Matt Alonzo: Director, Editor, and Award Winning Filmmaker

 At that time nobody believed in YouTube. So we just built up our our platform and then we would premiere these music videos on our channel
 Because Vivo wasn't out the record labels didn't understand the like the monetization of this stuff yet
 So they were like sure go ahead. Yeah as I continue down that path, you know number one video
 I think I had 11 number one videos in their year two years then something like that and as a creator
 This is where the business and the creative side kind of bumps heads because like as a creator
 I'm not really worried about business most of the time. I mean now I am but as a young creator. I just want it to create
 You're listening to the rad cast if it's radical we cover it
 Here's your host Ryan offered
 Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the rad cast
 Ryan offered your host
 Talking content today the king of content
 Filmmaker Matt Alonzo. What's up brother? Yo, it's going on pleasure being here. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, man
 I'm excited to talk content and
 You know everything that goes into the power of video man. They say content is king and video rules
 Yep, that is very true. That is very true Pioneer on YouTube and
 You know, I guess we can name drop a little bit just a beeper. You know just a few names
 So
 You've been out there man. I love your story my team brought me your name. I'm like dude. I want to talk to this guy and
 You know doesn't hurt that we have a lot of the same beliefs so
 I decided to have you on and you know, just want to everybody a little bit of your story and talk a little bit about the business of filmmaking
 I mean, it's it's a convoluted world out there. I know it's everybody won't everybody thinks it's sexy and glamorous
 It ain't always that way though
 No, absolutely not it's kind of the opposite of that like what is a good good from a business standpoint is not the sexy glamour stuff
 And then the sexy glamour stuff is not necessarily the best for business
 So you have to it took me like 10 12 years to find a balance there, you know, so
 Definitely have some jams and jewels to drop. I know it's what you know, I'm braving that way. I tell people that all the time
 They're like, you know, I mean, I don't know how to see and you know, we do commercial work and it's not all you know some of us super fun and super sexy
 But you know some of the best paying gigs though, it's just you know some bread and butter marketing, you know
 So yeah, once that's seem to be the fun one for the big names. They don't seem to pay very well
 You know, like you do them and if you do them
 Do them with the mindset of them being you know a commercial for yourself essentially and not necessarily worry about the back end on those ones
 Then it's okay, you know, so you have to be able to kind of like basically break break each part down into into different sections
 And then put it in its in its slot and and I think that they're all gonna be the same. So yeah
 Give me a little time, but I'll do it. Well, it's like I like teach that in some personal branding coaching that I do with
 Called Circle of Influence and you borrowed leverage is what I call that, you know, you uh
 It may not pay the best, but you're borrowing some leverage from the existing Circle of Influence of bigger names
 That then bring other opportunities that have bigger opportunity, but we can talk more about that
 The uh, but Matt let's uh, let's give everybody. I know you got a fascinating story. I know you're in L.A. Um, and but let's tell everybody a little bit about Matt
 All right, well uh
 My name's Matt Alonzo. I was uh, I grew up in Santa Barbara, Carbondoria, which is about 50 miles
 North of Los Angeles nice little beach town, but uh, my parents
 Many each other about 16 one night decided to make me and they didn't know each other
 But they they decided to like make a family create a family. They both were street kids
 So we didn't have much growing up
 But the one thing that we did have on my dad saved up to go get was a video camera
 And he just had this video camera in my face constantly. He had no connection to film
 He was like a 17 year old kid
 Cleaning cars, you know, so he just wanted to document everything because he didn't really have a family life
 So eventually he plugged it into the TV and and I saw myself on TV like you know some stuff
 He had recorded or he would he would do it so it was live on TV and I thought I was on TV and my mom would be laughing
 My sister would be laughing and so I realized I could I can make people happy with this this device
 Um, and I learned that at a very young age
 I don't think I like intuitively could spell it out for you, but I understood
 One plus one equals two and so I started taking that camera and just creating short films then basically I learned how to
 For lack of better words manipulate people's emotions through this through this box
 Started editing and and putting together all these, you know clips when I was like eight or nine
 So that was pretty much my life
 That in football and being five five
 112 pounds like football is out of the out of the equation at 18 so
 So film filmmaking was going to be
 What I did unfortunately first year I went to a city college and it just didn't work out and
 I was just going to be working for the city of Santa Barbara which my dad did and
 My friend who I got into filmmaking at a very young age. He started going to this film school. Excuse me
 Um, and I was doing his projects just casually on the side and he put my data side a few
 Times and was like you have to get mad into this film school. He's facing all my projects. He's doing all my work
 Like he's he's he's he has to be here and my dad just couldn't afford it and six months later
 He would finance the house and just sent me to school
 So I just put my head down and and went to work and
 Did internships. I did everything. I went above and beyond and any and every opportunity
 I could just because I knew how much my parents had invested into into this opportunity for me
 So by the time I graduated I had a full-time job work for a small record company
 I was making a hundred plus
 Thousand a year living in Santa Monica and uh, I just wasn't happy though
 So one day I called my dad. He's like, why are you growing as a man? I said nope. He said that you're growing as a
 Creatively. I said nope. He said okay. Well, you know what to do
 I don't think he meant this like literally, but I grabbed my bag and I just walked out with no savings
 No concept of like tomorrow in terms of like what I'm gonna do or like strategy in terms of like
 Let me slowly get out of this job and put my two weeks in let me save up some money maybe and then kind of sail
 sail off into the sunset, but
 22 that wasn't that wasn't necessarily the way that I I moved
 Operated so yeah rarely works out that way
 Yeah, yeah, I got repossessed. I was sleeping on couches, but I was like at I was at peace
 I felt completely comfortable in the chaos because like I just knew
 How talented I was and I knew where I was going to I knew that an opportunity presented itself
 Which it would that I would be able to show my talent and I knew I was talented
 Um as cocky as that sounds I just I had been working every single day editing or shooting for
 Four years straight on top of what I did what I did as a as you know as an adolescent
 So I just knew that no one had put in the work that I had done
 So I was very confident in my skills
 Did a concert in San Diego for 150 bucks or $200 for this no name artist, but they happen to be opening up for little Wayne
 I was able to film a concert took it home put it on YouTube that night and it had
 Like the first video to ever get a million views and so like a month later. I was shooting
 Uh game the game featuring Travis Barker and I had it on Jimmy
 Irene's desk the next morning. So it was uh, it was a pretty
 Like meteoric like it was so fast from going sleeping on couches
 To sitting with Jimmy Irene who was you know the seat like the founder of inner scope records
 and um and shooting for the game and Dr. Dre and and just the whole
 So would you shoot the concert literally would you stay up all night editing like yeah, so I shot the concert in San Diego
 You know at this time. I was just shooting on a little a little camera with like little tapes and
 At that time on YouTube nobody
 YouTube 2007 just wasn't really used the way it's used now
 So I labeled the official music video little Wayne official music video and all the
 Outlets MTB BET all everybody took it as the official music video
 So they placed it on all their blogs or on all their websites
 So that really helped generate all the views and then DJ ski who was games DJ
 It just started ski TV and we connected to create ski TV was going to the first like popular YouTube channels
 But you know
 He was obviously with game and inner scope. So he asked Jimmy Irene. Hey, give us like a
 Uh micro micro
 Scopic budget from what you're used to and let us show you what we can do and so he did and we kind of changed the whole music video industry with that one
 One ask and that one delivery in terms of like
 Before us it was 200,000 was like minimal now. It was like 10,000 minimum
 We obviously didn't understand that which one opportunity and we took whatever
 Obviously that we had we were just able to
 He did the same product for that price which unfortunately
 Changed the game, you know at least for that time being
 The democratization of content is what I call it. It's like you know
 I used to do a 32nd TV commercials that took six months and cost two million dollars
 And now the same things, you know, maybe a hundred grand in three weeks
 Yeah, I mean it was it was you know
 When we asked for it they gave us like the game video that we were shooting even the soldier boy turned my swag on song
 It that one went number one. It wasn't supposed to go to number one
 It was supposed to be like a b-side record. They were just like here's 10 grand here's 20 grand which then was like craft services
 and they were kind of laughing like kind of
 Almost giving it to us as a joke or like wanting to see us. Oh like that wine to see us feel but like
 Kind of just just throwing us off right like it wasn't much. It was nothing for them to lose
 So but the fact that we had we had
 Um, we knew the red cameras which had just came out. It was like brand new Oakley was still around like the glasses and you know the Oakley
 Uh, CEO is the one who created red. So like no one knew what I used those cameras. We did they were cheap and we just kind of preached like that and
 It was an opportunity. We took it, but we just we didn't understand the repercussions, but at the same time
 I wouldn't be where I'm at if we didn't take that that opportunity. So it's good and bad
 Yeah, I do but you know like the game was gonna change. Yeah, I guess pun intended
 The yeah no matter what right. I mean you have this proliferation of software and the tools
 You know where you know what 25 30 years ago you didn't have a hundred grand you couldn't get a camera that shot at a good enough resolution or
 In this editing software wasn't good at 25 30 years ago
 So this marriage of software and technology was coming like a freight train you just jumped on it early
 Absolutely, absolutely and we had no concept of any of the other way before us are our only concept of filmmaking was from these apps in these sort of digital cameras and stuff
 So it was just natural to us
 um
 But I didn't you know we really cut the music videos down for a long period of time
 Especially things started to go back up
 But yeah, there was no reason for them to spend millions of dollars when when they didn't have to anymore and the quality was was
 Was up to par so
 So that's good. So that I did a bunch of music because for inner for inner scope
 Yeah, yeah pioneer on you. Yeah, probably like a g6 like
 Had a bunch of never work. Yeah, so we what we did at sktd is we really just used music videos
 We were really a marketing company and what we really wanted was basically what you're doing
 commercials
 We wanted short form commercials that would be used like in on YouTube because we understood that YouTube was gonna grow
 At that time nobody believed in YouTube
 so
 So we just we just built up our our platform and then we would premiere these music videos on our channel
 Because Vivo wasn't out the record labels didn't understand the like the monetization of this stuff yet
 So they were like sure go ahead and so we just kept building and then we would go pitch to
 Chrysler and say hey, we have you know a million viewers from 13 to 35 what card do you have that's in that demographic
 And then we will make some sort of 10 second 30 second bumper for
 50,000 or whatever it was and we kind of double dip on that and
 And that's really where we wanted to go and be more marketing and breaking products
 So we were able to do that with like a few of few products and and really kind of grow that and then
 Continue to get big music videos in um
 So so it was good from a business standpoint. So we go from
 The game we've got
 Opening for was it little lane someone to
 When did the bebes and all these other big names hit the fold
 So that I mean as I continue down that path, you know number one video. I think I had 11 number one videos within either a year or two years span
 So I'm like that um and then and then I left ski TV and I wanted to just because they wanted to go more into like a into more of a marketing standpoint
 Of business and I really wanted to either just you know build on my music videos and then going to more narrative
 So I went journeyed off created my own company and teamed up with with another company called happy place and
 They pretty much started wrapping me. I had another rep called
 From from hello company. Lark. She was a huge rep. So she wrapped me in the bill and a couple other big people
 So that's where all the big names started coming in where she was able to like
 Go pitch for me and have meetings for me and be my voice
 So that from a business standpoint was great. Obviously she took a percentage. Yeah
 But I was happy to get happy to give it to her
 What was crazy during that time was that there was like six months where I didn't work because she was like look
 Your videos are are great
 But you need to make money. So we're gonna say your cap is are your starting point is 50 grand
 I'm like freaking out. I'm like 50 grand. Who is ever gonna hire me? She's like yeah, they will
 To take a little bit of time, you know, so every month. I'm like itching. I'm like what's going on? I'm freaking out
 You know, and then eventually they started coming in you know 50 and 60
 You know before that it was like 10 20,000 and I was pretty fine with that
 But she was like we got to make a stance for you. You know, we got to
 Stand firm and it'll come. So thankfully
 It did and so I started being able to like believe in in terms of like setting my
 You know my prices are or my expectations for what what was gonna be my my bottom line. I guess
 Um, I was able to see that eventually it was it would come to fruition
 You know, but there's a good lesson to learn there for anybody listening like you know
 You got to set your value to certain point, you know, and
 It doesn't mean you can just be unrealistic completely
 But you know if you've been in the business long as you were going from 20,000 to 50,000
 That's not that's a reasonable like
 Upgrade from where you were you know one like you went 20,000 to 2 million or something
 You know, yeah, I mean in the videos that I was doing at 20,000 were really we're really more of 50,000
 Dollar videos anyways as far as like the resources that we put into one
 We and as a creator. This is where the business and the creators side kind of you know bumps heads because like as a creator
 I'm not really worried about business most of the time
 I mean now I am but as a young creator. I just wanted to create so like all the money
 He could go to the screen. I would need top ramen. I didn't care like it just come up. I'm a an artist. Yeah
 Called starving artists for a reason
 Exactly exactly and I had to come to the point where I realized look
 You can be an artist, but if you want to be you know financially
 stable artists you need to be an artist
 For the brand or for the clients in the client is like whoever the actual you know brand or artist is like I can't
 Like sometimes I would get like a song and maybe a Bieber song and I would write this like very you know
 RT-Farty creative that didn't fit his brand at all
 But I wanted to go with it because I'm such like an artist and I'm like okay
 I'm applying the job instead of just writing something that
 Is for this brand it fits into the brand but has my little sprinkle on it and then make the money right like
 And so I think a lot of people get stuck there because they want to like an artist and they feel like all
 I don't even know what the word is but like yeah, you can do that. You're just gonna be doing it for nobody, you know, so
 What's the what's the Madalanzo style? I mean, you know, not the pigeon hole yourself, but what you know
 Do you feel like you have a certain style or you know like you know, I mean my style is pretty like fast
 I mean I've been editing since I was eight so like I just like to I like to edit quickly like and I like to
 Like over I just like to keep things I have ADD like through the roof
 So like a couple frames my attention span like it's gone
 So which is good now because nowadays like 15 seconds and you know, even for me
 I'm an old head, but like I even check out of a 15 second video, you know
 So so I would say it just really fast and just a lot coming at you in a short period of time
 I have a really hard time at least at this point like
 being
 Slow like I just feel like okay. I'm I'm done. I'm bored. You got that tinta brain
 Yeah, for sure, and I had it before to talk
 So it's kind of worked out for me. You know, there was a time where it didn't because like to talk
 Brain for everybody else wasn't there so
 That that was a little bit of a rough patch, but I managed to survive. Yeah, so I'm actually a lot of effects and stuff in your in your stuff
 I mean is that working with others or are you a practitioner?
 You just like a jack of all trades with I know and I know you're directing some you're editing some you're filming some like
 You know, where is your skill set? It's kind of fall. I direct. I mean, I write and direct and edit pretty much everything
 I think I've won our two videos that I've had other editors
 But I started as an editor as a kid really and then I started
 shooting and directing and everything in college and so
 As a director and editor, it's it's
 You know, it just helps on set you're able to to kind of get in and out and and kind of like combined shots
 And if you have a problem some directors are gonna sit there
 They're not gonna really like be able to have the vision of how these shots are gonna connect them to take time
 And I'm able to just kind of move along
 So my skill set really lies and I would say more like leadership and then which was from a director standpoint
 Creating the vision and then also creating the vision in a way that it's gonna be executable for the price
 or for a slightly under the price so you're able to make some money, right? So like that's a big part of it
 Which
 It does fall on the creator like I used to think it was like business side, but it does fall into that
 So I'd say that's the strength of mine as well and then be able to like edit and all that stuff in the effects
 I would say 95% of them I do myself
 And I do them all in one program. So I've just learned to I didn't have much as a child is in terms of like the top
 equipment and top software top computer
 So I had to make do with what I had and I had to improvise in ways to make things that weren't necessarily meant to be done
 On this computer are done on this camera. I had to find a way to make
 I find a way to be able to make them on these things
 All right, I gotta make you gotta name that program because Nick and I are in the business
 So I'm watching my producer Nick kind of you know light up. We want to what program we talk about?
 I do everything in premiere. I do everything in here. Yeah
 Yeah, but it's just like I said I've been
 Like I just find ways to make the program work for me as opposed to like going
 You know, usually multiple programs which most people would do or they look at my stuff and they think like
 I had to do all these steps which I didn't do. I just
 My brain had to work cheated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so hey, I like it. I like the mutant jack of all trades like
 Nick my producer is one of those where he can he has the vision to direct and he can see it but then editing
 That's a unique skill set, but you have to I don't know I think it's uh
 Love being relationship because it's uh
 Keeps you in the box for like 18 20 and I'll edit for like
 72 hours straight sometimes
 Um because I wanted to get over be over with but I also want it to like I don't know
 I don't know. I'm in love with it. So like
 Then I'm like I miss half my life, you know
 All the the editors toil to finish out that story man
 I know I mean we've been having a couple sidebars
 I mean we're lead us up to now like the last you know four to five years will spend
 I know I mean cove it's been difficult being in LA and
 Valley through that for anyone that does live action and things like that
 But won't me through the last you know a few years. I mean yeah, I mean once cove hit I mean
 I've been the last few years. I've been trying to figure out where I was gonna go
 I didn't know
 Really what I wanted to do music videos
 It's like you know when you wake up on the first day of of school
 Like you know those those those nerves and all that stuff of excitement that kind of all faded away
 So it was just kind of so easy for me
 um
 I'm just not challenging. I wouldn't say easy because it's still difficult
 But it just wasn't challenging me wasn't like pushing my boundaries and
 I was like what else am I gonna do?
 Covid happened and then you know
 I tried to work for a couple record labels like do some jobs and I saw people wearing hazmat and like
 You know getting like 87 tests before the shoe and I was like there's absolutely no way
 I'm gonna do that and like if I can't even touch my friend or like see my friend
 I'm gonna be wearing this big suit and shit like I'm not gonna do that
 Luckily, I had a lot of friends who
 Are artists and so they would just contact me and just you know, we just do side business
 Yeah, or are you know small business like
 Stuff so it's like small videos 5 10 15 20 grand like anything under like you know
 Just like the bigger videos for record labels are usually on the 40 to upper side
 So like these roles considered smaller videos. I just did myself and so that that was kind of
 Refreshing at least for me um, and it was good financially and then um I was like all right. I need to get a big boy job like
 You know, I'm getting up there in age. So one of the guys that that
 Started to get to do with me Ky Henry. He he was he's over at phase clan, which is an esports video game org and
 I just I was like something about that
 I just like grab like it just started pulling me and so I contacted him like hey get me over there
 What's that? What's up? And he's like, oh, it's a big boy job. Are you ready to come into office every day?
 I'm like, I don't know. Well, let me just go over and check it out and
 And so I went and checked it out and you know, I've been here ever since you know, it's a great. It's a great a great place to be
 And so I run all the branded content. We have like 15 brands from
 Okay, luckily I didn't say that one because we're not allowed to say that one yet, but we have we can have these
 Yeah, we have big brands who do business with us and then we basically pump out content for them
 Uh, basically like commercials, but with our talents like our video gamers and things like that who
 Who star in these pieces? So there's a ton of deliverables that are
 Um, they need to be met and it's a different a different challenge for me in uh
 I mean because then it pays amazingly compared to freelance. So it's been a blessing
 It's definitely been a blessing something new and uh, that's where I'm at today. No, that's awesome
 I'm very familiar with phase clan big one of the biggest name probably the biggest name in esports
 We did a huge segment on the radcast. We had like a 10
 guest series on esports and so uh, it's a huge I mean people
 Well, after those are the radcast, they know how big esports are because uh, we made sure they knew the numbers behind
 How I mean, it's fucking insane like how much
 It blows my mind like like I'm going in some of this like some of the stuff a lot of the stuff we're doing is like
 Sometimes we do bigger pieces, but some of the stuff with me like just for instagram or for like tiktok or something
 And I'm looking at the budget going
 Like this is just for social media, but when I say just for that's because I'm an old head because if you're a tiktok or instagram
 You know in this demo of like 13 to 24 you don't even know what tv is so it's not just for that is their tv right like that is their
 This is the tv bread and butter so
 Uh, so it makes no I know sort of but it just makes sense, but for an old head like me
 You still has like, you know still wants to watch monday night football on my big screen like it's uh, it's it's a little shocking
 But um, but it's it's great. It's uh, it seems to be a perfectly fit for my skill set and um and I have like
 You know five or five or seven producers underneath me who I'm able to kind of
 Managing and I love being like being able to be a leader in a coach and mentor and you know done some film
 classes. I've done as you know as many like tutorials or things where I can kind of give back as possible
 So I'm not being able to do that on a daily basis. You kind of help these guys through
 You know struggles not only with work, but you know some of the things are going to be with life and be able to kind of help them out
 Is definitely more rewarding and fulfilling to me as matt Alonzo as a person than anything I've done
 So yeah, it's kind of a great mend of all these these things I was looking for phase clan
 They started and if you we could edit this if you uh, we're not real to answer, but they have a huge activation with the cowboys or they did
 They did I think yeah, well we we did the last of the NFL as well, so yeah
 Um, so yeah, yeah, it's crazy. It blows my mind. Mm-hmm. It's both what's um
 Give me an example of the types of
 Like one of your latest projects maybe you know, like maybe for the listener like walking through like
 You know a video or some pack of content, so
 I'll just say the last project that I did was so we had um
 Uh, moon pay, which is one of the crypto currency brands
 Is one of our branded partners. So we put together a huge party for twitch con with moon pay and new events are part of events like
 Competitions all these things. So we did that with Travis Scott
 So we filmed it put together a video with all like the biggest names
 And then it's just really trying to figure out how to
 Basically like shoot a music video at a club without disturbing people like so there's a lot of different challenges
 And really that but that deliverable is like a one-minute video on instagram, you know, so doesn't even go to youtube
 So that's kind of like
 Kind of just you know one of the things that I just did recently um and before that I did an xfinity Nate Hill
 So which is a big you gotta remember. I'm not a gamer
 So these names to me. I don't really know yet. I'm learning. Yeah, you know
 And that's the game to play was like duck hunt
 So
 So like, you know, I think there's a duck on any which somewhere
 Just destroying my dad's TV, you know
 But um, but but the content is is the same. It's just the faces are different. So like we did you know dance and
 Yeah, they're like they're like commercials essentially. So we just try to find a way not to make them commercials
 I just depends on what the client wants, but um, it's a lot different from that
 uh to from that to like
 A hundred girls running around in bikinis shaking their butts and
 You know, alcohol being sprayed everywhere and you know dollars in a throw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
 It's yeah, you know, it's a lot different. It's a lot different. I can't say it's as visually exciting, but uh
 You know, but it's interesting, you know, and I'm gonna go down put on my marketing hat for a second, but
 You you said it you teed it up
 What what some people haven't grasped yet is
 13 to 23 year olds do not watch television
 They've never watched television and I mean, I'm not saying they don't watch the screen at home
 That's on the wall. That's not a TV to them. It's a content screen and they beam stuff from their phone there
 Or they watch Netflix or they watch a ton of YouTube
 And the only way if you're a marketer to reach these people is in video games or where they're at
 And so that's why esports is gigantic. That's why face clans huge. That's why
 Twitch and all this stuff and all these brands are spending all this money because
 You can't reach these kids and eventually they're going to be the leaders of the world and you've got to have
 Brand impressions and you've got to build that same brand resonance that
 That you know pep to bismog could just run a commercial, you know back in our day and yeah, but that shouldn't get seen anymore
 You want their parents dollars right now, you know, like yeah, you want their parents dollars they probably have
 They probably have the ability just to press and buy so
 So you got to eat like you said you got to go to where they're at, you know, and I don't know how video game and
 Integration is but I know that if you have the best gamer
 Using your products integration. It's going to do well for you, you know, and this gives you a chance
 And I guess that's all you can hope for is an opportunity and a chance that they walk by your product
 And they have to remember or as far to be in them to buy, you know
 Because without that you have no chance. I mean, you just have no opportunity. You're on C you're unheard. You know how to say out of mind, so
 So I get it. I get it from like the from you know from a broad sense, but when I
 Sometimes I just don't I don't take that into account. I'm just going what the freak is going on
 Your terms of like budgets and like what we're doing creating
 I'm in the business brother and I do the same things sometimes
 I'm in the business every day and I step back sometimes and go, you know, like I get it
 But I don't get it, you know, because just I think about
 I think about what I'm using video budgets. I'm going to use video budgets for we're absolutely pennies
 I mean, they still are pennies, you know what I mean? And like and sometimes the bigger the artist the lower the budget, you know
 I mean a lot of times like I was telling earlier before we got on a lot, you know
 A lot of the big big things I did were more for recognition, you know like it wasn't for
 It was to bring in other business, you know, a lot of times that would bring in artists from overseas
 Who just wanted to shoot with me because I shot with Bieber and that they would pay me
 As a disorganized amount of money, and so I was able to get jobs like that
 With that video will never be seen to the general public, but
 I wasn't I wouldn't be able to get that job if I didn't do this $5,000 video for xyz, you know
 And like $5,000 or $10,000 is enough. Sometimes I do videos for free
 You know like just just for the exposure
 So but it was worth it. Yes, and then all that probably led to the opportunity today. Of course right
 Absolutely, no, no, absolutely, and I tell kids all the time like take it obviously
 You have to be strategic about it. Don't just do shit for free like just left and right
 You know what I mean? But if it makes sense for you in terms of like you can you see
 Steps after that absolutely do it, you know some people tell them not to do it
 And I'm just like why? Well because you're worth more and so like that
 Well, you're actually worth nothing right now because nobody knows you have all the skills in the world
 You're still worth zero because you are just not a commodity, you know
 So you have to make yourself a commodity and try to make yourself a commodity and make money at the same time
 It's it's almost impossible. I'm gonna say it is, but it's almost impossible
 So the tagline for my coaching is it pays to be known
 Ha ha ha
 Yeah, because if you ain't known
 You know and you don't have to be famous, you don't have to be famous, but you got to be known to the right people
 No, you have to come. Yeah, your skills have to be you have to be wanted
 You know, you have to be a commodity and obviously you know as the more you're wanted the higher your
 You know your prices can be you know in anything, right? So
 And I had a good understanding of that like I said once again
 I couldn't I couldn't verbalize this stuff early on, but I just knew that was go
 How he works? So I was able to take that concert in San Diego for free
 Drive back home that night edited all night and split screens all this crazy stuff posted knowing that are hoping
 I guess I was hoping that I would start to get known, right? Like and I knew if I started to get known then opportunities
 And then I could build my my leverage up and start
 Being more
 Talk to me about your perspective on tiktok and instagram and reels and vertical video like
 You know, let's go down that rabbit hole just a minute as we close things out like what's your perspective on
 vertical video and and the like
 So when vertical video started in vertical video first came out as well as like swear video
 I was completely like against it
 You know, I did everything in my power not to fall in line with this sort of you know
 Deliberable
 I was very like you know, it's thick. I was like my head up in the air like no
 Cinematic film is only this way and then I realized
 Like I'm fighting something. I'm never going to be able to win the win the battle against and I'm hurting myself or the clients or the brands that I'm working with
 I started studying a little bit more about the algorithms and so and how
 You know if you if you stay back in you know
 You know what in old-head bill then your your contents never going to be seen right and and the more you take up the screen and all these things on all this
 You know these algorithms and so I'm like I'm on my content to be seen. I want to grow. I want you know
 I want all the things that come with um
 You know exposure. So if I'm hurting myself by by staying in this old lane because just because I feel like it's so precious to me
 Then I'm I'm retarded. I'm just I'm not using my head properly. You know, so what I did was I started challenging myself
 To find ways to still to shoot in to shoot square
 So that I didn't have to reframe my kid later
 And I didn't have to like make something out of something that would make a different video
 That wasn't supposed to be that way. So I started shooting perfectly or I started like taping my camera off
 So I couldn't see
 You know, I don't see it square and so I started challenging myself to shoot cinematic that way
 But also just doing that framing really helped me so that so later on I wasn't trying to figure out which portion of the of the frame
 I wanted to show and feel like I was losing something once I did that then it all became
 just intuitive and like natural to me and
 And now I'm like the more vertical it's a better for me. I don't care. I'll push the limits like anywhere, but I shoot
 I shoot
 I first figure out what the deliver was going to be or where I want this video to live and then I shoot
 Accordingly, so that seems to help out tremendously, but now I'm all for it because I know that's just
 If you're 18 or 17, you don't even know what the wide street videos are like movie theaters, which are like drive driving theaters to us, you know, like
 It just doesn't really register you know, so
 The um, yeah, I had to change I had to change
 I
 I think we all have but it's been interesting watching the you talked about the short-form video and how you were ahead of your time a bit with that
 but now I mean everything's like
 10 15 20 seconds you got to me, you know, I mean if it's a video like a music video or something with a big star
 You certainly got more
 Uh leeway on length and as long as you're entertaining maybe but
 I know
 For me for me, I'll even even if I like it I get to about 20 seconds and I register it as like good video
 But then I click off even if it has like another two minutes ago
 I just and I and even if I like it I just my attention span is like, okay, what's next?
 Yep, so get that ready. So if you're listening at home the key there is get that braining in early
 hahaha
 Yeah, no, we're sure for sure like if you watch any of my content
 It's like five seconds first five seconds are like
 You know, just like just at least keep you there to the to 15 I was reading these studies and they were saying like
 85% of your viewership is gone by like six seconds or something like that
 So if you start looking at these analytics and these are like analytics from actual you know real living human beings who are checking your content
 So uh, it's very telling on you know, it gives you a lot of information on on how to edit or how to create something
 Because you just can't you can't be so stuck in your ways or so like you know stubborn that oh no
 I'm gonna show my my logo at the end of the video. It's like what he's never gonna. No one's ever gonna see it
 You know, so having all this data and having these like facts that you've been literally just taken and implement
 Is is a great thing if you're able to kind of like I said not be so stubborn and hard headed, you know
 um
 But eventually I guess the numbers will tell as as you lose customers or lose and we don't stop merchants or we ever have you know
 Hey, man marry marrying the art. I just think it's a
 Yeah, well that and you got to get it out there. I mean you got to get point you get either
 You go ahead. No, I mean you got to get it out there because you got to that's the thing now like people fall in love and if you spend three weeks doing something
 You could have already learned if it worked or not done four of the things right. I mean, that's the key now. I was like get it out there
 I saw me as an artist during covid. I managed like a huge kick-talk artist. I was able to get uh get his
 Spotify from like 200,000 to when I you know was out working together. It was like 2.5 million
 monthly listeners, you know
 I got a deal singles deal and everything but like any song that he would work on from longer than like a few weeks
 I was just like throw it away or save it for later because
 You're attached to much to it and it's like we got to just throw stuff out and the stuff that he didn't care about
 Or was like okay, I just put it out right away. It did
 It didn't really well and the stuff that he would
 Babies sit a little bit longer just never it wasn't because people knew that he put in more time or anything
 It just I don't know what it is
 But more the more you work on something the less likely it is to be successful for some or whatever reason
 I'm not saying like just throw trash out there. No, but I'm saying
 I think everything has like a 90-10 rule. I once you get to a point
 I'm not a perfectionist to the fullest. I've had to give money back because
 I've done like 10 versions of an edit and I still didn't feel comfortable sending it to a client
 I've had to send money back like here's your money for your project. I just can't edit this for my perfect
 I mean I can't I can't I don't want to send it to you because uh because my perfectionism is so crazy
 So me as a perfectionist being able to say this like you have to be able to put it out when it's 90%
 To your liking uh it is uh shows the growth
 But it also shows like how important it is to do that you know um and like it's not those days of like
 You know putting all your energy into one film or one single or all that stuff. It's gone. It's gone
 It's just like you said you have to just throw shit out there
 See what sticks see what doesn't and then be able to adapt and just continue to do it out of sight out of mind
 And you know instead of doing like one thing where you put all your energy and all your eggs and all your budget
 Do 10 things and you kind of spread your your your resources. She's kind of opposite of the way I learned
 But what works right now
 You know a lot of wisdom there. Hey, man. I've really enjoyed this. Where can everybody keep up with you Matt and uh follow along with with every
 Where's the best place to get you?
 Uh best place is probably raya bungalow
 Madalanzo
 Madalanzo dot com everything's at Madalanzo twitter instagram facebook youtube
 So uh keep everything pretty pretty easy for people to find. I love it, man
 Really appreciate your time and your perspective and a lot of get insights, man
 I appreciate you having me on here and uh
 Hopefully we dropped a few gems for some people. I know maybe we get to work to you to get it down the road
 I'll get in touch with you because you know where to find me
 I'm at Ryan all for all the platforms. We're at the radcast.com search for Madalanzo
 You find all the highlight clips from today
 All the stories about mat and great perspective here. We'll see you next time on the radcast