’re pinning you because you know what you’re doing.

Darren Mostyn (21m 40s):
Yeah. We would get a lot of that now, you know, its just, I mean the down side is you’re sending them files and their looking at it on a laptop. You’ve got that old argument, but people, all my clients come back, you know, after them you get the job. Right. And, and if it’s not right, I’ll fix it at my expense, you know, but its I’ve got good loyal clients, you know,

Den Lennie (22m 3s):
Talk a bit about, you know, obviously, you know, for many years you were asked, do you, then you upgraded to HD and then you go from HD to four key. Yeah. And, and what does, you know, interestingly, going from tape, the tape was, it was probably cheaper because of the HD Dick’s would be like 80,000 lbs. Yeah. But in terms of like reinvesting, because you know, you’ve got, you’ve got the full Resolve panel’s yeah. We’ve got, you know, probably a high end monitoring and other, other, other things that you invest in, you know, gen X speaker’s and, and the whole experience.

Den Lennie (22m 36s):
Ha how do you, how do you manage reinvestment in tech and, and what is it that drives you to reinvest? Because especially as the tech head. Yeah. I mean, you are literally if, if any B was happening this year and IVC, you could literally come back from every show and go, I should, and now they need this panel or we need this display now, how do you balance that with, with the needs of the business? Because if you keep reinvesting in technology and if you go and buy a Mac, Pro your, your 10 grand, the winds, how do you, how do we go?

Den Lennie (23m 13s):
How do you evaluate when to invest and upgrade? And how do you justify? I mean, because you can’t talk a Nestle clients anymore, so I’m on curious to know your thought processes around reinvestment and technology and how that time it makes you more efficient. Yeah.

Darren Mostyn (23m 28s):
Was buying the advance panel, which is, yeah, it’s a 25,000 pound bit of kit. It was a bold move, very bold move. And when you consider it, a lot of facilities don’t have this big panel, even some of the Soho facilities don’t have the advanced panels because they do a smaller versions. Well that they didn’t then. Umm, but the speed that I can grade with this thing, it makes me so much more efficient. That’s making it more efficient for the client. I could turn out more work the whole perception. When you walk in, you feel reassured that if I’ve got this sort of kit, you would like to think I know what I’m doing, I’m going to buy.

Darren Mostyn (24m 5s):
And it just sit there and go in and rusty that for the first big investment I’ve ever did was well that BVM CLT wasn’t super cheap. But the advanced panel is, was the first time I went and threw proper money at something. And I don’t regret that. So I mean on my first job, I don’t regret that. And that Patriot’s, you know, not very long at all. I mean in months in terms of time and after doing that, but I’ve never been worried about throwing money at stuff anymore. So I’m a bit Mmm. Quite terrible that if they want a bit of a kid, I’ll just go out and buy it to them, but it’s always pay for yourself up.

Darren Mostyn (24m 39s):
Never had to wear it to join a lockdown.

Den Lennie (24m 40s):
And that’s, that’s the, just to touch on this before, sorry to interrupt there. But I think that’s it, you know, when, when you look at any kind of investment in technology, if it speeds you up, it means you can increase your capacity. Therefore, any investment on that panel, it just makes you makes you fast. But it has the secondary benefit of giving the client confidence that their or their in a, in a kind of a class of one suites. So you were, you are going to see about I’m a bit late.

Darren Mostyn (25m 8s):
Yeah. So So join a lockdown. I did exactly that. I thought, what am I going to do? So obviously Business did stop. I mean, full stop. It just, yeah. I had everything planned August and September are my really busy periods. A for those two big events though do so. I did all the TV choice awards every year. And obviously the IVC, both those who are canceled, I had, did pick up a bit of work during a lockdown from the clients that I, that I hadn’t worked for me before because where they used to go through a lot of them, they just didn’t work for some reason.

Darren Mostyn (25m 39s):
So I actually picked up a few new clients, but we were very quiet and I thought, okay, this is time to get in the studio, rip out some of the old stuff, let’s get some new stuff in about a new Mac 2019, which is, that was a big investment. There are not cheap, but that is going to save me. Well, it gives me some of longevity again, cause my mane machine was still the Mack a trash can we call it? There’s a cylinder one. And if that’s a boot, that was just about when you were down in the studio. Yeah,

Den Lennie (26m 8s):
Because I know that that just a quick into it. Yeah.

Darren Mostyn (26m 11s):
Might go along. I could get

Den Lennie (26m 13s):
From the Lewis at jigsaw a while I was at year end, he sent it to yours and to get to Japan. I mean, it’s like a cut and sewn. He felt it was like six years ago.

Darren Mostyn (26m 21s):
Cool. Yep. So that is a monster working with absolutely fine, but I’m not gonna wait for it to brake and then that’s gonna happen when a client’s there that’s gonna ruin that’s that client that won’t come back that needed upgrading Anyway. But also we are getting a lot more for K stuff in now and it just needed some more grent. Umm, and you might have seen it. It did a little YouTube test of my Mac pro 2013 versus the new one we’ve got and it’s ridiculously faster. So that’s gonna increase my work load. We rendering out a, a one hour docks or a 90 minute blocks.

Darren Mostyn (26m 53s):
I’m doing them going out in a quarter of the time, you know,

Den Lennie (26m 57s):
Could it be 10 minutes to the client because you can work more quickly, which means you put of work and increase. That’s a great business case study for investing significantly in and are very powerful machine that we’ll then make you more efficient.

Darren Mostyn (27m 14s):
That’s what I need. I need it. I need a fast machine. I needed a panel. The other thing with a panel, even its just my whole life. I’m 52, you know, I’m sat here all day doing this. This makes it so much nicer. It’s you know, I just ergonomically, you know, we, you know, we don’t have a decent furniture, good chairs. I’ve got AKA desks. This is all about making my 10 hours set in here in the dark, more enjoyable, you know? Yeah.

Den Lennie (27m 37s):
And then what about, what about video monitoring? Because you know, in the past that the kind of the CRT monitor the grade one monitors, which costs stupid amounts of money. Yeah. And modern panels. I mean, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got an, an I think has an LG or a Samsung the living room. And if someone said to me on that, so that’s actually been used in Colourist video because it’s like that grade. But, but what is your perspective on, on, on monitoring in terms of video panels because you were here.

Den Lennie (28m 8s):
So, you know, I would love to know, I think the listeners would be really curious to know what is a professional Colourist using as a reference. Sorry. So we’ve got, yeah.

Darren Mostyn (28m 15s):
The, I’m sorry. I’m just looking at it. They black magic ultra studio 4k For outputting and I’m running A Flanders scientific DMT 50, uhh, which again was a significant purchased. So we’ve got that. And maybe about two years ago, obviously the CRT was replaced quite a long time ago. So if we had a Panasonic plasma, but that was a definitely fading. I think they had it calibrated in the guy that I’ve got a guy that comes in, does the calibration, I don’t, I don’t do my own calibration. I’ve got enough stuff to do with it. And he came in and said that the last time, that skating calibrator too, I just wasn’t quite reach.

Darren Mostyn (28m 49s):
And the white points and if my calibration, his office, you know, I might not be Grading blind because you know, I have to have a critical mass that that can trust. So if what the Flanders DMT, which came highly recommended, I think they have, I think that was a good investment because they believe they’re actually worth more than there were to start with now because they see it.

Den Lennie (29m 10s):
How does that get monitored? Was that an HD monitor? Yes.

Darren Mostyn (29m 12s):
HD. So for four K monitoring again, just another recent investment I bought the Panasonic. Jesus said 2000. Umm, which is fantastic. So it’s up on the wall in front of me. I’ve got the Flanders. Yeah. So the client can see the Panasonic and if we want to go through for K I can switch off the phone was off and work off the Panasonic and they matched beautifully. So that was, that would be another good investment. Yeah.

Den Lennie (29m 38s):
How much, how much work do you do? Forkey as a professional Colourist during a lot of that. A lot of projects a year. Cause yeah. That’s another thing. That thing is very interesting. It’s like they’re the training enthusiasts’ world is all about Forcier and six key and eight and 12. And I, my perspective like us, you know, I mean not to bash anyone with 12 key cameras, but I just don’t, I don’t want it not interested in dealing with those files. Yeah. So what was your perspective? What do you generally Grading and is, is it for four key?

Den Lennie (30m 9s):
Is how are you?

Darren Mostyn (30m 11s):
Most of them stuff coming here is 4k. So we’re grading him 4k, but I’m out putting in HD. So TV broadcast deliverables are still HD. I’m not doing Netflix stuff. You know, I’m not claiming to be doing Netflix. I’d love to do with Netflix area, but you know, all that stuff we do have that the ITV, one of the most recent when we did that was out put in the HD, the deliverable, but the way we generally want 4k rush is coming in, I don’t want to really be Grading PhD where possible we do a lot of corporate stuff would do a lot of branded content that, that some of that stuff’s coming in as edited files that are delivered to me as a 10 80 file, which we then just chopped up and Grade.

Darren Mostyn (30m 52s):
But these are, you know, these could be, there are internal videos, we got some really nice branded content stuff and that sort of stuff. So great for business because I’m spitting out many more deliverables. We’re not just spitting out. Our HD master were doing an Instagram master. We were doing it all the social media formats. So this is business over the last few years has been the reformatting we do whose great money, you know it. So we’re not just Grading once we were Grading wants and delivering many, you know, so this is fantastic, but yet we are mainly we’re mainly is still delivering in HD.

Darren Mostyn (31m 24s):
So that’s what the broadcast as well.

Den Lennie (31m 26s):
No, I don’t want to finish this chat before we talk about your new project, which has your YouTube channel. So why don’t you tell us a bit about that and where people can find a bit more about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Darren Mostyn (31m 37s):
Started this during a lockdown actually. So I’m, I think if you ever had an app many years ago, well, but four years ago wrote an app called a killer Tips for DaVinci resolve, kill it for 20 years off. And I actually did read when I got over 50,000 downloads at that thing. Like, but the running costs of it is just ridiculous. You’ve got to, if it needed to re skin it, it was developed on when Resolve was burning 12.5. So there wasn’t even fusion or a cut page or a fair lights, but the way it was laid out was all a bit bonkers in the end.

Darren Mostyn (32m 8s):
And it was a bit of a beast. It was quite hard to work to. Do you have to pay developer fees for Google and Apple? Are you going to pay, you know, there are just the running costs of it, very expensive. So I can’t it. And just out of left it for a bit and there was a bit, there was a bit of fun though. I enjoy doing it and I guess just giving out free knowledges. It it’s good enough for the free knowledge I could get people, ask me to do training, you know, it’s that they realize, you know, your stuff. I just thought I let’s just have a guy on the YouTube thing or why not? Mmm. So the first thing I’d put on a rail and then to put it up the Mac pro in 2013 versus 2019 test.

Darren Mostyn (32m 40s):
And I thought let’s just, let’s just do what the app was, but this is just a nice short little pieces and M and it’s sort of, it’s this biting, it’s a, it’s been quite an old, had about two and a half thousand subscribers. It’s been going for 10 weeks. A, which I believe is got a lot of, I’m very new to YouTube I’ve been done to like, how do you do this and quickly watch it and then start following all of these big Channel guys, you know, mr. Beast and all that sort of stuff.

Darren Mostyn (33m 10s):
You know, I’m just interested to see where, where it can go in. I’m happy to give it a shot if it works great, you know? Yeah.

Den Lennie (33m 17s):
While, I mean, you had a great piece on there, Tim beer, we’re a film, we just hit on the SNS. And so we will link to that on the blog post beneath [email protected] But me and thanks so much for sharing your experience. I think its so such a great perspective to have someone who’s who’s making their living and it has been for 21 years in post production at broadcast and the B in the UK and it’s fascinating to here that you know, most of the stuff you are putting out is HD. Yeah,

Darren Mostyn (33m 45s):
Yeah, yeah. That was interesting. That, I mean, when that would change, we don’t have a little there, but we keep in touch, but we’re ready for it. I’ve got, you know, my machine can do AK if it needs to. So it’s been a head of that game. So you know, if someone comes to him and says, can we deliver in 4k? Yeah. When I’m ready to go, don’t want to rush out and try to buy some kit. its’ here ready to go, you know? And you know, I’ll just keep doing a YouTube stuff from just giving out free knowledge. What’s not to love. Well, thank you so much. All right. Good chat with you though. All right. Take care.

Den Lennie (34m 15s):
Hey guys. Thanks for watching. I hope you got a huge amount of value from that episode. If your looking for additional support or resources to support your business journey, then head over to denlennie.com, where you can get a whole heap of other resources, free downloads and access all the other episodes in this series. Be sure to subscribe and I’ll see you next time.