Latest / The Scene Projects / Jake Isham on Filmmaking, Music, and the Entrepreneurial Artist Journey

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Jake Isham on Filmmaking, Music, and the Entrepreneurial Artist Journey · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is filmmaker and brand strategist, Jake Isham.
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  Jake, welcome to the show, brother.
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  Thank you for having me on, man.
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  Very excited to be here.
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  This is gonna be a cool episode.
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  We're gonna we're gonna get into the weeds a little bit in the content creation side.
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  But, before we get into the weeds, I I really just wanna give you the opportunity to, give us
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  a little bit of your backstory.
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  Well, I'm a I'm an LA boy.
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  Grew up in Los Angeles and kind of one of the rare people who've been born and raised and
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  stayed out here.
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  Other than that, I I grew up acting, grew up doing music, and kind of, you know, right
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  before college, right at the end near the end of high school, I was fell in love with behind
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  the camera and and got more into that, went to film school.
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  And then film school, you know, they don't really tell you what to do in terms of how to
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  make a living and whatnot.
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  So post film school, post college, had to, you know, figure it out and built an agency, built
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  built this company in which we shoot content for for cool brands.
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  Since since starting it, we've now done over a billion views online.
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  I've worked with brands like TravisMathew, Callaway, Campari.
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  I've worked with entrepreneurs like Grant Cardone.
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  And, yeah, it's been a it's been a fun, wild ride.
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  Yeah.
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  I so film school is just like every other school.
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  Hey.
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  Look.
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  I learned I learned a lot about the craft, and and and and I I definitely owe a lot.
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  You know, I I was very fortunate to go to school called Chapman down in Orange County
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  right near Disneyland, just outside of LA.
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  And, you know, my first semester, I made three, four short films.
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  So, you know, I I went to a school that that pushed doing it, not learning.
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  And so even in just in the course of the school year, like, I in those four years, I wrote a
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  lot of scripts.
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  I made a lot of films.
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  So I was very fortunate to to pick, in my opinion, a really good school that facilitated
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  filmmaking.
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  And I didn't even take full advantage of it.
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  There were short films being shot every weekend.
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  And at that time, I was deep into music, and I I was running a recording studio back in Los
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  Angeles.
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  So I was running back to LA every weekend.
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  And I had a well, I was dating a girl from high school at the time, and I'm the oldest of four
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  kids.
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  So I was seeing my younger siblings.
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  My younger siblings were very big football players.
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  So, like, I was being split in in many directions during college, and I didn't take as
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  full advantage of it, but it you know, that's life.
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  Do you feel like your music background has helped you as we've moved forward now and short
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  form content has become so important and not so much like longer films and even a short film
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  is, you know, twenty, thirty minutes.
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  Right?
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  That working on you know, I'm sure you're shooting music videos and just having a a bent
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  towards shorter content has really poised you to be, I mean, as dominant as you have been in
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  this creation field as the industry is now.
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  I think my background in music is not particularly not in that sense, in the sense
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  of, like, oh, it's helped me with short form content.
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  But, you know, like, literally, was just shooting a I just shot a live concert, an hour
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  and a half.
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  It was a two and a half hour concert that I had to edit down to an hour and a half that we're
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  gonna be pitching to Netflix and, you know, the the big distributors.
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  You know?
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  And I'm making edits in the middle of songs because the guy messed up the chords.
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  And so he's like, okay.
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  I gotta cut this out.
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  I gotta cut this in.
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  I gotta like, and my background in music helped with that.
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  Like, I can it was really funny.
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  So I one of the films I've made recently last year, I made 14 short films in four months.
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  And I and I'm self funding all of this stuff.
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  Like and if anything, I it's like me and my wife doing all of it my ourselves.
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  Literally, like, you know, the credits is Jake, Courtney, Jake, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney,
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  Jake, Jake, Jake, Courtney, Jake.
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  One one of my films that I I literally I wrote, I directed, I DP'd, and I starred in.
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  I'm in front of the camera and behind the camera at the same time.
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  And I somehow won best actor in a festival, but I also won best music.
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  The music is stock music.
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  I didn't write a goddamn lick of that music.
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  I I got it offline.
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  But the thing is this, I know what the right music to pick.
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  And that's half the thing is, you know, as a director.
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  And that's where, like, the background in music and understanding that because I've and I take
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  it for granted because I'm like, it's not that hard.
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  Pick the right song.
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  And then I saw a a buddy showed me his pilot that he did, and he got he again, he didn't
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  have money for a composer, so he did stock music.
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  And I go, oh, this music is horrible.
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  Like, it doesn't make any sense for the movie.
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  It's not helping.
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  It's hurting the pilot.
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  A pilot is just the first episode of a of a television show that you typically try to pitch
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  so that you get it picked up.
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  Right?
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  It's that first episode.
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  And I was like, this is it's hurting your movie.
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  It's hurting your show.
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  And I realized, like, that's my background in music.
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  Like, it's helped me do that.
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  It's helped me be a better editor.
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  It's helped me be a better filmmaker.
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  And just an all around like, I just just an artist because I just have a greater
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  understanding of art, but, you know, to sound pretentious.
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  Well, I mean, you have to be a little bit pretentious to be
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  a little
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  bit pretentious anyway.
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  So
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  You know?
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  It it suits you.
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  You wear it well because I think you're still at your heart a very humble dude, just having
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  you know, we we had a little preproduction meeting last week and and got to know each
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  other a little bit.
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  I think everything that you've I mean, you've worked with some major brands.
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  You've got to do some really cool stuff out there.
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  And to bring your lens into the business world, was that a difficult transition to go from
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  creating art kind of for art's sake to creating art for brands to sell their products?
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  Difficult?
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  No.
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  Mentally, it was more mentally difficult because I'll I'll give you about two different
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  major moments in my life.
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  So first was kind of shortly after college.
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  And I started growing my own social media really quickly, and then people started
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  referring to me as a social media guy.
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  Like, a little bit of an influencer, a little bit of, like, just, oh, you're like a social
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  media guy.
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  Like, you know social media.
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  And this is, before social media was cool.
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  This was over a decade ago.
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  Like, you know, to date us, unfortunately, you know, this is when you would, like, go on
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  Facebook was the popping social media platform or beyond, and you would poke your friends.
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  Right?
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  Old fart stuff right now.
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  And and I I rejected because I was like, no.
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  I'm a filmmaker.
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  I make movies.
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  I make films.
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  That's what I'm doing.
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  I wanna be in Hollywood.
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  And it was awful.
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  I like, you know, so you know?
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  But and I I had to it's a little bit of a come to, you know, as they say, come to Jesus
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  moment, a little come to, you know, figure out, you know, self identity crisis because I had to
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  make money.
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  People are like, well, I'll pay you to to help me my social media.
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  I was like, alright.
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  How does a $100 sound?
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  I I need to pay rent because I'm a starving artist.
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  So there was that, and then I started you know?
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  And a mentor of mine was basically just like, keep a camera in your hand.
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  If you wanna direct movies, just take any job that kept keeps a camera in your hand.
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  You don't work at an agency.
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  Don't like, not don't work at an agency, but, like, you could be a waiter.
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  You could be this, or you could just shoot anything that keeps the camera in your hands.
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  So I kept doing that, and I kept working.
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  And there was a a year in my life that I did a tremendous amount of product photography.
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  And in that product photography, I had clients who wouldn't resign with me.
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  I kept getting, like, what I and I thought I kept crushing the photos.
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  I was like, dude, this photo's so sick, and I was so proud of the work.
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  But clients would be like, I want a refund.
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  Thank you.
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  We're gonna hire somebody else also.
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  We're I was like I just keep going, what the like, what is going on here?
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  Because, again, I'm being an artist.
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  I'm not being an entrepreneur.
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  I'm not fully being a businessman.
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  And I realized this, like, I was not delivering what they want.
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  Not what I want, but what did they want.
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  This is not art.
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  This is commerce.
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  If I'm not delivering what they want and I'm not helping make them money, I'm not gonna make
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  me any money.
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  And that was one of the first hard lessons I had to learn in business, which is and if you
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  look at Hollywood, it's the same way.
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  Like, you have this thing called director jail.
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  These directors will make a movie, and they'll, like, they'll get hot.
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  If they if their movie makes money, they can make another movie.
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  If their movie does not make money, they don't get to make more movies.
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  It's a business.
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  And, you know, it's the it's across any art form, any art form.
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  If your paintings are selling, you get to keep painting.
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  If your music is selling and your tours are selling, you keep touring and making music.
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  If you ain't making money so that was kind of a it was a it was an early lesson.
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  It was a hard lesson, but it like, I because I didn't realize it at that point.
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  I realized it years later after I went after I worked with a very big, like, you know, this
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  ecom brand that was making a $100,000,000 a year.
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  And I realized the specificity of, like, what they need.
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  Because I was early on in product photography, like, big there was a big Amazon boom a number
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  of years ago where everybody was trying to sell on Amazon.
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  Like, that was the way to do it.
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  And so then years later, I worked with this was consulting with this Amazon brand and realized
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  the specificity in their product photography and what they were doing because I wasn't doing
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  it anymore.
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  And it just it was an interesting realization years later to go, oh, that's why
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  why I kept getting fired.
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  Yeah.
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  But I didn't because, again, I didn't realize it then.
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  It it took me six years, like yeah.
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  Six years later when I worked with this e com brand, because then I was working on their,
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  like, the the CEO's personal brand, which is kinda what I focus on now.
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  And, you know, he runs this $100,000,000 ecom brand and seeing the behind the scenes of what
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  he needs and go, oh, I got it why I fucked up then.
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  Again, it was it was the hard lessons over years because, again, the the the
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  entrepreneurship doesn't come naturally for me.
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  The artisticness comes naturally for me.
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  Oh, let me create something that I think is cool.
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  I have a relatively pop sensibility.
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  I have a relatively mainstream, you know, affinity and and likeness.
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  So I, you know, I think what I think is cool, kind of the general population will think is
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  cool.
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  And that's not always the right thing for marketing and for business.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's tough to be a a bridge to that, to to kinda bridge those two worlds together to,
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  like, take a brand, and I I know what you want to do, but here's a little bit of spin that I'm
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  gonna put out it so that, like, it actually is still cool as well.
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  And that's probably why you're so successful at what you're doing now and why you've been able
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  to work with some of these massive brands and to build this name and this portfolio for
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  yourself is because you still have that artistic side because I think a lot of, you
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  know, videographers or something that wouldn't call themselves necessarily filmmakers can go
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  and do a shot.
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  They can take directions.
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  They can listen to a client and go, I can deliver you that, where I think you're always
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  going to have this little bit of an artistic bent to it where you're gonna be like, okay.
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  Yeah.
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  I can deliver that, but I'm gonna deliver it to look a little bit like this and make it work
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  and and keep your job.
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  And that's and that exactly is that's the the whole thing of creatives.
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  It's like it's like, what did you what's gonna make you stand out compared to everybody else?
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  Like, if you're if you have no artistic twist to it, you have no artistic voice, like, you
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  have to do just slightly something different.
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  Like, what it what makes you that little bit different that people go, oh, that's a that
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  that's a you.
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  Like, especially, like, you know, you look at painting.
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  Right?
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  The the you know, there's the the joke of modern art where you see, like, the blue
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  canvas.
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  It's like, well, I could do that.
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  Yeah.
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  But you didn't.
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  Mhmm.
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  He did.
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  She did.
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  You know?
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  It's like it's not like what makes you just slightly different?
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  And then, you know, my biggest advice is the only reason where you find yourself that's
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  something different or that's you is by just doing it enough.
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  You just have to do it enough.
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  Yeah.
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  Reps are so important, and that's you know, even when I started out in the podcasting
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  world, I've only been at this for, like, less than two years.
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  March '24 is when I had started and just started putting a microphone.
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  Now I've been talking and having conversations.
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  I mean, I was up and down the West Coast in my early twenties and on Venice Beach busking with
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  my guitar, and I was always having conversations.
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  I've always been a talker.
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  Right?
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  I I say it all the time.
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  Right?
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  If you would have told anyone in my family growing up or any of my friends that I was
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  gonna make a living running my mouth, they'd have believed you.
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  I just didn't know what that was gonna be, and it was, you know, mistakes and and wrong turns
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  along the way that's brought us to here.
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  But all of those wrong turns also gave me this vast amount of life experience, which makes me
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  a really good interviewer.
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  I think someone described it to me last week, on an interview or just on a call.
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  It's like your emotional intelligence is so high.
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  You're able to meet people where they're at no matter these different walks of life that you
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  win.
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  Fast forward, you know, two years from starting, I've interviewed of well over 500
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  people.
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  We have over 400 episodes out there.
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  But that first nine months of 2024 was just like, gotta get to a 100 episodes.
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  Right?
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  Gotta, like, have to get a 100 so that podcasters take me seriously.
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  When I come in, I didn't even call myself a podcaster at that time.
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  It was just like, if I get to a 100, then I can call myself a podcaster.
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  So I got a 100 episodes out in nine months.
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  Right?
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  And and some of those were, you know, a conglomeration of conversation.
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  So I'd had all of those reps built into that before I ever stepped behind a camera to go to
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  YouTube.
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  When So we came to YouTube, I was already, you know, very comfortable with conversation, but I
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  didn't know how to look at the damn camera.
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  I'm looking at the screen, you know, my screen above it.
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  And not until somebody's like, what are you looking at?
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  And I was like, then yeah.
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  I'm because I'm not a movie guy.
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  Right?
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  I'm not a filmmaker.
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  I'm not those things.
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  But, you know, since this so it's been, you know, these little learning moments along the
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  way.
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  And because I do it so much, I've got to learn a lot in a short amount of linear time.
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  Right?
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  I've spent a ton of time behind camera, in front of camera now to have learned a lot of
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  lessons without having that arc of, like, well, that took me six years to go from here to
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  there.
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  But I I don't have anyone that's, like, hiring me.
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  I'm not learning job to job.
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  I'm just creating my own thing and being on camera and doing it in a lot of the ways that,
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  you know, you're learning.
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  I'm sure you learn every day when you're shooting 14 short films in four months.
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  Like, with all the experience you have, you're still learning like, oh, well, not gonna do
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  that again.
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  Yeah.
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  There's there's two things I wanna add on that, which is first, that hunt that rule of a 100.
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  I I it's live and die by that.
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  Like, that is like, anybody who's coming up in literally anything right there, what you just
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  said is so key.
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  It's like, I didn't, you know, stop until like, I didn't take myself seriously until I did a
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  100 episodes.
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  Literally, write a 100 songs, make a 100 short films, write a 100 scripts, make a 100
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  paintings.
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  Like, do a 100 episodes of a podcast, and do not look up.
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  Keep your head down.
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  Do just do a 100 of anything, then look up and then go, okay.
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  Do I wanna keep doing this?
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  What do I need to pivot?
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  What do I need to learn from this?
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  That right there, like, that is the re like, so much successes.
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  That's why I did the 14 short films in four months was literally because I had been
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  shooting a lot of client work, and I hadn't done my creativeness.
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  I hadn't been pushing myself as a filmmaker.
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  Like, yes, I had been shooting video.
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  That's what I do every day, every week, and I edit for for clients.
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  But I wasn't telling narrative stories, You know, short films, narrative scripts where I
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  was like, I have to write the script.
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  I have to shoot it, and this is not a commercial.
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  So, you know, from there, what I did, we you know?
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  And I just went on a push, And I, you know, busted out 14 short films.
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  Like, what can I do?
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  To a point where we shot four short films in a weekend.
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  We shot one in the morning on Saturday, one at night on Saturday, one in the morning on
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  Sunday, one at night on Sunday.
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  And I one of them was
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  the output over a forty eight hour period.
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  Yeah.
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  And one of them was a one take.
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  I was able to find the take, color, edit, and one of them was already edited and done in that
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  weekend too.
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  And it's you're working hard, people?
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  Go go follow Jake, and he'll show you what working hard looks like.
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  But, you know, it's like it it was a push to say, can I do this?
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  Is this possible?
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  I don't know.
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  Now are they the best short films?
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  No.
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  But that's the point of it.
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  Are your first 100 episodes good?
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  Some are, but some probably are pretty shitty, to be honest.
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  Like, I know the first time I did the little talking head Grant Cardone thing of, hey, guys.
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  What's up?
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  So, you know and this was, like, eight years ago or something like that.
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  I had to do 15 takes and realize I am a classically trained actor.
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  I performed in front of thousands of people by the age of 15, and I could not make a selfie
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  video to save my life.
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  And so, you know, it just takes doing the reps.
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  And there was I think there was another point I wanted to say, but I don't remember it now.
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  Yeah.
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  That's okay, Jake.
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  I I hope we get a chance to talk a a lot more over the course of our careers because I just
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  find, I find it so interesting.
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  And especially with you being a Los Angeles kid who stayed in Los like, you've always been on
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  the forefront of culture.
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  Right?
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  Of ever you're you're seeing it first, whether it's tech I live in South Dakota.
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  I grew up in South Dakota.
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  Now I've I've experienced being out in California, Oregon.
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  Oregon for me was such an eye opener because, like, most of the bands and stuff you have
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  around here are playing songs and and bands from twenty five, thirty years ago where
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  everything in Oregon is like, no, man.
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  We write our own stuff and we create.
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  And and it's I don't know if it's something about the coast in general that is just a a
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  fresh a freshness and and that everything is originality.
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  Right?
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  People want original works and to do we don't want, you know, what was cool yesterday.
• 20:24
  We want what's what's gonna be cool tomorrow.
• 20:27
  And so that was really eye opening to me.
• 20:29
  And I just because just being in Los Angeles for a short amount of time that I was is that
• 20:35
  it's constantly turning over.
• 20:36
  They they want what's popular next year.
• 20:39
  Right?
• 20:39
  Like, they're so far ahead.
• 20:41
  Do you feel like that's not only influenced, you know, your career, but has give you maybe
• 20:47
  some, you know, advantages over people that are maybe creating here in the Midwest or
• 20:52
  otherwise?
• 20:54
  I think it's just a mindset thing where, you know, the the only it's I don't think it's
• 20:58
  particularly an LA thing because but I think it's working with people who are working on big
• 21:04
  things and who are just thinking big.
• 21:07
  You know?
• 21:07
  And they those exist in the Midwest too.
• 21:10
  But, yes, they are more common in the bigger cities.
• 21:16
  And because I've seen it in the arts.
• 21:18
  I've seen it in entrepreneurship, is these people are thinking in years and in decades.
• 21:25
  Right?
• 21:25
  They're they're they're playing chess over years.
• 21:30
  They go like like, working with clothing I got to work with a lot of clothing brands because I
• 21:34
  was shooting a lot of corporate stuff, and then I was like, I am sick of shooting lawyers and
• 21:38
  accident attorneys and and ambulance chasers and doctors about plastic surgery.
• 21:44
  I was like, I cannot take this anymore.
• 21:46
  I need to do something creative.
• 21:48
  And so I went on a stint of just shooting clothing brands.
• 21:51
  I was like, I'm always shooting clothing brands.
• 21:53
  And I had just gotten into golf, so I got to work with a lot of the golf brands I admire
• 21:56
  from LA Golf, TravisMathew, Callaway, and seeing stuff that they were doing that they
• 22:02
  were like, great.
• 22:03
  This is coming out in two years.
• 22:05
  What's our design work for two years from now?
• 22:08
  Like, they're that's like they're thinking in years ahead and then being able to work with
• 22:14
  several multimillionaires and even a couple billionaires, they're thinking in a decade out.
• 22:21
  Okay.
• 22:21
  Great.
• 22:22
  So if we're doing this for the next decade, we're gonna get here.
• 22:24
  If we do this for the next year, we're gonna do like, they're they're playing chess that far
• 22:29
  out.
• 22:30
  They're not thinking this week in in terms of money.
• 22:34
  And, you know, movies, like, especially you know, you look at movies.
• 22:38
  They take years to get made.
• 22:40
  Here's a script.
• 22:41
  I'm gonna push this script along.
• 22:42
  And it could like, Deadpool, for example, is a great example.
• 22:45
  Everyone knows, oh my god.
• 22:47
  It was amazing.
• 22:47
  It it was a huge hit.
• 22:51
  That took fifteen years to get me.
• 22:55
  No.
• 22:55
  What I'm
• 22:56
  Took them ten years just to get a yes to go ahead with it, probably.
• 23:00
  What I'm saying?
• 23:00
  Yes.
• 23:01
  Literally, ten over ten years just to go from, like, here's a script.
• 23:06
  Here can we get money to get it made?
• 23:09
  Ten years.
• 23:10
  And you look at a movie like Avatar.
• 23:13
  You look at James Cameron's filmography, it was like, he made, like, terminator terminator two,
• 23:19
  and then there was, like, two or three films he made.
• 23:21
  And then there was, like, a fifteen year gap that he made Avatar.
• 23:28
  Like, that because he had the tech he had to wait for technology.
• 23:33
  He had to wait for the scripts.
• 23:34
  He had to wait for the money.
• 23:35
  Like like, that's the the time, but then it's one of the biggest films of all time.
• 23:41
  And so that's the that's the main difference is that willingness to look at time in a different
• 23:47
  way, and that's been kind of a big shift for me.
• 23:49
  It's like, you know, I mean, recording this right at, you know, the January.
• 23:55
  And, you know, when looking at my goals this year, I was like, this year, I'm not worrying
• 23:58
  about pushing, you know, income targets really heavily.
• 24:03
  Okay.
• 24:03
  Great.
• 24:03
  This month, we gotta go up.
• 24:04
  This month, we gotta go up.
• 24:05
  I'm like, this year, we're laying groundwork.
• 24:08
  We're worrying about just laying groundwork to make it successful so that in 2027, 2028, we
• 24:16
  can really then go, hey.
• 24:18
  Okay.
• 24:18
  Great.
• 24:18
  Now let's push targets.
• 24:19
  Now let's push GI.
• 24:20
  Now let's go heavy on marketing.
• 24:22
  Like, this year, I'm not heavily marketing myself or heavily marketing.
• 24:26
  Like, I am, but I'm not.
• 24:28
  I'm worrying about, like, building my org structure out, building out frameworks in terms
• 24:33
  of websites, and going, okay.
• 24:35
  Great.
• 24:36
  Then because I know what the estimation of effort of that's what it's gonna take and the
• 24:40
  time it's gonna take to do that right.
• 24:43
  But then I can go in 2027, and I can go, great.
• 24:47
  Because now I have this infrastructure that won't break when I put, you know, hundreds of
• 24:53
  thousands of dollars in marketing and hundreds thousands of hours in marketing, I'll have the
• 25:00
  infrastructure.
• 25:02
  And it can just go boom and hockey stick, as they say.
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:06
  And I think for a lot of artists, they just don't realize that that organizational
• 25:11
  infrastructure because we haven't been trained as entrepreneurs and haven't had conversations
• 25:18
  with multimillionaires.
• 25:19
  And that's been a game changer for me, you know, getting out on LinkedIn.
• 25:23
  And I think just this week alone, I've had, like, the CEO of SonicBids connect with me and
• 25:28
  the CEO of another big, you know, tech and and firm.
• 25:32
  And it's just been a wild, journey for, even in a short amount of time for the scene projects,
• 25:41
  but also starting to look back and kinda becoming filmmakers in our own rights that that
• 25:48
  we have we have started to look at, you know, a tour.
• 25:54
  Right?
• 25:55
  And I'm planning a tour that's happening in March and working on all of those.
• 25:58
  And the physical parts, like, I've done a lot of those things.
• 26:01
  I've I've played with my band in different places, but the scope of it is already so much
• 26:05
  bigger.
• 26:05
  And and we're probably not going to sell out a lot of these things that we're going to do
• 26:10
  because I don't have the time built into the marketing that it's gonna be available.
• 26:15
  But we're shooting it all on film for that purpose so that in 2027 or later in '26, we can
• 26:21
  do it again.
• 26:21
  And a lot of what we're shooting is like the pilot.
• 26:24
  Right?
• 26:24
  Like, this first tour and what we're doing is a pilot for It's like our ten years of activity.
• 26:30
  Yeah.
• 26:31
  Yeah.
• 26:32
  Exactly.
• 26:32
  And I've proved it on a small scale.
• 26:34
  Right?
• 26:34
  I did one of these songwriter showcases with some friends of mine in December '24 that was
• 26:40
  like, that's what it is.
• 26:42
  That's the future of our content.
• 26:43
  That's where we're going.
• 26:44
  Okay.
• 26:45
  How do we extrapolate that now to doing a 10 city tour?
• 26:50
  And then we're gonna include, like, some creator conferences and actually educate people
• 26:54
  and build a network of artists and community around that so that we're not constantly
• 26:58
  spending our time hunting down the artist.
• 27:00
  Let's go build out that pool for the next ten years right now.
• 27:03
  Right?
• 27:04
  And start educating people in this time so that next year when we go back on tour, we can hit
• 27:09
  30 cities and it flows like a well oiled machine.
• 27:12
  Like, I already know we're gonna face a bunch of trials and tribulations over the course of
• 27:17
  this two week tour in March.
• 27:19
  Right?
• 27:19
  Like, I'm already very conscious.
• 27:20
  Like, everything is not going to go perfect.
• 27:23
  We're gonna learn a lot, but we're going out there.
• 27:25
  We're taping everything.
• 27:26
  Are we able to get, like, some good footage?
• 27:29
  Right?
• 27:30
  Not saying that it's all gonna be go can we get something that and if we shoot a thousand
• 27:35
  hours, can we make, like, an hour and a half of that look really good?
• 27:38
  Right?
• 27:39
  And and I did you know, for some people, they just don't understand, like, content creation
• 27:44
  from the micro to the macro.
• 27:46
  You gotta put in a ton of time.
• 27:48
  You are filming a lot more of the, you know, of the experience and the process than what makes
• 27:56
  it so much of a movie ends up on the cutting room floor.
• 27:59
  Right?
• 28:00
  And I've started to kinda look at my life in that way as like, okay.
• 28:03
  People are only gonna watch the highlights anyway.
• 28:05
  So let's just figure out a way to make the highlights look really, really good.
• 28:09
  And if you want that, then you gotta go out and shoot a lot of crap.
• 28:16
  Yeah.
• 28:16
  I mean, it's look.
• 28:17
  It's all a learning thing.
• 28:19
  And, you know, you you only get better through the reps as we as you know, it's kind of the
• 28:23
  theme of this.
• 28:23
  It's like you only you start understanding what do you need to shoot.
• 28:28
  What what is worth it?
• 28:30
  Oh, I shot all of this, and I created the story.
• 28:32
  Oh, well, maybe the next time, let's replan a little bit of what is the story we want to tell
• 28:39
  before we start shooting.
• 28:41
  Great.
• 28:43
  Now we can make sure to to get those elements.
• 28:46
  You edit it.
• 28:47
  Man, I really wish I had these story beats as they say.
• 28:52
  Well, if you preplan it a little better, you but you've learned through the reps.
• 28:58
  You learned through, well, that sucks.
• 29:01
  Or you learn through mentorship and and consulting and etcetera.
• 29:04
  Like, you learn, you know, as best as you can.
• 29:07
  And I wanna touch on one more point because, you know, obviously, this podcast is is so much
• 29:11
  for artists, whether you're painter, musician, comedian, like, you name it.
• 29:18
  Is that, you know because I I'm very fortunate to, like, have got to mentor a lot of artists,
• 29:24
  and and I speak to a lot of artists on, you know, whether it's podcast or on stage.
• 29:29
  And, like, the biggest thing I see is the lack of responsibility as an entrepreneur.
• 29:36
  Because they're like, I'm not a businessman.
• 29:38
  I'm an artist.
• 29:40
  You look at the best artists in the world, they are businessmen, businesswomen.
• 29:44
  Like, that is what they the business is them.
• 29:49
  You are your IP.
• 29:51
  That is a term I'm hearing thrown around a lot lately, and I think both of us kind of embody
• 29:57
  that.
• 29:57
  Even though we're creating for others a lot and other people are starring roles in our in our
• 30:04
  content that the brand is still each one of us personally and building that out.
• 30:10
  But, yeah, every actor, every musician, they're gonna have an executive division in their
• 30:15
  organization.
• 30:16
  The CEO.
• 30:17
  They are the CEO of their business.
• 30:18
  No one else is.
• 30:20
  They are.
• 30:21
  They're gonna have a marketing department.
• 30:23
  They're gonna have a treasury department.
• 30:24
  You know?
• 30:25
  Someone's gotta collect the bills.
• 30:26
  Someone's gotta someone's gotta collect the money, and someone's gotta pay the bills.
• 30:30
  You're gonna either pay someone to do it, so then you're gonna have an HR department.
• 30:35
  You're gonna have to hire people to help you.
• 30:37
  That's what an agent is.
• 30:39
  Agent is a salesman.
• 30:41
  A manager helps you in your executive division, helps you run your organization.
• 30:46
  Your business manager, your accountant is in treasury.
• 30:50
  Like, you're a business.
• 30:53
  You just don't sell chairs or widgets or, you know, Starbucks coffee.
• 30:59
  You sell music.
• 31:00
  You sell acting performances.
• 31:01
  You sell films.
• 31:04
  Like, that is your organization.
• 31:06
  It is a business.
• 31:07
  And for you to be viable allows you to survive and eat.
• 31:12
  And so, you know, like, I talk about that all the time to to artists and, like, that they
• 31:18
  just got to shift that first mentality about being an entrepreneur because that's what you
• 31:24
  are.
• 31:25
  Yeah.
• 31:25
  The days of, oh, I'm an artist, and I don't have to do that.
• 31:29
  Like, okay.
• 31:30
  Cool.
• 31:30
  Well, you're gonna starve, or you're gonna be working at McDonald's.
• 31:34
  I was starving.
• 31:36
  I've Sometimes that's what it takes.
• 31:38
  Right?
• 31:38
  Because
• 31:40
  of that.
• 31:41
  You know?
• 31:41
  I I have different lives you know, different aspects of my life.
• 31:45
  I've, like, lived off our credit cards because I also refuse to get a day job.
• 31:51
  And so I was like, great.
• 31:51
  Let's just swipe the credit card to survive, to pay the groceries.
• 31:55
  And, you know, there's this that steadfastness of, like, we're gonna just make it work.
• 32:01
  And, you know, thank god I have a great wife who who believes in me and who's on a similar
• 32:06
  journey, and, you know, we just make it work.
• 32:11
  Incredible, Jake.
• 32:13
  I'm so appreciative of your time.
• 32:15
  Think you're an incredible person.
• 32:17
  I think what you do to mentor in this this next generation because I think we can build a
• 32:22
  stronger industry as a whole if we have a better educated industry.
• 32:28
  Right?
• 32:28
  Like, if we have people out here that are better educated about what it is.
• 32:32
  And I've had a little experience going to some business conferences that weren't geared really
• 32:35
  towards, like, entertainment at all.
• 32:38
  And that's why we decided with if we're going out on the road and and we're already working
• 32:42
  with artists and we're bringing these people out, let's find a way to get them in the room
• 32:45
  for a little bit of education and networking.
• 32:47
  And we can always deliver on the entertainment.
• 32:49
  Like, that's the easy part.
• 32:50
  Right?
• 32:51
  Let's bring them out and let's educate them.
• 32:53
  Let's put some experts in front of them.
• 32:55
  And I hope that one day we get to have you as one of our panelists or keynotes and delivering
• 33:00
  this message because I think it needs to be heard.
• 33:02
  And I think you're a great person to deliver that message as well.
• 33:06
  Jake, where can everybody find you?
• 33:08
  See your work, work with you, get some mentorship.
• 33:12
  Go ahead and share it all, man.
• 33:15
  I mean, literally just Google my name, Jake Isham, and you will find my filmmaking, my
• 33:20
  photography, I you know, my agency.
• 33:23
  I pretty much you know, I am on every single platform, and I have multiple pages on every
• 33:28
  single platform, unfortunately, because everything is like, okay.
• 33:31
  Great.
• 33:31
  Here's if you like the photography, follow the photography.
• 33:34
  But if you like the filmmaking, then you can just follow the filmmaking.
• 33:37
  You don't have to see any of the photography.
• 33:39
  You don't have to hear me talk about social media and branding and marketing.
• 33:42
  And so, you know, just find my name.
• 33:46
  You'll you'll find any page that you want on on pretty much anything.
• 33:50
  Awesome, Jake.
• 33:51
  Well, thank you so much for sharing some insights with me today.
• 33:54
  It's been a pleasure getting to know you, and thank you for being part of the scene.
• 33:58
  Of course.
• 33:58
  Happy to be.