Latest / The Scene Projects / Carey Kight on Military to Filmmaking, Creative Growth, and Inspiring Future Creatives

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Carey Kight on Military to Filmmaking, Creative Growth, and Inspiring Future Creatives · The Scene Projects

• 0:22
  Welcome in to Real Biz.
• 0:24
  I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today from veteran made, Carrie Kite.
• 0:28
  Carrie, welcome to the show.
• 0:30
  Good morning, Bubba.
• 0:31
  Thanks for having me.
• 0:31
  Happy to be here, man.
• 0:33
  Yeah.
• 0:33
  It's a pleasure.
• 0:35
  Obviously, with our, relationship and my position as director of marketing and PR for
• 0:42
  operation combating veteran suicide.
• 0:44
  I I I'm very excited about, hearing more about your company and and talking about, some future
• 0:51
  endeavors, hopefully, that we get to work on together.
• 0:54
  But before we get into all that, Carrie, I wanna give you a few minutes here, to give us a
• 0:58
  little bit of your backstory, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 1:01
  Yeah.
• 1:01
  Certainly.
• 1:02
  Thanks again for having me.
• 1:03
  Excited to be here.
• 1:04
  Excited to to see where this where this goes.
• 1:07
  Like you said, I'm Carrie Kite.
• 1:09
  I'm cofounder of Veteran Made.
• 1:11
  We are a production company.
• 1:15
  We primarily specialize in documentary filmmaking, commercial campaigns, OLB
• 1:20
  campaigns.
• 1:21
  I have a background in omnichannel advertising and marketing campaigns, worked for a couple of
• 1:28
  agencies out of New York City and and running big campaigns, for for big brands out of New
• 1:34
  York, spent some time in LA in the film industry before that as well.
• 1:40
  Quick and dirty on me.
• 1:41
  I was born and raised in San Diego, California.
• 1:44
  My dad's side of the family is from Columbus, Ohio.
• 1:47
  I moved here where I live now in when I was about 13.
• 1:51
  So I did eighth grade in high school in Columbus and then enlisted out of high school.
• 1:58
  My brother played division three football.
• 2:01
  I was a pretty good football player in high school, ran track and played basketball as
• 2:06
  well.
• 2:06
  It was, like, all district in football, so not quite good enough to go d one, but, still
• 2:12
  wanted to go play ball and, wanted to not necessarily follow in my brother's footsteps,
• 2:18
  but I I got exposure to division three football from him, which for those that don't know,
• 2:24
  especially now in this this age of of NIL for the for the the the big colleges, For d three
• 2:30
  football, d three sports in general, you need an academic scholarship to go play at those
• 2:35
  schools.
• 2:35
  They don't give academic or they don't give athletic scholarships.
• 2:37
  Excuse me.
• 2:38
  And, I didn't really take my grades very seriously in high school.
• 2:42
  I love to learn.
• 2:43
  I love to study.
• 2:44
  I love to read.
• 2:45
  I just didn't love doing homework and didn't love studying for tests.
• 2:48
  And so my my grades weren't great, and they weren't really good enough to get the the
• 2:53
  academic scholarship.
• 2:54
  So I did ultimately decide to enlist in the air force.
• 2:59
  Wanted to give myself the opportunity to, you know, become a little bit more independent, and
• 3:06
  interdependent with my family, not rely on loans or parents to pay for college.
• 3:11
  Wanted to go get some experience.
• 3:13
  I always say now that, you know, it was kind of a three pronged approach for me to enlist.
• 3:17
  It was it was certainly one part patriotism.
• 3:20
  Nine eleven happened when I was in eighth grade, and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center
• 3:24
  came out when I was in high school and and certainly was an impact on me to go serve.
• 3:29
  But then the other piece was to go just go have an adventure, right, to go out and experience
• 3:35
  life and experience difficulty and to experience some interesting things, and and the
• 3:40
  the military is a great way to do that.
• 3:42
  And then the third piece was to to get the GI bill and to get those benefits that service
• 3:46
  members get to to then go on to college once I was ready to study the things that I wanted to
• 3:51
  study.
• 3:51
  I always wanted to be a filmmaker.
• 3:52
  I was obsessed with movies and TV as a kid.
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  I wanted to be an actor initially.
• 3:57
  And then in high school, you know, instead of studying and doing my homework, I was reading
• 4:01
  screenplays, and I was watching behind the scenes, making up documentaries on DVDs and
• 4:05
  things like that.
• 4:07
  So for me, the air force was always something I was just gonna do for one enlistment and, and
• 4:12
  then get out and use the GI Bill, which is, ultimately what I did.
• 4:16
  Got out and came back to Columbus and went to Ohio State for for one year, and the film
• 4:20
  studies program at Ohio State was great for what it is, which is kind of more of a film
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  like, training to be a film critic, you know, in film theory.
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  So I love that I got one year of that, but, ultimately, I I was a doer and a maker.
• 4:34
  I wanted to be a doer and a maker, so I ultimately transferred to Full Sail University
• 4:38
  down in Orlando, which is an accelerated, bachelor of fine arts program in screenwriting
• 4:44
  down there.
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  And, so I got to go down and and actually learn the craft and learn to make and create and went
• 4:52
  to LA from there.
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  And then from LA, went to New York City.
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  And then now we're we're back here in in Columbus, and we can kinda dive into any of
• 5:00
  those business aspects that that you want on that journey, but that's that's the long and
• 5:04
  the short.
• 5:06
  Yeah.
• 5:06
  Well and you've got a really well rounded, life, right, from your experience in the
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  military and going to a few different schools, you know, one where, you know, obviously, the
• 5:18
  Ohio State University, one of the biggest, you know, athletic schools in the country, but
• 5:23
  probably underrated as an academic institution.
• 5:25
  Right?
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  I would think because any of those, schools that get that kind of notoriety with their
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  athletic programs often get overlooked in that.
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  And I can't mention, the university without mentioning Roy Hall junior who introduced us.
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  So huge shout out to Roy, for making the connection with us as well.
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  The the production world and I and I wanna dig into this a little bit deeper, and that's
• 5:51
  probably why you glossed over it right here at the end because I find it very interesting what
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  what kind of brought you to being an independent now documentary filmmaker.
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  You didn't start out necessarily making full length films.
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  You were more in the kind of made for brand, you know, work because that's what most people
• 6:10
  do to pay the bill.
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  Right?
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  And talk a little bit about that experience in Los Angeles first, and then we'll move on to
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  your time in New York City.
• 6:18
  Yeah.
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  That's a that's a great call.
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  So like I said, I was reading screenplays and watching behind the scenes making of
• 6:24
  documentaries on on DVD extras, back in the day.
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  And, so I wanted to be a narrative filmmaker.
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  I wanted to be, know, a Quentin Tarantino or a Christopher Nolan.
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  Right?
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  I think every good arrogant film school student, thinks that they can certainly walk
• 6:40
  that path.
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  Right?
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  And so I studied screenwriting at Full Sail.
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  While I was there, I wrote a couple of short screenplays, to make some short films.
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  I mean, the program at Full Sail, not to get too deep into it, but, is great for military
• 6:55
  students.
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  And one of the things that I learned there was how do you write in order to make.
• 7:03
  Right?
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  So I I was in class with a lot of younger students.
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  I was, you know, 23, 24, I think, probably at 20 I guess I had turned 24, 25 when I
• 7:13
  graduated, so I was older.
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  So I really connected with the professors, and a lot of the other students in my cohort were
• 7:19
  were younger, right, right out of high school or a couple years removed from high school.
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  And they were writing these large spec scripts.
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  Right?
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  They you know, whether it's the sort of, like, you know, Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DC
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  Universe or high concept sci fi, these things that that we're all in I love that stuff too.
• 7:36
  I'm really interested.
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  But what I with those professors there is write what you can actually make.
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  Right?
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  And so for me, that was thinking through the lens of independent film, whether that's, like,
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  self financed or, not financed at all, just working with people who are willing to work on
• 7:51
  a passion basis.
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  So I wrote a couple of short films, short screenplays when I was at Full Sail, and I am
• 7:57
  one of them, won a couple of awards through the online festival circuit, which was really cool.
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  So I took those out to LA.
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  And because I didn't have a production degree, I had a screenwriting degree, I immediately got
• 8:08
  on set in in Los Angeles, and I became the first assistant director for a web series that
• 8:15
  ultimately didn't didn't see the light of day.
• 8:17
  They didn't finish postproduction, but I learned a tremendous amount about production.
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  So that marriage of what are you writing?
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  What's on the page?
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  And then how does it get onto the screen?
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  So, obviously, somebody else wrote that that screenplay for for the web series.
• 8:32
  But as the first assistant director, what I learned was how every department works on a
• 8:37
  film set.
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  So the first assistant director sits at the center.
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  They're not the center, but they sit at the center of every department on a film set.
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  So they interface with talent, hair and makeup, wardrobe, art department, props, locations,
• 8:52
  grip and electric, camera department, and then the director themselves as well as working for
• 8:58
  the executive producers and the producers and the writers in order to to make the film or the
• 9:04
  television series or the short film, whatever it might be.
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  And so because I loaded bombs on fighter jets in the air force, you know, I was lucky enough
• 9:13
  to deploy a couple of times.
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  Lucky enough, I was stationed over in The UK.
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  So I I deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan a couple of times, and then we did NATO operations all
• 9:21
  over Europe.
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  So training other European allies as well as training with other European allies.
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  And when you're on the flight line loading bombs on fighter jets, you're working with crew
• 9:34
  chiefs.
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  You're working with who those are the mechanics, right, who are in charge of the the
• 9:38
  overall functionality of the aircraft.
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  You're working with avionics.
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  They're in charge of of radar and electronics for the jet.
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  You're working with the engines troops who are who are, you know, putting the engines on and
• 9:50
  in the aircraft and maintaining those engines.
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  You're working with air to ground equipment.
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  You're working with supply troops.
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  You're working with all of these different organizations kinda within this larger flight
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  line organization.
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  And you don't touch any of the other departments work, right, but you have to work
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  with them and alongside of them.
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  So when I got onto this set working on this, web series and I was, you know, this kind of
• 10:14
  first assistant director who was in charge of making sure that every department got what they
• 10:18
  needed, I saw the flight line.
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  I saw what I did in the military, and I brought that framework to bear on that experience.
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  And very quickly, I saw what what worked and what I could bring from that framework, and
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  then I dispensed with some of the other things that might not necessarily work on a film set.
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  But the the one to one was remarkable.
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  That is when I started to, like, really fall in love with production as well.
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  So I still had the ambition to take my short screenplays and direct them and produce them
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  and turn them into, short films to then put on the festival circuit, and I still had that
• 10:51
  artistic approach.
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  But I did have this now grounding and understanding of how production actually works,
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  how you take the page, how you take the script, and you turn it into something tangible that
• 11:01
  you put into the camera and then put into a a computer system and edit, right, for a final
• 11:05
  product.
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  So that initial narrative experience out in Los Angeles was was incredible because I got to,
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  like, really learn how to actually make, right, and how it works.
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  And it's not just art.
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  Right?
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  It's this sort of marriage of art and science and logistics.
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  So not to spend too much time on that, but I, you know, did that web series, and then I did
• 11:26
  another, feature length film with that same crew, where I I was the unit production manager
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  and second assistant director on on a feature film.
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  I Then took that crew back to Los Angeles, and, we made those short films that I wrote.
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  And we put them out on the festival circuit and did pretty well.
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  The problem was I was waiting tables, ten and bar, racking up debt.
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  Right?
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  Like, trying to get an agent, you know, at twenty five years old.
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  I'm not gonna be Chris Nolan.
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  I'm not gonna be Quentin.
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  I'm not gonna be any of these guys quite yet.
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  And so I stumbled into branded content and advertising because I I got hired by somebody
• 11:59
  out of New York City to, crew up and and direct, a branded content piece for for the
• 12:05
  Disney Channel.
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  And we had wrapped beers, me and me and the that producer.
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  And he said, what are you doing, man?
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  What do you wanna do?
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  And I said, well, I I wanna do this for a living.
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  Like, I wanna do this all the time.
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  And he was like, you gotta work in advertising.
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  Because if you work in advertising, you do this five days a week, right, Monday through Friday.
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  You're working with experienced crews.
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  You're working with experienced directors of photography.
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  You're working with experienced producers so you can learn the craft, right, and get better
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  at doing this every day.
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  And then you can continue to make your independent films on the weekends for pizza and
• 12:39
  beer.
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  You don't have to pay crews and DPs to come in and and shoot the artsy fartsy stuff that you
• 12:44
  wanna make because we're all working for the man five days a week.
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  We wanna do something fun on the weekends.
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  And so that's what I did.
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  I moved to New York City.
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  Longer story, my now wife and I reconnected, and that's that's why I moved to New York City.
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  And, and then I I still waited tables intended bar to work my way into the industry as I
• 13:01
  freelanced, but I took that narrative experience.
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  I took that experience from Los Angeles and film school to New York City, and I started to
• 13:07
  cobble together a portfolio.
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  So sometimes I was writing scripts, and I was writing questions, you know, for a branded
• 13:14
  documentary director.
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  And I would sit next to him, and I would help him craft the questions as he interviewed
• 13:19
  people.
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  And then I learned how to shoot b roll, right, to the the big thing in advertising is see say.
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  Right?
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  So if somebody says something in a script, whether it's a a branded documentary or a
• 13:29
  commercial script with voice over, you then need to see the thing.
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  So that director started to teach me how branded content comes together, whether in
• 13:38
  documentary form or in more traditional sort of narrative commercial form.
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  And so I was doing everything from associate producing to assistant directing to script
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  writing.
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  Sometimes they would let me direct some smaller pieces, and I started to cobble together a
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  portfolio.
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  And then I just made connections, man.
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  I built relationships with people in New York City, and all of these different crews that I
• 13:59
  met, I would just stay connected to the people that I enjoyed working with, and I would just
• 14:03
  follow-up with this producer.
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  You know, he it was Timing Studios at the time.
• 14:08
  It's now, I think, Dotdash Meredith, you know, right there in in Manhattan.
• 14:12
  And I would literally just go down to his office and knock on his door and say, what do
• 14:15
  you got?
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  Do you have anything coming up?
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  Anything I can help with?
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  Anything I can work on?
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  So I spent a couple of years doing that and got connected into this network of people that were
• 14:24
  making branded content and commercials.
• 14:26
  And then one thing led to another, and I I worked at another smaller agency where we were
• 14:31
  the the agency of record for NASCAR.
• 14:35
  And then we did a lot of commercial content for Fox Sports in the NFL back when they had, NFL
• 14:41
  on Fox on Thursday nights before it went to Amazon.
• 14:45
  And, again, while I was at that agency, I did a little bit of everything, a little bit of
• 14:48
  directing, a little bit of writing, a lot of producing, and I just learned how campaigns
• 14:53
  work, how it works to to, you know, function within this large brand ecosystem.
• 14:59
  I mean, NASCAR, you know, it's not technically one of the the big four leagues, but it's
• 15:03
  probably the fifth, right, in terms of in terms of sports leagues.
• 15:07
  Huge fandom, you know, obviously working with celebrity talent and just kind of learning how
• 15:13
  all of that stuff works.
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  Yeah.
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  I spent a lot of time standing next to Dale junior, there in the pits, you know, because
• 15:19
  he's working broadcast, and and, you know, we would just chop it up because we were just all
• 15:23
  out there in production.
• 15:24
  And so it was really cool to develop those relationships and meet people and understand
• 15:28
  how how brands work and what they need and how agencies work and what they need and how a
• 15:33
  production company fits into that.
• 15:36
  You know, at a high level, you have brands, you have agencies, and then you have production
• 15:41
  companies.
• 15:41
  And so a brand works with an agency, and an agency works with the production company, and
• 15:46
  you're all trying to bring a campaign to life.
• 15:48
  So I spent a few years there and then, ultimately left and did a couple of freelance
• 15:51
  things on my own and then got picked up, by a small agency, about fifteen, twenty people,
• 15:57
  during COVID and, worked my way up there that first year to become the head of production at
• 16:03
  that agency.
• 16:04
  And we were working with Procter and Gamble and launching brands for Gillette.
• 16:08
  We worked with a lot of start ups.
• 16:09
  We worked with a lot of, like, health care and self care.
• 16:12
  We worked with a lot of CPG brands, launched products for Fireball Whiskey, and we're we
• 16:18
  launched a veterinary care brand.
• 16:21
  We did, like, lots of really cool things, and I just further developed my understanding of how
• 16:26
  brand storytelling works.
• 16:29
  And, during that period, that's when I started the podcast veteran made because COVID
• 16:33
  happened, and we're all sitting in our homes working remotely like this, right, on Zoom or
• 16:39
  Teams or Google Meets or whatever it is.
• 16:40
  And I'm a big podcast guy.
• 16:42
  I love to learn through listening to conversations.
• 16:44
  And, I always thought, like, man, Joe Rogan flies people to his studio, right, to have
• 16:50
  conversations, but a lot of people during COVID started doing it remotely like this.
• 16:55
  And so I was like, how did I how did I get here?
• 16:58
  How did I do this?
• 16:58
  How did I figure out how to translate my skills from the military and transition into this
• 17:05
  industry I always wanted to be in, albeit in a slightly different capacity than I than I
• 17:09
  thought.
• 17:10
  And I thought the best way to do that was to talk to other veterans who had done similar
• 17:14
  things.
• 17:15
  So I just started a podcast on Zoom called Veteran Made.
• 17:18
  Right?
• 17:19
  I wanted to feature other veterans who had made stuff, whether that was, like, authors and
• 17:23
  filmmakers who made films and wrote books, or whether that was other veterans who were
• 17:28
  scaling their own brands because I now have that understanding of of marketing and business
• 17:33
  and brands.
• 17:34
  And so I started interviewing a lot of veterans who were scaling their own apparel brands or
• 17:39
  CPG brands or whiskey brands or cigar brands or kind of you name it.
• 17:43
  Right?
• 17:45
  And then I also was talking to other artists who were who were veterans, authors and
• 17:48
  filmmakers and poets and photographers and different people.
• 17:53
  And so I just started parallel pathing these things as I was working at this agency and also
• 17:57
  building the podcast.
• 17:59
  And then, you know, it just got to a spot where I was like, I I developed this really
• 18:04
  interesting sort of in house model at both of these agencies that I was at where where we
• 18:10
  could, as an agency, bring production in house and save some of those dollars that we would
• 18:16
  otherwise use to RFP other large production companies.
• 18:20
  Like, I built the skill set coming from the production side.
• 18:23
  And so that's what we did while I was there.
• 18:26
  And then I thought to myself, man, I can just do this myself as well.
• 18:29
  And my wife is in the industry, and she was working at other agencies building her own path
• 18:33
  along these lines and building a similar skill set.
• 18:36
  So we ultimately came together a few years ago and left our respective agencies and then
• 18:40
  brought everything under the veteran made brand and kinda pooled our portfolios together.
• 18:45
  And now that's what we're doing.
• 18:46
  We we function as a production company.
• 18:48
  We we certainly work with agencies who RFP us on behalf of brands, and then we also work
• 18:53
  directly with brands because we have that agency and that production experience.
• 18:58
  And so, really, you know, to to sort of long winded, but to to to to sort of button it, it's
• 19:03
  like bringing all of the skills and experiences to bear and then seeing how they work together
• 19:11
  and then carving that path forward.
• 19:15
  And I think kinda tying that back to your service is that, yes, you're building skills.
• 19:22
  Not all the skills that you learn in the military and the work that you're doing are
• 19:26
  very applicable to the civilian world.
• 19:29
  Right?
• 19:29
  But the the systems and the way things operate because you have such a large the the
• 19:35
  organization of the military, you have to have systems that you can plug any person into that
• 19:40
  walks them through.
• 19:41
  That's why you have basic training, and then it goes into schooling and and these systems work.
• 19:44
  And it feels like that specifically worked very well with how your brain is wired that you were
• 19:51
  able to now take that application and to apply it to every single job or, you know, project
• 19:58
  that you've worked on over the course of your career now and then continuing to apply that
• 20:02
  not only in your own brand, but for other brands and continuing to evolve this.
• 20:07
  Like, I'm really excited to see where you continue to go because you are such a lifelong
• 20:12
  learner as well that your best work is always ahead of you.
• 20:16
  Like, it doesn't matter what you've done.
• 20:18
  Your best stuff is always going to be ahead of you because you're learning.
• 20:21
  And I don't know that everyone I think everyone has that inside of them, but not everyone stays
• 20:26
  motivated to continue doing those and getting better at what they're doing.
• 20:30
  So very proud of you.
• 20:32
  It's not an easy thing to branch out and to start your own company, right, to to leave the
• 20:37
  security of an agency or a production company that's kinda paying you that consistent, you
• 20:42
  know, wage and salary to move out onto having to get your own work.
• 20:46
  But you've you've spent a long time building all of this up to being ready and poised for
• 20:52
  the success that you're having now.
• 20:54
  Yeah.
• 20:55
  I I thank you.
• 20:57
  I think, you know, the the so two two things.
• 21:00
  One, you talk about systems.
• 21:01
  Right?
• 21:02
  The biggest system that military veterans have, that that seems obvious that they might not
• 21:10
  realize translates so well is OJT on the job training.
• 21:16
  Now the trades have this.
• 21:17
  Right?
• 21:18
  If if if you if you go into the trades in the civilian world, whether it's union or
• 21:22
  otherwise, you have a system of OJT.
• 21:25
  So it's not unique to the military.
• 21:26
  But in this context, the military, we have OJTs on the job training.
• 21:30
  So that lifelong learning is built into you from the moment you start boot camp, all the
• 21:39
  way through to the end of your career.
• 21:40
  I have friends right now that are getting ready to retire and are still going to schools in the
• 21:45
  military to learn and apply right up until, you know, they they retire.
• 21:50
  So that that is built into the the military framework and the systems.
• 21:54
  And so that was the biggest thing that I translated over to the civilian world and
• 21:59
  working in this particular industry is, you're right.
• 22:02
  I'm constantly learning, and I constantly look at everything as training.
• 22:06
  And I look at it as on the job training.
• 22:07
  So the stakes are a little bit higher, obviously, because if you're learning on the
• 22:13
  job and trying to catch up, quote, unquote, from the time missed in college and the time
• 22:19
  missed not getting internships and all of these things that that military, you know, veterans
• 22:24
  tend to miss, when they jump right into college and then jump right into industry, is is that
• 22:31
  that idea of of on the job training and and constantly learning.
• 22:34
  The other thing is relationships.
• 22:38
  I think there's a big misnomer.
• 22:40
  I think the civilian population in this country assumes that military veterans are only good at
• 22:46
  showing up on time early.
• 22:48
  Right?
• 22:49
  On time is late.
• 22:50
  On time is actually fifteen minutes early.
• 22:53
  Hence why I was I was you and I were able to chop it up a little bit because I was early to
• 22:56
  this.
• 22:56
  Always am.
• 22:58
  Showing up early on time and following orders, that is that is not actually what we're trained
• 23:04
  to do.
• 23:05
  We're actually trained to make our own decisions and work with the teams alongside of
• 23:10
  us in the military to accomplish the mission.
• 23:12
  Yeah, there are certainly standards.
• 23:14
  There are expectations.
• 23:16
  There are rules of engagement.
• 23:17
  There are all of these things that you can and cannot do, but that provides a sandbox.
• 23:21
  That provides a framework.
• 23:22
  Within that, leadership in the military empowers service members to make their own
• 23:28
  decisions within that framework and build relationships with other people.
• 23:33
  Now sometimes those other people are your rank or below, and sometimes they're above your
• 23:39
  rank.
• 23:40
  So I learned very early that as long as you are respectful, you stand at parade rest or
• 23:45
  attention, you can have a conversation with a four star general, which I did a lot.
• 23:49
  I would have to brief pilots on the packages that we that we loaded in Afghanistan.
• 23:55
  We would do, you know, my job in the in the air force loading bombs.
• 23:59
  You had to stay called monthly.
• 24:01
  So you were constantly getting qualified on different packages that we were loading on
• 24:06
  airframes or might potentially load on airframes.
• 24:09
  And we would have what's called dog and pony shows where, you know, the the wing level, or
• 24:15
  the group level commanders and senior enlisted would come in and observe you actually training
• 24:21
  and qualifying on these, then and you had to debrief them.
• 24:23
  They would ask you questions, and then you would have to give answers.
• 24:26
  You have to stand in front of boards.
• 24:27
  So I'm I was capable very early and very young speaking to people that were older, more
• 24:33
  experienced, and had more rank than I did.
• 24:35
  So then when I got into this industry and I had to go brief c suites, on a preproduction or on
• 24:41
  a creative concept, I just treated them like people.
• 24:44
  I was respectful, of their of their status and their rank within the organization, but I just
• 24:50
  treated them like people.
• 24:50
  And I would observe, a lot of my colleagues and coworkers, oh my gosh.
• 24:55
  The CEO is gonna be on this call.
• 24:56
  We gotta be buttoned up.
• 24:57
  And it's like, yeah.
• 24:58
  Of course, we gotta be buttoned up, but we can just treat him or her like the person that they
• 25:01
  are.
• 25:02
  And so, you know, I benefited from that tremendously.
• 25:06
  I also had some instances where there were clients that I was too friendly with, and the
• 25:10
  people I was working for didn't didn't like that.
• 25:12
  And so that's something that you you sort of have to feel your way through.
• 25:17
  But I think you're right.
• 25:18
  It's it's systems, but it's also those relationships that you're building with the
• 25:22
  people you're working with and the people you're working for.
• 25:26
  So you're working now with your wife.
• 25:28
  You guys are are, you know, in your business together.
• 25:32
  Are there any challenges into working with your spouse, kinda both coming from and I don't know
• 25:37
  what her background is in the industry.
• 25:39
  I'm assuming maybe a little bit different and a little bit different side of that challenges or
• 25:44
  or on the flip side of that advantages to working with your spouse.
• 25:49
  No.
• 25:49
  There's no challenges at all.
• 25:50
  It goes perfectly.
• 25:51
  We never disagree.
• 25:52
  Smart man.
• 25:53
  No.
• 25:54
  We do.
• 25:55
  We do.
• 25:55
  We disagree well.
• 25:56
  It it it it yeah.
• 25:58
  It happens.
• 25:59
  But there there are challenges and there are advantages.
• 26:02
  She actually comes from a nontraditional background as well.
• 26:05
  She she studied journalism and new media in college.
• 26:08
  She's very creative, was very creative early.
• 26:11
  She got out of college, right at the financial crisis, and she went into education.
• 26:17
  That was her master's degree was in education.
• 26:19
  And so she was a teacher, for a long time, and then she worked in operations administration at
• 26:26
  different schools, and worked at one in particular in in Brooklyn, which is which is
• 26:30
  why I moved to New York City.
• 26:32
  And and while I was there, you know, we had again, it's a long love story.
• 26:37
  I can provide you with some links to podcast episodes that I've done and that we've done
• 26:40
  together for those that might be interested.
• 26:41
  But, one of the things I encourage her, was like, hey.
• 26:45
  You you were super creative back in the day, and I think you are super creative.
• 26:49
  I think you'd be really good at this.
• 26:51
  Would you like to do some of this together?
• 26:53
  So she came onto a couple of sets that I was working on early in my time in in New York, and
• 27:00
  we were I I was very encouraging of her to to step in and give creative feedback and give
• 27:06
  creative input, and then she was also assertive enough to step in and do that on her own.
• 27:11
  And then we we sort of stumbled through those initial, you know, jobs together.
• 27:15
  Like, what's the what's the the breakdown of responsibilities?
• 27:21
  You know, where where do I jump in and take control?
• 27:24
  Where does she jump in and take control?
• 27:25
  I was in encouraging her to be creative.
• 27:28
  She has this operations background.
• 27:30
  I really wanted to be more of a director on the creative side.
• 27:33
  She was like, well, I can fit in with production because I do logistics through this
• 27:36
  operations role at the at the charter school.
• 27:39
  But then we very quickly went like this where she just really took off with with her creative
• 27:45
  output, and I started to just continue to fall in love with the production side.
• 27:49
  So we actually kinda went like this where I went more production and logistics and the
• 27:54
  marriage of creative and logistics through, you know, becoming the head of production at
• 27:58
  another agency.
• 27:58
  And then she started to work in more of a creative, capacity at the agencies that she was
• 28:02
  working at, and that culminated in her directing primarily.
• 28:06
  So she would direct brand films and brand documentaries, you know, whether they were one,
• 28:11
  two minute films or eight to fifteen minute films, then she did she did a, a feature length
• 28:16
  documentary that was brand funded and distributed by Tubi about three WNBA players
• 28:21
  that were they were navigating the end of their collective bargaining agreement a few years
• 28:26
  ago, and she made this feature length film as a director, as an EP.
• 28:29
  And it was after that film that that we got together, or, excuse me, as as business
• 28:34
  partners.
• 28:35
  We were married at the time, but we got together as as business partners.
• 28:38
  And so we've we've really been I'm sort of, you know, production, logistics, high level
• 28:46
  creative input, and then she's more of that boots on the ground creative driver as our
• 28:53
  flagship director.
• 28:55
  And so because we love each other and we respect each other and we trust each other and
• 29:00
  we live together and we work together, there's a lot of positive creative tension as we move
• 29:08
  through various projects and various productions.
• 29:11
  And we just get better every time, and we get better kinda within every project.
• 29:17
  We're working right now on a on a product launch campaign for for a brand that I've
• 29:22
  worked with in the past and she hasn't worked with before.
• 29:25
  So this is a relationship that I have.
• 29:28
  And now she's coming in, and she's driving the creative, and I'm driving the relationship and
• 29:33
  the logistics.
• 29:34
  And then we're bringing, you know, some of my crew members that I have experience with and
• 29:37
  some of her crew members that she has experience with.
• 29:40
  And we're just very clear about roles and responsibilities upfront.
• 29:44
  What are you responsible for?
• 29:45
  What am I responsible for?
• 29:47
  I'll say, here are the things that I need from you on this cadence.
• 29:51
  Does that cadence work for you?
• 29:52
  Yes.
• 29:53
  It does.
• 29:53
  Amazing.
• 29:54
  And then I have just learned to hold her accountable the way that I would hold any other
• 29:58
  director accountable through, you know, hot sheets and checklists and, you know, these
• 30:02
  production logistics items.
• 30:04
  And so we just stumble forward and and get better every time.
• 30:08
  I think one of the massive advantages is how well we know each other.
• 30:13
  Right?
• 30:13
  And so, like, I know how she's feeling and what she's thinking.
• 30:18
  You know?
• 30:19
  She knows how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking as well.
• 30:21
  And so we can read those things and just put them on the table and talk about them and say,
• 30:25
  hey.
• 30:25
  Here's what I'm thinking.
• 30:26
  You're thinking.
• 30:27
  Yep.
• 30:27
  That's what I'm thinking.
• 30:28
  Great.
• 30:28
  Alright.
• 30:28
  Let's let's move forward, you know, this way, or let's pivot, or let's let's do kind of
• 30:33
  whatever whatever needs to be done.
• 30:36
  Yeah.
• 30:38
  I'd love to hear about, some of your recent works, you know, on the creative side for you
• 30:43
  guys, the the stuff that you're producing in house and really the passion projects that you
• 30:48
  have, and hear about a couple of those before I let you get out of here today.
• 30:52
  Yeah.
• 30:52
  No doubt.
• 30:53
  Yes.
• 30:54
  Like I said, she directed that feature documentary about the WNBA.
• 30:58
  So after that, we got RFP'd, by Octagon, which is a big sports agency, to develop a
• 31:04
  docuseries, for the WNBA and Delta Airlines.
• 31:08
  So one of the big things on the collective bargaining agreement for the WNBA and their
• 31:13
  union was charter travel.
• 31:16
  And so that was a big piece of of Andrea's film was the fact that the league needed charter
• 31:21
  travel.
• 31:23
  So they ultimately got that through their collective bargaining agreement.
• 31:26
  So then Delta Airlines became that partner.
• 31:29
  And so this agency had worked with with Andrea previously, loved her work, obviously knew that
• 31:34
  the the film was successful.
• 31:36
  Two of the players were gonna be featured in this documentary series.
• 31:40
  So we did that about a year ago.
• 31:42
  I launched a a three part fifteen minute fifteen minutes per episode docuseries about
• 31:48
  these three WNBA players talking about the past, present, and future of themselves and the
• 31:54
  league itself and the partner, all kind of the rapper was the partnership through Delta
• 31:58
  Airlines.
• 31:58
  So that ran on in flight entertainment last year, and into this year, and then lives on
• 32:03
  YouTube as well.
• 32:04
  I can provide you some links if folks wanna wanna watch that.
• 32:07
  Right now, like I said, we're we're we're launching a a a new product for for a big
• 32:12
  brand.
• 32:13
  Can't say what it is because it's not, you know, public yet, but it will be after after
• 32:17
  our campaign.
• 32:18
  And then, yeah, we're working on developing a few different documentaries in in both spaces,
• 32:23
  in the women's sports space as well as the the military veteran space.
• 32:27
  So Dre actually Andrea, she played college golf at Ole Miss.
• 32:30
  So she's a female athlete herself, an elite female athlete.
• 32:34
  We still play we play golf together.
• 32:35
  She's obviously a lot better than me, and I will I will never beat her.
• 32:39
  But it's great to get on the course with her, because for two reasons.
• 32:43
  One, she's just tells me what I need to be doing instead of the things that I think I need
• 32:47
  to be doing on a golf course.
• 32:48
  And then she never gets mad at me because she's always too busy getting mad at herself.
• 32:52
  Elite golfers are are funny that way.
• 32:56
  They they get so mad at themselves.
• 32:58
  And she's like, oh, man.
• 32:59
  I'm too over.
• 33:00
  And I'm like, I'm 30 over.
• 33:01
  What are we talking about here?
• 33:02
  Don't be mad.
• 33:02
  That's ridiculous.
• 33:03
  No.
• 33:04
  I've gotten better.
• 33:04
  I'm like I'm like a 19 handicap.
• 33:06
  I'm getting better.
• 33:08
  But, no, I I shoot in the the low nineties, and and she shoots in the low seventies.
• 33:12
  But it's a lot of fun.
• 33:14
  So, yeah, we're focusing on on women's sports, and then we're focusing on kind of military and
• 33:19
  and veteran and veteran stories.
• 33:21
  So I can't talk about a lot of the projects that we're trying to develop, right now just
• 33:26
  because, they're they're not real yet.
• 33:29
  You know, the way the way it works, especially when you're going to the streamers and you're
• 33:32
  working with some of these big leagues, is there's multiple people trying to make multiple
• 33:36
  documentaries at the same time.
• 33:37
  Sometimes there's overlap.
• 33:38
  So, like, we're bringing a project to to the WNBA right now, and they're like, we got two
• 33:42
  other production companies doing the same thing.
• 33:44
  So we have to navigate, you know, essentially what amounts to a competition, right, to make
• 33:49
  sure that our version of it is the one that they that they wanna approve and and move
• 33:52
  forward with.
• 33:53
  And then there's a few organizations and and people, in the military and veteran space that
• 33:58
  that I'm I'm working on developing some, some documentaries, about as well.
• 34:06
  Awesome stuff, Carrie.
• 34:08
  Really insightful, I think, for any young filmmakers or really anyone in the in the
• 34:13
  creative arts and just really any industry.
• 34:16
  I think your story is brilliant.
• 34:18
  It seems like you've always had a bit of a plan and have continued to enact that plan over time
• 34:24
  and realizing that it's a it's a long game that we're playing.
• 34:28
  Right?
• 34:28
  Life is a a very long play, and it doesn't need to be all done overnight.
• 34:34
  You can piece by piece, get better at what you're doing, and eventually, you're creating,
• 34:39
  you know, films and doing what you dreamed of as a, you know, 22 year old fresh out of the
• 34:45
  military, you're doing those things now for some of the biggest brands on the planet.
• 34:49
  And and I think that is inspiring to young people out there.
• 34:53
  And and maybe it's inspiring in the fact that your dreams can start small.
• 34:59
  I think that was my one big takeaway is, like, write what you can make.
• 35:04
  Yeah.
• 35:04
  And for me, being kind of a an unscripted content, you know, I'm not gonna crown myself
• 35:11
  as a king or anything, but that this is what I do.
• 35:13
  I I've developed over a thousand episodes in two years' time of unscripted content, and and
• 35:19
  I've never it wasn't a dream of mine to be a filmmaker or any of those things, but now it's
• 35:24
  becoming part of that where it's like, okay.
• 35:26
  This is great.
• 35:27
  The podcast is awesome, but we could be doing more to tell those stories.
• 35:31
  So I think that's a a long winded way of me asking for an internship with Veteran Made, but
• 35:37
  we can talk about that off camera.
• 35:39
  Carrie, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day for me today, and thank you for
• 35:43
  being part of the scene.
• 35:45
  Bubba, thanks for having me, man.
• 35:47
  I I, I really appreciate it.