Eagle View of Curly Q’s w/ Bruce Wittman | Ep. 171

Ever wonder how a 30-year-old video production powerhouse keeps the spark alive while pouring its heart into every client’s success? 

Meet Bruce Wittman, founder of Eagle Video Productions—he’s all about pushing creative limits, making every dollar of your budget count, and showing what it truly means to give back.

LINKS:

Feel free to contact Bruce anytime on his cellphone:

919-818-5556

You can also email Bruce here;

bruce@eaglevideo.com

Company website:

www.eaglevideo.com

Visual Client list:

http://www.eaglevideo.com/clients.htm

Demo Reel:

newest demo reel - 25 years of work in 57 seconds!

https://www.eaglevideo.com/who-we-are/

___________________________________

Submit Your Questions to:

hello@thebigpixel.net

OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube

Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

Contact Us

hello@thebigpixel.net

919-275-0646

www.thebigpixel.net

FB | IG | LI | TW | TT : @bigpixelNC

Big Pixel

1772 Heritage Center Dr

Suite 201

Wake Forest, NC 27587

Music by: BLXRR

Transcript

[00:00:01] David: Oh dude, you can't do that curly cue there, because that's really hard to build, we're gonna take that out. Of course, Gary stomps and gets all red in the face and angry and that makes me laugh. 

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined Per Usual by Gary, the man in black Voit. What's up man?

[00:00:26] Gary: Oh, I like that.

[00:00:27] David: Yeah. You like that?

Darn 

[00:00:29] Gary: A little Johnny Cash reference.

[00:00:30] David: Johnny Cash is always a good reference. You sir.

Are no Johnny Cash? That's all I'm saying.

[00:00:36] Gary: No, but I am like the Johnny Cash remake of the nine inch Nail song.

[00:00:39] David: When he was 92 and recorded that. That's perfect. More importantly, we are joined by Bruce Whitman, who is the founder of Eagle Video Productions. How's it going, sir?

[00:00:50] Bruce: Doing well. Hope you guys are doing well.

[00:00:52] David: I cannot complain. I can. I'm with Gary, but other than that, it's a

[00:00:57] Gary: Dude, I'm excited. Video production is something that I've always been interested in, 

[00:01:00] David: Oh no. That means you're gonna talk about boring stuff. Gary is not allowed to talk.

That's why you mute yourself. Come on now.

[00:01:06] Gary: Yeah. David isn't like the creative side of, anything, 

[00:01:09] David: that's true. I am not a creative person whatsoever. So tell me about Eagle. Eagle Video Productions. Let me know what that is. You've been doing this for a long time, so I wanna know what you do, and then I'll go from there.

[00:01:24] Bruce: All right. Lemme tell you first how I got that name. 

[00:01:27] David: Okay. 

[00:01:28] Bruce: Video productions. I used to work at WRL TV many years ago. I was there for 10 years. A news photographer hung out in a helicopter, and one of my jobs one time was to go to Russia, the Soviet Union with a hundred people from the North Carolina friendship force, including governor Hunt's wife. The day we got there was Brene's funeral. So because of that, everything was in chaos. They took my gear away and held it for four days.

So we spent a long time trying to get it back and finally got it back when we went to RAD and came back with a much better appreciation for our country and the freedoms that we have here that are not really seen there in the Soviet Union at the time I was there. So when I had a chance to name my own country, my own company, I named it after our national symbol, which is the eagle. So there's where you got Eagle Video Productions?

[00:02:22] David: Very nice. So what do you guys do? Give me the gimme, the 30,000 foot view for those who don't know you.

[00:02:29] Bruce: We do high-end video production. We do training videos, marketing videos all different kinds of high-end stuff for Fortune 500 companies. We do a lot of documentaries that type of stuff. If you ever looked at our demo, we have a 57 second demo of stuff we've done over the last 30 years, and we have to show a little of everything because someone will call up and say I wanted to do a video on how to catch frogs. I'll say I haven't done a particular video on how to catch a frog, but I've done a lot of video and other things. I think I can help you. So by putting a lot of different clips in the demo, you can, it shows the whole gamut of stuff we can do, but even then, you can't always catch every gamut there everybody wants.

And everyone always wants to hire someone who's done it before, so it makes it very challenging for especially someone new in video production. If you haven't done it before, how can you get the job? That type of thing.

[00:03:23] David: We I understand that. I get that all the time. How can you build this if you've never built it before? And I'm like, you build up a. The ability to create anything. That's the point, right? If you get good at your job the variety, I think is a strength rather than a weakness. I find that companies that focus on one thing, a vertical per se, are often somewhat rigid. And if you've come at it from a lot of different angles, you start to provide solutions that other people won't because they're not gonna think of it. And so that's one of the things we pride ourselves on. I imagine it's very similar for you.

[00:03:55] Gary: In the creative industry for design, it goes both ways. Sometimes if you're a designer and you're only, let's say, posting pictures or have a portfolio of certain types of design that you've done recently, people are gonna think that you, the only thing you can do. Or there's also people that will maybe not reference your portfolio, but just say, oh, you're a designer.

Can you build me this? And you're like that's not really what I do. But you're a designer. Don't you do everything? So I think sometimes there's an expectation of expertise in fields that you don't know, and then there's a lack of appreciation for fields that you do know within the same genre.

[00:04:32] Bruce: That happens, and it's really nice when you have a client comes in and asks you for something that you don't know, but you're, they're willing to hire you because they know that you've done other things. So I'm about that.

[00:04:44] David: So you've been doing this for 40 years and you already led 

[00:04:50] Gary: it's a magnificent 

[00:04:51] David: more hair than me, so you already look younger than I do. So it's all good. I am assuming based, especially since the way you introduced yourself, you have some amazing stories of 40 years of video production. Can you give me a little sample of some of the craziness that you've been through over the last 40 years?

[00:05:08] Bruce: Well,

[00:05:09] Gary: If anything tops the Russia story.

[00:05:12] David: Fair. You might have already done it.

[00:05:13] Bruce: I don't know if I can top that. So yeah, I was I did my internship, basically my apprenticeship at Channel five W-R-L-T-V spent was there for 10 years. Did the whole gamut, working on the crew and all that. And so it gave me a couple things to take away. One is always meet your deadline. And that's one of the things I'm very proud of with our company. We always make our client deadlines and we always make our budget. So with that news background, I'll always. Make a client budget and especially their deadline. And that happened just this Friday. I had a, did a project, it was a recruitment video. I didn't get the script till this Friday. 

I worked on it Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and it aired on Tuesday. So the client, not only was the client happy, his boss is happy, so you can't beat that, 

[00:06:03] David: That's right. So 

[00:06:04] Bruce: So you,

were asking about what is some stuff I've done the last 40 years? I made a little list here.

I, There's some things I know a lot about because I've done a lot of it. One is escalators. I know a whole lot about escalators because I've done so much work for s Chinway escalators. I went to New York several times, did training video a hundred and 120 minute DVD on how to maintain and repair s not only escalators, but. Subway escalators,

[00:06:31] Gary: Now, how do you make a subject matter like that? Entertaining.

[00:06:35] Bruce: then in this case it wasn't, it was very technical in a way. it is a very technical situation. What we did back then, we did a DVD and it was like. 12 different menus and each menu might have 20 or 30 different little click ons that

just talk about everything specific. So you could drill through it.

It's almost like an index. And you could go here and click on in two or three minute, five minute video, show you exactly how to repair or maintain an escalators. Very important 'cause these escalators are multimillion dollar beast and they're all customized. Every one of these sub subway escalators is customized. So we'd have to go in there inside the escalator and shoot it, um, and videotape it. So that was something also I know a lot about pickles. I dunno if you gotta see the Mount Owl Pickle video. I did that. We did a Mount Olive Pickle tour video 13 minutes went all sorts of awards and stuff. And so I know a lot about pickles, how they make pickles. I've done a lot of work with the National Guard. I did several recruitment videos for the North Carolina National Guard and then went on to do some for the Georgia National Guard. Recently, I've done a documentary on north ca, the Hurricane Helene, and how things were doing over there

type 

of thing.

So I really enjoy what I do. I love telling the story. I love making effective, making an effective video. That's the thing that drives me nuts. Guys. I'll watch a commercial, okay? And we'll see a commercial. We're en entertained by this commercial, but at the end of the day, we don't remember what the heck they were selling. 

[00:08:02] David: For sure. 

[00:08:03] Bruce: I spend millions of dollars for the the footballs the Super Bowl, right? And

then day you've forgotten what they were selling. It might've been clever, but you don't remember. So it's gotta be effective. And. 

That's one thing also that we're proud of with what we do at Eagle Video is that, it's gotta be effective or why spend the money? So, we work really hard to make sure that we hit the target audience, the message, and then also what's the call to action. Those three things are really important in my view, of how to make an effective video. 

[00:08:39] David: So when people come to you, I'm a pickle company and I need a video and I'm telling you what I want, I'm making an ad. Let's say it's a Super Bowl ad. It's gonna be Big Pickle day and I come to you with a horrible idea that you know, 'cause you've been doing this forever, that this will not be effective.

You're gonna waste your eight bazillion dollars it costs to get on the Super Bowl.

Do you feel a responsibility to tell them that or do you just roll with it? 

[00:09:06] Bruce: I tell I'm not shy at all. I've got to tell 'em, look, I wanna do what's best for the client. What's the best for the client? I. S spending the money wisely. How do you spend it wisely? It's gotta be effective. Yeah. A lot of times, here's a prime example. There's a a company, really important company in Virginia.

They wa they came to me and said, we wanna do a live presentation for our customer. And it's it's a huge building and they wanna go live and show different things and have people talking. And I just picture there's a camera. On a, some sort of wheelie thing, and they're wheeling into each room and someone goes to talk and the audio sucks. And not only that they can't talk. Finally

convinced 'em, I said, look, let me make you a really good eight minute video that we can control. See, we were there and we shopped for two or three days and we put pictures to the words and made it very effective and they won million dollar awards from that.

So It's, and they appreciate it. I think. That we may rather than go live or, the signal could drop out. There's so many things that go wrong with a live video to, for an important customer because, they were figuring the customer couldn't come to this building.

Let's do something live. That's not always helpful, especially when you're, trusting technology.

[00:10:17] David: So when do you cross the line from video production to almost advertising? When you're saying, Hey, you came to me with this ad that you wanted me to film, but it sucks. This is what you should do. Like you're almost crossing that line a little bit.

[00:10:34] Bruce: I don't do per se commercials.

Uh, I'm not a 32nd guy. I'm more of a documentary guy. I'm more like a, a marketing video, a training video. I. Or recruitment video, that type of thing. So if it's a commercial, uh, I might or might not do it. I might say that's just not my daily week. I'd rather send them on to someone who does, who might have more experience and not waste their money that type of thing. 

[00:10:57] Gary: Especially in a creative field or a field where you're producing something that is coming to you from your client's head or whatever preconceived idea they have an idea for. What they want to begin with. And they have an idea of how they want it to, I guess affect people towards the end or what the finished product might be.

But there's a lot of middle space there that they don't know how to get from the beginning to the end. And I think when it comes to like video production, even in what we do when we're developing apps or building software, it's all that stuff in the middle that's gonna change in between the beginning and the end.

And. Guiding 'em through that process to then help them understand what they need versus what they might've imagined actually does give them what they want in the end. So yeah, I 

[00:11:44] Bruce: Another thing that I 

[00:11:45] Gary: and refining the process is key there.

[00:11:48] Bruce: another thing that I have to do is to counsel the client. To not do too much with video. A lot of times I'll come, someone wants to do a training video, a recruitment video, and a marketing video all in one video. And I say, no, that's not what we wanna do. We'd rather do three different videos that are much shorter because we, everyone has shorter attention spans now anyway. But to make it, we the target audience. If it's training, let's do a training video. If it's a marketing audience, let's do a marketing video. Let's not do all three in same time. That's. It has to. We do that all the time. We have to explain that to them, and they understand after a while

[00:12:26] Gary: Yeah, 

[00:12:26] Bruce: to make it effective, You gotta hit right audience.

[00:12:30] Gary: Now I have a different question. Unless David, you're still on the 

[00:12:33] David: I am still 

[00:12:33] Gary: another question for him? 

[00:12:41] David: It reminds me of, one of my favorite things. One of the early things that we do with our clients is we do what's called an exploratory, which is where we dig down and plan what you're talking about. Obviously, we don't have scripts and stuff like that, but it's a similar concept.

We're gonna plan out what we're going to do. I always know things are going well when, and I'll tell them this. I say, I'm about to tell you your future, because if you go down this path, I've done this many times, this is what's going to happen and you're not gonna like that. So we're gonna say, go this way because this will create a better outcome. You can only do that if you've been doing this a long time. That's just something, that experience is the only teacher there. I've done it your way and I know what happens. We fumbled that ball in the past. I'm not doing it again and here's why. It's almost like a switch flips because immediately we become the person that they want because we're now trying to help them. We're not just doing what they're asking, we're pushing beyond that and getting them a better product, better value. 

[00:13:42] Bruce: A lot of times PE clients will come, new clients will say let's talk budget. And I, I will tell you, will never be the lowest price

because you're paying for my experience and all the things that I've learned over the years, and I wanna share that with you. But it's, there's a cost involved that you won't get with someone who's cheaper than me, who has less experience than me, that type of thing.

[00:14:04] Gary: You're speaking our language.

[00:14:05] David: Absolutely. That's right. Preach it. You were gonna say something, Gary.

[00:14:09] Gary: Yeah. I was curious with your experience and your background and seeing how quickly technology has changed in just video itself. Everything from, like you were saying, tape to then digital, like DVD, and then now everything is just, 

[00:14:26] Bruce: Yeah. 

[00:14:26] Gary: and streaming, and now even with the introduction of AI creating videos and helping edit videos and color correcting and all that stuff.

How much of the shift, or I guess the change in the technology from what you've seen, is it becoming faster? Is it become, is it becoming better or is it becoming just too much to even really help with what you do on a professional level?

[00:14:52] Bruce: First off, I've seen a lot of technology change. Yeah. I was

there for film. I was there for tape. I was there for editing on a laptop now. And I enjoy it. I really, I'm a technology guy. But. At the end of the day, people don't hire you for your technology. They hire for your experience and

prime example, you got a writer. I want this writer to write me a novel. Guess what? I don't care if he writes it on Word or whatever. I don't care what the software is. Just give me a good story. And it's the same with video production. It really doesn't matter in the long run. As long as it looks good, it sounds good. It's effective. It shouldn't matter what technology you're using. 

[00:15:36] AD: BigPixel builds world class custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects. Our design infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients. From startups to enterprises, we can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business do better business. 

[00:16:03] David: You mentioned something that's so interesting to me. You ask for your client's budgets. I find my

clients. This is a mentoring opportunity 'cause I'm I'm very bad at this. Our clients don't wanna tell us their budget because they're afraid if they tell us the budget, let's just make up fake numbers. If they have a hundred thousand dollars to build this software, they are hoping I'm gonna cost $50,000. But they are afraid if they tell me their budget's a hundred, that I'm gonna pad it up to cost a hundred thousand dollars. It's a classic problem. And so I have been trained by them. To be very leery about asking budgets 'cause they're super, but it sounds like you're really upfront about this.

Hey, we're gonna match your budget, so I need to know your budget. How do you do that? How do you keep them? Make them comfortable?

[00:16:51] Bruce: Here's, the example of the a hundred thousand dollars for your product.

Do they want a hundred thousand dollars product or they want a $50,000 product? So why have a budget if you don't spend it? Someone recently, a guy wanted a, an animation video for the Army and he had, he already came up front $20,000 budget. I said, okay, we can do it. And it helps us understand the budget. 'cause then we know what the scope is. Do I don't have to go fly to Las Vegas and shoot this in order to do the video? 'cause it's gonna, I only got 20,000 to do with. So it's really helpful to understand a budget. And I think people, if they came up with that, it would be help. Things would go much faster and easier. 

[00:17:33] David: I love the idea that if you tell me your budget, I'm gonna match your budget. If you have a small budget, you're gonna, we're gonna we were just doing this yesterday. This is so funny. It's so timely because

yesterday we were planning a client, we're doing the UX and all the nerdy stuff that me and Gary do before the other nerds get involved and. We, I know based on our conversations roughly what his budget is, not a, it wasn't explicit, but he hinted at it and Gary went off of the rails and made this beautiful flow that was, and I'm like, dude, we can't build that with the known budget. Like it was gonna be cool. But he was like are we selling ourselves short?

And I'm like maybe, but we know what his budget is. This is one of the few times we actually do know it. So we had to dumb it down is not the right word. We had to go another route that was way less UI intensive

[00:18:21] Gary: We had to find a more budget effective approach.

[00:18:24] David: Yeah. Because, and at the end of the day, if we had a, let's say I, I can't, I don't know what the budget was, $40,000 is maybe his budget. I can't remember. But if it was 40,000, could we, if we'd turn that into a hundred thousand Yes. Would it have been a better product? Almost certainly. Because we can do what we can do, right?

We have a lot of skill in that UX design flow, all of that stuff. But often we are constrained. Oh dude, you can't do that curly cue there because that's really hard to build, we're gonna take that out. Of course, Gary stomps and gets all red in the face and angry and that makes me laugh.

And, but but we, if we could, we'd put the curling queue in there, right? Because it is better. I would rather do 

[00:19:05] Gary: boiling it down to a curly cue in my childish rant, that is not how it goes.

[00:19:11] David: curly

[00:19:12] Gary: A little more in depth than a curly cue in a stomping my feet. But basically that's the point. Yeah.

[00:19:18] David: That's

[00:19:18] Bruce: for video production, do they want a curly queue? Is it 2D or 3D? Let me know. 'cause the budget changes if it's

[00:19:24] Gary: Oh yeah.

[00:19:24] Bruce: There you go.

We always try to work, we always try to. The budget. So we have create the scope of work. Was it a one day shoot? Is a 10 day shoot. It makes a big difference in the product and the message and the quality of work. So it's really helpful to understand what the real budget is, not that for 10 budget, and again, I'm trying you to understand. If you have a hundred thousand dollars, why wouldn't you wanna spend it all? Why do you wanna save 50? What would you do with the other 50,000? You have a party or what I.

[00:19:52] David: Now, let me challenge that for just a second. So let's say, their budget's a hundred thousand dollars and you know that. They're doing a simple, spot training video and you know that you can do an amazing job for 50,000. Do you say, we don't need that. Do you ever come back?

Because you, at some point you are adding curly cues using our little term there that aren't needed, that aren't really adding value. You're just trying to get there.

[00:20:18] Bruce: I don't do that. 

[00:20:19] David: Okay.

[00:20:20] Bruce: that. No. I they have a hundred thousand dollars budget and I look at everything they want, I say, look, this is only a $50,000 budget here you have. Now, maybe if you have a bigger scope of work, if you have more that we can add to it. You've got a thousand, a hundred thousand budget.

Let's see what we can do. But what you're giving me now is a $50,000 budget. And I'm very truthful about that. 'cause, I like repeat business. I like

customers to be happy. And that's how, that's one reason we've been here for so long.

[00:20:45] Gary: What we wanted to ask you, I. Through your experience in all your years, what now would you say would be your top three pieces of advice for someone just starting their own business. 

[00:20:59] Bruce: The first one is don't,

[00:21:00] Gary: Great. Okay, so we'll see you next week.

[00:21:04] Bruce: If they don't listen to that, listen to this. There's always room for the best.

How many exercise videos do you see and you're still there, new ones all the time.

How many gaming things are out there, and there's still new game stuff that came out all the time. There's always room for the best. So that should not disappoint you, whatever the other thing is, it's hard. And if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

So think about that. It's gonna be very difficult. It's a lot of work, but it's also very rewarding. It is for me. But you have to think about, do you want to do this? And it really helps to do the research. Do some market survey to find out if there's a need for what you are, whether it's a product or a service. But there's always room for the best. 

[00:21:53] David: I think that's very good. 

[00:21:54] Bruce: things. 

[00:21:55] David: Very poignant.

[00:21:56] Bruce: One More thing I wanna say about people that's important to me is to give back. We do a lot of pro bono work. Every year we give back to a a deserving North Carolina nonprofit. Do 20, $30,000 worth of. Fundraising video for them. I think it's important, and I think if everyone does that, their business will grow. The Mount Olive Pickle video started with me doing a free video for the Mount Olive Pickle people. They were, they needed some United Way stuff. I did something for free, not expecting anything. And then I got this, big project that came from that. So I think it's important for young people especially to give back. And everybody should give back. And I actually have a pro bono page. That you can see all the pro bono videos I've done over the last 15 years to kinda get inspired. 'cause it's important.

[00:22:42] David: I love

that 

[00:22:44] Gary: I know David doesn't mention Big Pixel also has a little bit of a philanthropic arm to it every year, but

[00:22:51] Bruce: I think it's good.

[00:22:53] Gary: He doesn't like to mention it, so I'm just gonna say Yeah.

[00:22:56] David: I, no

I'm, that sounds weird. Okay. We actually do, we give away a significant amount. But we do it anonymously whenever possible. 'cause I don't believe if you're given money so that you can put your name on something, then I think you've got the wrong idea. So we, that's why we don't talk about it. It's not because we're ashamed of it.

We certainly aren't, we're very proud of the organizations we support, but I just don't need accolades for doing the right thing. And so we do it quietly. That's the only reason. Alrighty.

[00:23:23] Gary: mentioned it just 'cause I thought you're good at it, that's all.

[00:23:26] David: Oh thank you. He,

that's a rare compliment. We should mark that down.

Someone

[00:23:30] Gary: we'll cut that out. We'll cut that out in post.

[00:23:32] David: That'll get edited. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us. This has been a lot of fun.

[00:23:36] Bruce: Thanks guys. Appreciate the opportunity.