EP 15 Will Gentile

A play on the triumph and losses in performance and life.  The Talent Tank podcast will navigate the inner workings of lifestyle, lives, family, teams, careers, programs, and technology in and around the offroad motorsports industry.  What breeds success with your Talent Tank on full, failures when its on empty.  From the journey to the Starting Line to take that Green Flag, on to exploring trials and tribulations on and off the track in pursuit of victorious achievement and the Checkered Flag.

Pay no attention to the man behind the camera.  Not today!  The multimedia artist and visionary Will Gentile @will.gentile of HeavyMetal Concepts @heavymetalconcepts straps in and takes a dive into The Talent Tank.  You may not know the man, but you've heard his name and its synonymous with a large sum of the audio/video content coming from King of the Hammers, ULTRA4 Racing, and a litany of companies and racing teams in this genre of motorsports for nearly a decade.  Today we discover how he's been so successful at hiding behind the lens, where he draws inspiration, how he has honed his craft, and what it took to ascend the mountain of success that he still climbs every single day.       

HeavyMetal Concepts website:
http://heavymetalconcepts.com/

After the Checkered Flag-
Video links, and more video links to some of Will's work that we discussed
1. Nitto Tire - Milkrun
2. Bald Wasps
3. KOH: Origins 
Episode 1
Episode 2
4. Colt Firearms - Still Making History

This Episode brought to you by: The Jessi Combs Foundation as a donation from The Talent Tank and The Pemberton Family.  

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Transcript

Intro/Outro : 0:02

Let's drop the green flag on this episode of the talent tank podcast with your host Wyatt Pemberton bringing you the best, fastest, most knowledgeable personalities and ultra before and off road racing.

Wyatt Pemberton : 0:22

This episode brought to you by the Jessie combs foundation as a donation from the talent tank and the Pemberton family. All right, here we go. Welcome back everyone. Here we are, we are in the final weeks of qH prep 2020 we've got an amazing show today somebody who I wanted on the show for quite some time and we finally were able to get our schedule it's a flange up here we go we've got will Gentile heavy metal concepts will welcome to the party. Glad to

Will Gentile : 0:49

be here finally.

Wyatt Pemberton : 0:50

Yeah, right. So a little backstory when I actually started down this project and throwing this the ideas around in this project will was actually in the top three of people I want Are everyone seems to know you will or no of you I should say everyone seems to know of you well, but no one knows who the guy is behind the camera who the guy is behind the edits, who the guy is behind all your huge body of work. We see your work but we just don't know you. And I wanted to bring that to the forefront

Unknown Speaker : 1:16

and you said I said no.

Will Gentile : 1:20

But it was a soft No, I will add

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:22

that's exactly how your preference you said. I'm not saying no, but I'm just not the guy right now. And then you let me go out and with enough rope to either hang myself or succeed and I think I've done okay enough that you would come on later at a later date. And here

Unknown Speaker : 1:37

we go. We got you announced that here I am.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:40

We got Yeah, man. I love it. Yeah. So we're right now in the holiday season, everyone is in the KOH prep season. And you are no different you are prepping for co h yourself in a different form of fashion, right?

Unknown Speaker : 1:51

Yeah, always. I feel like as soon as KOH ends, we're prepping for KOH, it's just it's a lot like race teams in that way and you know, maybe a little less so in some ways a little more so in other ways. But yeah we're prepping for K ah now for sure so season

Wyatt Pemberton : 2:03

You're such a big piece of the behind the scenes and then the content that we see in the days after the weeks after the months after that kind of get us through and bias the time until the next February to do it again. That's awesome.

Will Gentile : 2:16

Yeah, we at least try to be

Wyatt Pemberton : 2:19

well here's my hook. Who is the guy that you would rather cover? Who's the better story guys that run up there in the front pack or the unknown dark horse?

Will Gentile : 2:28

Well, that all depends that's a battle we fought you know since since the first day I started covering k waves that's always the question right? It's like do you want the grassroots story where it's the guy that is super relatable and you know may not be a front runner but has a great story or is it the you know, the superstar the guy that is you know, in the running the one of the five guys that's going to win it probably that's that's the battle we always fight And truth be told. I still don't have an answer to that. We try to do a little bit of everybody. The best we can when we did the movie back when we used to do that we used to cover Little bit of both one year we didn't focus a heavy focus on some of the more underdogs and then in other years, you know, we focus on some of the front runners and either way we always get some flack and some praise. So we play that as as middle of the road as we can, but I don't know if there's a right answer.

Wyatt Pemberton : 3:15

I don't think there is a right answer. I just wanted to hear what you had to say because I think if you cover the front guy, you know the big names, you know, like the the Campbells or the Loren's or that with inside that company. Yes, everyone else covers them too. But then there's the whole rest of the field. And they do have there's some amazing stories out there in the field. But it's it is it's hard. I struggle with it myself. So I wanted to hear kind of your professional opinion of what that looks like as well. It's quite quite the conundrum.

Unknown Speaker : 3:40

I'll say some of our best stories have come from some of the one off little guys that have like a crazy logistical challenge or something that crazy that happened during the race like I always go back to, I believe it was Curtis Warner at KOH, I can't remember probably 2010 2011 12 somewhere in that little small range when they They drove backwards on course for like 30 miles or I can't remember the number but they they were so intent on finishing that they literally sat on the hood of their car and steered it he was steering with his foot or something and they went backwards for God knows how long and that was such a cool story that we just happen to have GoPros and having to play out they obviously weren't going to win or any of that but you know, people remember stuff like that or like there was also the story of off kilter, everyone knows off kilter that was around I think it was 2011 or 12, probably 12 and the car that had the dual Hayabusa motors or one high boost motor and a IFS front and IRS from an F 150. Just this whole this whole crazy amalgamation of like essentially garbage as far as racecar terminology goes and just this hack together vehicle but it was such a cool story because it was so relatable that these random guys you know, it wasn't it wasn't like a bolt on Jeep Cherokee, but at the same time, it was as far as racecars. One It was a nothing but they were at King of the hammers they were competing they line up the line they went to qualify stuff like that is so cool to me. And to be able to capture that that's always a good time.

Wyatt Pemberton : 5:02

Well, I think that is one thing that's for me is still such the allure of KOH, which is that anyone can still if you're willing to throw your hat in the ring, you can still line up with Randy Slawson and and Tom Wayes and Eric Miller, you can still take take the charge with them take the field do battle, you know, maybe you only do battle for the first half mile with them or what. But nonetheless, that is I think that is such a cool Euler that it's not out of touch. I mean, you can't go get on the field and play, you know, for the NFL, or step and take pitches from, you know, like Verlander anybody, like, you can't do that. You can't go to NASCAR, you can't line up in the top 42 on any given Sunday, the kale. Ah, you still can.

Unknown Speaker : 5:42

Sure yeah, even with how competitive is gotten and obviously, you know, there's there's a field that's probably going to win and there's a field that's probably not going to win it but like you're saying, that doesn't prevent you from being there and being a part of it. Whereas that may not be attainable, and another form of motorsport, or like you're saying professional sports, so I think that's a cool that's a cool balance. We just found where it's not so far one direction and not so far the other direction that it's it's still fun.

Wyatt Pemberton : 6:05

So what we're going to talk about today and why I really roped you in on is that you have covered Kuwait for almost since the beginning you've done the DVDs and been the the go to guy for videography since about 2010 these that's what I what I remember

Will Gentile : 6:19

a shot, right? Yeah,

Wyatt Pemberton : 6:20

you've been the guy behind the scenes, really yummy. You Pam working put out the DVDs for quite a few years until they just didn't you know, that just didn't sell and it makes sense to me. I mean, in today's world, everyone's streaming. I don't have a DVD. I'm not I don't even have a DVD player anymore. I don't think so. It's technology has moved on beyond that. So we're going to talk about how technology's moved on how your craft has moved on, or even how you got into your craft and roll from there. But first off, you are a northeast guy. You're Connecticut born raised.

Will Gentile : 6:47

Right? Yep.

Wyatt Pemberton : 6:48

Tell me about the winter in Connecticut. I've never been to Connecticut.

Unknown Speaker : 6:51

Connecticut winter Connecticut winter is like right now it's mild winter just started here but it's about 50 degrees now. Just super rare. But it's it's bitter and cold, we get all the mixes of everything we get the Four Seasons full blast, you know, you get your unbelievably humid summers you're freezing winners and everything in between. So you get a little taste everything

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:11

almost sounds miserable. But you know, I live on a gulf coast.

Will Gentile : 7:14

We don't have it has it has many moments of misery but between the misery there's nowhere better. I think as far as when our mild temperatures are here. It's the best.

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:22

Well, I want to come visit you in October. My my wife wants to do that, too. We want to come up there and see the leaves change.

Unknown Speaker : 7:28

There's no place I'd rather be in the whole country than in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine in October. It's lit. I skipped jobs just to stay here for that time. It's great.

Wyatt Pemberton : 7:37

And you cranked out some content during that time period. some amazing pictures of some leaf stuff. What was the event that was going on up there Jael x

Unknown Speaker : 7:45

Yeah, so JLX which Mel Wade puts on and Nitto is a sponsor that's how I was always involved in the past. It's it's like a Jeep rally and they it's kind of like an Ultimate Adventure and so this way to describe it. Everyone knows Ultimate Adventure. I've shot that event for a few years. Now. For nitto you know, in different areas, we went to Alaska, we went to kind of like the flyover states area. And we did the East southeast a little bit. So this was the first time they were coming northeast. And I didn't work this event, but I want to meet them anyway. Because you know, it's not often that the industry comes within 30-40 miles of my house set essentially never happens in the last decade, maybe like two or three times ever. So it was cool to see friends and you know, that I see normally other places that I was able to drive my own Jeep and check that out my own jail, which is also another Rarity that I get to use that as an industry thing. So it was cool.

Wyatt Pemberton : 8:31

No, that is awesome. I had the conversation just on the phone with like Shannon Welch and she was on it. She just couldn't stop talking about the colors and just spouting off to me like you've got to come you've got to go up there some time and experience it. That event went on, like the peak weekend of leaf change. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 8:47

yeah. And it's funny because I've lived here my whole life and growing up like I never really cared about that stuff. Because it was just like this is just what it is like it's just the leaves change and that's it and never appreciated it. We always used to make fun leaf papers which is what you call the people that come just for like that weekend, peak weekend, you know the last last few years or so I've become more appreciative of it. And my wife and I always travel up north whenever we can all my buddies and I almost all our fun trips are to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It's just it's hard to be

Wyatt Pemberton : 9:17

and you mentioned your wife, we're going to talk about her Nicole, we're going to talk about her in a little bit and she's an amazing individual but So growing up in Connecticut now you live just a few miles from where you grew up. You haven't haven't ventured far but you travel your travel schedule is insane. You're never you're never home.

Unknown Speaker : 9:32

Yeah, it's a it's a little strange to be an off road industry guy that lives in Connecticut because there's no off road industry here. Say for like a couple specialty shops, which we're friends with. Yeah, it's I live outside of the bubble. I like to say because I go to work. My work commute is to the west coast. And when I commute back home, I'm home and I'm separate from everything. It's kind of it kind of hurts me and helps at the same time. So it's an interesting mix. Because once you're at work, that you're just you just live inside of that world. 100% And then when you leave work, you can kind of have almost a separate world. So when the positives come to negative that, but it's it's an interesting mix of. We do have an industry here, but it's just completely different than the West Coast industry.

Wyatt Pemberton : 10:11

It really sounds like you have a lot in common with Chris Corbett with nitto that he lives there in the Puget Sound area on an island and I think it's camano Island. He's nowhere near any bright really off road and then but you see him at every single event, so he gets to disconnect Connect.

Unknown Speaker : 10:27

Yeah, him and I talked about that all the time, because the Pacific Northwest is kind of similar to the northeast in that way and climate and everything. So it we both share that kind of like disconnect as well as connection to our industries that we work in.

Wyatt Pemberton : 10:41

That's awesome. That's awesome to find commonalities from 3000 miles apart, right. So growing up, I know that you're not a big sports guy, but I know that your parents are these amazing golfers. Yeah, Hall of Fame level golfers.

Unknown Speaker : 10:55

It's a strange fact that some of my closer friends know my father is a lifetime people. J member and my mother is a lifetime LPGA member and obviously that's how they met. And yeah, my dad has been playing since the late 60s. And I think he, if I can remember, right, he qualified for the PGA Tour in 1971. I think it was. So he's been doing that a long time. He's getting older now. But like he'll play in the senior tour and things like that. But he's had a long career, a lot of awards. And they both both my parents teach for a living outside of tournament play. My mother doesn't do tournaments so much anymore, but I neither does my father, but he's won all sorts of stuff. He's played on all different local and national tours. He's in the US Connecticut Golf Association Hall of Fame. He was inducted, you know, about 15 years ago. So it's definitely cool to have that.

Wyatt Pemberton : 11:42

Yeah. No, that really is in golf. So the lifelong game I don't play it. I'm I've played it. I'm terrible at it. I'm gonna be riding on the golf cart. And you know, there's some curveballs that happen you know, you pick out right yeah, I'm not hitting that. I'm just gonna we're gonna drive that to the next.

Unknown Speaker : 11:56

Next All right. Yeah, I took golf up when I was a kid and you know, I played it because I kind of had to. And I went to the I used to go to the range and I was like 10 and just hit 200 balls, 300 balls and just, I'm not bad at golf, but I have too much to live up to to be good enough at golf. So it's when you go out and play with your buddies, it's expected that you're going to be the pro and when you're not, I get very frustrated with x. I'm very competitive in that sense. So I kind of have signed off of the whole golf thing for my own health. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 12:25

I love it. I love that story. So where we're in that kind of era of growing up, you know, 10 1115 1617 did you get the bug to start? I'm gonna say creating content like that you like to video things that you like to that you gravitated towards, like the audio file persona that has carried you on through your professional life.

Unknown Speaker : 12:44

I was having trouble answering that because I guess it was so gradual. And so you know, natural that I never there was never like an aha moment where I was like, I'm gonna be this guy. Like a lot of kids. We made films in high school, and I used to be big into like military history. military hardware and that sort of thing. So we would you know, even before even before High School we'd make like army movies and stuff like that as kids and and when technology got to the point not that I was born in like the film or anything but when things became more attainable to the point where you could get video on your computer and editing and a nonlinear editor, like the thought of being able to film something and then put it on my computer was just crazy to begin with. And I found like, for some reason, I found an interest in being able to like storyteller and create content on my own and put my own spin on it and everything and YouTube didn't exist then it started right when I left high school, but we used to send each other files and you know, host files in different places. And it grew from that. And then it kind of it started with my love of jeeps as well, because I love cars and jeeps so much that you know, naturally we ended up filming them when we were out on runs and that sort of thing. And that became a great catalyst to build a portfolio of things we've shot and ways to storytelling, even if even on a basic level of my club going out for a run and You know to Roush creek or wherever it may be, and just filming that and making a cool video set to music like that was always fun to me. So I guess that's where it started. It's hard to really pinpoint it but uh,

Wyatt Pemberton : 14:09

yeah, yeah. What did you start with it you did like a Sony Handycam for Christmas or

Unknown Speaker : 14:15

we used my we used my friend's mom's Sony Handycam in high school that we borrowed it was high end or whatever at the time but looking back it was pretty typical were

Wyatt Pemberton : 14:25

those like eight millimeter cassettes or nine millimeter cassettes What are those? I had I had one too I couldn't I want to

Unknown Speaker : 14:31

say one of them was mini DV and then I eight millimeter cassette sounds right actually can't remember that. We'll just go without

Wyatt Pemberton : 14:40

but you started talking about a wheeling in there a little bit and getting into jeeps and I know you're home local course your home local park is Rausch Creek. Yeah, ultra for has been there a handful of times, not in recent not in recent years. It'd be cool to see them back there though. I've gone as far east as like Kentucky now.

Unknown Speaker : 14:58

Yeah, it's been a long time. Rogers come out this way. Well, I shouldn't say that they weren't AOA a couple years ago which is also in Pennsylvania close to rouse. But it's been it's probably been about seven I want to say seven years since king of the hammers has come to Rausch Creek. Yeah, I mean, if you want to dive into that whole thing, that's the reason that I'm even involved in any of this is KOH coming around Creek.

Wyatt Pemberton : 15:18

Okay, tell us I didn't realize that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 15:22

So just to start that story, we we started wheeling, I got my I bought my first Jeep off my mother, it was just I still have it actually. It's a green Jeep Cherokee. I've had that for 17 years now. I took that Jeep we used to wheel it Paragon anyone in East Coast's that's gone wheelie knows Paragon Adventure Park and Pennsylvania Paragon eventually unfortunately closed which then brought us to rouse Creek which was had been around but was smaller but now that Paragon was gone which is kind of like the main player. It brought more people to wheel it Roush and Roush was it was it's about an hour from Paragon so it's all the same thing. And we used to go to Roush all the time to whale like we'd be at Roush three weeks Every month, like all summer long, it was to the point of ridiculousness. You know, around the time that King of the hammers was starting, obviously, it was its own race. There was no qualifiers or anything at that time. But the first king of the hammers qualifier that ever happened happened to rouse Creek. And I knew from just watching the coach stuff that there's no way I could miss this, like, I have to be there for that, like, this is my home park. We just drive down for the weekend, we'll check it out. And you know, of course, I can't just go there and watch I have to like do a thing. So we ended up doing my buddy at the time rented cameras from his college and more professional cameras, and we we went to Ralph's. And we made essentially what amounted to a mini documentary of the race. It was just a mini version of the king of the hammers movies that came later. And that was kind of our involvement with the RC Q, which was the right coast qualifier, Rouse Creek, but Dave Cole

Wyatt Pemberton : 16:49

Oh, man, well, I we did kind of jump for it. But I wanted to get it. I think it fit in perfectly right there. So as you were growing up and kind of evolving into this Like you said as you stepped into it you were you're wheeling this Jeep a little bit of an audio file you're making some things but you had some other interest in you touched on you were you really liked some Military History buff? Yeah like most kids

Unknown Speaker : 17:12

yeah I mean just to the next level like it was before like Call of Duty and all that so like not everyone knew everything about everything and like I just found this huge interest because my father so my father raised me on you know, watching history channel or whatever it may be with World War Two documentaries and that sort of thing and, and firearms and that all that that world all kind of came into one with military hardware and I was kind of a nerd about it, you know, before High School and you know, even even an elementary school I love this stuff like fighter jets and tanks. What kid doesn't, right?

Wyatt Pemberton : 17:42

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a point in my life where I can tell you I could you show me the silhouette of a world war two fighter and I'd be like, Oh, that was a p 52. To say exactly that. Yeah. It was so fascinating. And now we have you know, our kids, they have you know, Band of Brothers and there's there's just so much history out there that accessible and available to to them

Unknown Speaker : 18:02

like you're saying there are no resources and time for that unless you like made a conscious effort for it. So it was it was a cool like not hat trick but something to have like to talk about and know facts about things. I think that's what interested me as a kid.

Wyatt Pemberton : 18:15

Well, you would have to go to the library and school in class you would go to the library and you would find you had to find a section you had to walk out there with a book and somehow I gravitated to that as well. Right and so when I saw that you saw I was like you know what, that's a great commonality I think that's such a such a cool story yeah me personally World War Two buff I didn't know anything post you know, Korea or Vietnam. Not really good there. But we talked about World War Two I can get by today but if you talk to a 13 year old or 14 year old me I could talk to you about something. But that brought you into some some firearm stuff you you're you're a little bit of a gun buff.

Unknown Speaker : 18:51

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not full on. Like I have some friends that are full on so like, it's all relative. For me. I love guns and I was raised around guns and when I was You know, eight, nine years old I was field trip in 1911 with my father so I'm definitely familiar I was raised around them I have a slew of them and it's what's one of the most important freedoms I think we have. So that's been a big part of my politics of course as with many in our industry, I'm sure so but they're to be respected and not feared.

Wyatt Pemberton : 19:17

Education is king. Yeah, I think those of us that are here in the flyover states when we think about you guys on the coasts on the east or west coast is the the blue states the blue counties the anti to a and you hear conversations with you and you know that you have the exact same a it's not to be feared, you know, let's you know, embrace educate it's it's relieving for me to know that I sit across from you on a Skype day and have so much in common with that that viewpoint. I mean, I mean, we we aren't interjecting easy Rick Mooney him into the conversation and we haven't gotten that far.

Unknown Speaker : 19:56

Right. There's a lot of us here. I mean, it's it's strange. It seems strange. That Connecticut is it. I'll say that Connecticut is obviously a liberal state, but that's just like anywhere with you know, it's mostly cities, like a lot of Connecticut is, you know, agrees with what I just said it's it's not It seems as though the whole coast and the East Coast goes a certain way, but in reality, probably not so much. So it's it's nice in that sense. Unfortunately, the people who make our laws don't agree with that. So our laws are a little less lenient in that capacity, but we make it work.

Wyatt Pemberton : 20:25

Yeah, I don't want to get off on a political tangent, but exactly what you said we, that we've seen in Virginia, and it's rule, you know, you know, at a 90 some counties 85 of them have gone to this to a sanctuary status. Yeah, and the other ones are just you know, Richmond and it's, I find it very interesting that now, the spoon fed somewhat information that we've got from, you know, mainstream media for all these years, and now we're kind of seeing the other side of it and like, wow, you know, there's so many more like us like minded individuals than not Wow, yeah. Let's let's get out of the political world. Plus, we're going into election We're getting lambasted by it from all sides from everybody. Nobody's checking into this show to listen to us talk about politics. We'll get out of the weeds. Right, man. So right around, then you're out. You're kind of out of high school. I think you're out of high school at this point, and you sign up to do a contest for the offspring.

Unknown Speaker : 21:21

Yes. So my first camera, my first real camera came from a video contest. So I essentially used a crappy camera to get me a better camera. So how that how that played out was the offspring. The band had a video contest on YouTube at the time, which was still, you know, pretty new, not brand new, but still a pretty new platform where that was like a new type of thing. And they had a new song on the record called Hammerhead. And I'm sure anyone from my club my offer club that's listening to this right now is cringing beyond belief. Because everyone in my club, I'll backtrack. So how it worked was you had to win based on voting and views and all that sort of thing. Like there's most liked There's most viewed and we made a I made so he's saying we I made a video of all our club trips set to the song in like a sense that was kind of a fast cut, edit and all that sort of thing. And everyone in my club must have watched that video like 100,000 times each just to make it when the view count and I eventually won most liked and most most viewed, which got me I think, if I recall, $6,000 which at the time was just unbelievable for you know, I think I was 20 years old, 21 years old with no money and I took all that money and I bought a new camera and it was a Canon XH a one It took mini DV I still have it just cuz I'm sentimental like that. But that was the camera that I took my first co H and our CQ and that was what allowed me to start putting out content that wasn't just like, Hey, here's a handy cam. So it's kind of a weird story in a weird way to get a camera but with no financial backing. That's kind of how I made it happen.

Wyatt Pemberton : 22:56

That inflection point is critical. The Offspring has Critical inflection point in offroad case type media and while no one who would know that who would know that story now we've heard it that because of a band pretty awesome band because they hosted a contest meant you getting such a critical tool into your arsenal into your toolbox and then what you were able to do with it and then how many millions at this point have been on the receiving end of watching that content that came off of that camera? It's definitely strange to like to see how things pinball off of random events and stuff like that it helped that I love the offspring growing up I still do and that that opportunity just happen to come along. And you know, I was able to capitalize on it in some way thanks to all my friends and then I ended up with that camera which got me another camera which got me another camera and here we are. So it's kind of kind of a cool thing and you're able to build quite a business around it and do something that you love every single day. Yes, sir. So that said heavy metal concepts about what year did you decide where was this since we're kind of as the The fingers of time come together with going to school, getting your Associate's Degree in graphic design recording just kind of figuring out what you were going to do and what your say your your future projects were and put you on the path that you are today kind of how did that gel when you decided, you know what, what I'm doing, I want to do this for I want to I want to do this as a business and you hung your shingle as heavy metal concepts.

Unknown Speaker : 24:25

That's tough I, I'd say well start let me start with heavy metal started as a clothing company. Not Not with a real business plan but a buddy of mine actually started with a buddy and may started the company to just sell like whatever shirts like cool shirts, like we're like, if we can make some money making some shirts like whatever like novelty tees that went away quickly, because that's a pretty saturated market. We we initially started targeting, first of all anybody but we wanted to do automotive and offroad because that was just the world we just lived in. And that was easy and we had the access we needed and started targeting like clubs and that sort of thing because I had I didn't know anything about the industry I had a Cherokee and I offloaded and like bought parts but I didn't know anything about anything. So we just targeted our local market and you know, we got some jobs here and there but nothing too crazy. It was still like a hobby, which it was for a while. Yeah, and then once it once people started really getting stoked on what I was editing and putting out there and I regularly got a good response on the forums because we suppose on Jeep forum and all that sort of stuff, videos that we had made, everyone always loved them. And I figured, you know, why not try and make this into a real thing where I can make a buck or maybe make two bucks or three bucks and, and it just it naturally snowballed from there where I was so young that I could easily dive in to feet first, no problem with no real risk. And that allowed me to take risks and make mistakes and screw up and succeed and all that stuff that you need to do and eventually got to the point where I could make it a real company and register and everything and that it all just was a slow snowballing that's all it was. It was never like a moment where it was like doing this going all in. Here's this whole plan. There was no plan,

Wyatt Pemberton : 26:07

or you working anywhere else kind of started this.

Unknown Speaker : 26:09

Yeah. So I caddied for a little while in golf, of course. And I quit that in a hurry. And I ended up working at a studio local to me about 20 minutes from here. And I did I like edited weddings, and I did all the things I didn't want to do, I really didn't want to do. And that job actually ended up I saw that whole company closed when the economy kind of tanked. And that provided me the perfect opportunity where I didn't have to quit. I didn't have to actually make a decision. JOHN just went away. And I was like, Okay, I'll just do this now. And it just and here I am. So that

Wyatt Pemberton : 26:42

was about Yeah, we're I guess we're talking chronologically about 2008 2009. Exactly. You had this body of work this portfolio, and then you pick up you start covering hammer King and being the hammer King production guy starting in 10.

Unknown Speaker : 26:56

Yeah. So this was there was a whole thing leading into that. where it all started at Roush DRC. Q. Like I mentioned earlier, I had gotten into that through Bruce Chalice, who owns the park. He's, he owns it with someone else. And I basically pitched him with my buddy just blindly just emailed him and was like, Hey, you guys have this cool event going on, which at the time was RC rocks, that was their rock crawling competition. And he ended up hiring us to film his events for like a few hundred dollars per event, whatever it was, and I formed a great relationship with Bruce he's still a very close friend of mine to this day, he provided me the means to build my company in something in like a relevant way at his park where it was like hey, here's this real event. Here's these real competitors and here's a real product from that instead of me just going out and making like a whatever video and eventually that led me to Dave because Dave called brought the RC q2 Roush Creek in 2009 for the first ever qualifier and I ended up meeting Dave there and we did his interview and everything for the RC q DVD. And you know, time goes by we did that for I did to our CQ movies online. Just on my own company with a couple buddies and then after that Dave approached me at the Nationals race back then which was in Reno different place and ran out and before the the real Stampede as they say, right and, and he brought me into his hotel room and he was like, how'd you like to make our movie? And at the time, it was like that was that was priority 100% what I wanted to do, of course, I couldn't tell him that. Don't tell him that now. I remember at the time, I was like, inside I was like, Yes, like, finally. And on the outside. I'm like, Yeah, I think we could probably make that work. Let's do it. Right. Oh, yeah. Like, if I find some time, maybe I can get that going. So yeah, we did that. That's how we got started with Dave. So that was kind of a cool beginnings.

Wyatt Pemberton : 28:41

When you mentioned earlier you said you know, I'm on the east coast. I'm on the northeast coast. You're there you're not I'm removed from the industry. But there's a guy up there in Maryland. Actually. There's a couple guys I was Bigelow is up there at the time, big loaded. He came off a pretty good finish in like 2008 or 2009. He did pretty good. He was going to Central competitor and now he's a professional. He is a real person, professional real person these days Oh, Doug Bigelow, Miss duck, but you also had Eric Miller coming to coming into his own up there. And I remember in the early years of find out who Eric Miller was you and he were you did a lot of content using Eric. And I remember and you got to quote me, you get to correct me if I'm wrong here. You were videotaping him. I want to say your video in him at I believe it was Roush. It was a long sweeper he had he had the ashes fully hung out fully powering through and just drifted a little bit too wide on the curve and flipped and you caught it all.

Unknown Speaker : 29:42

Yeah, so I've known Eric for a while now. I met him at Rouse through that whole sequence of events I just said before, and he's been a good friend through all this. We sponsored his team, not so much a conventional sponsorship, but when they need something we do it like we do all their raps and you know, we've done video work with them before and photos and that sort of thing. And that turn you're talking about So Roush has a property that's across the street that has what we refer to as, quote mulch, but everyone knows that that's a very generous term for that. And he took that sweeping turn and just they dumped over into that mulch and which is essentially just straight up manure and just blew it all in their cockpit. And it was it was the most ridiculous it was the softest roll at speed ever for the worst possible reason. We still laugh about that to this day.

Wyatt Pemberton : 30:27

I remember I do remember the video is burned in my memory, but that's funny that it was actually kind of something on my newer that's, uh, yeah, that side of it. And then one of the guys in his group but like Scott Backman, you guys are probably mispronounce his last name, but you guys are close friends from that too. Right.

Unknown Speaker : 30:42

Scott is actually the brother of Tim diekman, who is a racer and King of the hammers also he has a shop here on these coasts in Jersey and Scott and I have done just an absolute assortment of he's not an employee of mine. He's not a camera guy, but he's a close friend that kind of can get a lot of things done and make things happen. And helps a lot on set. And he's been there since. I think he was there for that day with the roll. And he's been there since. So him and I have been from Germany to, you know, to here to California to everywhere just just doing all sorts of stuff. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 31:13

it's Tim's business. liquid iron. Yes. Yeah. They crank out some amazing stuff. His rock racer, racecar, Fred,

Unknown Speaker : 31:21

right? Yeah, yeah. Tim does great work. You did the cage, my chair cane. He's done a bunch of stuff and everyone trusts him to do all sorts of fabrication.

Wyatt Pemberton : 31:27

Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, his social media. I definitely followed closely by I've never met Scott though. And it didn't realize Scott's involvement with you and that's a that's very cool to close that that loop in.

Unknown Speaker : 31:40

Yes, Scott is the unknown Diekmann, but the very helpful one.

Wyatt Pemberton : 31:44

So you're running your own business. You pick up the college movies and somewhere in there you really start getting noticed with? Well, I'm I'm actually probably jumping too far ahead. I want to jump back a little bit to what makes the creative wheels crank in your head. What turns them what where do you turn out ideas? And that's where I was going with the Eric Miller videos. You were honing your craft using Eric for a lot of content. Where were you coming up with ideas? Because you bust out some stuff like no cron, you busted out, you know, like we talked about the the jail stuff. There's a ton of those. Walk us through some of those.

Unknown Speaker : 32:17

Yeah. So I like to, I hope to think that I have kind of a different view of the racing world than a lot of other people because when I was coming in, there was a lot of, you know, race coverage where it was more like everyone's got the heavy metal music and and more of like a rock theme and more like hardcore editing, that sort of thing. And the way I view racing is it has that lens, but it also has like, and I'm sure many people recognize this for my edits, like a big epic feel to it and more of a not slow pace, but maybe more more methodical, in a sense, where, you know, there's this whole story of that whole thing of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, right. There's a lot that goes into that one sentence and to capture that and you know, anything from Filming erasers eyes and their helmet at the start line to to the finish line when they're standing on top of the car with the flag it's there's a lot in between there that I'd like to pick out and kind of create a different feel around and it's kind of hard for me to articulate because I don't have to articulate that often outside of creating it but something about that just comes naturally as a feel to me where I can pull these scenes out and set them all to this whole mood if that makes sense.

Wyatt Pemberton : 33:25

No, I for me it does and I'll elaborate kind of what I see out of your work has through my lens looking at your work is there's a lot that goes into between the green flag and the checker flag and there's a leading up to it and post checker that you capture you've been able to capture not just the visual but you're able to capture the visual emotion and you know that from the emotion side what's going on inside your brain their brain co drivers brain pit crew bearing family watching fans watching that you capture that I don't know the the rise in the fall the ebb and the the evidence And the of the wins, the losses, the setbacks, the successes, and you're able to grasp that so that as the viewer, you feel like you're a party to it.

Unknown Speaker : 34:11

Yeah, I've been, I feel lucky that people have called that out. Because as a creator, you kind of you have nothing to go on other than just how you feel about something. So I'll shoot something a certain way that I haven't before. And I put it out there and you hope that somebody takes it the way you meant for it to be taken. And when someone does and they say, like, Hey, man, you capture the perfect emotion on race day. Like that's such a huge payoff. Because to me, that's everything. Like anyone, anyone can really film cars driving around and being crazy because you know, the subject matter is what it is. But if you're able to get someone to respond in the exact way that you were hoping they would respond, that's there's no better feeling than that. And I think ah, provides such a good catalyst to that because there's so many different ways to capture what's occurring. Even though everyone's capturing the same thing. You can kind of craft and mold a story in a certain way, depending on how you know how you capture a specific moment. Different from someone else. And that's not to say my work is better than someone else's. It's just hopefully different.

Wyatt Pemberton : 35:05

And you continue to hone that and continue to work on that. I just saw just yesterday you released a golf cart video.

Unknown Speaker : 35:13

Yeah, when I'm not when I'm not doing something that actually means something, hopefully I'm doing something that is funny. That's what I tried to be

Wyatt Pemberton : 35:20

maybe funny, I laughed, I thought it was really good. It was a really creative three minutes that I'm glad I spent the three minutes of my life watching him because it made me laugh. It was super kind of not necessarily outside the box, but it was entertaining. And if you go out of the gate with the intent and plan to entertain the masses, but at the same time to work out some little bug, or some little idea, or some little thought or some little project that you have on your own, that you can then use next week, next month, from now on something that we're going to truly see in the field that actually ends up being paying work. So I like that you never rest on your laurels. You're always pushing to the next level.

Unknown Speaker : 35:58

Yeah, anytime. We're not doing Something that's like a an official job or a contract, I try to just do things that are you know, whether it be a stupid thing or a fun thing or something more serious. Like I can make mistakes in those situations that don't matter. And then when it comes time for real to do it for, you know, for money for my job, hopefully I won't make that same mistake again. So I allow myself to kind of have a safety net. Like, for example, that golf cart video is perfect. Like, it gives you the freedom to just throw a bunch of crap at the wall and whatever sticks is great if it doesn't stick was funny, and no one cares, and no one takes it seriously. Anyway, so and you learn so many things that are useful even in making something completely useless like that. Like it's just And granted, we didn't spend much time on that, but like even little tricks and stuff that I noticed after the fact I can be like, oh man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that on my next big edit. Like that's super cool. So it's, it's as useless as it is. It's also some of them are useful. most useful work is stuff I just do it in my free time with friends. It's kind of like it's kinda like what we did in high school just with a whole lot more equipment now.

Wyatt Pemberton : 37:00

cooler equipment and so let's back into that so right about that time that you were in a in a room hotel room with Dave cold talking about landing the K wage stuff somewhere right in there you met your now wife, Nicole.

Unknown Speaker : 37:12

Yeah, I met Nicole in just right around then because she helped me at the start with just about everything I met her in oh man hopefully doesn't get doesn't get angry when she hears us. 2008 I think yeah, pretty sure. 2008 Yeah. And we started dating in 2009 Yeah, she's been there from the start really from exactly the start because she jumped in right when my other job closed. And she rode the train with me all the way to here with my company for the highs and lows and from printing DVDs in the attic of my mother's house to you know, in our own home now. You know, don't we need to do it's been a fun ride.

Wyatt Pemberton : 37:45

So you guys have been together a little over 10 years and but you haven't been married that long. You

Unknown Speaker : 37:50

almost newlyweds still. We've been married a year, just about a little over

Wyatt Pemberton : 37:54

a little over just slightly out of it. And as far as like racing and racing video goes and you're covering She was she's there for everything. Like it seems like almost everything.

Unknown Speaker : 38:03

Yes, it's a cliche that everyone always says that like, Oh, I couldn't do without my wife but I literally probably couldn't have done this like I could have done a little bit of it but definitely not the majority of it without her because you know, whether it's whether she's directly helping me being at the event helping me film which has happened or you know, handling logistics or whether it be just doing other things that allow me to do this, whether it is something as small as taking out the garbage or something as large as whatever it may be, she provides me the means to be able to dedicate so much time to my craft.

Wyatt Pemberton : 38:34

I saw a video I believe is it might have been produced by you, but it was basically people setting the hooks on different people that have participated in your coverage. And it was like for instance, Lauren Haley, and the question the hook was, who do you prefer will or Nicole?

Unknown Speaker : 38:50

Yes, I do remember that. I actually forgot about that till now. But yes,

Wyatt Pemberton : 38:55

I am everyone. The overwhelming majority was like Nicole Nicole. Yes.

Unknown Speaker : 38:59

I think the only one that shows me was my boy Tom was shout out to

Wyatt Pemberton : 39:04

Tom saw through the BS and knew that you were going to be editing it

Unknown Speaker : 39:08

knows the back end.

Wyatt Pemberton : 39:09

Yeah, he kept through it. Tom such a great guy. But yeah, I saw it I was like, Man nice. You guys just had this, this jive that when you can you find someone in your life in parallel with them and bounce off each other and their strengths are become your strengths and your weaknesses combined. You can x them out is just I think that's phenomenal. But it sounds like you know, from my knowledge of you and Nicole, she's killing it for you.

Unknown Speaker : 39:34

Absolutely. She used to come to all the events, you know, when she had more vacation time with a different job. Yeah, she she was at all the king of the hammers until the last few and she would handle all of our logistics with the RV and you know, with anything from GoPros and where they were going and when they were going to garage numbers and and organizing all the interview questions that I set up and she was a big part of the whole machine like and she still is just in different ways. So without her it's You know, like I said a cliche but it's true without her you know, I wouldn't be able to do this

Wyatt Pemberton : 40:04

and she's a big professional career woman she works for three M has a killer resume of her own stands on her own her work speaks you know, and she's her stature speaks heavy volumes without being someone who's even a party to will Gentiles life.

Unknown Speaker : 40:18

Right? Even if I wasn't here, she would still be the boss and killing it. And I would just be, you know, making handycam videos somewhere. So yeah, she's she's a supervisor, three, um, she is a great job. And she's been getting promoted like crazy. And she's super valuable there at her company. And she she has a full time job and then some and still, you know, like I mentioned, does all the things

Wyatt Pemberton : 40:39

comes home and takes care you

Unknown Speaker : 40:40

Yeah, I mean, she sounds a lot like my wife. So that's a I'm also drawing the parallel the parallels there. So I mean, so being your own business owner and being in the genre of business that you were in for the perils, the perils are, you know, you never know how much money you're going to make if you're going to make money at all. Just always business owners can relate to the same thing, right? It's just there's always this uncertainty. And someone told me or at least I saw a quote once that if you ever stopped being scared of that you're in trouble. Because that's it's almost a fear driven business in the sense that I'm just constantly worried. But I know that if I don't do this thing, or if I don't get out of bed this day, or if I don't close this thing, then it's just not gonna happen. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Because I enjoy that kind of challenge to some degree, it'd be nice to just get a check all the time, but at the same time, like, maybe I don't want to do that thing that gets me that check, right? So you can you can craft your own way and there's positives and negatives to the whole thing. But the biggest peril is just the uncertainty of always having to be on top of things or else things won't be there.

Wyatt Pemberton : 41:43

Well, I think that's, you know, the the two mindsets that are out there in society today, there is the I'm going to work for a company for 40 years of my life and I'm going to do what they tell me to do. And then you have the other side of the house. I don't know if it's I don't think it's a 5050 split. I think it's more like a 90 10 split and that 10% is out there chugging everyday exactly like you said, there. I'm I'm hungry. I'm aggressive and I know I'm capable.

Unknown Speaker : 42:07

Yes. And I hate I hate seeing people complain about being a small business owner, because yeah, it has a lot of lows. But man, the highs are hard to hard to match, at least in anything I've experienced. Like when you're I wake up every morning, I love my job, because I can maybe I'll get an email that that I've been really working hard to get a response on, or there'll be a new opportunity any day can be the biggest opportunity ever. And I think that's kind of a cool experience to have. Whereas we're more Not that there's anything wrong with a normal job. I've had that too. But just the feeling of waking up and knowing today could be the day this is this might be the big day that changes everything. I've had a few of those days. So that's a good feeling.

Wyatt Pemberton : 42:44

Now I think when you're working for let's say working for someone else, and you don't have maybe the entrepreneurial spirit spirit on that day, you kind of fall into I don't know I don't want to say it's a regression but I want to say it's a and not a read. That's not the right set of words. I want to say it's Just you have this standard, and it's more flatline that the highs are lower and the lows aren't as low. It's not a swing, swing is that a word? The swing, you swing. They're just they're just not and then you've got guys who like yourself for many of the people that end up in that I've had on this show and up in, in the driver seat man, this the challenges that they have taken on headfirst in in the world are just inspiring to me like what you do inspires me what a lot of these guys do inspires me. So I think I think that speaks volumes.

Unknown Speaker : 43:35

You have to love the extremes, that's for sure. And not to say I love the low extremes. I've had some pretty bad days as a business owner for sure. And you know, just managing relationships and managing failures and stuff like that is never fun. But like I was saying earlier with those small projects, like if you make a mistake and you suffer from it, you'll never make that mistake ever again. So everything is by design, just a learning point, right? So it's it's fun to work out. You just

Wyatt Pemberton : 43:59

hit it right right there that's the exact thing that needs to be said failure is going to happen it's absolutely going to happen it's how you deal with that failure and then how you take that failure forward because everyone that's successful you just didn't get successful on day one it just didn't happen the first thing you set out the first thing you set out to do as you left the house that day was just to be successful at it well some days that does work out but other days it doesn't right and it's what mentally how you prepare yourself and mentally how you handle yourself after

Unknown Speaker : 44:27

that failure hundred percent it's it's like I said the highs and the lows are extreme but the the highs of the highs make the lows go away in a hurry. So it's a it's an okay trade for me.

Wyatt Pemberton : 44:38

So I want to jump into like when we kind of started down the path and I got us tangent Lee way off, but like your talent, you know, ideas, brainstorming, then your execution and you said something to me. I'm not sure if it was verbally or if it was via text, but something about a talent doesn't carry you all the way you still have to put in the hard work what for everybody else. What exactly you said and what you meant by that?

Unknown Speaker : 45:02

Yeah. So I feel like when you do what I do, or what anyone that I does do, you're kind of born to that, in a sense where you have you, you by design have a certain eye for creativity and that sort of thing. And, and with that comes a default talent that you have to build and hone and you don't come out with all the talent that you build on that talent. But one of the hardest lessons I learned was that talent is only like a small piece of the whole puzzle, at least in the business world where you know, I spent a long, long, long, long time honing my talent and craft just like anybody should, but I relied on that too heavily to be my only tool where it was like, Hey, I'm really good at this thing. And hopefully people use me like that sounds great when you're 20 and like, some things are working out but in the long run that doesn't really play out I've found you need to have you know, relationships with people and make connections and be different places and be visible and and there's so much more to success than just having talent. You know, I'm not the most talented videographer I don't do the best videos on Earth. But you know, they're pretty good. But not that's not good enough to be the only thing I do. So it sounds like an obvious thing. But having, if I could go back it would be to spend the same amount on the talent but also cultivate kind of, you know, relationships with people in the industry and almost I hate I hate the term brand, but some kind of brand of myself where I'm more than just make cool videos. So if that makes sense,

Wyatt Pemberton : 46:25

no, it absolutely does. I really enjoy the niche that you have found and that you're, it's pretty envious that you're able to take something two things that you're very passionate about and blend them together. And that really came to my forefront of thought when I started putting together this interview with you was looking at you know, it doesn't necessarily follow the the path of everyone's you know, sideline, you know, their life and what they have going on with their family, kids, how they grew up, and then they have their separate racing side years as we talk through the chronology view is like everything is so tightly wound all the way from your Childhood all the way through today with offroad and videos and content creation and we're you've gotten, I guess, mentally having just exchanging just messages with you about this, I found myself really impressed with how in touch and in tune you were to ideas. It wasn't just an off the cuff stuff it was you could tell that you're mentally are in kind of a different place all the time.

Unknown Speaker : 47:24

Yeah, I think you probably that's probably fair to say it. You kind of have to be though, right?

Wyatt Pemberton : 47:28

Oh, no, yeah, you're your subject matter expert,

Unknown Speaker : 47:31

right. And you have to live in the world that you work, at least with what I do. Like, it's hard, it would be hard for me to go do a video for like, a perfume company or something because I just thought, Hey, I don't care and be I don't know anything about it. So it's hard, at least for me, I need to naturally be able to attach to that and care about and be passionate about it. And with offroad and cars, if that's so easy, because I just love those things. I'm surrounded by them at all times. And you know, just by the nature of that ideas will come to me are things even as simple as things like I just want to do, it's like, okay, let's just activate on that. And it just comes naturally.

Wyatt Pemberton : 48:04

It's very, very fascinating. I said, You're a subject matter expert in your, your niche field, I asked you about perils of being a business owner in your in your genre. And one of those things I'm going to bring up is the exposure bucks effect.

Will Gentile : 48:20

My favorite effect,

Wyatt Pemberton : 48:21

your favorite effect, and I think that kind of goes hand in hand with the I don't know if you probably have better words for this, but I'm gonna call it theft of services for photographers and videographers, that the services is what i what i think that's the right word that I want to use, is that what you would write

Unknown Speaker : 48:36

phrase? That's, that's a straight up as you could be for sure, because that's what it is a lot of the time. So you know, on social media, it's referred to as freebooting. That's another term that is good for that.

Wyatt Pemberton : 48:45

freebooting. I haven't heard that. That's perfect.

Unknown Speaker : 48:47

freebooting is basically when, for example, like a memes page, or a maybe not a memes page, but like a repost page. It's kind of hard to explain what they are, but I'm sure you know where it's a page that doesn't create content. It just gathers content from all over the web and puts it out there, which isn't always bad, but it's it's just it's taking someone else's content and using it for monetary value without their input or permission or paying them or anything. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 49:12

basically drudge but or huffpo but for in our case, or in your case off road automotive,

Unknown Speaker : 49:19

yeah, it's I don't like Like I said, it's not all bad. I mean, there's some there's some good to be found in that but from a baseline perspective, it hurts creatives photographers, videographers and it's tough to tough to battle because at the same time that helps Instagram and Facebook for example, their bottom line you know, the more engagement and the more stuff out there the better for them. So they're walking a line where it's like hey, we we kind of care and we'll kind of police it but at the same time we kind of want and let it happen for a little while.

Wyatt Pemberton : 49:47

I don't think they care at all. I personally and I flipped through the photo album in my phone. It's a ton of you know, like the right click Save As I mean, it's like it make it so easy. It's one button to save image, save image and It's always like, what he did this this way. And it's, uh, you know, let's say from a fabrication perspective, I see a picture of something that maybe Jesse Hanes did and I'm like, that's genius. I need to think about that and I'll save it. And I'll come back to it you know, you're later what's going through my phone I'll say, oh, man, that really was cool. I wonder what happened to that and then find out it didn't work out but or it worked out immensely. And we've we've pivoted and changed it. I've seen a lot of those things out of you where you've had you know, when we talked about the jail x and the beautiful leaves turning in October, you had some content that came out around that time that I was just, they were so picture esque and so beautiful. And then the other shoe drop Jeep reaches out to you and they have this they must have an automated bot that just just just goes in hits will Gentile on a regular basis. And tell us about that. It's just I want to

Unknown Speaker : 50:45

say in advance like that doesn't necessarily make me upset just because I know the context of it all there. What they the whole scenario there is there's likely a social media ad agency that has the account and their job is to find cheap content and ask for permission to use it. They do ask for permission. It doesn't matter who you are like they don't the context is that they don't know that I'm a professional in any way. So I'm not insulted by that. Because they're reaching out to everybody they reach they message 1000 people and hope 20 say yes or 100 say yes, or whatever it may be. And it's just a numbers game, it would be a lot different if like, for example, a Jeep like someone@fca.us. com reached out to me, and they were asking me for free content, that would be a whole different ballgame. It even says in their message on Instagram, we will not pay you any money, you will only get internet likes. And if I don't necessarily expect everyone to care at the level I do, because that's my livelihood. And frankly, people shouldn't care that much because it just it really doesn't affect how the world turns. But when we've broken social media down to that point, it makes it difficult for sometimes, in some instances, professionals to get that work or to you know, make that connection because crowdsourcing is a thing and it's effective, right? There's, there's people that don't do this for a living that take good pictures or take good videos and that's great, but you know, it all depends on how A company that's approaching at wants to handle it,

Wyatt Pemberton : 52:01

I think you're spot on. I mean, it does erode away your value. But on the flip side of that same coin, it's also part of that even bad exposure is good exposure, whatever that equals your stuff getting out there. But you've had some viral stuff. You've really had some stuff that that even offhandedly went viral that I don't think you planned on or plotted on is a project that you thought, Hey, you know, I'm gonna mess around. Watching you laugh right here. You know where I'm going. You You have a drone, right? You do you do quite a bit of drone work. You You took that drone after just some lowly Hornets. I mean, these Hornets were just trying to exist in life. You took you video, multi multiple angles, nonetheless, it was very professional production. Going after a hornet mask with a drone.

Unknown Speaker : 52:44

Yeah, there was a bald faced hornet's nest just on the eve of my house just here in Connecticut and I I set up a camera and a tripod. And I was like, I'll film this show my buddies because like we always joke about this sort of thing. I just I flew that it was a maverick Pro. And I basically just threaded the needle and eventually rode away their nest and killed all the Hornets, because you know, I was going to kill them anyway, I may as well have good time, right? Yeah, I just posted it. This is like literally nothing. I had no intention of like going viral or whatever. And it just went nuts. And like, I always joke with my buddies, like, my life's work is professional video production and just crafting images and flying all over the place. And all I had to do is go in my backyard with my a seven and just film killing bees with my drone and not even film with the drone. It's just it was the dumbest thing. But it went viral of the light counter view counter that you had reached to that you have access to what was your reach on that 30 million going back to freebooting. I mean, it was stolen countless times and there was millions on that. So you know, over 10 million people have seen the corner of the outside of my house. So

Wyatt Pemberton : 53:45

right which I think funny. Let's circle all the way back to when I interviewed Lauren a few months ago, us talking about milk run. And you guys you and Lauren and a couple other guys were sitting around and I don't remember what Lauren said that You guys were sharing a video and you're like, hey, look at this video how stupid This is. And this guy got whatever, 10 million views across YouTube and you're like, man, if that's all we needed to do, let's do that. And so it's like Lauren's like, Okay, I'm okay with let's let's mow down my garage door if it means we can go viral here and that Yeah, milk milk run video was born out of that.

Unknown Speaker : 54:21

Yeah, milk run. That was such a good time because it was such an organic natural thing where we didn't go into it with any real like, as usual. No plan, no real expectations. And Lauren Chris Corbett from Neto. And I all kind of brainstormed the whole thing to the degree we did, which wasn't that much it started out is just Lauren, myself, Spencer Clements, who is my drone operator and Zach Crosby. We were out in Moab and we're like, let's just film some dumb stuff. Like let's just go do like some cool social media clips or whatever because we always shot with Lauren and we're good friends with him and he was down like he always as we kept doing more and more things to the point where it got to like, man, we're doing some extreme exceptionally stupid things like maybe we should make this into a real thing. And so we shot all those first pieces in the lab, including the jump down potato salad, and we were like, man, we really need to cap this off. It's something like I know that everything we just did is crazy, but something's got to be just relatable but stupid at the same time and so together Yeah, and tie it together in some semblance of something that makes sense. So a few months past like five months or something. And speaking of JLS we were on JK x with Mel Wade and Lauren was there and Spence was there and myself and from there we went, we drove from Milan to Lauren's house, and his his wife Savannah was in Disney I believe on vacation. The time was right. We were like, Lauren is like, I'm just gonna crash through my garage door and I was like, Okay, I'll I'll push record and we'll see what happens. So he that we had this whole scheme where you know, we were gonna we were gonna burn out his garage, but we couldn't keep the car in place and we we had to do all these crazy things. We had for the garage scene, we actually had Casey and a bunch of his guys in the garage holding the car with a rope so that he could kind of burn out but not move around too much and like break stuff in the garage and get too crazy. We basically called it and they would run out of the room and then the garage door would get blown out and smoke would follow him. And it was this whole it seemed like a complicated plan, but it was kind of seat of our pants. Like we get one shot. Let's just do it type thing. And thank God it broke the way it did. And no one got hurt. We didn't like alert any neighbors or anything. He lives in a pretty, pretty close neighborhood. We're like, everything's on top of each other. We only had one yelling paper that day. Yeah, I mean, as simple as it was, it was so like, who hasn't wanted to do that type of craziness. Right? And everyone can relate to that. So I think that's why people were stoked on it.

Wyatt Pemberton : 56:43

Are we going to see more stuff like that coming from you anytime in the near future?

Unknown Speaker : 56:46

I sure hope so. We've been talking about it for a long time. And like with anything, the plants have to align in a certain way and there's got to be money and plans and schedules and the schedule thing is the toughest part because you know, we've got all our random work and Lauren has a race schedule and stuff So we'll see where it goes. But I sure hope so.

Wyatt Pemberton : 57:02

Oh, no, I didn't mean with Lauren. I mean with anybody like, I really like how you've been able to keep it fresh and continue to show up with fresh ideas and fresh takes and fresh angles. I gotcha.

Unknown Speaker : 57:12

Yeah, I mean, automotive viral videos, like everyone's doing them now to some degree, and you can only really do so much without it being what someone else has done. So that's why I default to milk ronix. I think that's like our own little or a little cutout that's already established. And, you know, there's a lot of things you can make happen there. But like, as far as other videos like that, not so much for me, I don't think

Wyatt Pemberton : 57:31

Okay, all right. You did Alaska with those guys.

Unknown Speaker : 57:35

So that was a job I did for Neto. And we've I've actually been there three times with them. One was for a JK x event. And the other two were for an alkene 5000. And for people not familiar with that, that's a traditional rally, not like a rally race with rally cars, but like a time stage rally and all sorts of vintage vehicles, anything from like a stock, like Subaru all the way up to you know, one of our lifted jails or a vintage for Example. Last time, one of the participants, Carl had a GT 350 H. And anyone that knows what one of those is, it's one of the rare Gt 350s from back in the day that hertz rent a car had and there's only like 100 of them or something. But this car was worth, you know, untold amount of money. And he was just blasting it on dirt roads in Alaska. And that's kind of what the Alcan is people from all over get together. And it's an excuse to go somewhere cool for a reason. So that's that was two of the three reasons we were in Alaska.

Wyatt Pemberton : 58:25

What was that like? August?

Unknown Speaker : 58:26

Yeah, we just did. We did the summer outcome. And before that, we did the winter outcome.

Wyatt Pemberton : 58:30

Holy crap winter in Alaska. And that didn't sound fun. That didn't sound pleasant.

Unknown Speaker : 58:35

And that was I believe, I think that was my first time there was the wintertime almost positive. So that was an eye opener for sure. We got lucky with I don't want to sound like too much of a hero because it was kind of a mild year. But I mean, we experienced some craziness and some crazy temperatures and icing. And I mean, we went in the Arctic Circle and winter. So you know, with that comes all the craziness.

Wyatt Pemberton : 58:54

I want to go. I really want to go to Alaska. That sounds like a good segue into getting there. All right. We're getting We're gonna jump right now. Now a message from our sponsor of this episode, the Jessi combs foundation. Today we have and that's the clock on with this. She's a representative of jCf. And she's here to talk to us today about a couple things. One, her involvement and what the jCf means to her and to what opportunities they have. I think we've heard that in the past a few things, but she's gonna nail down some details for us. And then three, she's gonna talk about some of the opportunities that they are exploring for using the donations for furthering the jesse helms foundation cause Vanessa, how are you?

Unknown Speaker : 59:42

I'm good. How about yourself,

Unknown Speaker : 59:43

enjoying it, loving it.

Wyatt Pemberton : 59:44

Tick tock, tick tock, as we count down the clock do kingly hours

Unknown Speaker : 59:48

indeed. I know. It's getting a little nerve wracking for some people. So I'm anxious to go which is exciting. I know that was a big thing for Jessie and she always kind of bang that drum and I'm excited to go and see What's going on down there? Unfortunately, in the past, I've not had the opportunity. So it should be a fun experience

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:00:05

is a wonderful place to go, you guys will fit in perfectly and love it. So Vanessa, what is your involvement with jCf.

Unknown Speaker : 1:00:11

So I am actually the treasurer and Secretary of the foundation, I kind of got selected, that's my heart and soul, I do accounting. So that's kind of how I got thrown into that. And I'm also one of those people that keeps every email. So it was an easy selection for those people who have dealt with me before kind of got involved and a good friend of Jessie's we've been friends for years. I think I met her back in 2012 when I worked with another company and she actually bought a oil bracket for her tramp motorcycles. So that was pretty exciting for me to actually get to meet her and hang out and see your shop and all that. So one of those experiences that you kind of don't forget and her and I stayed in touch ever since and here we are,

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:00:47

and that relationship was formed.

Unknown Speaker : 1:00:49

Part of what we were doing and how I got involved with this foundation is Jesse actually kind of mapped it out for a lot of us, which was pretty awesome. And it was something that she's spoken to me and my husband about on the regular basis. thing you know how how she wanted this idea to come to fruition. So it was really exciting to see that and know and be a part of that before this actually happened. And so unfortunately with her passing, a lot of us knew what was what that meant, you know, and meant, hey, this is something that she wanted and now is our turn to carry it out.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:01:17

Because I feel like that's such a rarity that we actually have realized and recognize our mortality.

Unknown Speaker : 1:01:22

Yeah, she definitely was not afraid of that. So she knew going in and she was content with that. And that's, you know, most people aren't and so it's great that she was,

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:01:30

I think that's a testament to her strength as a human. She's just a good human.

Unknown Speaker : 1:01:33

Absolutely.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:01:34

So Vanessa, today you're going to talk to us a little bit about the details for the Jessi combs foundation Raisa THON, that is opportunity that's coming up the king of the hammers, to paraphrase you guys have opportunities to get behind every single driver that is registered to race, any classic King hammers, is that correct? That is correct.

Unknown Speaker : 1:01:51

So the way that it's pretty much set up at this current time so we have, it's the jCf Raisa THON, we're going to be doing this out on the lake bed. You can find us out there we have our own vendor booth, you're allowed to make a pledge we're asking for a minimum of 50 cents a mile. There is no maximum. So if you're feeling super generous bused out, we're happy to accept. We have some great plans for those funds. And you can actually pick your favorite racer, you can pick multiple racers, you're not limited to anything. So whether that's UTV, the 4600 class, 4800, legends, etc 4800. Anything that you want, we want you to go ahead and pledge This is makes it so much fun because now I kind of compare it to my daughter's jog a THON, it's fun to watch people go and you get to see them reach their goal because every driver in this case has their goal everybody wants to finish so you can kind of gauge what your commitment is going to be at some point. It's awesome. It'll be a fun experience for everybody.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:02:44

So if I am walking in the hammer town I walk into the vendor area there near the big screen in the main stage, I'll be able to find the Jessi combs foundation booth and build a plop down fill out a form that has the space for me to pick my driver pick the class and the dollar amount you willing to donate per mile?

Unknown Speaker : 1:03:01

Absolutely. And there's also the option we want to make sure that people know you're not you don't have to do a per mile if you don't want to, if you kind of have limitations, you can just make a set donation amount as well. We're not, you know, we don't want to exclude anybody or make anybody feel like they have to overcommit again, anything as well.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:03:17

So if anyone stops by and they have 20 bucks, and they're like, hey, I want to donate 20 bucks to the jCf. There will be provisions there for them to knock that out. Right? Absolutely. Oh, I love it. I love it. And then you guys are gonna be set up to take donations via credit card there and PayPal.

Unknown Speaker : 1:03:33

Yep. So any any type of donation is welcome, cash credit card, we do PayPal, pretty much anything we do on our website, as well as always through PayPal for secure transactions. Some people have asked about Venmo that's an option. Obviously we kind of prefer to deviate away from that. But if if that's what works for you, I mean, we're happy to accommodate again, however we need to. We've had people drop off checks, it just depends. Whatever works for you works for us.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:03:57

I love it. We'll make it easy. We'll make it simple and Thank you for donating the second opportunity that you guys have gone. And Matt Hall had alluded to this and kind of dropped some information on it. But Bart Dixon, who's an od 13 racer, he's donated his spot to the jCf to us to auction off for the proceeds to go to the jCf. Tell me some details about that, and how that's going to go down on the mechanics of that.

Unknown Speaker : 1:04:19

So we are planning to do an eBay style auction, it'll be announced on social media. We're going to run it for about three days. So the plan is here to start this coming Tuesday, and which I believe is the 14th. So it'll run tomorrow. Exactly. It'll start tomorrow, the 14th. It'll run through Friday the 17th and we'll announce the winner on Saturday morning the 18th so you can walk into the weekend as a winner.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:04:43

I love walking into the weekend as a winner. There's only time that happens is when I play the ATM and it knows my code.

Unknown Speaker : 1:04:50

There you go. You start using your codes.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:04:52

Whoever wins that will build a deal they'll build a circumvent last chance qualifier they'll CQ and they will have a spot in the 4400 race on Friday with the big dogs.

Unknown Speaker : 1:05:01

That's correct. So that should be exciting for them. If you didn't get the opportunity, now's your chance to kind of buy into it once in a lifetime opportunity.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:05:09

Killer killer killer. I love it. Thank you Bart Dixon, thank you for Jesse comms foundation for jumping at the opportunity and given some lucky ratio is going to have quite an opportunity at this. So Vanessa, that all said, Can you elaborate on some of the plans that you guys are starting to iron out and starting to put I guess, color to in detail to about what Jessica foundation is going to use proceeds for?

Unknown Speaker : 1:05:30

Absolutely. So a lot of people have been kind of questioning that and what's what's the plans? What do we plan to do with our proceeds? And what we're doing right now is we're actually putting together a list of different scholarships, grants, different sponsorships for female trailblazers that was her big thing. So we want to make sure that there's girls that maybe can't afford to go to school, we want to make sure that we can help provide them with the funds. It'll still be an application process where you know, you'll submit you may submit an essay you know, tell us why you you know that popular Another person deserves to receive these funds and we're going to help them achieve their goal. You know, Jesse didn't go racing to because she strictly wanted to become the fastest woman on earth because she was looking to be famous. She went out there because she wanted it to be a testament to girls that they could do anything that they set their minds to. So our goal is to help them achieve that goal. So by doing that, you know, whether that's scholarships, grants, helping provide them with sponsorships that they need for their vehicles or you know, however, we don't want to limit them. So that doesn't mean if you if they just want to be a racer, we're not only sponsoring racers, we're sponsoring you know, racers, fabricators, you know, accountants, plumbers, whatever you're looking to do as a female. If you're a female looking to get into this, no offense, male run world, we want to help you get there. That's our big thing. So those funds are actually being used for that purpose to help them achieve their goal. We're not trying to bash anybody. Our goal is to continue to empower women and a lot of times that's by helping them achieve the education that they need so they can inspire the next generation of girls.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:06:57

I do love the message of the Jessie Comes foundation. That's obviously why the tank has gotten behind you guys. And I really value your time and my time. And thank you for coming on today Vanessa and discussing a little bit about what you guys have going what you guys are planning and putting some detail and some color behind all those things. Vanessa, thank you,

Unknown Speaker : 1:07:16

for sure. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker : 1:07:18

Have a good week everyone back to our previously scheduled episode with will Gentile

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:07:27

qH 2020 your prep there is a lot that you have just like a guy that preference race car he's getting ready he's figuring out logistics strategy and what it takes to get to Johnson Valley what it takes to execute between the green and the checker and then everything his post is just loading up and going home. Your your work really starts after you go home. Tell me about everything that you were doing now to kind of get set up and how many how many cameras are you going to deploy this year? Where are you deploying cameras or teams that you're following or covering or I don't know anything, take me from zero to will hero

Unknown Speaker : 1:07:59

this will be good opportunity to discuss how much it's changed for us because 2011 through 2016 was completely different than what we do now. So when we were doing the movie and all the official media for on that side of things, not the live coverage, but the the film we would have, the amount of prep was just immense, especially because I didn't know what the hell I was doing the first two times. And we used to bring out 10 to 15 different cameras and camera operators that myself and Aaron Brian have turned to productions would kind of assemble collectively. And I would direct and essentially decide how that all worked to some degree and he would assist with communicating to his guys it was a it was a two team deal. And leading up to that there was Mark Matthews was a huge proponent and an asset to that because the first time I ever saw a desert or was in a desert and my whole life was my first day king of the hammers and we got there at three in the morning in the dark. So the first time I ever saw desert was when I opened Dave Smiley's RV door that morning and saw the day Uh, so needless to say, I didn't know anything about Johnson Valley at all. And Mark was the one that helped me bridge that gap and kind of figure things out because he knew everything there. And he was the guy that made he's the guy for people that don't know, that makes the map and you know, all that sort of stuff from the GPS file. And or at least he used to, I'm not totally sure if he does now, but he would essentially worked with me to build a sheet out that had, you know, camera one, camera two, camera three, and then separate locations that they would not only go to but the next one they would move to and the time of day that they would move there based on the light or based on when we assume the leaders would be there. And you know, without that sort of, I'm even I'm even shortchanging because there's so much more to it than just that little sheet but without that, like I would basically just be going out there and being like, okay, like I guess go flying cars and film them type thing. So so as much as I was directing it, like Mark was right there with me and and making sure that everything was dialed in. And of course Dave too. Yeah, that was that was a tiny piece of it. And then we had to figure out how many GoPros where the GoPros were going on the cars which cars They were going on where those cards were based during the day. And you know, when they were qualifying when they were leaving the line after they had qualified and all that had to be set into a series of sheets spreadsheets that Nicole would lay out. So that circles back to that whole storyline. And we would have, we would eventually end up with a binder of where every racer was at any given moment, and where the cameras were going on them who was starting the cameras, starting positions, garage locations, camera operator locations, how much each camera operator was getting paid out of a total budget, the whole master list would come together in this binder that would come together in the first we probably started a little earlier than now probably at the beginning of December is when they serious discussion began anything before that was just too early. We would spend the course of December and most of January figuring out those little details and of course all the just get tossed to the breeze. When the when the race comes like everybody knows, but it's good to have a baseline so that's that's a little look into the planning. Like I said, I think our max camera guys were probably 16 or 17, I'm not sure what your that was, on some level, you have a plan, but you also kind of rely on people who know what they're doing to I basically just tell my guys now like, Hey, I'm going to tell you to go to these spots. But if they're not working out, I trust you to figure out where to go, how to go, who to film, like, you know what you're doing. So don't let me hold your hand or make you stick to a rigid plan. That doesn't make sense. Because what makes sense, you know, December 27, might not make sense on February 7 on race day, let's figure it out together. If you guys think you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it that sort of thing. But the planning is as much rigid as it is fluid. Just watching you talk about this, I can see the passion in your breath on the whole project. Wow, that's a that's something to behold. I figured it was something easily like that, but it's so much more the detail level that you've got to get to. So after

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:11:47

1617 How does that differ to to what you guys are doing for say 2020

Unknown Speaker : 1:11:53

So when we talk to Dave and I eventually Dave and I collectively decided to stop the movie because you know, DVDs old and the former That's gone away because they have a television show now that someone else does, we've leaned completely into doing commercial work at the event, which we did a little bit of before. Now that's our sole goal is work with our clients that King of the hammers and you know, build recap videos, build advertisements, that sort of thing. So now we got there with a much more slimmed down specialized team that we spend more of the week going on specialized shoots than we do doing general race coverage was exactly the reciprocal of how it was previously. So for example, on Monday, we may be out doing a video shoot for NATO, or you know, when I say for NATO, I mean, just going out with a NATO driver or to like an Eric or Lauren, Jason plant, we spent a lot of time out there with and we'll get like, we essentially dedicate time to getting shots of racers in a controlled environment that we wouldn't be able to do during the race because you're kind of just at the mercy of whatever happens, and maybe you won't see that person at all that day. So we'll do that on a Monday, then a Tuesday we'll do an optimum batteries campaign that we have, you know, planned and then it's essentially our week is just we'll have a Normally one or two shoots every single day throughout the whole week with maybe one day dedicated to just location planning or honestly just giving us a time to hang out and enjoy king of the hammers. I try to, I try to give everyone that time just because I want that time as well, because I don't get that very often. But it's cool to just be able to do that now. Whereas in the past that just wasn't even on the radar.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:13:19

And your customer lists your client list, so to speak, your client list is I mean, it's the who's who it's, you know, Fox, it's worn. It's Optima batteries. It's a RB you mentioned it Oh, it's a trans American parts, which is for parts wholesalers, you've got Max's in there Max's you do work for them. And then on top of that over for

Unknown Speaker : 1:13:39

Yeah, I hate to say that that's anything but luck. Like obviously, there's a little talent in there. But I mean, we I was so lucky to start my company. And at the same time that k which was starting to gain ground in the way that I almost defaulted to be the guy to use for no other reason other than I was the guy there. So we were able to work with nitto, which was my first big major, regular Client I have to thank Tim culty for that, who was there? He was there prior to Chris Corbett. And Tim just I was working on something for Dave for NATO where we had like supply them footage from the movie for like a NATO ad that they were making. And I was just like, just in passing that Tim I was like, have you guys ever need anything you know, feel free to let me know like through Dave or whatever it may be like, I'm happy to help your company because you guys make at the time the trail Grappler was pretty new. And that seemed like a pretty sweet tire and that they were going to lean in pretty hard to care wage and Tim took a chance. He was like, Yeah, man, how would you like to do like a recap video and I was like, like, absolutely 100% like this is a major tire manufacturer that I can get my foot in the door with. That'd be huge for my company. And it ended up being huge. Tim used us for a lot of stuff. Our first middle video was a Roush Creek like most things, and I remember filming Derrick West, he was the only participant there on those. We did a recap video there and then I think we did that whole season for them. And then we did the next season and then we did the next season. And then unfortunately, Tim culty ended up leaving the company for another job, Chris over and we just picked up where we left off. And I've worked with NATO since it's probably been seven or eight years now that we've done NATO's, you know, rock sports media. So that was that was a great start for us. And we used king of the hammers and NATO and all that to just leapfrog into all our other clients. And like you mentioned, there's some of the bigger companies that King of the hammers and you know, the title sponsor, the presenting sponsor, some of the other bigger legacy brands, so it's been good.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:15:23

No, it absolutely has been good. And it's really cool to see you. You mentioned how it's helped your business grow and your businesses effectively hitched your wagon to the stars, and they, they pulled you along. But from my perspective, it's really cool to hear the backstory on where you came from, how you came to be, and how, where and how that's propelled you into stardom today because I said, a lot of people know who will Gentile is they've heard your name. It's synonymous with ultra for movies, media coverage, not necessarily the live show, but a lot of a lot of that work. But we didn't know who exactly will Jintao was as a person. You know, I knew I knew your brain behind The business just falling your social media but does that does that cover kind of your tail ah walk in the jungle because when you when when you guys leave hammers weak does the work really just start to begin as you start to dig through it's not

Unknown Speaker : 1:16:13

so bad because I mean yeah there's there's an immense amount of work once you leave like shooting is fun I love shooting and that's a lot of logistical challenge but we're so dialed into what we normally do that all that comes so naturally during the week that we just kind of do it and every year I'm worried that you know, maybe we won't get that key shot or maybe we won't but every year it just happens to work out that way that we were able to get everything done so then the real like you mentioned the real work is when you get home because now you have to like take that however many hours you know back in the day it was hundreds now it's not quite that much but the data intake is so much more now because our cameras are so much more advanced and and you know we're shooting everything in 4k and figuring out how to take less footage and do more with it is an interesting challenge. No, but we're able to do that. And because we're so familiar with everything now and all my guys have been, they've been going for years with me. So everyone, you know, as much as I know that they know it as well as I do. So we're all working cohesively, we're getting the exact shots, we needed the exact people. everyone's familiar with the racecar drivers and who's going to be where and that kind of alleviates a lot of the stress later on in the studio, because I go to my footage dump and I am lucky to have a photographic memory so I don't catalog anything but I remember who shot what and where and and to some degree I can still remember years from now like on the to do like when I did qH origins, I had to go back and get a bunch of archival footage. And I still retain a lot of that information where it's like, you know, Derrick West did this thing here. And I remember Eric in 2014 did this role on this thing. I can pull it. So I'm lucky in the sense that I can remember stuff in that way. And I'm a very fast editor. So it works out where it's not so bad, but it's not easy. I don't want to undersell it too hard. But you're hired

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:17:53

you're hired you

Unknown Speaker : 1:17:56

at the same time just pitching everyone like Yeah, man I'm so good. But it's it's it's really Really just we're so familiar with it that it almost comes naturally to all of us now,

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:18:03

well, before we got the cameras kind of rolling and start recording on this one, you and I were having the dialogue about the sharing the perils of editing, and a total neophyte at this, you know, total rookie, but I absolutely hate it. And I'm not fast at it. And what I've learned is, and it's given me a very huge newfound respect for what you do. And the guys like you, and how you do it is the editing out of the the arms and the coughs and the crutch words and the breaths and over and over and over. And then I sit there, I'm like, Oh, yeah, and I'm only editing called an hour and a half or two hours of audio, and I'll have 10,000 edits. It's hard to get to 10,000

Unknown Speaker : 1:18:41

audio is a huge part of my job, and I'm not an audio guy. So admittedly, I'm not a talented audio person. That's why you get a specific person for that. But in the editing process, there is no better feeling on earth than when you get a good interview that just flows. There's proper pauses, there's proper, you know, they just say a sentence without all the crutch words words which are all, like I'm doing right now, you know, we're all guilty of that, right? So when it's not there, it's the easiest thing in the world, but it's almost always there. So almost half of my job is cutting sentences, making new sentences out of sentences that didn't exist, but still make sense matching inflection in sentences. And it's it's a lot of work to edit interviews in that way. And I think a lot of people, the idea is that no one knows that if no one notices anything, edit, you know, you've done a good job, which is kind of painful, but at the same time, like if no one mentions it perfect.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:19:32

That is been a problem I I have and it's the, just like prepping a racecar. There's thousands of hours that go into prepping that thing before you show up at a race that nobody sees. Nobody knows. They just see when it lines up for the green.

Unknown Speaker : 1:19:47

There's a lot of parallels and in race teams and what we do, I've found that over the years in doing all those interviews, like all the things that people mentioned and talk about, I can relate to not necessarily from a physical standpoint of working on a car. Granted, I'm familiar with that, but What we do perfectly lines up with what they do all this work and all this prep comes down to just one day where you either get it or you don't, because you don't get to redo it again, and you go home with whatever you got. And that's the end of it. Granted, we do more when we go home, there's just a lot tied up in one moment. And that's kind of the same thing.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:20:18

Now you're spot on spot on. So what do we have for you for 2020? After kale Ah, what kind of goals does will Gentile have in his on his bucket list or checklist of what you'd like to accomplish? 2020 going forward,

Unknown Speaker : 1:20:32

I think for us, the most important thing would be to continue doing what we're doing, but just scale you know, scale like we've been doing and and let it be natural. Don't try to take any huge leaps that don't make sense. But I think what we've been up to this point has been what amounts to a production company, right, which is what an ad agency or a client will go direct to, to hire to do specifically video production. Only you show up your film, maybe you do the Edit. Granted, we do almost all of our edit But generally you're just involved in filming probably how we'll structure from now on, we'll still be doing that sort of work. That's our primary company more of a creative boutique, which amounts to more creative direction or more project planning, or essentially, what comes down to brainstorming with a client or creating jobs are creating stories. We do a lot of that now. And we work direct with some of our clients. That's normally the job of an ad agency, which is what I'm not, we're looking to kind of Venn that together where we're a little bit of an ad agency, but a little bit of a production company but touching all the bases but not necessarily being siloed in one deal.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:21:36

Well, it sounds like you're taking your subject matter experts, you're the the SMI that is heavy metal concepts and building ad campaigns, which, like you said, would come out normally come out of an ad agency, but they're not necessarily grounded in the reality of what can be accomplished and what can't be accomplished. So you're there to make that reality check or and come up with the ideas and a lot of agencies, you know, you're Pull off things that they would never dream could be pulled off. You imagine somebody sitting in a conference room in a boardroom pitching. We're gonna take Lauren Haley and have him jump down potato salad Hill. Right? What makes you think Lauren would do that that sounds you know, you're sitting there? Well,

Unknown Speaker : 1:22:16

we've been so fine tuned to the automotive aftermarket and off road that we've gotten at agency jobs with a lot of them with big agencies. And it ends up having me being the consultant to the agency on getting the job done. And a lot of senses because I know the people, we've done it 1000 times already, it's just easier to just like granted, these are smart people and they know they, they're very good at their job. And, and, you know, I'm thankful that they're there. But at the same time, a lot of the responsibility transfers to me where it normally wouldn't. So it's probably smart to take my company in a way that capitalizes on that upfront where it's like, Hey, we're not going to replace your ad agency, but we can be the middle ground there. We're not just a production company that your agency has to talk to. We can work with your agency, but we can also turn key different projects that, you know, maybe they couldn't or maybe they would need more of our help on. That's kind of my goal. I don't want to I have no delusions of being an ad agency, because that's not my world. I'm not that person, kind of a more specialized production company, I guess would be a good way to put it.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:23:12

I can help with your content. Yes, hundred percent. I can help you reach out right now. I love it. All right, well, so as we're kind of drawn to the close here, I still have some bullets on my list that I really want to get answers to and knock out. I've got down in my notes, I want to talk to you about origins. I want to talk to you about some of the projects you busted out this past year. And I know you have some big news coming out as well as I know, it's not just you, it's not just Nicole, it's just not Scott, you've got a you have a fleet, you have a huge friend list. You have a huge group of support network. You have a huge group of guys and ladies that work for you. Let's let's kind of wrap that and give the viewer give the listener the the full package before we put a bow on it and ship it. Sure.

Unknown Speaker : 1:23:57

Yeah. So cage origins That was that was something that came from us no longer doing the movie and me having some extra time k wage related work to do. And I figured I'm always describing k wage to people like trying to explain it. And there's a million videos out there that say what k wages but it's the video is not about that it's always just shoehorn into a video about you know, whether it be a product or race or something where you can't just absorb this is what k h is and why and how and all that stuff. It just didn't exist. So I figured this is a great opportunity for me to be able to tell the history of King of the hammers through my own lens and through the lens of all the people that actually were there and know the whole story behind it because I know a lot but I don't know everything that gave me the opportunity to make a long form piece of content. The first episode was over 30 minutes and interview people like john Reynolds who won the first real king of the hammers which was 2007. And you know, of course we talked to Dave and you know, we talked to all the original people and kind of got all these little, you know, nuggets of information that a lot of people Didn't know that I didn't know that I was able to put it in a package that told the story of King of the hammers and that you could just send to someone and say, here's a link, this is this whole story, King of the hammers watches little of it or as much of it as you want. And that was a perfect example of me wanting to do something and having no idea if anyone cared or would watch it or anything. And I just put an absolute immense amount of time and effort into this potential risk. Realistically, I'm just risking my time but I was able to get sponsors on board for that and you know, put out a 30 minute piece and I think today it's up to about on YouTube, I think it's 300,000 views and on Facebook, it was over a million so to say that was a payoff is unbelievable.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:25:38

It's a glorious piece of work. Thank you an absolutely amazing piece of work, you've killed it. And I think there's a lot of value in well as the talent tank has come to fruition. There's a an immense amount of interest in what the backstory is what the inside story is that I mean total insider info, and people are somewhat insatiable about that information. There. You know, they can't, they apparently can't get enough of it. And there's, and we're constantly building new stories every single day as a new story,

Unknown Speaker : 1:26:06

right? Yeah, it of course, helped that I had all the archival footage from doing all those years of King of the hammers, which again, is another strength that we had was we were lucky enough to be there from not quite the start, but early enough, where we had a bunch of meaningful footage from over the years. And Dave was, you know, nice enough to grant me use of that to make this product. Granted, it's helping his brand but it's helping mine as well. And we were able to take I think it was eight years of content for over the years and put it in that 30 minutes and and to have that many people watch it and seeing comments where people that didn't even know what qH was we're watching it through and being like, man, I gotta go out to this race or, you know, I didn't I never even heard of this and now I want to go to California and see it that's so cool to have been able to create that and tell that story and have people actually respond in a way that meant something

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:26:51

massively rewarding, just massively rewarding,

Unknown Speaker : 1:26:54

as rewarding as it gets for someone like me, because it's it's it's half about money, obviously because you got to make a living But as the creative it's like, just having people respond is worth so much.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:27:04

And your team, you know, we I kind of touched on it you have quite the team.

Unknown Speaker : 1:27:08

Yeah. So in the early years, I say earlier is like it was 100 years ago but really 10 years ago and similar It was a lot of the guys from my offroad club who were not camera guys, they weren't they were just friends that wanted to go to Cabo Ah, and they went to college and they dedicated their time to helping me film like is you know, a guy with a handycam a back door where we needed to plug a hole and have someone or you know, someone just out in this desert section, or just someone to haul a tripod or help me drive somewhere. It's all those little bits and pieces of people that you meet along the years does so much in providing the success we've been able to see it's hard to even describe like as much as it's my team. It's also the friends and family that came out and helped along the way and and plugged all those little holes that you would otherwise have to let you know that was all my club S is off road. I'm sure some of those guys will at least hear this. But a lot of them were were necessary for that. But my core group of guys, Spencer, who's my drone op and Zack Youngberg, he's shot with me for a few years at Crosby has been there since pretty much the start he shot at Roush Creek with me and Jeff Lowe used to shoot with us. He was a big cog in the whole machine. So yeah, I mean, without all those guys, like we'd be a lot smaller and a lot less done,

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:28:23

and a lot less well known.

Unknown Speaker : 1:28:25

Yes.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:28:27

But you've you busted out a couple of really big projects this year that really haven't become public yet. And I know you have some unveilings that are coming here in the near term you want to elaborate on

Unknown Speaker : 1:28:38

sure the right now it's not public, but I'm sure by the time this goes live, it will be I'm local to Colt firearms and like I said I was raised on firearms with my father. He's a cult guy. It's it's a whole thing for us and I was at the a USA show four years ago which is the Army's Sema basically and I approached Colt just 100% cold just Like, I'm here, they're here. I'll just go talk to them, whatever. And I was like, do you guys need video? And they're like, we actually do. You're right on time like we've been looking for a guy here you are like, great. So I figured all right cool all in one. Let's do this. That was four years ago, that guy I talked to there quit and then he connected me to someone else. That guy quit connected me to somewhere else. Like every year, I would check in once or twice a year, just persistent like that, but not over the top. And then eventually, this year in January, I reached out again after someone else left the company. And I was like, Hey, you know, I was looking to follow up on this job we were looking to do, and she was like, perfect. Your timing is great. And again, four years later, I was like, okay, maybe this year the timing will be right. So it turns out that cult after, I believe it's 20 years now maybe a little bit longer than that is bringing back the cult Python, which people have just been losing their marbles about just essentially if you go on cults, social media or anywhere on the internet people like when you bring back Python, like the Python, for people that don't know is a legendary revolver. It's like cults gun. They stopped making it in the late 90s. You could argue early 2000s depending but they're bringing it back. And Colt has trusted heavy metal concepts to do the whole project. We went to a meeting with our agency and they chose us to say us this was actually I actually ended up doing this project by myself because was local, all my guys that I mentioned earlier, based out west, we are tasked with the relaunch and introduction of the cult Python to the public on television, we did their 32nd ads, and then also we did a brand new video for them that just encompasses the whole company that's going to release I believe on the first of January, but I guess we'll see. Yeah, that was that was really exciting for me because just growing up with my dad being a cult guy, and you know, seeing that brand for my whole life and then being the guy for them to rely on to bring back this legendary, you know, firearm that everyone's heard of is it's pretty cool, especially when you go on the internet and you read all these articles about you know, there's the guys it'll like why coat will never bring back the Python and like I just have one here in my office that they've made that They've brought back that's a great feeling. So, you know, I say I did that by myself but a longtime friend of mine, Phil, he owns a gun or he doesn't own but he works at a gunsmith shop here and he's a gunsmith by trade he, without him I probably wouldn't be able to accomplish this the way I did, he was a huge asset and we used him as the ffl to get the firearms and and Rob Huxley and micro naldo and Ryan Lavelle was there for it. He's also a longtime friend. You know, again, it goes back to having friends and not necessarily camera professionals, but people that can just you know, whether I need someone to hold this for a shot or drive this car for this other shot, it's stuff like that is so huge and doesn't really get the attention at the end product that it needs because literally without those people like I would just be filming guns sitting on the ground or or you know, having to expend huge amounts of money to hire people to do what amounts to mundane tasks where whereas my friends will just do it because they're my friends and it helps that they also like guns but but yeah, stuff like that makes me so proud. Because like one of the biggest payoffs for me in my work is to, you know, tell the story and and work with brands that I've either used or looked up to as a kid or growing up or even now like bigger brands that are just cool. It's nice to work with them and be trusted with their their message.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:32:15

hearken back to words that Lauren Haley had said to me in the past was he struggled to get outside the industry and he was speaking about it from a sponsor standpoint, which also you could say that is a client standpoint as well. It's very cool for me to see you and see that by getting cold and landing cold you were able to break outside of the industry. Yes, when you're able to take your your body work your portfolio work and use that from the motorsport genre and leverage that into outside the industry, man congrats kudos. That's That's awesome. I can't wait to see some of these videos drop.

Unknown Speaker : 1:32:50

Yeah, it was it was it's always a hard sell going to a client being like, Hey, I have nothing that's any relation to you whatsoever as far as look, but I think we could probably do it. That's a hard thing. Because strangely enough, what would actually helped me get this job the most was we did some spec ads for Ram Trucks. And a lot of that was like a real blue collar feel and you know, guys with sledgehammers, and and, you know, working at construction sites, and that happened to work out that coal kind of aligned with that whole heritage and blue collar feel. And I was able to play them a ramp spec ad at the agency meeting, and they were like, boom, that's, that's exactly what we're looking for. Like, yeah, it's cars, but we can see the, you know, the crossover there. So it's so much it's so important to be able to tell a story that's not just literally, here's a car driving around, or here's a gun being fired, like there's so much more around that, that you can kind of pull in and then you can use that sort of thing to go after people not necessarily that or that exact discipline.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:33:43

And this kind of circles back to what we talked about about an hour and a half ago about patriotism. The second amendment again, saying Sure. It's a it's very good to see that you've got involved. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 1:33:54

awesome. Awesome. I like to my company is just what I would do if I was a five year old with a lot of money. guns and planes and cars and race cars and just all craziness.

Wyatt Pemberton : 1:34:04

Here we are. Will I think we were at the conclusion of an amazing session. I miss anything? I don't think so I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm glad you didn't accept my first invite to be on the show that we waited until I had some shows under my belt, I'd hone my craft a little bit hone my skills, kind of I don't know if pat my own back here that landed you I mean for me to get well, Gentile on the show was a huge gift. And so thank you for being up, tell your story, who the guy is behind the camera, who the guy is behind these ideas that we've all consumed. We've consumed so many of your products and not knowing who the mastermind was behind it. Thank you for sitting down with me. I appreciate Of course. And that's that's all kind of by design in the sense like I didn't come on the show because I didn't trust the show. I come on the show because I'm always behind the lens. Right. So this is I haven't done many of these. So this is the first time in talking about yourself and being on that side. No, absolutely. Right. I've been asked to be interviewed. myself a couple times lately and I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, no, I know. So I fully get it. Well, well, thank you again. Thank you for sitting down with me. I think my listeners will definitely approve of what you had to say today and walk us through your life man asked. I will see you in February. See you on the lake bed, as many of us will. Thank you. Thanks for watching. Appreciate coming on. All right, we'll catch you later. Take care. I'd like to thank the sponsor of this episode, the Jessi combs foundation. For more information about their organization, please visit their website at www dot the Jessi combs foundation.com

Unknown Speaker : 1:35:42

Thank you for listening and

Unknown Speaker : 1:35:45

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