This episode of Hello Chaos features Collins Abbott-White, founder of Other Vision. Hosted by Jennifer Sutton, they delve into Collins' busy schedule and how he finally found time to join the podcast. Tune in for real, raw founder stories and insights on growing businesses and becoming better entrepreneurs. OrangeWIP, a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders, brings you this podcast and other resources to help entrepreneurs succeed in their local ecosystems.
Today, we had the pleasure of speaking with Collins Abbott-White, the founder of Other Vision, and an old friend of mine.
Collins shared his entrepreneurial journey, which began in high school with a passion for filmmaking. Despite studying animation in college, he chose to stay in Greenville, feeling a unique connection to the place. His journey wasn't without challenges; he faced a lack of confidence and employability after grad school, which led him to create his own job out of necessity rather than ambition.
We discussed the dual nature of his work, balancing between commercial projects and his true passion for narrative filmmaking. Collins emphasized the importance of community and mentorship, sharing how he brings new faces onto projects to help them learn and grow in the industry. He also highlighted the recent growth in the film community in South Carolina, thanks to initiatives like Film Bar.
Collins debunked common myths about entrepreneurship, stressing that you don't need to have everything figured out before starting and that simply building something doesn't guarantee success. He shared his most rewarding moments, like seeing people he mentored succeed in the industry, and his biggest challenges, including financial instability and unexpected setbacks on major projects.
We also touched on his love for Magic the Gathering, his inspirations from anime, and his hopes for the future, including directing his first feature film. Collins left us with valuable advice he received from Toby Stansel about making decisions that align with company values, project goals, and individual readiness.
Join us next week for more real, raw, and unbiased founder stories. Remember, new episodes drop every Sunday. Until then, embrace the chaos!
Jennifer Sutton: Welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Every week we talk to founders from different industries, different companies, at different levels and stages of all shapes and sizes. And we hear the real, the raw, the unbiased founder stories. And it's why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. We drop new episodes every Sunday. Founders tune in to us for tips, insights, and strategies on growing and scaling their business, or actually ways to become better owners and leaders and better entrepreneurs. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We've designed hyper-local media platforms to inform, inspire, and create connections to help founders succeed. Our innovative digital zines are an all-in-one content hub with fresh and engaging stories, curated local calendars, and local dynamic roadmaps to help founders navigate their local entrepreneurial ecosystems. We've really done all the hard work for founders, so all they have to do is go to one trusted source, like OrangeWIP, to find all the local information they need. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and will be your host today. And we have Collins Abbott-White, founder of Other Vision, here joining us today. And he's an old friend. And I'm so excited that you finally found time to come on the podcast.
Collins Abbott White: Collins Abbott-White Well, you just hit me at the, hit me at the wrong time when you were interested. Normally, I'm not that busy. But in this case, I was, I was pretty much booked solid for a couple of weeks.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, it's been fitting. Welcome to help. Welcome to the chaos, right?
Collins Abbott White: I mean, that is that is a good descriptor.
Jennifer Sutton: So, Colin, we got a lot to cover. We're a lot of things that we can talk about today. But first, just tell us about your entrepreneurial journey. How did you get started kind of going off on your own and doing your own thing?
Collins Abbott White: Oh, well, So it starts way back in high school to be honest. I didn't get the filmmaking bug until middle of my high school career and at the end of it in our senior year I was asked to direct a play for our drama class and I wrote something that was uh considerably more expansive than what we could do on stage and it was a spoof on star wars called school wars and we had a lot of inside jokes and it played really well in front of the audience but what we did is we recorded it throughout the school and that was kind of my first film that i wrote and directed and shot and edited so it's like your own little space balls yeah very much so uh we even had like a bull on top of the guy so darth helmet like a Well, yeah, it looked exactly like that.
Jennifer Sutton: So, okay, side note, before we get, you do know that they are finally, they are making a Spaceballs 2. They're making a Spaceballs 2.
Collins Abbott White: Yes. I am very interested to see what that one looks like, because they have so much material to make fun of now.
Jennifer Sutton: So much, and Mel Brooks has signed off on it, so he's, you know, it's perfect. They're trying to bring everybody back, so I can't wait. Okay, so continue on.
Collins Abbott White: Um, so I went to college, did four years of an undergrad, two years of a master's, and coming out of college I thought I was going to go to Colorado, I was going to go to LA, I was going to go to Florida, I was going to work for Pixar, whatever, I had studied animation. Yeah, I was gonna do one of those things just one and I did none of them. I ended up feeling like Greenville had something to offer me. I don't know why I really felt like that, but I just looked around and I was like, this is my home. This is where I want to invest. I want to make my career from here. So I made a decision to do that. And that was right before I started my grad school. And it went well. So coming out of grad school, I was in a really bad place. I did not have any sort of confidence that I was hireable. So all those dreams of working for whatever company. It all went away and I just did not feel employable. I didn't feel confident in my ability. I was doing things that, you know, people like it was good work. but I just didn't feel like it was, uh, valuable. Um, so, uh, instead of when, when you hear about people starting businesses, a lot of times they're like, I just had a lot of faith in myself and I went for it or, you know, I saw a need in the market and I went for it or something like that. For me, it was, no one's going to hire me. I may as well make my own, I'm going to have to make my own job.
Jennifer Sutton: Ah, so is this, and when you went to school, was it in film, like film production? And so like you're doing what you went to school for. Absolutely.
Collins Abbott White: I did a six, four years of undergrad in film and video production and two years of grad school with a bit of a concentration in animation. So I'm not doing animation. I'm doing no animation, but I do have two years of a master's degree in animation.
Jennifer Sutton: Hey, it'll come in handy.
Collins Abbott White: Like it does for pre-visualization type stuff, definitely. But I haven't opened a 3D modeling program in probably a good 10 years.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, wow. It's OK. So you're now going, all right, I came out of school. I don't feel like anybody can hire me. So let me just create my own job.
Collins Abbott White: Pretty much, yeah. So it wasn't this big confidence boost type thing. It wasn't anything like that. It was desperation. It really was. It was depression, it was desperation, and it was what I saw as my only viable option.
Jennifer Sutton: Really? Yeah. And was this doing more stuff on like the, cause you know, film and, and, uh, and media, you kind of get two sides of it, right? You either have the, the creative, um, uh, producing like film, TV, documentary, see, or you do the commercial side. So were you toggling on both or did you were like, I'll work on the commercial side? How, like what, what Avenue and how did you know what you liked?
Collins Abbott White: Well, I studied narrative, so narrative as in like feature films, your creative stuff. But, you know, there's no narrative film industry around here, so it all has to be commercial. Hollywood is not producing movies in South Carolina, believe it or not. So, yeah, it was all commercial at that point. And I got a job with, I think you probably know them, J.Dew and John Eckert. They were Game Master Media way back in the day. And so they were my first client and I was doing editing for them. And that was enough to kind of get me started. And then for a very long time, I didn't do anything other than build this company and do freelance work. And it wasn't until considerably later than that. I mean, it started out terribly, like I made $2,000 in my first year, it was bad. But it grew steadily year after year, and I'm still not doing bangers. I'm not knocking it out of the park by any stretch of the imagination in my business, but it has been enough for me to buy a house. It has been enough for me to create a living by, and I'm still doing quite a lot of creative work and narrative work now on the side. Which on the side, I don't really mean it on the side because I view that very much as my job. It is the core thing that we're doing. And I have to view it that way because that's the only way it gets done. So it's just as important as any of the client work, but it is separate.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Well, and you're getting sponsors and all that stuff too. I mean, it's, you know, so what's been the most rewarding part then of, of, going into freelance, building a business, really looking at like all those components and making a living of it. And you're supporting, it's not just you sometimes working on these things. I mean, you're supporting other people within your business. Whether it's employees or contractors, you're still supporting others.
Collins Abbott White: I can say that lately, one of the more rewarding things about it has kind of been that when you're bringing people onto your projects, I try to bring a lot of new faces onto projects and try to bring people who are learning onto projects, especially because a lot of times when we're doing these films, a lot of them are no budget, low budget type material. Because again, Hollywood's not here. So we're doing a lot of bootstrapping type of things. And so I'm looking at people who are, interested in a new role. Maybe they haven't gotten the chance to do, like maybe they want to be a sound person and they've never really had the chance to actually run that department. I've got, you know, a master's degree in this. I have experience in almost every department. So I try to find a number of people that are kind of fresh, kind of learning, kind of wanting to take that next step up and maybe find out, Hey, do I really want to be in the camera department or do I want to be in the department?
Jennifer Sutton: Let me flex this muscle. Let me flex that to see if I'm good at that. Yeah.
Collins Abbott White: And so I'll bring them on and I'm experienced enough to give them enough guidance in those departments. And when they connect with it, and when they start going, and they keep up with it, that's really rewarding. One of the cool things I found, it was about a year ago, I was on a film as a first AD that was, you know, a mixed career, like the director was from LA, we had people from Atlanta, we had people from DC, and the first assistant cameraman was somebody who had been on a film with me as a high school student. He'd come on to film. And he had been in our sound department then. And that was his first film experience. And now here we are, however many years later, and he's a first AC and doing really well for himself and he kept going with that. And it was really cool to kind of see that somebody I had worked with and kind of taught how to do a job on a film set as their first experience is now really making it. And I can say that for a number of people where either really early on or at one of their first experiences, I was able to give that to them and how they're doing much better than I am. You know, that's kind of fun.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. So let me ask you, what do you think is the biggest, I'm going to call it myth buster moment, the biggest myth or misconception that people have about starting your own business or trying to scale, you know, being an entrepreneur, being a founder, what's that biggest myth that you think that's out there and how would you debunk that myth?
Collins Abbott White: There's kind of two and it's two sides of the same coin, right? So the first one is the idea that you have to have everything before you start. I didn't know how to run a business at all. But I took a step out knowing that I needed to do it. I knew that that was what I needed to do. And the resources that I had not been able to find ahead of time started coming out of the woodwork. Oh, the Chamber of Commerce has classes on running business. And you've got all these other people that are willing to invest in you and teach you how to do this and just build you up. And suddenly, it was like, oh, I've got this entire mini MBA program that I'm getting poured into by people just by virtue of me having started this. So it's like you have to be in it in order to actually see the opportunities and see the resources that you have. On the flip side of that though, there's this idea of if you build it, they'll come. And that's just not true. We're seeing that all over the industry here, where people are putting in studios, we're putting in all this other stuff, they're building up these big machines that could host films, and then the films aren't there. And there's a number of factors there, like we've had strikes, we've had COVID, we've had thing after thing after thing in our industry that's made it very difficult to work. But yet people still have this mindset of like, well, if I just have this building, or if I just have this soundstage, or if I just have this technology, people are going to flock to me. And it doesn't work that way.
Jennifer Sutton: No, it doesn't.
Collins Abbott White: And it never will. Just because you have the opportunity, you have the ability to receive clients, and you have the ability to do that work, doesn't mean that you're going to get that work.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. Because that's part of the hard part of building the brand, right? Who do you serve? What's unique about you? I mean, it's like all that. It's not about, like you said, I have all this, but if I'm not communicating that to the right people in the right way, they're not going to come. And that takes time and effort. A lot of people don't realize the runways of some of that.
Collins Abbott White: And that's where services like what you guys are offering and what we're offering is such a huge, huge thing for businesses. If you're asking what our differentiator is, we tell stories in big picture type material, and we can reduce that to kind of a small corporate short, uh short story yeah we're experts at these sort of storytelling things and uh that's something that you know not a lot of people offer in the same way that we do and and like with you guys you're offering an entire suite of services for people to help them get the word out so it's it's kind of this thing where people don't necessarily get that until the it's till it's too late right yeah
Jennifer Sutton: Or they go with where their price tag is and sometimes that's not the right decision.
Collins Abbott White: It frequently isn't. If you're looking at the bottom barrel of things, and I'm there too, it's not like I have a plethora of money, right? I'm on a paid service by virtue of having to, but if you're in the luxury position of not having to do that, then you need to look at the one that is the best fit. I've often told people that they should go with my competitors if they like what the competitor is doing. I'm not going to give you a 9-8 Central or Electric Soul video. That's not me. But if you want something that I'm doing, don't go to them and ask for it.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. OK, so what was your greatest aha moment? Like where you're in this journey, and you're like, oh my god, this is the biggest breakthrough. I know what I'm doing, or this is the right thing for me. Did you have one of those moments that really was a significant impact?
Collins Abbott White: Well, the big picture, it's a bit of a roller coaster where I'll go to these peaks and I think, hey, this is great. And then I'll have years like, like this year's not been a great one. And it's like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this at all. But I remember one of my first short films, one where, you know, I had done plenty that were really small scale, but this is one of the ones that's kind of bigger scale. We had 37 extras in one scene. And I remember we had spent most of the evening, it was a night shoot, we had spent most of the evening shooting these small little scenes here and there with one or two extra people. And then it came time for us to get all the extras in. They had all gone through makeup, everyone was ready, and we're bringing them in for our big finale. And I walk up to this hill in this cow pasture. And I crest the hill and I look out and there's just a sea of people waiting for me to give them instructions. And I've never had that many people on a set before. And to see them all there waiting for me to kind of just be like, all right, and here's what we're doing. It was one of these sort of affirming experiences. It was like people actually are coming out for this and people actually do believe in what we're doing. And that's kind of been one of those things that's carried on where when I don't often I don't rely on free work as often as say some other people might. I try to do as much paid work as I can and when I have to do something free, I'm asking very little, as little as I can. And so, but every time I've had to do it, the people have come up and come out and people have shown up and they believe in what we're doing and they're wonderful to work with and they're responsive and just they bring so much to the project and it's been a great experience to see that much belief in this community that things like this can happen. This art deserves to exist and have a platform and people want to be a part of it.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Well, it was like that was that was an aha for me. I mean, go into your the perfidia premiere. And I mean, that was a really eye opener for me because I know, you know, I worked for the did some projects with the South Carolina Film Commission, I want to say, like 15 plus years ago. And just looking at like what is being produced out of South Carolina, I don't remember hardly anything coming out of the upstate like Like maybe a couple of, maybe some documentaries, maybe a couple of short films, but it's like nothing compared to what's happening in low country. You know, obviously we're not Atlanta, we're not Orlando, we're not New Orleans, Austin, definitely not LA or New York, but, um, But you know the going to the to your that perfidia premiere just seeing the amount of activity in the poor genre of I mean that was totally eye-opening for me of holy crap there is a very large community, like film and TV, that is, it seems like it's flourishing more than I've seen in the last 10 years. Is that recent or is it just because I wasn't exposed to it? I just don't remember Even like, I mean, we work with a lot of film producers and lighting people and stuff. I just don't remember seeing the sheer activity and buzz like I saw it just with my own eyes. It was amazing.
Collins Abbott White: This year is, this year, last year, I guess, are exceptionally exceptional in South Carolina in terms of- You're saying it like a trend up?
Jennifer Sutton: Or okay.
Collins Abbott White: A trend up. Before, you couldn't even get people together. We've tried. We've tried for years. It wasn't until this guy named Rhodes Farrell showed up that we actually started being able to do that. He dedicated himself to creating this community called Film Bar. And so basically every Tuesday there's something going on in the film community. around the upstate where people can get together and they can talk and they can workshop ideas. And because of that, you know, you haven't necessarily seen an increase in, say, rate. We're still making extremely low budget films, but you have seen an increase in volume. And I think that one of the things that we need to be doing is making sure that we are pretty much constantly in a production of one or two films up here if we want to have an industry here. Because if there's not work for people to have, then they're just going to leave and go to where the work is. So this year, last year, we've seen that increase. And if it continues, then I think we've got a real good chance of not just having the volume of work, but then having the sort of budgets that people can actually make a career out of going onto these films and working on them.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. So is FilmBar separate from Reedy Reels? And is Reedy Reels more of like the festival? Or is FilmBar more of like the networking community?
Collins Abbott White: So yes, FilmBar is really just kind of like a meetup group, essentially. Okay. Or, you know, like your B&I for filmmakers. So anyone can just join in. So if you wanted to pop by on a Tuesday, you know,
Jennifer Sutton: Where do you guys meet? Where is the film bar?
Collins Abbott White: It's different places, but the most reliable one is on the third Tuesday of every month. It's in the community tap at Trailside.
Jennifer Sutton: Okay.
Collins Abbott White: For all the listeners. And there's a Facebook group, you can go and find that. They've done a wonderful job of uniting the community and last night we were all out there and there's probably a good 20 people out there and many people who I haven't even met before. Wow. And do it and doing this so they're always attracting new faces and stuff. So it's been a really good effort by them to make that happen. Reedy Reels, transitioning over to Reedy Reels, is mainly a festival. They are there to promote film. They're there to exhibit film. So they're showcasing local filmmakers. They're also bringing in films from other areas, which is great for us because now we're competing against films from LA. We're competing against films from England. And so now we're having our films displayed next to films from places with more resources, worth more experience, worth more. And we're saying we're part of that community. And the films in Grieval are stacking up against them pretty well.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, I saw several that were like, what was in the Discord or whatever, that somebody won an award
Collins Abbott White: Let's see in our discord my discord. Yeah Kat Barovica one of the lead actresses and perfidia just won an award for being for best actress Yeah, and that was at a film festival, right that was at a yeah It was one of the smaller ones that was also fairly local counterpunch, but they were taking films from I saw several from England, from the UK, and several from, like, Russia as well. So they brought in quite a few foreign films to show alongside of them, and it's wonderful that Kat was able to take on that award.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, look at you, see? Building that community. Okay, so Collins, what would you do, what would you be doing if you had no fears?
Collins Abbott White: I mean, like the big fear, especially in this industry, because it's so, so, so volatile is probably what I'm looking for.
Jennifer Sutton: You know, the big fear… It is not stable. It is not stable.
Collins Abbott White: The big fear is that financial stability. And if I had nothing to worry about, I honestly would probably disregard the corporate video entirely and focus entirely on developing stories and creating new films. That's really where my passion is. creating these unique stories, original stories, and then capturing them on film. I love directing for other people. I love writing my own things, both across the board. But that narrative filmmaking area, I would completely dedicate myself to doing that. And also, I'd probably be able to approach investors more readily if I had no fears.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, yeah. Because actually that was going to be a question of, you know, commercial, I get, you know, that's how, you know, bills get paid and stuff. You're getting paid to be a filmmaker or producer or director or editor. on the narrative film side, how do you guys monetize that? Is it through sponsors? Do you get investors? Are you guys trying to go to like the studios and trying to, you know, see if there's, because all those are trying to fill their content plays, their content playbooks.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, so, I mean, it's a tough one because you have to really start that ball rolling and that's something we haven't been able to do yet. And we're talking about specifically, you're going to be talking about feature films and not short films. And I've got plenty of short films in my back catalog. That's great. But we're really needing to look at what we can do with features because that's where the opportunity to have a career is. You're not having a career in shorts. You'd have a career in features. You'd have a career in episodic. So like the series. Yeah. So That's the tough one because ultimately you kind of have to, it's a pay to play type of situation where you have to make that first one and you have to do it well, which requires money, which requires investors. So there's this kind of domino effect where you have to have somebody who believes in what you're doing, who believes in the art form, who believes in the story that you're telling, and is willing to say, hey, here's X amount of money. I don't know that I'm going to get it back. But I believe in what you're doing. I believe that this needs to be happening. And I believe that it's worth an investment to actually make it happen. So you think about like, Like, what are you getting out of a theater? Okay, those are all non-profits, so you get a tax write-off, but if people donate to theater, you know, they're not going to see that money back in any sort of return. They're not getting anything back.
Jennifer Sutton: They're just supporting the art.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah. And so that's kind of really what we need is the attitude from investors, but we're not non-profits. We're very much a for-profit industry. We're a very profitable industry for a certain few people.
Jennifer Sutton: You're trying to feed the art community, literally.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, and I mean, that's another thing you have to look at, is every film is gonna, like the last film we had, that I was just on, had 35 people that were regulars on it. So every day for 12 days straight, plus pre-production and a wrap period, we were employing 35 people. And that does not include our extras and that does not include the locations that we went to and the services that we needed from other people, like Stax was one of our caterers and they had 12 days of, actually 13 days of two meals a day for 35 people. So even a small film like that, that was only, you know, 200-ish thousand dollars, which is an extremely small budget for a film.
Jennifer Sutton: Tiny, yeah.
Collins Abbott White: They were able to really have a huge impact on the community in terms of, you know, getting people jobs and getting people employed and putting that financial impact into some of the people around here that are normally kind of starving artists.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. And because you were talking about that, like that's kind of your role in helping to develop the workforce here in the industry of how do you keep people employed?
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, because we have a lot of, let's do some training initiatives, let's build a studio, let's do all this other stuff, but none of that actually employs anybody. I mean, it employs the people that are building it, it employs the people that are doing the training, it doesn't employ the people that are learning and the people that are comprising of that workforce. So my focus is, can we bring stories into Greenville? Can we give those stories when they come in here? Can we give them a good experience filming in Greenville? And can we then make sure that there's more work coming down the pipeline, so that when people are trained, when we do have these facilities, there is something there to keep it going.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, keep the, keep the cycle fed. Okay, so what was the biggest, like, oh, shit moment for you of, like, you've just hit a wall? And how did you overcome it?
Collins Abbott White: Like, okay, then there's been several I'm going to touch on. I'll touch on three real fast. And the first one is when I bought my house. I bought my house after a period of having just great, great results with clients, with all this other stuff. And I closed on it on like the last day of the year. And in January, I was like, all right, everything's going to keep growing. We're in a good spot. It's going to get bigger. And one by one, my clients either delayed or canceled their work for three months straight. Every single one of them. That pain? listening here at the end of it, I'm like, I just depleted my entire savings account buying a house, which again, don't regret that. But am I ever going to work again? And how am I going to pay for this, you know, $150,000 property that I bought, which as you can tell, I bought it before COVID because that's not even a thing that exists anymore. That's right. Uh, probably the second one was March 15th, 2020. Yeah. And we all know what happened that day. But that was, I had just finished a documentary. Again, another one of those roller coaster things, we're getting to the end of that documentary, was putting us way into the red. And we were finally able to get it out and start touring with it. And that was our distribution strategy is going to places and touring with it. So go to place, attract a crowd, do a show in a place. And then we finished it. We had had our first showing. I think it was March 12th. We had our first showing outside of the premiere. Did great, brought in some money. It was awesome. It was starting to bring back the investment that we had made in it. And then three days later, we can't do that anymore. And we couldn't do it for two years. And that project just died because of it. Yeah, but the big one was not terribly long ago. We had one of our biggest corporate shoots for a hotel chain. And the lead actor in every single shot of the thing was supposed to be driving up the night before, staying at the hotel, and then he would be on set in the morning. So we got all of our equipment there his call time wasn't probably it was probably an hour after our call time So we get all the equipment there. We're loading in I'm not checking because I'm going through all this other stuff and Five minutes before his call time. I look at my phone and find out he's still in Atlanta with a broken car And this is at this point the biggest job we've ever done and I'm just like So I have my client sitting there next to me when I'm reading this, and I'm like, I need a moment. So we had to pivot very fast, recast it, you know, immediately with somebody who was on site already. They had some good actors that were part of their team who were actually performing at center stage when we were, while we were doing this. So we just grabbed a couple of them and put them in there and it turned out to be like, great. He did a wonderful job. And that was one of those intense days of actually like, all right, you haven't prepared for this at all. character and help you internalize this and let me guide you through all the acting in this without any prep work.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That is a problem solving on the fly.
Collins Abbott White: Someone once said that making a film is making a decision every three feet. And I don't know if they meant three feet of film or three feet of actual physical space. I think it's good. Yeah, it worked. And it's true. As a director, you're always having to make those on the fly decisions and keep the big picture in mind and just constantly, does this fit? Does this not fit? Let me filter that in. Let me filter this in. Is this the best course of action given what else we have to do today?
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, yeah. All right, Collins, I know, fun question for you. What do you think our listeners would be most surprised to find out about you? This can't, it's not on your LinkedIn or on your website, but just something that would be really surprising to know.
Collins Abbott White: Well, geez, I'm a pretty open book. I guess I guess a lot of like maybe maybe not so much anymore because I'm just I just talk about all the time. All right. Yeah, no, we'll go with this one. I love playing Magic the Gathering.
Jennifer Sutton: Just what is it?
Collins Abbott White: Magic the Gathering is a card game. Super, super nerdy activity. Probably not something that would be totally surprising to people that, uh, you know, know me, but, um, yeah, I've got a huge Magic the Gathering collection that's practically an addiction at this point. And, uh, yeah, I just love playing to go, go down every, every week and do it.
Jennifer Sutton: And, uh, so Magic the Gathering. Yeah. Okay. And it's a card game. Yeah.
Collins Abbott White: Think about Dungeons and Dragons, except you're playing cards.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh yeah. Might be at my alley. Well, yeah. D and D nerd in high school.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah. I don't think that's anywhere on any of my profiles. The WWE stuff, the Manchester United stuff. Everyone knows that about me, but magic. Yeah. I can talk to you about it.
Jennifer Sutton: Um, all right. So what is the, what are, what are the, um, the top three, I think, like either top three films that you have seen just recently, like whether it's the last year, a couple of years, like what's the top three?
Collins Abbott White: So this is going to sound awful because I haven't made it out to theaters in a while. Let's see, I loved everything, everywhere all at once. That was, to me, a really spectacular film. Banshees of Ina Sharon, that one spoke to me personally, on a personal level. I felt that one pretty deeply. A lot of the things that I'm struggling with, I could see metaphorically in that film. And, you know, it was like the entire guy cutting his fingers off to spite himself. I was like, yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, I've still got all my fingers, but metaphorically speaking.
Jennifer Sutton: I think every founder has been in that place at some time.
Collins Abbott White: And then probably Dune. I just love what they're doing with that. I love the high sci-fi feel of that film. It really takes me back to some of the magic that you had with the original Star Wars. Or like those early Star Trek films. Like maybe people don't appreciate those as much because they're dated and stuff. And sometimes… Oh, I think they're timeless. But the stories they're telling, they're great. And Dune is really recapturing that more so than maybe any other film that I've seen so far.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. The cinematography. So good so good. Okay, so flip to episodic series. What are the top three? Series, are you watching or for that? You are like, these are my top. They're like you it must must watch Mmm.
Collins Abbott White: All right. This is gonna be another reveal here. I So a lot of my inspiration comes from anime. So when we're talking about my style, and we're talking about how I compose shots, and how I tell stories, you will see anime references throughout it. And they're taken straight out of that. So recent anime series that have made me sit up and be like, whoa, Attack on Titan, bloody anime, very bloody. had some genuinely mind-bending things in there that I'm actually kind of using as inspiration for plot points in a screenplay right now. Okay, I saw what they did there, I like what they did there, let me build on that. Um, and a little bit of an older one, uh, Sword Art Online. It has this wonderful moment where, um, you think they're going to be storming the castle. Yeah. And he's literally walking through the door to do it and they pause the entire series for just this intense, uh, interpersonal drama. And it was just such a, um, jarring disposition, but it inspired a number of things that I, I personally enjoy. Uh, it was a doorway scene. And so I have the doorway scenes written in almost all of my stuff as an homage to that, because that just so much that you could do with just a door into storytelling and how impactful that could be. And probably a third one is Death Note. It's another nice mind-bending anime. I just went all anime with the series thing. There's really some great non-anime series out there that I've been enjoying. But Death Note is another one that's pretty influential. Just the power of somebody's name is significant in that one. And the what if scenario. And then you've got your anti-hero, who's really just straight up a villain throughout the entire series. And it goes off the rails a little bit, like most of these go off the rails at some point or another. And it's like, OK, come on. But the moments in between those are genuinely top tier storytelling.
Jennifer Sutton: Wow, all right, I'm gonna have to check. My daughter's all into anime, so I'm gonna have to. I've been forced to watch the thousand episodes of One Piece.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, I haven't watched the most recent one, but I've been keeping up with it, too.
Jennifer Sutton: If you hit rewind, would you do anything differently?
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, I mean, definitely. It's hard to say what, though. My entire business has been torn between this narrative and this corporate thing. On one hand, if I pursue corporate, then I can make money. On the other hand, if I pursue narrative, then I can actually tell the stories I want to tell. And because I'm split in between them, I'm doing neither. I mean, for a long time, I thought I should really just go all in on one or the other and just do it, and my life would be so much better. And yet, I really haven't. This year, my corporate side just fell off the radar, so it kind of made the decision for me. But that isn't to say I've dismissed all my corporate work and stopped doing it. I'm still doing plenty of it. Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone tells you you need to niche. And I feel so broad, having that split focus, that it makes me feel ineffective in both of them. And it's not because the work we're doing is ineffective, or because the amount of effort we're putting into it, or the product we're creating is ineffective. It's all in the marketing, just like my client acquisition. is weak because most of the time I'm really like, yeah, but I actually want to go make this film. And then my film acquisition is weak because I'm like, actually, I need to go make money. So that split focus has probably been my Achilles heel for most of the time I've been here.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, what would you do if you had just a pool of cut that came in on both sides? How would you handle that?
Collins Abbott White: I've definitely built a business. I would probably, well my original idea was if we were doing enough film work that that was keeping me busy that I would sort of manage uh, the, the production side for corporate clients. Um, but I would be outsourcing pretty much all the day to day activities about it and using that as sort of a springboard to bring people into the company. So you get hired on a corporate shoot as a, as a PA, you do a good job on that. We may be bringing you up into the company and then get you onto some of these bigger projects that they want to do.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Right, exactly.
Collins Abbott White: And, you know, creating that pipeline would have been amazing, but that requires a significant amount more work and more money than I'm making right now.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, if you could pick two things to change about your business right now, what would they be?
Collins Abbott White: Investors for films. I would actually have some. But I have one who is investing in a film right now, but it's a tenth of what we need. So that would be probably the first thing. And the second thing is I would not be doing this as a solo entrepreneur. Finding the right person is a critical job, especially as that first hire. And I've had so many misfires with that, that it's really turned me off of having people. And I'm extremely, wary of bringing that person in. But, you know, having someone else who can run some of the business side while I'm doing the work, or can do the work while I'm running the business side, either one, like that, that would be a significant improvement to where we are right now.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, I know where I was like, I don't know if you heard it on our side, but we've had major thunder and lightning every year. I've heard it on your side.
Collins Abbott White: It's definitely here now.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, it is. It is outside. It's a brewing. Now I feel your pain. I've like I think that's been my biggest oh shit moments is the the misfires on hires. And we've had to change our whole process of hiring because of it.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, I haven't really figured out. I mean, like, it's a really a chicken and egg situation, because you have to have the work that justifies the hire, right? You can't hire someone without the work. But at the same time, in order to get the work, you kind of need the hire. So it's kind of like, all right, when do we have this critical mass of both things where it just happens? And then you have to make sure you're hiring the right person when you do that. So it's not, it's not the easiest thing in the world.
Jennifer Sutton: No, it is not. It's one of, I think that's the, as you're scaling, I think that's the hardest part is finding the right people to help you scale.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, and for me, it's, it's genuinely, it's probably someone on the sales side as somebody who can go out there and either network with investors better than I can, because I haven't found myself to be terribly great at that, or network with corporate better than I can, because again, this is really the networking that's the hard part for me. Somebody who can do that. But you know, like, it takes time to build that. And takes money to give that person the opportunities to build that. And it also takes a lot of self-starting. They have to be like, I want to go to this event, I see this person over here, I need to go talk to them. And that can't all be directed from me, it has to be directed from them. So finding somebody who has the capacity to do that without necessarily a lot of reward early on, and then who has that kind of self-starting, I'm going to go do this, I'm going to go to this thing, and I'm going to promote this person that's not myself. at this event in the belief that if I'm promoting them, then it'll be good for both of us. And that's a hard person to find. And you've got to find someone who just really believes in what you're doing.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's the biggest thing. OK, Collins, if we met up like a year from now at Film Bar, what would we be celebrating?
Collins Abbott White: I hope that we would be celebrating my first feature film as a director. Hopefully it would be done. If not, it would at least be in progress. And right now, where things are, I've got a script written. I've got one person interested in investing in it. I need about 10 more of those, 10 more identical people or one significantly bigger person. But I've also been in talks to do that for other people's films. So I'm one finding the investors for those. And, you know, they're waiting on money, or like a lot of times when a film gets funded, it gets funded by somebody and they put a director in there, so I end up getting shuffled down the pack, as it were, which has happened a number of times, which is, you know, its own frustration in and of itself. But hopefully, by this time next year, that will have happened. Uh, and I will either be in the process of making it or it will be made. And, uh, you know, I'll, I'll, I've got that feather in my cap, which is kind of what I'm viewing as the real starting point to this machine.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. Well, we're going to celebrate that next year. Absolutely. We'll manifest it. It'll come true. Um, so with, you know, as you started the business and you had all these resources that kind of appeared to help you, what was the best advice that you received, um, whether it's from another founder or from just a business leader that you really took to heart?
Collins Abbott White: Best advice. Um, yeah, so I remember years ago, so I'm going to misquote him. Toby Stansel? Yes. I remember having coffee with him one day, and he talked to me about how he approaches decisions regarding people. And he has like a three-tiered chair. He has a three-tiered system on it. And if I can remember all this correctly, it'll be golden material for you. The first thing was, is this going to hurt the company? So is this going to irreparably damage the company? Is it going to irreparably damage our reputation or our finances or something like that? Is it going to hurt the project? So on an individual project level, does this hurt what we're doing? Is it in alignment with what we're trying to achieve? Whatever. And then the third one, is it going to hurt the individual? So there's plenty of times where somebody comes up with a great idea and it doesn't align with the company values. And it doesn't mean that their idea is bad. It doesn't mean that it's not worth pursuing, but it's not in line with what you're trying to achieve. So then you shouldn't go for it. Same thing on the project side. This happens a lot with ours. People come up with these great ideas for how to deliver a line, these great ideas for a scene, these great ideas for a shot. And you're like, OK, that is great, genuinely. for a different project. It doesn't necessarily align with this project. And so you have to kind of filter some of these things through there, and that's part of being a director, is identifying, all right, does this align with what we're trying to achieve? But then the third one's kind of the more important one than all the others. Will it hurt the individual? There are times where someone will pitch something and be completely dedicated to it, and they're just not ready to do it. And as a leader in a group, you have to be able to identify that. Is the situation right for you to do this? And when I'm bringing people onto a project, even if it's like not one of mine, I got plenty of people who will come up there and they'll pitch themselves as the DP for the project. And you're looking at them and you're like, you are a good DP. but you're not necessarily a good DP for this project. Or you are a good first AD, but you're not a good first AD for this project. Look at what's required and you look at where they are and there's a gap. And putting someone in a position where they have to step up significantly sometimes can hurt them and really, really destroy their confidence and can really destroy their ability to contribute to the community. And I'm all about putting faith in people. I'm all about, if you say you can do it, I'm going to believe you, you know, sometimes to my own detriment. But there does have to be that serious evaluation of, yes, I believe you can be this first AD, but I don't believe you can be a first AD on this project. Or you can do, you are a great fit for a lot of things, but maybe not this one. And so when you're having to reject people or you're having to kind of filter them into a different role that they maybe don't want, like those are some of the things you have to evaluate. And it's a very objective situation. You don't have to get emotion involved into it, but you do have to look at all three of them. And if it passes all three of those checks, then there's no real reason not to go with that person and their idea. If it doesn't hurt the company and it doesn't hurt the project and it doesn't hurt the individual, you know, so you've got the time, you've got the resources, it fits. give them free reign to explore what they're wanting to do and to try it because we're in a creative and collaborative environment. And so you have to have the freedom to do it.
Jennifer Sutton: I love that. And I've heard him talk about that, too, of, it's interesting how he talked about like how to make decisions as, you know, an owner or a leader. But he's also expressive, like taking those same, you know, philosophies of how to create a more empowered Tim, you know, look, you as an individual within this organization, you are empowered to make decisions to serve the customer, the client, whoever, the community, if it doesn't hurt the client or the company, doesn't hurt the contract or if it doesn't hurt, you know, an individual. But I love how he kind of phrased it for you of like, even just how to make decisions of of leading people and and deciding are you right is it a right fit because you'll appreciate that so like that last one I just remember somebody on our team who was had no training as a graphics person had been a had been a project manager and just kind of learned graphics through canva Which is kind of a Has been kind of a downfall in the creative community. I think because it's it's it's given people false Confidence that they are an actual designer I without training of like you're that's not really kind of the best visual layout and design and and but this part you know was like I we had a creative director position open a few years ago and she came she was like I really want the creative director position and I'm like you have no training like You know, you're going to, like a creative director also has to lead other art directors and other copywriters who have gone to, you know, SCAD or have gone to a fine arts, you know, they've got degrees and masters and they've worked for a large agency. Like, you've got to have chops. and some experience to, to lead and build that credibility and that trust. And I was like, well, she's like, well, how do I get that experience? I'm like, you've got to go back to school. One. And I'm like, you're 40. So that's a choice. You can always do that. No one's telling you you can't. But I'm like, you know, you got to go back. And then you've got to go work. in the field in that category to have some experience and have some credibility for that. Well, and she was so upset that I was, that I told her that she ended up leaving the company because she was like, I, I think I can just go on my own and be a freelance director or freelance art director. And I was like, and good luck to her.
Collins Abbott White: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, And that's what it comes down to. If you're evaluating people on something that's really kind of objective, and they feel like the evaluation is wrong, they have the opportunity to prove you wrong.
Jennifer Sutton: But it's like, you got, like, we want to put people in places and roles where they're successful. Absolutely. And that's because that's the worst thing. Like you said, it hurts their confidence. It can destroy them. I mean, it could destroy them, but also it will hurt also the project. If you've got the wrong people in the wrong seats, you will hurt the company and you will hurt the project.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, and I mean, ultimately, you also have a responsibility to the client to make sure that you're putting the right people into their project, too. And so that's more important when I guess in our sense, it's the we have the responsibility to the investor for the narrative of things because you know, they're putting however many hundreds of thousands of dollars into into you and your project, they expect you to hire the right people for the job.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. You don't want to lose that trust.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, because you're not going to get a second chance if it goes terribly.
Jennifer Sutton: No, not in our industry.
Collins Abbott White: No, there are too many people and there's too much risk.
Jennifer Sutton: There is. I mean, like on the film, there's a thousand other actors that'll that'll take that spot. A thousand other ADs. For us, there's a thousand other marketing agencies, right? Yeah. I mean, this doesn't take anything to to lose that that trust and that capability and that credibility.
Collins Abbott White: And it doesn't mean that you don't lay a goose egg every once in a while. I've had plenty of projects that just flopped. But it's like at the end of the day, did you do the right things? Did you communicate in the right way? Did you set the best chance of success up for people? And that's really what you're in control of. I mean, projects flop all the time for any number of reasons. take control of the things that you can take control of like project flopped because of COVID.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. But not because of the decisions you made of putting the right people in the right places. Nope. Everything.
Collins Abbott White: I stand by every decision we made up until COVID. We probably couldn't have done it after.
Jennifer Sutton: That's out of your control. That's out of control. No, that's fantastic. I was gonna say, like, the best advice I got from Toby, I'm gonna use another Tobyism, because I'd repeat this to a lot of, you know, young entrepreneurs and founders is, you know, Toby was like, look, John, you're an introvert, even though you disguise it well as an extrovert, but you, he knows I'm a, I'm a wall hugger at events. And, and I hate conflict, even though I'm great at negotiating. But to me, that's like, I can play a, I can play a role, right? But I don't want to, you know, I don't like it. I'm uncomfortable." And he was like, you need to get uncomfortable or getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Every day, as a business owner, as a founder, anytime you bring on like as a manager, as a leader, he was like, you're going to enter in uncomfortable spaces every day. Uncomfortable to learn about finances and accounting and different topics and subjects of like operations and stuff or shit's not going to go your way, and you got to get comfortable with that. And I'm like, oh, but yeah, but that's so true. I like have taken it to heart of like, over the last 10 years, it's been, I've got to get more comfortable with those things.
Collins Abbott White: Yeah, it's a it's a tough. There's nothing easy about owning a business. There's nothing easy about making film. I usually joke that we didn't do this because it was easy. We did it because we thought it would be.
Jennifer Sutton: That's great.
Collins Abbott White: That really is kind of my motto at the moment. It's like, this is much harder than we thought it was going to be, and now we're stuck in it.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. I was like, well, I love Morgan. It's like, you know, we should be the bright spot in people's day, and we should all be having fun doing it. It doesn't always happen that way.
Collins Abbott White: No. Like, what was it? Like, stupid things happen. You know, people get busy and they drop the ball on things. I do it. Everyone does it. And it just makes things complicated. And those are the things that you're going to have to deal with every day. And people end up making more work for you. And you end up making more work for other people.
Jennifer Sutton: Everyone's doing it.
Collins Abbott White: It's just the way things are.
Jennifer Sutton: I love it. We, we did it because we thought it was easy. And then it wasn't. Pretty much. Okay, last question for you. If you had to sum up your founder journey, in one word, what would it be?
Collins Abbott White: And why? For me, it's probably just stubbornness. I There have been so many things where I have just, it's been like, you just need to quit, Collins. Just stop. Just don't do this. And I'm like, no, I'm doing it. I am staying on this path. You know, Collins- I'm not stubborn.
Jennifer Sutton: That's tenacious.
Collins Abbott White: Well sure fine, whichever what do you want? But tenacious D breaking up. Oh my goodness.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, no don't I know I saw that they're not really breaking up That has to be a bit right. I think it's a bit Right now that we're talking like just for our listeners. You know the so Jack black. You know the tip was on tour What one of the his band member band partner made a made a? comment about Trump, that somebody should have had better aim to the audience and what Jack Black, like the very next day said, the entire tour is canceled because we don't wanna, like I was like, oh gosh, you're gonna cancel the whole tour? But they're not really breaking up, are they? They're not.
Collins Abbott White: I mean, it sounds like the next thing that we're gonna hear about Tenacious D is that they've made another film. And then this is part of it. But you know, I don't know. If it can happen to Jack and Kyle, I guess it can happen to anyone.
Jennifer Sutton: Anybody. Well, I'm amazed at how fast this goes. I love the conversation. But before we go, Kyle, where can people connect with you, learn more about you, your films, how to reach you? Where do you want them to go?
Collins Abbott White: Yeah. So across social media, um, there's two it's, uh, at other vision studios and at Collins Abbott white. So LinkedIn, well, I don't know about LinkedIn, but Facebook, Instagram, uh, those sorts of places. If you put that in there, you'll, you'll find us and you'll get to see what we're doing. You can also go to our website, other vision studios.com and see a slightly less updated version of what we're doing as well.
Jennifer Sutton: And then if people are just interested in learning more like the film activity and stuff going on in the upstate, where would you point them?
Collins Abbott White: So yeah, definitely not one of my sites, but Film Bar Greenville on Facebook. is a good place to just kind of keep tabs on things and to learn about, you know, what's going on. It's definitely for filmmakers, so more, more getters there. And they also have a Discord group, which you can get a link from their Facebook too. Since, you know, Discord links change all the time.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. And for everyone listening or watching, thank you for hanging out with us and joining us today. Again, this podcast episode will be published this coming Sunday and available on your favorite podcast platforms. So please subscribe to Hello Chaos. Like, comment and share this great content and help us build a more connected entrepreneurial community. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP, WIP for Work in Progress. We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are in three cities across South Carolina, covering the upstate, midlands, and low country. Just an email to join our community. We are a one-stop content hub just for founders and an innovative digital zine experience. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us in any way, send us an email to hello at orange whip.com. Y'all thank you for tuning in to hello chaos. It is where aha meets. Oh shit. I'm your host, Jennifer Sutton, JJ, and I will see you again next week.