Episode 148 with a great friend to me and this show, long time listener, first time guest, Dan Evans.
We talk about our shared experience looking for work, being prepared, the cost of creative things, and much much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Follow Dan on
Threads: @redbeard73
BlueSky: redbeard73.bsky.social
Other Links
A Complete Unknown does justice to Dylan’s electrified 1965 revolution
Are you really Chasing Black Unicorns?
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:23:29
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. A complete unknown does justice to Dylan’s electrified 1965 revolution. Are you really chasing black unicorns? And things are cooking for Mark in the Tangible Media Network. This is The Palmer Files episode 148 with great friend to me and this show. Long time listener. First time guest Dan Evans. We talk about our shared experience, looking for work, being prepared.
00:00:23:33 – 00:00:58:50
Agent Palmer
The cost of creative things and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:00:58:55 – 00:01:24:27
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 148th episode is Dan Evans. Dan and I met almost a decade ago through shared online circles and met in person just recently. In the time in-between, we’ve stayed in touch both on and offline. Meaning we talk on the phone and he’s finally on the show, even though due to some technical issues, this was our second recording in the same evening.
00:01:24:32 – 00:01:47:21
Agent Palmer
Nonetheless, Dan is an optimist and he’s doing all the right things, and he has experience in all things video production. So if you want to hire Dan, he’s available for work for now. During this episode, you’ll hear us commiserate about job searching the creative fields as career paths, expectations, many sides, and the changing scope of production, and much, much more.
00:01:47:22 – 00:02:03:39
Agent Palmer
But before we get there, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Dan and myself in the show notes. You should follow him online, as he’s one of the few people I know who’s really trying to find the positive in the negative. As often as possible.
00:02:03:48 – 00:02:18:26
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:18:31 – 00:02:28:34
Agent Palmer
Dan, we have a lot of stuff in common. We have, a bunch of fandoms. We obviously met through podcasting and and an overlap of podcasts.
00:02:28:39 – 00:02:29:16
Dan Evans
Yes, yes.
00:02:29:16 – 00:02:43:26
Agent Palmer
We have recently, though not the best of overlaps. We’ve both been looking for work. Yes. Or gainful employment. As opposed to just,
00:02:43:30 – 00:02:44:26
Dan Evans
Gig employment here.
00:02:44:26 – 00:02:51:38
Agent Palmer
A gig there, a gig everywhere, a gig gig, although not everywhere. Because if it was everywhere, we wouldn’t still be looking.
00:02:51:43 – 00:02:53:38
Dan Evans
Right? And for.
00:02:53:43 – 00:03:30:14
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s been, obviously years for me. I know it’s actually I’m coming up on six years since I last had, like, full time, 9 to 5 corporate job. And I know you and I, in our life off mic, have been talking a back and forth about what’s next when, where we go and how the job search is.
00:03:30:19 – 00:03:44:27
Agent Palmer
Soul sucking, you know, and, and so, I, I just, I mean, I wanted to have you on because. Yeah. As a long time listener, you’ve been bothering me.
00:03:44:32 – 00:03:46:18
Dan Evans
About.
00:03:46:23 – 00:03:55:59
Agent Palmer
No. And, bothering is the wrong word, but let’s just say that occasionally. Like, how come? How come not me yet? Yeah.
00:03:56:04 – 00:04:08:37
Dan Evans
Okay, I because you and I have talked. I mean, we’ve been friends for almost ten years now, and it’s like, you know, I in fact, it’s funny because I finally met you after how many years when you came to my 50th birthday party.
00:04:08:42 – 00:04:12:19
Agent Palmer
Like it was just a couple of years ago, so. Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:12:23 – 00:04:17:48
Dan Evans
I well, last year, it was last year, I. Well, almost two years now. Yeah. So. Yeah.
00:04:17:55 – 00:04:51:19
Agent Palmer
Well okay. So, All right, I know that you have been extremely supportive in terms of I feel like, no, there’s not two weeks that goes by that I don’t get a, like a producer, a podcast producer job that you’ve seen sent to me, and I appreciate it, but a bunch of them are like some of them are like, in the fine print.
00:04:51:23 – 00:05:01:13
Agent Palmer
You have to come like be in New York City three days a week. And it’s like, all right, I yeah, I’m out on that. And I, I know I but I but I do appreciate the effort.
00:05:01:17 – 00:05:20:55
Dan Evans
Yeah. Yeah. No because I like listen you’re good at this and you’re good at what you do. And you know, I think you should share your talents with the people that are, that are out there that need someone like you, that knows what the hell they’re doing and can help directed podcast and, you know, edit it together and, go from there.
00:05:20:55 – 00:05:25:23
Dan Evans
So and I’m sure Jason’s going to be like, why don’t you send me this shit, man?
00:05:25:28 – 00:05:49:11
Agent Palmer
And I’m and I’m and I’m working on kind of expanding the catalog of, people I work for. But yeah, I have not been as, helpful to you. I think, since you have been looking for gainful employment other than as, commiseration of sorts. Yeah. Which is also helpful.
00:05:49:16 – 00:06:13:07
Dan Evans
It’s it’s everything. Every little bit helps. And that’s what people have to understand. It’s like, I’m actually part of a job search council, which I found through LinkedIn. There’s a, Phil Terry is the name of the the guy he wrote a book called Never Search Alone. And it’s this idea of working with your network and also working with people who are outside of your network on how you can better your job search.
00:06:13:11 – 00:06:15:57
Dan Evans
And is this and.
00:06:16:02 – 00:06:22:10
Agent Palmer
Just because I don’t know it, is this also like other unemployed people or is this just other people?
00:06:22:12 – 00:06:49:55
Dan Evans
No, no, it’s, it’s other unemployed people who are also looking for work. And what’s good about it is that you all don’t work in the same industry like I work in TV. I’m a video producer, a video producer, editor, and, my my thing has been, I some of the people that I work with are in marketing, so they understand the needs of places and agencies for people with my, my particular set of skills.
00:06:49:55 – 00:07:09:22
Dan Evans
If I want to take that line from, Liam Neeson, and then there’s also people, one of the guys that I work that was part of our group, he is, works on the, educational side of things, but also on the research side, like educational, scientific research.
00:07:09:22 – 00:07:09:40
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:07:09:46 – 00:07:20:28
Dan Evans
And so you never know who you’re gonna run into and how different, set of eyes looking at what we’re all doing can help you in your search.
00:07:20:42 – 00:07:55:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I probably should have used that more. I was a part of a house cleaning. So despite the fact that we were all of different thing, like my, my direct boss was fired with me, people in sales, I was in marketing, but people in sales were fired with us. Like, there were there were a lot of, we didn’t use, like, you know, listening to you talk about this, and you, you were strangers with most of these people.
00:07:55:23 – 00:07:56:35
Dan Evans
Strangers with every single.
00:07:56:35 – 00:08:24:42
Agent Palmer
One of these are people that I was close with, that we all went through something traumatic. Let’s not beat around the bush losing a job or a contract of any kind, especially, one that you didn’t know was coming to an end. Right? Is traumatic. And I think we we probably should have used each other more. I mean, we we were there for each other as far as, like, the emotional support, but not as far as the actual searching.
00:08:24:47 – 00:08:29:17
Agent Palmer
We didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t do that part. Really.
00:08:29:22 – 00:08:51:49
Dan Evans
True. But I mean, for me, it’s it’s more because I’m in the production side of things. And when I see people looking for podcast producers and like me knowing what the I know you can do it, it’s easier for me to just go, hey, check this out. Hey, check this out. Hey, check this out. Because again, it’s something that is either in the Philly market or the New York market or is remote.
00:08:51:54 – 00:08:53:10
Dan Evans
And that can help.
00:08:53:11 – 00:08:56:21
Agent Palmer
Now have you I, I can ask this.
00:08:56:26 – 00:08:57:09
Dan Evans
Yeah.
00:08:57:14 – 00:08:59:11
Agent Palmer
You’ve looked for remote positions.
00:08:59:24 – 00:09:00:16
Dan Evans
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:09:00:16 – 00:09:07:40
Agent Palmer
I’ve definitely encountered the remote in the listing, but not remote in practice.
00:09:07:45 – 00:09:09:16
Dan Evans
Yes.
00:09:09:21 – 00:09:31:02
Agent Palmer
My my favorite. I’ve told this story before, I think, but my favorites, the, I got called for an interview and they’re like, oh, by the way, you have to be in the office, three days a week, and we’re in Iowa. And I was like, I’m gonna cancel this interview like this. That’s that’s you’re never going to pay me enough to make that work.
00:09:31:17 – 00:09:34:42
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s not remote, by the way.
00:09:34:47 – 00:09:36:46
Dan Evans
Oh, it it’s remote. But.
00:09:36:51 – 00:10:02:16
Agent Palmer
You know, is there any, look, I may, may be in a Star Trek universe where, transporters are second nature and your commute is, to get ripped apart at the atomic level and put back together within seconds or even minutes. That’s fine. But I don’t think there’s a secret underground direct line from Pennsylvania to Iowa in.
00:10:02:16 – 00:10:06:10
Dan Evans
Yeah, and you’re not Nightcrawler and can, like, Bamf your way over to Iowa.
00:10:06:12 – 00:10:14:23
Agent Palmer
No, that would be that would be that would be amazing. So so you are I mean, obviously you’re in, a place where.
00:10:14:23 – 00:10:17:53
Dan Evans
I mean, I’m in South Jersey, so I’m 20 minutes from Center City Philly.
00:10:18:02 – 00:10:33:53
Agent Palmer
But you’re also within a reasonable time to New York. I was just I was just pointing out like, you’re within two major markets, but it also means you’re within two major markets. Like there are pluses and minuses to being there, right?
00:10:33:53 – 00:10:49:21
Dan Evans
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And you know, that’s where some of the issues are that I’m running. I’m not because I’m not willing to move because I have a daughter who’s getting ready to go to college. I have son who’s still in high school. I moved in 2021 specifically to be in the school district that they’re in.
00:10:49:36 – 00:11:23:24
Agent Palmer
Like, is there a part of you that I mean, you’ve been in, production for long enough if if I and I will make the caveat if the a family wasn’t involved, would you want to go to, like, the West Coast or are you a, you know, northeastern person? You know, like, because I, I, like I spent four months living in North Carolina and decided that no northeastern corridor is for me, like, I can’t go.
00:11:23:24 – 00:11:29:47
Agent Palmer
I cannot live below the Mason-Dixon line. Like it doesn’t matter what my connections are, I just can’t.
00:11:29:47 – 00:11:51:05
Dan Evans
If if I didn’t have familial attachments. Yeah, I could easily have moved to the West Coast. I almost did that back in back before September 11th happened or right after September 11th happened. What was that? Yeah, I’m trying to. Sorry. I’m trying to remember when I went out there because I went out with one of my best friends from college because he and I worked at the same place, and he I’m like, hey, I want to go out and look at LA.
00:11:51:05 – 00:12:03:32
Dan Evans
I had a lot of contacts out there. I was able to go and meet with people, and I lined up about ten interviews while I was out there. And, the problem was, is that nobody would hire me unless I was out there and you.
00:12:03:32 – 00:12:05:49
Agent Palmer
Couldn’t do it out there unless you were,
00:12:05:54 – 00:12:30:41
Dan Evans
Yeah. Okay. And so he wound up just going, screw it. I’m quitting my job, and I’m just going to move out there, okay? And he wound up, moving there, living with, a friend of my family’s that I. That I knew as a kid growing up. And he lived with them for a little bit. And then he lived with another friend’s brother who had an extra room.
00:12:30:53 – 00:12:43:34
Dan Evans
And so he he rented that room from him. And, you know, it took a while for him to get it, get his feet underneath somebody who finally was able to get a job and and wound up, becoming very, very successful. Now, in my opinion.
00:12:43:34 – 00:13:03:43
Agent Palmer
Do you spend I we’re going to get back to the job search in a second. But like, I know that I started thinking about all of the happenstance that led me to the job I had just gotten let go from because I had a habit of falling into opportunities.
00:13:03:48 – 00:13:04:26
Dan Evans
Yeah.
00:13:04:31 – 00:13:15:21
Agent Palmer
As opposed to like, seeking them out. I did, yeah, I did go on the road is like, I wonder how I’m going to fall into what’s next.
00:13:15:26 – 00:13:36:38
Dan Evans
Now, I’ve always been one to set a goal and basically of achieve that goal. Okay. Until recently, I’ve achieved the goal to getting into every place that I that I set my heart to, you know, and, and that’s the way that worked out for me by, by chance and by, you know, by luck and the fact that I’m good at what I do.
00:13:36:42 – 00:13:39:31
Dan Evans
And I’m not doing that just to toot my own horn, you know.
00:13:39:31 – 00:13:47:31
Agent Palmer
Well, you did it for long enough. You would have had, like, even as a you once told me it was a permanence, like silence.
00:13:47:31 – 00:13:52:17
Dan Evans
But yeah, I was permanence 16 years, the last place I was at.
00:13:52:28 – 00:14:00:12
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So that, you know, you have to be good to to not just become a freelancer. It’s like, yeah, we, we, we use Dan sometimes.
00:14:00:12 – 00:14:23:37
Dan Evans
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s, that’s the thing is that and that’s part of part of the job search council is you have to do a listening tour. So part of your, your homework for this, this thing for the council is you have to sit down and you have to talk to people that you’ve worked with in the past and have three basically three questions.
00:14:23:42 – 00:14:51:09
Dan Evans
What did I do? Well, what didn’t I do well or what could I do done better? And what do you think I should focus on in the future? Okay. And it was great because it was, you know, for me, I know my own limitations, but sometimes, you know, you know, other people and, and other people also don’t, don’t know what what’s going on behind the scenes when like one of the things people said to me is like, well, you should have put yourself out there.
00:14:51:09 – 00:15:09:37
Dan Evans
You should have really, like, asked for more responsibilities and you should have asked for this, and you should have asked for that. And I said, I did. And then at one point I was physically told by at one place, it’s like you’re you’re you’re stepping out of your, you’re, you’re zone buddy. You’re just a freelancer. Okay. You know, and it was like okay, never mind.
00:15:09:37 – 00:15:10:31
Dan Evans
And then that’s.
00:15:10:43 – 00:15:39:30
Agent Palmer
How I guess the other big thing because that’s helpful not just for the searching but for the interviewing process. Like how much of your own? I mean, we all have our own insecurities about ourselves. Like, yeah. Did you get the answers you were expecting, as you know, strengths and weaknesses, basically that that you have or like other people were like, no, no, no, you’re good at this.
00:15:39:30 – 00:15:40:04
Agent Palmer
I don’t know.
00:15:40:04 – 00:15:47:16
Dan Evans
Now, one of the things that I learned about is that they said I should have taken more chances.
00:15:47:21 – 00:15:48:06
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:15:48:11 – 00:16:04:42
Dan Evans
Like with my editing and my storytelling, because I tend to play it safe. Because I know when I do something. And I said, because, again, it’s one of those things. It’s like hot water burn, baby. You know, you, you you make a mistake once or twice and you get reprimanded for it and then you don’t do it again.
00:16:04:45 – 00:16:16:22
Dan Evans
Yeah, you know, or you try to do something unique. You try to do something different in somebody because it’s like what we what I do is subjective. So what I might like or what somebody else might like are two different things.
00:16:16:27 – 00:16:41:25
Agent Palmer
And you probably want to double down on the safe bet because it’s really hard to try. And I mean, you’re probably in, in, in during your perma Lansing career, how many quote unquote bosses did you have? Like, do you really want to take the time to learn the, the chances and the, the, the the, the, the the, stretching.
00:16:41:25 – 00:16:50:38
Agent Palmer
You can do for these seven that you can’t do for these three, but that kind of maybe will, might be appropriate for those for like, that’s that’s a lot.
00:16:50:49 – 00:16:54:45
Dan Evans
And let’s not forget broadcast and standards in the legal team.
00:16:54:50 – 00:16:55:48
Agent Palmer
Yes. Yes.
00:16:55:48 – 00:17:11:28
Dan Evans
So you have to factor all of that in and you have to be able to play. Yeah. Like especially if you work with somebody particular, you know, how if once you start working with them after a while, you get you understand what they like, what they don’t like. Okay. And so that’s where I would play it safe is because I knew what they liked.
00:17:11:35 – 00:17:27:10
Dan Evans
I didn’t take a chance because I knew if I got this I’d get it done. We get it approved, we get it out. And that’s one of the positives that people said about me is that I was very, very good at getting things done, getting it done on time and getting it done under budget. So that’s one of the reasons why I kept working.
00:17:27:10 – 00:17:30:47
Agent Palmer
So it doesn’t it. Yeah, it’s I don’t know.
00:17:30:48 – 00:17:31:40
Dan Evans
It’s a double edged sword.
00:17:31:40 – 00:17:50:44
Agent Palmer
I was going to say how do you reconcile the fact that like had you taken more chances, you would have had things come back and you would have maybe still got them out the door, but they wouldn’t have been on time or they would have been very close to deadline, you know, like there’s a how do you reconcile that going forward?
00:17:50:44 – 00:17:55:26
Agent Palmer
I guess, like, do you do you want to take more chances? Do you like playing?
00:17:55:30 – 00:18:21:49
Dan Evans
I like I do, but at the same time, like one of the worst notes you could get when you’re when you’re working on something, especially like because I work with trailers and, sales reels and stuff like that. And, and what happens is you get, creative brief and then they give you an idea as to what type of music and what I’ll, what I’ll express, Presley say is like, okay, what kind of music out there or something that you currently like.
00:18:21:49 – 00:18:28:51
Dan Evans
What is it something that you’d like it to sound like? Because this it gives me an idea when I go on my music search as to what to look for. Yeah. You know.
00:18:28:51 – 00:18:45:47
Agent Palmer
And and also, I guess this would be where we talk about temp music is it can be dangerous, right. Because if you line up something with, cymbal crash and then they change the music. Right. It might not work.
00:18:45:47 – 00:19:07:45
Dan Evans
Yeah, it changes your entire cut. I mean, I had an experience recently, not recently, but like, a few years ago, where I got brought in to cut to help, edit and not edit. I wasn’t even. I was just supposed to be the producer on it. I got brought in to produce a sales reel for a, a company that was pitching.
00:19:07:54 – 00:19:24:45
Dan Evans
It was a pitch reel. Okay. And we got the creative brief from from the company that is doing the pitch that we’re doing the work for. And so I got everything that they wanted, and we got it done. I got the we got the cut done on time. We got the cut done. We I had it, we had it to them.
00:19:24:45 – 00:19:38:45
Dan Evans
We get it gave them it gave them more than 2 or 3 days to go over it. They, you know, and then we like because we got it to them on we got it done on Thursday night. We sent it to them Friday. We had a meeting Monday morning, so they had more than enough time to look at it, look over at everything.
00:19:38:57 – 00:20:04:11
Dan Evans
And they wanted they their creative direction was we want this type of music. We want like a dramatic music. We want we want a cry at the end of this. We want, we want to, we want nostalgia. We want them. We want the kids to. Because it was a sporting item for a sporting equipment. We want to be able to for people to, to reach back into the thing that made them want to play this sport to begin with.
00:20:04:13 – 00:20:29:49
Dan Evans
Okay. And so that’s what I did. That’s what I did. And it was, 4.5 minute piece, 4.5 minute pitch, beautiful music, you know, kids playing the sport, you know, from the olden times, kids playing the sport today going in between. And then professionals playing the sport, nonprofessional playing a sport, the Olympics with it because again it’s sales are real.
00:20:29:49 – 00:20:31:12
Dan Evans
So we have.
00:20:31:17 – 00:20:31:37
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:20:31:38 – 00:20:54:26
Dan Evans
Less restraints because it’s not going out of house. Send it to them and we get into the meeting and the meeting is we could not have asked for a better cut. This is incredible. I mean, this is like we cried three separate times. Like it just you literally the thing that we wanted, you gave it to us.
00:20:54:30 – 00:20:58:55
Dan Evans
But however.
00:20:59:00 – 00:21:17:12
Dan Evans
We want it more exciting. Can you make it more exciting? And we want to use this new music track. Can you find this? Like, I hadn’t even heard the song. Somebody got it as a temp. It was like, because in the industry, like a lot of times we’ll get music before other people will so that we could try to test it so we could use it in a anything.
00:21:17:21 – 00:21:24:02
Dan Evans
Yeah. So there wasn’t even like, an audio or like a music only track with no.
00:21:24:02 – 00:21:24:43
Agent Palmer
Lyrics.
00:21:24:43 – 00:21:37:11
Dan Evans
Lyrics on it. Okay. And so we had to figure out a way to fucking make this thing work. And we had now a week to get and the whole new cut, whole new everything. Yeah. Done.
00:21:37:24 – 00:21:42:56
Agent Palmer
And it has to get approved. It, it’s just a separate entity of this new direction.
00:21:43:04 – 00:22:04:00
Dan Evans
Right. And and so we got it. We got it all done. And like literally because it was it was Easter weekend. And all of a sudden I’m like Easter Sunday. I have my kids like I can’t be. I had to like, rearrange my entire thing. And then I get there and my editor doesn’t show up. And so I’m like, screw it.
00:22:04:00 – 00:22:24:34
Dan Evans
And the only I wanted jumped into a room that we’d worked in previously. And I remember that there was there were problems with the computer because that was the only one that was on, and I was able to log in to that to the project. And I physically, I worked like, I know, like 12 hours. I finally got the music cut.
00:22:24:48 – 00:22:37:01
Dan Evans
I got the music cut perfectly. I was dropping in shots, I was making moves on the video. I was getting all of these things done, and I hit save and I got the blue screen of death.
00:22:37:06 – 00:22:49:51
Agent Palmer
I mean, that’s it. We don’t talk enough about how, frail everything we do is in relation to the technology, where where we’re working on.
00:22:49:55 – 00:22:55:13
Dan Evans
What do you mean, Mr. Palmer? It’s not like we had any minute any type of technical issues.
00:22:55:13 – 00:23:28:36
Agent Palmer
No problem pulling back that. Yeah, we we recorded an episode and a half, basically, and then lost it. And now this is, take two. Take two. Yeah. But but it is one of those things where like, I, I, I think I’m okay under pressure, but I work back to like, people’s strengths and weaknesses. Like, yeah, I would assume most people would say I’m not that good under pressure.
00:23:28:40 – 00:23:41:10
Agent Palmer
And the only reason I would say that is because most of the time I work so far ahead in such preparation to make sure I never have to work under pressure. And so.
00:23:41:10 – 00:23:44:59
Dan Evans
Like, what makes you an excellent producer? But that’s that’s exactly what I do.
00:23:45:08 – 00:24:00:55
Agent Palmer
But that’s also what also makes it that’s that’s the makes the, the under pressure worse because like will I, I did these 17 things to make sure that this didn’t happen and all of them failed. And here we.
00:24:00:55 – 00:24:24:41
Dan Evans
Are because that’s that’ll happen regardless. That’s true. I mean I mean, I did a I did a shoot in Florida, for a sports network. And I literally got it. I had less than a week to prepare for it, so I had to book the entire crew. I had to, like, get everything together. I had to pre-built as many of the graphics that I could.
00:24:24:41 – 00:24:43:27
Dan Evans
I had to get as many things as I could possibly prepare for. I did, you know, book to craft services. First person I booked to craft services, book three through camera shoot. Made sure that I would be able to set up with our with our production crew that was already down there. Hey, can we shoot here? Can we do this?
00:24:43:27 – 00:24:47:58
Dan Evans
Can we shoot with these guys? You know, got everything cleared literally in like four days.
00:24:48:03 – 00:24:53:10
Agent Palmer
How often? I mean, you were perma lance for a long time.
00:24:53:10 – 00:24:54:38
Dan Evans
Well, no, I was staff at this place.
00:24:54:38 – 00:24:55:15
Agent Palmer
Okay, so.
00:24:55:15 – 00:24:56:10
Dan Evans
But yeah.
00:24:56:15 – 00:25:06:03
Agent Palmer
But even with the permanent stuff, how often are. Hey, we have a week. Can somebody like how? Because, like.
00:25:06:08 – 00:25:06:37
Dan Evans
Oh, yeah.
00:25:06:37 – 00:25:27:52
Agent Palmer
You’re your story. It’s not you like I, I’m having just ranted about always being prepared and trying to make sure I’m not under the gun. I hear so many stories within production of, well, we only had a week when we decided to do this. Like it’s is that like because common?
00:25:27:57 – 00:25:46:45
Dan Evans
Yeah, because a lot of people don’t understand, how much goes into creative like really the logistical side of it. Like, okay. Well what. Because what we’ll say, hey, we want to do this. This is what we want to do. We want to do we want to do a, a video for our product, and we want to we want to promote it and, like, throw it up on our website and stuff.
00:25:46:45 – 00:26:08:42
Dan Evans
And, you know, this is what we’re thinking. This is what it is. And it’s like, okay, well, how much money do you want to put behind it? I think they go, it’s going to cost us money. And, you know, we’ll give you $100. I’m like, yeah, that’s not even to get, you know, get my foot out of the door.
00:26:08:46 – 00:26:31:17
Dan Evans
But it’s, it’s it’s not I mean, I jokingly say that because there are because a lot of people don’t understand how much creative, like, truly creative stuff costs. And, like, if you want a shot, well, you know, you’re going to need a lighting crew, you’re going to need a camera operator. You’re going to not only need a camera operator, but a director of photography, because they’re going to know how to set up the camera and and the lights.
00:26:31:17 – 00:26:48:44
Dan Evans
And, you know, we’re going to need plus we’re going to need makeup person if you’re going to have somebody on camera, we’re going to need a sound guy. We’re going to need a boom. We’re going to need the equipment that goes with all of this stuff. We’re going to need, grips. We’re going to need, you know, craft services, which is the people that feed us.
00:26:48:49 – 00:27:02:22
Dan Evans
And like, that’s all the stuff that you have to figure out. You got. Okay. How many cameras are we going to use during the shoot? We’re going to need a crane camera. Are we going to need because all of this stuff costs money. Yeah. And it’s like, so that’s where you do the pre-production. Okay. Let’s, let’s, let’s write a script.
00:27:02:22 – 00:27:21:29
Dan Evans
Let’s get a script together. Let’s get an idea together. Let me give you some ideas. And that’s when you write a pitch. And so you get your pitch together and you get that together. And then it goes, it goes from there. And then once they settle on an idea. Okay, what do we like? Because sometimes you’ll go to like, oh, we shot this stuff a while ago.
00:27:21:34 – 00:27:34:22
Dan Evans
Can we use this? And it said, well, let me watch it and let’s see what I can work with. Because if I can take video that you’ve already shot and I could create a video out of it and tell a story with it, it’ll save you a lot of money.
00:27:34:24 – 00:27:34:49
Agent Palmer
Oh, yeah.
00:27:34:56 – 00:27:49:48
Dan Evans
All you need is me, and I’m an editor, so you just need me as an editor. But if you need graphics, I’m not the best of graphics. So I’m going to ask you if you could spend a little bit of money to have a graphics guy. Don’t do it. Well, we already have a graphics package. We had this stuff did okay.
00:27:49:48 – 00:28:09:01
Dan Evans
You could send me the After Effects project, and I’ll be more than happy to do that. I can manipulate it and change the the titles and stuff. Do you have all the fonts? Like it’s stuff like that that you’d have to sit down and go over with them, so they have an idea as to where their money goes and, and what it’s used for and, and how it can, how it can be used.
00:28:09:01 – 00:28:27:36
Dan Evans
And best you know, the best practices. And I always I tend to always put about 15% extra in with all of my budgets, okay, at least 15 to 20%, because if you go over your initial costs, you you’ve covered yourself.
00:28:27:41 – 00:28:28:37
Agent Palmer
Okay. That’s fair.
00:28:28:39 – 00:28:32:16
Dan Evans
If there’s any money left over, you look like a fucking genius.
00:28:32:27 – 00:29:02:43
Agent Palmer
Okay, well, I was, so you clearly have a good knowledge base for not only what you do with editing, but producing, and you understand the process. Yeah. So you can have any job you want. I mean, I, I don’t know, like, what you want, but, like, you could be a producer or a director or an editor like you, you you could be a sound guy like you.
00:29:02:43 – 00:29:15:09
Agent Palmer
You could do all of these things. Right? And as you’re looking, are you looking for all of these things? For one of these things, for some of these things?
00:29:15:09 – 00:29:23:11
Dan Evans
I’m looking for some of these things because you know what? What’s the saying? You know, we are a jack of all trades is a master of none.
00:29:23:19 – 00:29:24:08
Agent Palmer
Correct?
00:29:24:12 – 00:29:45:20
Dan Evans
Okay. So I know I’m a great producer. I’m a good editor. You know, I’m a good writer, but I am not a good graphics guy. I’m not I’m not a graphic designer. I didn’t go to school for graphic design. Okay? You know, I went to school for video production. You know? And so that’s what I’m good at. You know, I can do a little color.
00:29:45:20 – 00:30:10:58
Dan Evans
Correct. But I’m not I’m not a color correction artist because those guys, I mean, I have friends that are that are color corrections artists. And the I had one guy that he was one of the best in the business, and he would literally they would hire him to go into sets and tell them what was going to be what they were doing wrong, lighting wise and color wise, so that they could create it, correct it before they did their shoot.
00:30:10:59 – 00:30:20:39
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I have a I have a friend who’s big on color correction and he’s he’s self-taught, but like even when we have a conversation.
00:30:20:44 – 00:30:22:09
Dan Evans
Yeah I think.
00:30:22:14 – 00:30:33:45
Agent Palmer
After 20s I’m usually lost. Like I have a general idea I can follow. I understand some of the words that are coming out of your mouth, but I’m a little like, whoa, but that.
00:30:33:50 – 00:30:34:33
Dan Evans
Yeah, it’s.
00:30:34:33 – 00:30:35:05
Agent Palmer
A perfect.
00:30:35:05 – 00:30:49:54
Dan Evans
Pitch to chroma where to crush the blacks. We’re going to make it pop a little bit, you know, that’s like, I worked with a guy that was an audio mixer, and he said, the one of the weirdest things that ever happened to him was the day he worked with somebody that had synesthesia. Do you know what that is?
00:30:49:54 – 00:30:53:55
Dan Evans
No. They see, sound as colors.
00:30:54:00 – 00:30:54:51
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:30:54:56 – 00:31:04:44
Dan Evans
And, they, he said, could you make it a little more orange? Yeah, I don’t, I don’t, and he didn’t know what he meant.
00:31:04:44 – 00:31:05:51
Agent Palmer
No, I don’t know what that is.
00:31:06:01 – 00:31:30:39
Dan Evans
I, I thought that was the funniest thing ever. And they’re like, apparently. No, it’s it’s something that people they see, they see color. They see sound as a color. And so when they say, could you make a little more purple happen a little can you, can you change the hue on this sound a little bit more? And that’s like and that’s how they mix because they are seeing it like they close their eyes and they see colors when they see when they hear sounds.
00:31:30:39 – 00:31:37:04
Agent Palmer
That I feel like that would make it a little bit easier to do some editing, actually.
00:31:37:09 – 00:31:41:31
Dan Evans
Yeah, it might be to be a little better with audio. You know?
00:31:41:35 – 00:31:47:42
Agent Palmer
So you you you sound, upbeat.
00:31:47:46 – 00:32:11:08
Dan Evans
So I woke up today, man. Every day I set feet on the ground and I wake up is a good day. And that’s the way I approach. Okay? You got to stay positive because it’s really easy. Listen, I it’s not that I haven’t been in dark places in the past, but, you know, I’ve been I’ve been fortunate enough to work in, in video, in the video entertainment industry for a well over 25 plus years.
00:32:11:08 – 00:32:14:43
Dan Evans
That’s all I’m going to say 25 plus years.
00:32:14:48 – 00:32:21:05
Agent Palmer
Because he got in when he was 15 and he’s only 40. It’s not that I met him at his.
00:32:21:09 – 00:33:00:40
Dan Evans
I got it when I was 35. But, no, I did. I did get in when I was in my teens. I’m not going to, you know, I’m not going to lie about that. But, it’s been and so much has changed. And that’s the thing is, the other thing is like, I’ve gone from working, working with three quarter inch tape to working with beta tape to beta cam to working to digital beta cam, and then going to high definition that it was, DVC Pro, that it was, you know, HD like the different there’s three different types of, HD tape.
00:33:00:44 – 00:33:16:27
Dan Evans
So DVC Pro was like the smaller and then there’s HD cam. And then there was another one that I forget, and it’s like and then all of a sudden the tsunami wiped out all of those tape factories in Japan. And people, everybody suddenly went.
00:33:16:27 – 00:33:17:21
Agent Palmer
To digital.
00:33:17:33 – 00:33:18:57
Dan Evans
Full digital. Yeah.
00:33:19:01 – 00:33:32:40
Agent Palmer
So to, on a slightly unrelated note, yeah. Do people care about your experience for, like, I don’t mean like to denigrate it, but, like, do people care that you know how to cut? I mean, you haven’t done in a while, but you not.
00:33:32:44 – 00:33:52:17
Dan Evans
It’s it’s, I, I’ve never cut tape. I’ve always got tape to tape. Okay. I, I’ve never had to use like, a razor. Yeah. The razor blade. I’ve never had to do that. I’ve always got tape to tape. It helped me get work. It helped me keep work because I came out of Kutztown knowing how to to how to edit, just do a basic edit.
00:33:52:17 – 00:34:05:27
Dan Evans
And the fact that I could do it by myself. My bosses loved when I went to one place. Okay, you know, and that wound up helping me and hurting me because I was able to pick up stuff quickly, and then I would have to train everybody else.
00:34:05:38 – 00:34:34:27
Agent Palmer
See, I and I imagine and this is just for my limited experience in audio, that my experience from when I was in my teens and I was using tape to tape, and we were using physical media, has kind of changed the way I look at all of my audio. Like, I don’t I, I, you know what I mean?
00:34:34:27 – 00:34:54:52
Agent Palmer
Like, I know people that will just record. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll stop it when I, I mean, it’s just another gigabyte. It’s fine. Like, and I’m still there’s still a mindset in me that’s like, hey, you only have 90 minutes on this tape. Like. And I know that this hard drive will allow us to talk for another seven hours.
00:34:54:52 – 00:34:58:17
Agent Palmer
Dan. But, like, I’m not, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t.
00:34:58:17 – 00:35:14:41
Dan Evans
Write like, I checked how much space I have on my hard drive, not my external hard drive, because we ran into that problem. So I’m like, I’ll throw it on my regular hard drive. Yeah, I’ve got 48 gigs left. Yeah. So I’m going to have to go through and figure out what I can get rid of on my computer to give myself more space, but.
00:35:14:41 – 00:35:24:36
Agent Palmer
Do but but I, I think about that like you came from physical media. Like, do you still kind of think in terms of like finite. Yeah.
00:35:24:50 – 00:35:47:19
Dan Evans
Because there’s never you’re even even with an external hard drive, you’re still going to have a limited amount of time, especially depending on how you’re shooting. And like if you’re shooting, you know, eight K or 4k over two k, you know, and that’s all high definition terms. So yeah, that takes up more space, that takes up more physical space.
00:35:47:19 – 00:35:56:22
Dan Evans
So you have to factor that in because that’s all you’re going to need. All of that storage not only to to to shoot but also to store it.
00:35:56:29 – 00:36:15:13
Agent Palmer
Well I was thinking more in terms of like the editing process where like we, I so I, I shot a short it’s not a short film, it’s a short. Right. And I tried to get a bunch of angles, so I was using I shot it with phones. Okay, people, it’s going to be in 1080 when I do it.
00:36:15:13 – 00:36:16:48
Agent Palmer
But like I shot, you know, how.
00:36:16:48 – 00:36:19:27
Dan Evans
Many people do you know how many people have shot movies on phones?
00:36:19:34 – 00:36:47:01
Agent Palmer
But I’m just saying. So I shot a bunch of things I tried to get as much as possible, with the exception that I also didn’t want just to have to edit, like I wanted the editing process to be like. These are my four shots. I have a little bit on either side and it’s like, but even moving from audio to video, like, I immediately went to like, like, yeah, I could just set up four cameras and just their phones and let them run.
00:36:47:15 – 00:36:53:26
Agent Palmer
I have that ability, but I don’t want to have to go through four hours of footage.
00:36:53:26 – 00:37:04:33
Dan Evans
True. However, you then have enough stuff to cover yourself like that’s always the thing. Like the more coverage you have, the better off you are.
00:37:04:35 – 00:37:13:11
Agent Palmer
That’s fair. And I yeah, look, I’ve as we record this, I have started the editing process for that finally. But. Right.
00:37:13:16 – 00:37:33:46
Dan Evans
And this is, this is where the changes and the differences have come in. Because when you used to work with tapes, you used to have to sync cameras and you had camera one, camera two, camera three. So camera one started with one, our camera two with two, our camera three started with three hour. So there timecode. You knew okay, those were so camera one two.
00:37:33:46 – 00:37:34:06
Dan Evans
It’s one.
00:37:34:06 – 00:37:40:16
Agent Palmer
Hour time. So as opposed to saying like, hey, I want this shot at ten minutes and you’re like, which ten minutes? Camera one, timer two, camera three.
00:37:40:16 – 00:38:12:24
Dan Evans
Okay, exactly. And then. But now people today don’t do that because you don’t. You could always just sync it up by I. And I need file number this. But this is the file number. What’s your file number. Which in a file here and they when they might a lot of like professionals keep it in sync. Nonprofessionals don’t. Or if you’re running a guarding you don’t you just shoot and you go, but that’s where, you know, that’s where the, the a big difference is.
00:38:12:37 – 00:38:27:14
Dan Evans
Also, you got to factor in so many places, like so many people, I’m just going to shoot raw so I don’t have to do a white balance. It’s still good to do a white balance. You always like to me. You always want bars and tone. You always white white balance, you know. So but that’s but that’s me.
00:38:27:21 – 00:38:35:09
Agent Palmer
There’s we’ve talked on both sides of the camera. Well not both sides of the camera, but both sides of the editing, the shooting and the editing.
00:38:35:21 – 00:38:37:01
Dan Evans
Yeah.
00:38:37:06 – 00:38:40:34
Agent Palmer
Do you want to get in the other side of the camera too?
00:38:40:38 – 00:38:46:27
Dan Evans
I used to. Okay. I mean, I could probably still do it. I mean, I’d have to lose a shit ton of weight, but I could.
00:38:46:34 – 00:39:09:00
Agent Palmer
I mean, it’s, I just, I mean, as you’re looking for all these things, and it is like quite a few bubbles and the Venn diagram looks more like, like a weird thing from, like, an advanced physics class than it does a circle. But like, here you have all these options.
00:39:09:04 – 00:39:17:54
Dan Evans
I’d rather stay behind the mic. I like I like using my voice to tell stories as well. Okay. I’d love to get into cartoon voiceovers, but,
00:39:17:58 – 00:39:21:17
Agent Palmer
Do you know how or how’s your animation?
00:39:21:22 – 00:39:47:45
Dan Evans
My animation sucks. Okay. Right. But I, I know how to make voices. The thing that I run into. And this is why I decided to go into this side of the industry, the production side of things is because, you know, I started off as a kid performing on stage, and then I learned how to start doing, you know, part of doing that is helping build the sets.
00:39:47:49 – 00:40:07:25
Dan Evans
And my best friend was in bands growing up, so I was always hanging out of his house and his dad had money. So like when he was 16, instead of getting a car, you got a 24 channel stereo mixer. Okay? And so like I learned how to mix audio, live audio, and then I learned how to set up all the equipment and break it down and do lights and taught myself how to do lights.
00:40:07:25 – 00:40:23:24
Dan Evans
So it’s like, and then people were like, you know how to do that. We’ll pay it to do that. And so my dream of being on the other side, for as much as I love performing it didn’t make sense because I could make money doing the technical side of stuff.
00:40:23:36 – 00:40:30:19
Agent Palmer
Okay, so this is how are you at letting go though? Like if I said day, I just.
00:40:30:19 – 00:40:55:28
Dan Evans
Did The Producers last year. Man, I still haven’t let go. I got on stage for the first time since college and performed and you know, and it was funny because when I did it, I, I went to the director and I’m like, I’m thinking of this for my for this character. I want to shave my head in a Caesar ring and receive my beard down to a mustache, use a mustache wax to darken it in just for this scene, and then everything else will play.
00:40:55:35 – 00:41:06:49
Dan Evans
We’ll go from there. Her response was, okay, you don’t have to do that. I’m like, no, but this is the way the character would be. This is a character choice.
00:41:06:49 – 00:41:20:44
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but that’s that’s directing. That’s one thing. But like, could you from the stage like, are you like, okay, that light should be different and maybe my sound should be a little bit more and I need a little bit more out of this monitor. Like, can, you.
00:41:20:58 – 00:41:27:14
Dan Evans
Know, because then I’m more focused on what am I doing on stage? Am I doing this right? As okay as I might? I’m, I’m, I am this.
00:41:27:14 – 00:41:41:03
Agent Palmer
Little bit like you’re not just immediately going like, all right, even though I am on this side of the camera. I am still absolutely thinking about all the other jobs I could be doing.
00:41:41:12 – 00:42:10:29
Dan Evans
Yeah, yeah. And and it’s, it’s because I’ve been able to like, because I’ve been an actor and I’ve been behind the camera and I’ve given direction that I can compartmentalize what I’m doing. Okay. And if I’m working with the director, I’m not going to question the director. But I will offer, you know, like I said, like that at that point, I will offer a suggestion and, even to the point where when I was in college, I did a play called assassins, and I played Lee Harvey Oswald.
00:42:10:34 – 00:42:36:57
Dan Evans
And the way the director had us interacting, I. Because there’s a big scene between Booth and Oswald, it’s like this whole surreal thing. And I, having done my research on Oswald, I went to my professor who was directing, and I said, I have. Is there any way that we could change this? Because what do you mean? I said, well, because I know this is Oswald was very confrontational.
00:42:36:57 – 00:42:55:52
Dan Evans
He wasn’t afraid to get into a fight. He wasn’t afraid to get in somebody’s face. I said, in the way that you have us is we’re never there’s never really a confrontation. I said the whole show, there’s no real confrontation until this point. I see. And his response to me was, if it works, we’ll keep it in.
00:42:55:57 – 00:43:04:14
Agent Palmer
Okay. So you can try and like, I mean, it’s, you know, you get you get a shot if, if I like it, let’s go. And if not we’re not.
00:43:04:18 – 00:43:36:14
Dan Evans
And we kept in the show nice. But that taught me how to director. That taught me how to take an idea of how something works and go from there. Like I never worked in promos before I started working at one place because that was never an idea. Like when I went in for the interview for the for this place, they said to me, okay, so I’ve ever done promos before, I’m like for promos, like commercials, like no promos, like next on tonight on, you know, tonight on ABC or tonight on XYZ.
00:43:36:19 – 00:43:53:11
Dan Evans
Like, no, but I can do it. And they brought me in to help relaunch the look of the channel. They brought me in for three weeks, and then I went to staying there for seven years, I mean, and I wound up getting on staff like I was started as a freelancer then. Want to make it to staff.
00:43:53:11 – 00:44:18:36
Dan Evans
But it was one of those things where three days or four days into my first week there, I had to go record with a voiceover artist in a in a booth. We had to re voice all the next and the animations that were on that channel and are on all the channels, and then, you know, they had to be in a certain time, they had to get in between this time and this time, this amount of time, this amount.
00:44:18:40 – 00:44:45:27
Agent Palmer
I mean, it’s really tough too, because it’s like, all right. And I know even from my limited time in commercial spaces. Yeah, you have eight seconds. Yeah. And you don’t really have eight seconds because sometimes there’s a fade out. So you only really have seven point. I mean, it’s different when it’s your channel. You may have actually eight seconds, but you have eight seconds.
00:44:45:32 – 00:44:48:06
Dan Evans
And when you used to pick up on the style guide.
00:44:48:16 – 00:44:49:32
Agent Palmer
Well, I was going to say we did not.
00:44:49:32 – 00:44:53:02
Dan Evans
Even have you have nine. Not even you might have more like four seconds.
00:44:53:10 – 00:44:53:29
Agent Palmer
Because you.
00:44:53:29 – 00:45:01:17
Dan Evans
Have three. Do you have two three seconds for the intro and then three seconds for the outro plus the fade. So that’s 3.5 seconds. So you got 4.5 seconds.
00:45:01:17 – 00:45:10:59
Agent Palmer
And depending on what you want to say, yeah, it’s really hard to get your point across in four seconds.
00:45:10:59 – 00:45:40:04
Dan Evans
Right. And I, I actually had someone that I wound up taking over that taught me a formula for that, and that is for a medium fast, medium to fast reader. They could get three syllables per second. Okay. For someone that has a more slower, more pronounced read, it’s 2.5 seconds. And if it’s Harry Kalis, you have 1.5 syllables per read.
00:45:40:07 – 00:45:43:45
Dan Evans
Yeah, I was gonna say that’s.
00:45:43:50 – 00:45:57:20
Dan Evans
Next you have 1.5 syllables. Yeah. And if you have a 15 second drop in, you have exactly 20 words you could have Harry say in that time, including the call to action.
00:45:57:25 – 00:46:07:37
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I mean, I, I wonder, you know. Yeah. Okay. Dangerous question. I’m gonna ask it anyway.
00:46:07:42 – 00:46:09:21
Dan Evans
There.
00:46:09:26 – 00:46:10:16
Agent Palmer
Do you want to know?
00:46:10:16 – 00:46:15:37
Dan Evans
I never did porn. Damn it, Palmer, stop asking. Do you want to teach.
00:46:15:42 – 00:46:22:07
Agent Palmer
Like, I mean, like, I mean, it’s I don’t I don’t know what you’re looking at, but, I mean, you have. I just knowledge.
00:46:22:08 – 00:46:42:26
Dan Evans
You want the jobs that I applied for that I didn’t get a call. I, one of the, one of my last interviews was for an open teaching position at a at a technical school. Okay. And, you know, I would have come in as a, you know, under the, you know, basically getting my certification while I taught.
00:46:42:31 – 00:46:46:38
Dan Evans
Okay. You know, but I didn’t hear anything back.
00:46:46:43 – 00:46:52:45
Agent Palmer
But is it is that I mean, that’s is that equal for you in your search right now to.
00:46:52:50 – 00:47:21:25
Dan Evans
Be getting an in in my entire career, it’s like, basically I’ve learned how to do things, and then I’ve had to teach other people how to do them. You know, like, one place I worked, I was, I did there. I worked on a big project over multiple seasons, and I was in charge of taking all the footage, all the behind the scenes footage that was shot and organizing it for when we started cutting behind the scenes videos.
00:47:21:25 – 00:47:45:39
Dan Evans
Okay. And so we had to put it in not only location, but character. We had to look, we had to say the location, the character, whether it’s VFX, slo mo, you know, wide shot, close shot, close up, medium shot, you had to it’s like you had to identify everything and now they all use the way I set it up because it made the most sense and it worked best for them.
00:47:45:44 – 00:48:03:38
Dan Evans
And then, when I was, when I first started working at another place, we were having a lot of stuff come in from out of house, and I was in charge of, you know, helping basically finish it to get it to air and quality QC it and quality control, the spots make sure like they met our standards.
00:48:03:42 – 00:48:24:51
Dan Evans
But the problem was, was that these companies were never given like a spec sheet, like, hey, we need all the audio and 48 K we need, you know, it needs to be 16 bit, 48 K audio. All the blacks have to be in this room. This, no higher than this. All the reds could be no higher than this.
00:48:24:56 – 00:48:45:29
Dan Evans
It has to start on the second. Can’t be. It can’t be framed. Sure. It has to be full seconds. Has to start on the fives, you know. And so just something simple as that. So what I did is I sat down and I went to my boss, I said, hey, I thought up the sheet. Yeah. Like, can we start sending this out to all outside agencies that are cutting stuff for us or doing stuff for us?
00:48:45:31 – 00:48:46:35
Agent Palmer
Make sense?
00:48:46:39 – 00:48:54:57
Dan Evans
And so to this day, everybody that does work for that company gets a spec sheet.
00:48:54:59 – 00:49:05:56
Agent Palmer
It’s kind of weird that that didn’t exist before you. I mean, not I’m not not trying to like, diminish what you did, but like, how does I mean, maybe that’s just the organization. It’s where.
00:49:05:57 – 00:49:07:02
Dan Evans
Well, it’s just sometimes.
00:49:07:02 – 00:49:11:12
Agent Palmer
It’s our background. Like that’s where we come from. Like we we need to be prepared or.
00:49:11:12 – 00:49:32:47
Dan Evans
If it if it had been, it was just ignored. Okay. You know, or if it had been, it hits, you know, like, or somebody just said, oh yeah, we need it. You know, these are our specs. This is how we need it, because we would get promos and that, you know, need it to be 30s long and they’d be 27 seconds, you know, and it’s like, wait, we can’t, you know, we need time to do this.
00:49:32:52 – 00:49:53:21
Dan Evans
And then, you know, just things like that. So, like, you always had to make sure and like when, when we would have, when I was seeing stuff and helping people, like. Because a lot of times I was brought into to finish edits. Yeah. And that’s like to and then like, hey, we can finish this. We have, you know, we have to jump on something else.
00:49:53:26 – 00:50:16:06
Dan Evans
We’re going to give this to you. You could take over the reins and finish it for us and get it to air. And then they said, okay. And then I’d look at the graphics and it’s like, you have a five second page with all the information on it and the graphics reel that you gave me only has three seconds of animated footage, which we cannot match.
00:50:16:11 – 00:50:18:26
Dan Evans
So like, you have to figure.
00:50:18:31 – 00:50:19:18
Agent Palmer
It out.
00:50:19:23 – 00:50:20:19
Dan Evans
And, you know.
00:50:20:24 – 00:50:22:43
Agent Palmer
That’s that’s what we pay you back.
00:50:22:48 – 00:50:45:01
Dan Evans
But I mean, and and like, that’s the thing is, is I know a lot of different things. And during the job search, I mean, the one thing that I’ve noticed too, and this is some subject that’s come up on LinkedIn, is the fact that there are ghost jobs out there, and there’s also there’s ghost jobs. So there’s jobs that companies post to like gather resumes.
00:50:45:06 – 00:51:02:05
Dan Evans
There’s no job really there. They’re just getting resumes so that they can see if there’s somebody available that who’s better than somebody that they have in-house. There’s also a lot of unicorn jobs is what I call them. And that’s a company that’s looking because like, I write and produce, I write produce promos, but I could also edit.
00:51:02:05 – 00:51:20:55
Dan Evans
So I have those three talents, but they want somebody that can write and produce, that can edit, that can direct, that could color correct, that could do After Effects, that could do motion effects, that could do 3D graphics. Hey, do you know anything about VR? Because we need a VR person as well, and they want to pay you $35,000 a year.
00:51:20:55 – 00:51:22:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah, they want to pay you entry level.
00:51:22:35 – 00:51:34:33
Dan Evans
For all they want experience entry level. Yeah. Dude, that’s you’re that’s not even an entry level anymore. That’s less than minimum wage. Minimum wage at like $15 an hour I think is like 40,000 a year.
00:51:34:47 – 00:51:46:26
Agent Palmer
All right. So I want to shift real quick. So sure, when you go back to this, when you’re talking about looking with other people in this jobs thing, do you guys talk about interview questions?
00:51:46:30 – 00:52:06:06
Dan Evans
Yes we do. We we haven’t gotten to that point yet. Okay. Right now we are because we meet once a week. But with the holidays and everything, things have been crazy. You know, and we also have lost two of the people because they actually wound up getting jobs. So we are reorganizing our group, and we’re back up and running now.
00:52:06:06 – 00:52:14:05
Dan Evans
And now we’re trying to we’re at the point in the book where we’re reworking our resume and LinkedIn pages.
00:52:14:10 – 00:52:24:24
Agent Palmer
So I want to ask you an interview question, which is the one I struggle most with, okay, Dan, what do you want to do?
00:52:24:29 – 00:52:48:22
Dan Evans
What do I want to do? I want a storyteller. I want to be able to put together things that not only entertain people, but also educate people. And I want to be able to do it in a short amount of time so that I don’t lose their attention. And I want them to be able to learn to appreciate what’s done there.
00:52:48:33 – 00:52:58:42
Dan Evans
Maybe throw a little humor. Hey, it’s it’s that’s what I want to do. I want to be able to to storytelling, sell a product and, go home at the end of the day, happy.
00:52:58:47 – 00:53:34:54
Agent Palmer
I’m going to write that down and workshop that. So it works for my thing, which is, stubbornly, I have basically the same answer, except I’m not willing to make it short. I’m still fighting the, there are there are things that are I look, I will argue that some movies are too long, but I will also argue that a lot of our content is just too short, and we need to get a little bit better at holding an attention span for 20 minutes.
00:53:34:54 – 00:53:49:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah, for 15 minutes or whatever. So I, I, I’m happy to be on the, the seesaw with you to keep it balanced between your short story storytelling and my long storytelling.
00:53:49:52 – 00:54:06:08
Dan Evans
Okay. In reality, what I what do I really want to do? I want to be a stand up comic again and do voiceover for cartoons. And that’s really what I would love to do. I mean, different characters and get it out there. And breaking into voiceover is probably one of the most difficult things that you can do.
00:54:06:10 – 00:54:16:50
Agent Palmer
When was the last time you did stand up? 2011 okay, but but wait, have you?
00:54:16:52 – 00:54:27:36
Dan Evans
That was the last time I did an open mic, the last time I did a, actual stand up show. Yeah. In front of a crowd with other comedians. Was in March 8th of 2006.
00:54:27:36 – 00:54:29:35
Agent Palmer
Now since then?
00:54:29:40 – 00:54:30:40
Dan Evans
Yeah.
00:54:30:44 – 00:54:33:23
Agent Palmer
Have you been do you keep writing material?
00:54:33:23 – 00:54:35:15
Dan Evans
Yes. So you still have. Yeah.
00:54:35:20 – 00:54:37:36
Agent Palmer
So you still have a notebook and you still save them?
00:54:37:51 – 00:54:45:48
Dan Evans
I have, I have notes on my phone, an idea. I come up with ideas and I spray them down and I save them. It might even just be like one line.
00:54:45:53 – 00:54:52:08
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but it’s a start or it’s an end I get. I mean, depending on the if it’s funny, that’s probably a punch line somewhere. But yeah.
00:54:52:10 – 00:55:12:30
Dan Evans
I mean like like I was like and a lot of stuff comes from, from real life conversations and real life experiences that I’ve had. Like, you know, one time I was talking to a friend of mine and, you know, I always have this idea of like, first, like, who was the first person that really looked at a crab or a lobster and thought, we can eat that, you know?
00:55:12:35 – 00:55:26:47
Dan Evans
And his response was, yeah, but who’s the sick fuck that thought it they threw it in. Boiling water would taste even better. I like the way it screams. It makes it so much more succulent. And there’s your joke.
00:55:26:49 – 00:55:42:47
Agent Palmer
There’s your joke. I look, I, I, I’m here for it. And I guess in the meantime, if you just want to create an album first, if you don’t want to do it like everyone else, if you want to create an album first. Dan, I’m here for you.
00:55:42:58 – 00:56:03:33
Dan Evans
Thank you. Thank you. But, yeah, I mean, that was, that’s all part of it. I mean, it’s funny to see, when I was in college, when I went through orientation in college, I probably told the story on another podcast at some point. I feel like I’ve told a little lie because I tell it to kids who are thinking about getting it.
00:56:03:33 – 00:56:20:22
Dan Evans
I’ve said it to my son a million times when we were brought into a room there, about a probably about 50 kids in a, you know, an auditorium and the professors down at the bottom, we go, okay, you 25, you go over here to the left. Do you go all the way to the left? Stop right there. Okay.
00:56:20:22 – 00:56:35:48
Dan Evans
You 15 you go down there, okay? You’re going to go over there. You’re going to say on the left hand side. All right. So now we got ten people left. You five go up here and you five go down there. Okay. So there were all split up a different room to go. So that was 25 people over there.
00:56:35:48 – 00:56:50:52
Dan Evans
They’re going to be people that drop out of college. Those 15 people over there, they’re the ones that are going to stay in college, but they’re going to change their major. The five people up here are the people that are going to graduate in five years and not have a job in television. They’re going to have to go out and find something else.
00:56:50:56 – 00:57:13:10
Dan Evans
And these five people down here, they may have a job interview after five years. So if this is something that scares the crap out of you, then this is not the place for you to be. And I was in the five people that would have a job after five years, and I had a job for 20 plus, 25 plus.
00:57:13:14 – 00:57:17:30
Dan Evans
I’m not going any higher than that because ageism is rampant in the in the job search.
00:57:17:30 – 00:57:26:05
Agent Palmer
And so this is where I tell this isn’t where I tell people that we met for the first time in person at your 50th. That is not what I interject here.
00:57:26:09 – 00:57:48:18
Dan Evans
Did we say that earlier or is that on the first recording or. No, that was it. But that was in between. That was it between. But yeah. No, I’ve been I’ve been in TV production for over 32 years because I started when I was in between my freshman and sophomore year of college. And it’s like, you know, I took as many opportunities as I could to advance myself and to learn.
00:57:48:18 – 00:57:52:52
Dan Evans
And that’s the thing is, like, so much has changed, like I said it in the last.
00:57:52:55 – 00:57:57:25
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but you’re really good at rolling with the punches because you’re still doing I mean, I.
00:57:57:27 – 00:57:58:37
Dan Evans
Right at the end.
00:57:58:42 – 00:58:21:22
Agent Palmer
Where I would argue you have been in the industry through the most change in, in general that the industry has seen technologically at least. Right, than it has in the 30 years prior, or probably what we’ll see in the 30 years hence.
00:58:21:31 – 00:58:50:12
Dan Evans
That’s where that’s where in lies. The problem is because between the strikes and all the mergers that have happened and the rush to streaming and the the total abandonment of linear channels by these companies because they want to get, you know, the basically the, the, the cable companies have had the by the balls because they would charge a fee for your channel to be on their, on their cable company.
00:58:50:17 – 00:59:13:36
Dan Evans
And I know ESPN at one time was the highest that cable companies had to pay for a channel. So I think it was like at one point it was like 550 per person who had a cable, you know? So that was like a major part of your cable bill was, paying for ESPN. But the thing is, is people always complained because they always got channels that they didn’t want.
00:59:13:41 – 00:59:30:10
Dan Evans
And so, like, you know, hey, I don’t want EWTN. I don’t want, the no zone. I don’t want all of these music channels. I don’t want all of these porn channels. I just want these channels. There was no ala carte system and so on.
00:59:30:14 – 00:59:35:56
Agent Palmer
By the way, they they haven’t changed anything, by the way. Like. No, I don’t know if you’ve looked at recent prices now that.
00:59:35:56 – 00:59:37:06
Dan Evans
We’ve done it higher and higher.
00:59:37:06 – 00:59:47:57
Agent Palmer
And now that we’ve gone back to TV, in a sense, yeah. I don’t know if anybody’s actually scrolled through there. Like, like we have sling, but we also have Amazon Prime.
00:59:48:04 – 00:59:49:49
Dan Evans
Yeah.
00:59:49:54 – 01:00:02:24
Agent Palmer
You could scroll for days with their quote unquote live TV channel lineups now. Yeah. And never hit the same thing twice and probably forget where you were.
01:00:02:29 – 01:00:17:58
Dan Evans
And still not find the thing you want to watch on TV at that time. That’s always like the joke I would make with my dad is he’s always complaining. There’s nothing on TV, there’s nothing on TV. Dad, you have 45 channels. What’s it going to be like when you have 500 channels? You’re still going to complain that there’s nothing on TV for you to watch.
01:00:17:58 – 01:00:21:38
Dan Evans
So you just turn on the frigging Weather Channel and fall asleep as usual.
01:00:21:43 – 01:00:32:28
Agent Palmer
That’s. Well, I mean, look, right now it’s just, you know, channel surfing has just been replaced by installing the scrolling in whatever app you choose to be in now. Yeah, it’s.
01:00:32:31 – 01:00:54:00
Dan Evans
Yeah. And that’s and the problem is too, is that, you know, you factor in the, the the changes. And like we were saying how fast things have changed. And like in 2008 there’s a writers strike. And that’s when I first went freelance and I, and I was out of work for six months in that year. I was out of work, between January and March.
01:00:54:00 – 01:01:13:06
Dan Evans
And then I got a job from, April through the end of July. And then I was I had nothing until the, Yeah, the end of July. Nothing. August, September until the middle of October. And I was freaking out because I just had it. I just got married, just bought a house, just had a kid, you know?
01:01:13:11 – 01:01:25:19
Dan Evans
And here I am, the main breadwinner with no bread to it. And that was, you know, that is when I had a dark time and, this time scared, this time different.
01:01:25:32 – 01:01:30:53
Agent Palmer
I it’s this time, I mean, because you learned from the last time though that. Right.
01:01:31:06 – 01:01:33:07
Dan Evans
I’ll did it didn’t it’ll come back. Yeah.
01:01:33:07 – 01:01:56:05
Agent Palmer
And the dark I mean that’s the that’s the one thing I’m a I’m a fairly negative person to begin with. I’m not like never. But I’m and I’m not I’m not you. I don’t wake up happy. But I also don’t blame myself anymore, which I feel like is a step in the right. Like that’s that’s the first step.
01:01:56:09 – 01:01:56:39
Dan Evans
Yeah.
01:01:56:43 – 01:01:58:00
Agent Palmer
In the right direction.
01:01:58:04 – 01:02:14:06
Dan Evans
Yeah. It it’s it isn’t easy, but like, I don’t, I don’t wake up happy, I just, but I wake up with a positive attitude. I wake up and do like a little meditation. Like today I’m going to go out. I’m going to do everything that I can to, to make sure that I have the best day that I can.
01:02:14:06 – 01:02:27:58
Dan Evans
I’m going to look forward to just getting a text for my kids. Say, I’m going to look forward to talking to my parents later. I’m going to look forward to reaching out to people that I haven’t talked to in a while to see if they have any work, and hopefully I don’t. I’m not a pain in their ass.
01:02:28:03 – 01:02:40:40
Dan Evans
I’m going to do a little bit of work on, you know, in After Effects, because I really want to learn how to do it better. I want to learn how to be better at it. So it’s like I set up time for myself and I make sure that I try to focus. Do I do it every day?
01:02:40:41 – 01:02:44:05
Dan Evans
No. I am a procrastinator, but you do.
01:02:44:05 – 01:02:44:42
Agent Palmer
It most.
01:02:44:42 – 01:03:02:54
Dan Evans
Days. I do it most days. All right. You know. Yeah. And and it’s like. But I also do things like around my house. So it’s like, okay, I got to do laundry. I got to get the basics done, I got it, you know, I, I rewired a bunch of lights last year. I got a whole bunch of new lights and I, you know, I did a lot of work, and now it’s like, okay, what’s the next step?
01:03:02:54 – 01:03:18:22
Dan Evans
What do I have to do next? And then that’s the that’s where I go from there. I try to work out whatever possible I have. I’ve been under the weather the last few days, and I burned the hell out of my hand cooking a few weeks ago or, yeah, about 2 or 3 weeks ago. And it’s finally healing.
01:03:18:27 – 01:03:36:23
Dan Evans
So it’s like things like that that I, it’s like I try to do as much as I can to, to stay positive and be positive. And I like, you know, just do a little meditation in the morning and, and focus on what I can accomplish in a day. And it’s it’s all I can do. It’s, you know, it’s it’s interesting.
01:03:36:23 – 01:03:50:40
Dan Evans
I, I never understood why my ex-wife always had like a comfort show. Friends was her comfort show. She always watched it. She always helped her anxiety. And then Ted Lasso is now my comfort show. Okay. You know, so you see the.
01:03:50:53 – 01:03:51:47
Agent Palmer
You now see the.
01:03:51:54 – 01:03:58:50
Dan Evans
I see the value of a comfort show. But I also see what I can take from that show. Like the lessons that they all learn.
01:03:58:55 – 01:04:18:45
Agent Palmer
No, no no, I haven’t seen. I’ll get to it. It’s again, I mean, we’re not going to talk because it’s another podcast, but like, yeah, I don’t have Apple. Maybe I’ll get it. One day and maybe I’ll finally get to watch Ted Lasso. People say I like and I will because I was a big fan of scrubs, so I’m probably going to like it, but I should.
01:04:18:45 – 01:04:22:01
Dan Evans
Oh, and shrinking now too. You got you got to watch shrinking as well.
01:04:22:05 – 01:04:25:21
Agent Palmer
All right, all right.
01:04:25:26 – 01:04:32:43
Dan Evans
After you finish all of the Star Trek shows, all 400 series.
01:04:32:48 – 01:05:00:27
Agent Palmer
You. Sometimes the world is full of opportunity. And finding that opportunity is like finding a needle in a haystack. But for dad and I, like many other creatives who have more than one set of specific skills, there are multiple needles hidden in multiple haystacks, and that means we have to lean on each other to make it through. More needles is great, but only if they are in the same haystack, and that’s not usually the case.
01:05:00:32 – 01:05:20:14
Agent Palmer
So what can you do? Well, you can text and call your friends, especially those you know who are looking for work, whether they are employed or not, or if they’re just having a hard time at work and you don’t have to find them a new job or help them network or any other buzzworthy type thing. Just being present and being a friend is enough.
01:05:20:19 – 01:05:43:44
Agent Palmer
It may not seem like it is, but trust me, it’s enough. And for that matter, it has nothing to do with career and job just being social for socials sake. Remember how you used to waste away afternoons with nothing to do and nowhere to go with just a few friends? Remember how carefree and stress free that was? That’s still possible.
01:05:43:48 – 01:06:01:26
Agent Palmer
You just have to make the time to hang out with a friend or two and put the phone away. If you don’t put the phone away, it doesn’t count. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it works. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 148. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
01:06:01:29 – 01:06:23:41
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact my friend Dan and myself in the show. Notes. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
01:06:23:45 – 01:06:38:09
Unknown
And you?
01:06:38:13 – 01:07:03:38
Unknown
Be.
01:07:03:42 – 01:07:06:11
Agent Palmer
All right. And do you have one final question for me?
01:07:06:15 – 01:07:28:04
Dan Evans
I do, but it requires a little setup. All right. Pertaining to what I said before, part of my job search council is having a listening tour. And we have certain questions. So there are three questions that you ask. Okay. So Palmer, I’m going to ask you these three questions. Right. But pertaining to you okay okay. What is it that you do.
01:07:28:04 – 01:07:37:58
Dan Evans
Well what is it something that you could work on. And where do you see it? Where does this you see taking you in the future okay okay.
01:07:37:58 – 01:07:40:13
Agent Palmer
So okay. So the first one is what do I do.
01:07:40:13 – 01:07:43:08
Dan Evans
Well, yes.
01:07:43:13 – 01:08:21:38
Agent Palmer
I’m, I’m pretty organized. And, I’m really good at preparation, which I think falls in line with the organization. If I was going to be very specific, I’ve gotten very good at editing audio. And I think, having done some, like, vertical video promos, I’m getting better at editing video. They’ll probably not as good as audio because there are too many things to hide that I know all the tricks for in audio that I don’t know in video, but that’s just practice, right?
01:08:21:40 – 01:08:46:14
Agent Palmer
That’s just perfect practice. So I guess that would lead into the second thing, which is to work on. I could probably, with more practice and experience, get as good with video as I am with audio. And then, what’s the third one? Where does it take me in time? Yeah, that’s. Where do you where do you.
01:08:46:16 – 01:08:50:32
Dan Evans
Where where can you what can you do to utilize these skills?
01:08:50:37 – 01:09:21:24
Agent Palmer
I mean, I, I think right now, I’m already doing it. But the level of success would be determined by me as, hey, I’m doing it. These things are good, but I’m not making any money. So other people’s level success in this would be like, whatever. But like, I have and and you’re no exception. I have a lot of creative friends.
01:09:21:29 – 01:09:59:04
Agent Palmer
And the first thing I said was that I’m organized and I’m good at preparation. And so I usually bother a lot of my friends about their projects because I’m willing to help them either get them organized or prepared to work on them or what have you. And a lot of the time, because I’m good at editing audio and I’m okay and learning in video, a lot of those things that end up being multimedia in some capacity, I can help on the execution of in some capacity.
01:09:59:09 – 01:10:27:26
Agent Palmer
And so it’s, I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. You’re here. So it’s easy. But like we do, I do have like maybe five different individuals in my life right now who I’m either pushing to work on their next creative endeavor. Yeah. Pushing to finish their existing creative endeavor or pushing to get started. Right. And.
01:10:27:27 – 01:10:29:39
Dan Evans
For me, I have to get pushed to get started.
01:10:29:43 – 01:10:54:21
Agent Palmer
And so I, I feel like I just, I, I’m and you know what, to the same extent myself, like I have other creative pursuits beyond the blog, in the podcast that I have slowly started to work on. Yeah. You know, I mentioned a video or I’ve been mentioning the video for a bit because I’ve been working on it as I’ve been recording these last few episodes.
01:10:54:21 – 01:11:00:26
Agent Palmer
So it’s it’s come up and I’m putting on it. There are other things in the works.
01:11:00:35 – 01:11:06:14
Dan Evans
Yeah. I don’t and it’s tough when when life gets in the way too. But you know.
01:11:06:14 – 01:11:08:13
Agent Palmer
But that’s where but that’s that.
01:11:08:18 – 01:11:10:14
Dan Evans
So that’s where the time management comes in.
01:11:10:16 – 01:11:43:18
Agent Palmer
Part of it’s time management. But the other there’s so if you go back 147 or whatever, if you go back to the very beginning of this show in the pre-production of episodes one, two and three and even the pre-production before I started the podcast. Yeah, the argument I always had for like Grant Marcum, Bill Sweeney, Jason, the Angry Ginger, Dave Meyer, Diamond Dave Meyer let’s go with all the names.
01:11:43:18 – 01:11:47:45
Dan Evans
Right to kill Chris Meyer. That that Myers is is is
01:11:47:49 – 01:12:12:37
Agent Palmer
My argument was always that I didn’t have a me when it came to podcasting. Like I was helping Bill promote. I was helping seven Days of Geek produce behind the scenes with, coordinating schedules and news items and all that. Like, I, I didn’t have a me. Yeah, I mean, I did it’s just I’m one of those people that doesn’t think to do it for myself.
01:12:12:42 – 01:12:29:16
Dan Evans
But but that’s that’s what I think I don’t know if we said it on this recording of this or that’s what I am like the worst I can help promote anybody I could help promote. I am like, I am the biggest promoter, the biggest seller when it comes to things that I like, but I.
01:12:29:16 – 01:12:30:26
Agent Palmer
Am horrible.
01:12:30:41 – 01:12:31:47
Dan Evans
At promoting myself.
01:12:31:49 – 01:12:46:54
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I mean, we all, we all are. But I think that’s that’s that next step, right? Like I have to do this for Dan and I have to do this for those other people I won’t throw under the bus at this time because I’m feeling nice, but I also have to do it for myself.
01:12:47:06 – 01:12:48:55
Dan Evans
Yeah.
01:12:49:00 – 01:13:24:52
Agent Palmer
And I think that’s where it’s at. And I think that to, to take it a step further, the measure of the success is in ten years, I expect there to be, with my help. Maybe not in, name, but at least in, in behind the scenes 3 or 4 published written works, 1 or 2 musical things and a couple video things that I have helped, bring into the world.
01:13:24:52 – 01:13:40:18
Agent Palmer
I don’t know which of them is going to fall by the wayside just because of time, because of life. I mean, all those things. But I’m it’s not going to stop me from trying to get all those things out. Some of them are mine and some of them are other peoples.
01:13:40:31 – 01:13:41:18
Dan Evans
Yeah.
01:13:41:23 – 01:13:49:16
Agent Palmer
I don’t know what we’ll see. But nobody ever asked that question in my in my interviews, Dan. So, like, you know.
01:13:49:16 – 01:13:51:51
Dan Evans
Well, now I just did.
01:13:51:56 – 01:13:54:04
Agent Palmer
Do I get the job?
01:13:54:09 – 01:13:56:33
Dan Evans
Yes you do. You could be my producer.
01:13:56:47 – 01:14:01:55
Agent Palmer
Nice, sweet. Well, then we have to go so we can get to work.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).