Revolutionizing Production Workflows with Rob Weidner

Welcome to On Production brought to you by Wrapbook. Today I'm delighted to have Rob Weidner with us. Rob is a co-founder of Showcal and also a skilled cinematographer. Rob's work includes major projects like Black Panther and American Horror Story. And he's also working on significantly impacting the way crew members manage their schedules through his company Showcal. Today he'll share his journey from the sets of major films to the development of an industry tool that is crucial for how productions get made. Rob, welcome to the show.

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0:50  

Thanks so much, Cameron. I appreciate it. Thanks for the lovely introduction as well. Yeah, my pleasure.

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0:54  

I'm curious what motivated you to develop Showcal? And how did your sort of personal experiences in the industry inform its features.

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1:02  

For the last 10 years or so I've been working in the production industry working my way up in the camera department and ultimately kind of landing as an aerial cinematographer. And as my career was progressing, I was looking for tools to help manage my career growth. And I would see other businesses either go from freelance to small business with a couple of people on staff and on salary and, and then grow to a medium size and grow to large size as you might, as you might know. And so I kind of put this out of frustration of why is there not a tool that can help me better understand my career better understand my career growth and the trajectory I'm on. And how come there's not really tools for particularly helping me get more jobs or the jobs that were coming in, I just felt like there should have been some tools to help increase communication increased transparency in the entertainment industry, not to say that the industry is still not going to run on handshakes and text messages and phone calls and the like. But I just wanted to really try and bring a little bit more transparency at its core. as well. As you know, we were at the time, when we were building in stealth, my co founder and I we've been building for the last three years or so in stealth, just building it for myself, and building it for him as an actual agency. And we really just kind of wanted to finesse the products use the products. And so at first it was just a product that we use for ourselves. And then ultimately, it got to the point where it kind of other industry professionals and other businesses and agencies alike thoughts and we're interacting with it. And that's kind of the nature of Showcal is that it kind of acts as a representation of you when you're on set working, similar to what an agent would do. But we wanted to make sure that it was still built for agents and managers as well. So it's kind of a tool that's built for both freelancers, as well as people that have representation, and can just help with the deal workflow and the career path for the degree member.

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3:12  

That's cool. So So explain how Showcal kind of helps address the common challenges faced by freelancers and crew members in the entertainment industry

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3:20  

at its core. And the first problem that we were trying to really solve was how do we just manage our schedule? How do we just manage our calendar of when we are working? And then how can we communicate when we're working to the people that want to hire us on the next job. And when, as a you know, aerial cinematographer, I was often in a helicopter or in a remote part of the world, you sewing waterfalls or something like that for Black Panther. And so not often was I unable to be it was difficult to get a hold of me, for lack of a better term. And so while he was great, and I was really loving and enjoying the jobs that I was working on, I needed a way to be able to represent myself and be able to at least be a first line of defense. But a first line of offense essentially for if someone wanted to hire me on my next job or see if I was available. I was struggling to communicate that without the help of an agent. And I ultimately did get an agent and I had a fine relationship with that agent. But ultimately, I actually just got to the point where I felt like I could kind of Showcal could do this for me on my behalf. And and so yeah, so it was ultimately it first started as a way for me to be able to share my availability, and for to give people a structured way to reach out to me and say, I just want to know if you're available for this job and and so there was common questions that I always wanted to know but it always took a little bit too long to get the information out of my mouth or our so to speak. And it took longer than I thought it needed to get information back. So we try to just try to shorten that that communication gap to make deals faster to get people to work faster. And also, the last part I'll say is, frequently I'd be holding for particularly the European market and the African market, it's common to hold the same day for multiple jobs. And so there will be some times where I'd have 510 potential clients on one specific day or one job on one day. And when Job number three says, hey, I want to hire you, you got to reach out to job number one and job number two, and give them an opportunity to say, hey, job three wants to hire you. And so there's this triaging effect that has to happen above and below where the person is, where that that opportunity lies of saying, I want to hire you and, and ultimately, I wanted to be able to have a way to be able to reach out to the seven other producers or my clients that were trying to book me and say, hey, just so you know, I'm not available anymore. They'll go with your other person, you know, and, and that becomes extremely time consuming as well.

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6:05  

That's super insightful. I'm curious, actually, for you, Rob. You know, transitioning from being a professional cinematographer into becoming a tech entrepreneur involves a pretty significant shift. What were some of the challenges you faced, kind of in that transition?

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6:20  

Yeah, great, great question. And part of it is just inherently in kind of my DNA of not being able to sit still. And so while I was working as a freelancer and my co founder now, he and I co founded three other businesses together, that also served a purpose for what we needed in the industry. So we at first we started tried actually manufacture like mag liners and trolleys on film sets, we were doing it down in South Africa. And so it was expensive to get those things into the country. And maybe we can manufacture trolleys, you know, and carts that turned out to be a nightmare. And I respect everyone who makes trolleys and carts. It's very tough. But we pivoted from that to create an online store called film here, South Africa. And we ran film here, South Africa, which is an online marketplace for new film equipments, in Sub Saharan Africa, in the Middle East. And so we use our relationships and leverage our relationships as technical crew members, with the brands and manufacturers that we were trying to a just, we just wanted an easier way to buy the thing that they had to offer. But we realized that other people needed an easier way to buy the thing as well buy the tool. And so we leveraged those relationships to establish a distribution network into Africa. And then with that, we needed a place to work. So we dabbled in co working at kind of the peak of the WeWork rise. And then, during COVID, we realized very quickly that co working was a very difficult, it's not a it's a done, it's a very tough business to be in. And then lastly, we built a video streaming service providing company using some hardware that we built and some software to send video onsets to anywhere else in the world. So originally, we were going hardware to hardware that we had built, and we could do it in full HD less than a second. There's definitely some tools out there that make it very easy to do it right now. But at the time, it was very difficult to do. People were using micro lights and teridax line of sight video transmission, which was a core part of the products that we were actually selling from film gear. But we leveraged some satellite and cellular technology to be able to go basically, again, from top of a waterfall in the middle of Uganda, I would need to be able to send video to my co founder who's a DIT in Cape Town. And for Black Panther, we literally hired private planes to fly drives every single day from Uganda to London, actually, so that we could do dailies between London and middle of Africa. And it was just wild is a wild wild concept and the feedback loop. Again, getting back to you and kind of the foreshadowing the feedback loop in the communication loop that is now that we were trying to solve a Showcal, the feedback loop was just so it took so long and and so we actually we built that streaming company, and then COVID hits and we managed to go basically from our hardware to any screen or device anywhere in the world in less than a second. And we ended up exiting out of that company. So that's been the past two.

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9:31  

You know, Rob, it's interesting, I have actually a sort of a philosophical question. I think you're kind of touching on it, which is that given your expertise in remote camera operations, seeing sort of the technical and technological advancement of the industry overall, I'm curious, like, how has technological advancement influenced your work and also the finality of Showcal?

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9:53  

It really was what propelled my career was highly technical camera We're operating. And my background is in computer science, although I've always had a passion for video production. And so when actually one of the first big aerial jobs that I was that I was able to work on was Tomb Raider, the lore, the Alicia Vikander, Tomb Raider, remake many years ago, but we couldn't get a shot over in Africa to film visual effects plates of the scene that we were shooting around Africa. And so I worked with Nick Philip set Libra, the Libra head, the inventor of the Libra head, and we built a multi camera array that we were able to put onto a helicopter to be able to shoot plates all around Africa. And at the time, that was very, it was it was very complicated. And a lot of people turn their nose away and said, like, that sounds like a disaster I don't want anything to do with and to me, it was like, the problems we figured that out. So that's, it's it's kind of that curiosity of like, being able to take a step back and say, like, I could maybe try and figure that out and be open to being wrong. The trolley thing and every single the current state of being wrong, but at the same time being open to beat right as well. That's awesome.

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11:14  

So with Showcal, I mean, I'm guessing, you know, IT managers is kind of a variety of sensitive data for users. Can you discuss how it ensures this information is being handled securely? For sure,

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11:26  

yeah, so I mean, our back end is all sock to HIPAA compliance and everything. And we take great pride in meeting the needs of what our customers are, you know, some people don't need as much of that protection in place. And so there's affordable options for that. But we have when we need to go more mid market and enterprise level sales, we can definitely make sure we keep you know, segments and keep things safe. When you know, we always do it, and we try to do our best. And I think you know, you, again, probably know better than everything. I've had some great conversations with other founders of data specific companies, and specifically around cybersecurity, with data companies, and you are almost as susceptible to someone literally leaving the front door open as you are, you know, a hack or an accidental hack or an attack or something like that. So there's always going to be vulnerabilities, whether they're physical vulnerabilities or cyber vulnerabilities, and we do our

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12:31  

best, I definitely understand where you're coming from there. We obviously care a Wra book tremendously about security, we focus on it extensively, we have teams dedicated to it. And it is interesting, you know, there are attack vectors in this digital space for sure. But I'm sure as you can articulate, you know, the industry before the digital transformation was bankers boxes full of people's personal information on paper being left out in the open deeply. And, you know, it's sort of a welcome, I think transition to the systems and workflows becoming automated and transformed digitally. Now there, there needs to be a lot of diligent, vigilant work remade, keeping these systems secure. But from my experience on set, I think that the digital transformation has been a net positive for individual crew members security and nice systems. Well, yeah,

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13:23  

crew members security, even to like asset security as well like, like actual, the actual assets that we're capturing on sets. You know, when we were doing the streaming company, a lot of the big German car commercials don't want their big, big fancy German cars to be leaked out onto the internet. And so as soon as we told them that we could do this, they very much were like, up in arms about, well, how do we know that our videos, like not just being live streamed to YouTube, you know. And so we also learned lessons and learned the importance of that in our previous ventures. And, and yeah, so we're, we do our best, super

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14:02  

interesting. Now you have a sort of, you mentioned a computer science background, I think, looking at your CV, you have some like background and like technical integrations and things. I'm curious, you know, Rob, how do your skills and systems automation and integrations influence sort of your role at Showcal Yeah,

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14:19  

so I'm, I'm the Technical co founder of show cow. And so originally, like I was saying, I kind of just built the tool for just myself, kind of a geeky, nerdy little offering opportunity to solve something for myself. And at the time, when I did that's four or five years ago, there was not our tech stack was very different than an as opposed to what it is now. And so I took a break from onset work about a year ago and I consulted for about 10 months while I was still figuring out and essentially also just waiting a little bit for the staff to present itself to me that I felt comfortable with. And we had experience with, particularly film gear that ecommerce store, you know, we built an algorithm that allowed for landed costs that updated to the currency fluctuation, which in South Africa, particularly at the time was extremely volatile. So we built some pretty complex algorithms to give get landed prices on an almost hourly basis for over 10,000 skews of products. So there was definitely a necessity and a need to be able to scale what we were doing, using tools that were available. And so one of the best tips of advice that I've always tried to remind myself and I hear from some, some of the people in the mentors that I've learned from and watched in the technology space is, sometimes the best thing to do is just wait a month and just see what happens. So ShowCal, we've been building it itself for the last couple of years. And it's primarily just been a just wait and just wait and just wait until it was the right time. And so we launched officially at South by Southwest this past year in March, and it was just kind of the right time,

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16:13  

Rob, maybe a broader question. But for those looking to sort of integrate their own technical skills with creative roles, what advice can you offer based on your own career path?

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16:24  

Definitely, I mean, the biggest thing and the core, the what's at the core of the ventures that I've gone down, which have shaped my career in the industry, as well is to always try and solve your problem first, if there's other problems out there that you see, and, and maybe it becomes a problem, if it's such a good opportunity, that it's, it's something that's holding you back, is holding you back. So then maybe you should pursue that. But there's a lot of great tools out there that, you know, individuals in the IATSE have created to do very, very simple tasks, like like camera logs. XO log is a great example of a technician who was sick and tired of writing camera logs on little flip, you know, flip up pen pads of paper said, You know what, I can maybe solve this for myself. And if I can solve it for myself, maybe I can solve it for my entire camera team. And if I can save, solve this for my entire camera team, maybe they can solve it on their next job for their next thing. So there's a there is a huge value in how niche and how narrow and how tight the entertainment industry is. In that word does travel quickly if you are onto something. And luckily, a lot of people are freelancers. And there's a lot of opportunities, I believe, for side hustles that could turn into full time opportunities when the time is right. And there's a lot of everyone says businesses a relationship game and though as being a freelancer, and one of the things and concepts that I try and always instill on other freelancers in the industry is getting them to realize that they are at its core, they are running a business as well, the best thing that you can do, I think, is establish a very basic tool sets, just like you would with your tools that you actually take to work with you, you kind of have to have tools that you take home with you as well, to be able to do your invoicing or your time cards or keeping track of the, you know, keeping track of the people that you're working with. And so I think that's always and I remember when I was camera 16 I had a little notebook, and I wrote down however, everyone's coffees were, you know, how to make everyone's coffees and all that stuff. So a lot of that has just been digitized, I believe now. And so yeah. So be open to not necessarily saying Do we have to do it this way. But at the same time, acknowledging that it's a very, very, very difficult industry to break into. And there's tremendous risks involved in trying a new piece of technology or a new way of doing something. And so the industry itself is very risk averse. So if you want the fulfillment, follow it for yourself first, right and get the get the self fulfillment first, and then see if it's something that other people are interested as well. That's

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19:13  

awesome. Rob, what are some future developments for Showcal that you're most excited about?

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19:18  

So we're definitely looking to become a little bit more of a platform or a suite of tools that, you know, the crew members could use and utilize as well as the agents and managers branch into production company tools as well. And there are very specific and very good tools that have been already developed that help with certain aspects of the industry. We can all name drop some of the tools that do what they do very, very well and also do a lot of things very, very well. I believe that there should be more tools that are accessible to more people. And so, Showcall will be come a more accessible tool And then a more specific tool so to speak. And that's kind of the most that I can share right now.

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20:06  

That's great. I'm curious. Lastly, Rob, thanks for again joining me, but what do you find most rewarding about creating an evolving show cow for the film and TV industry?

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20:16  

Yeah, I mean, edit, you know, the ethos behind Showcal was, you know, I, I got overwhelmed at running the business of Rob Weidner. And if there were more tools available, that I had access to, that I could invest in, in either time or money, to be able to alleviate the pressure of running the business of being a freelancer, I would run after those tools. Because it is so stressful, and it is so time consuming, and it's so energy consuming, working in this industry. And but it's a great beautiful industry. So if there's anything that the show cow can really do, it's just help with the management and the balance of a work life balance and, and if it means that we can allow for individuals to leave work and not bring work home with them and, and have to deal with maybe some of the admin or have to deal with some of the headaches that come with being a freelancer, as well as provide an I will definitely tip my hat to Wrapbook in terms of how much content and insights you guys provide, through the rest of the industry to kind of pull the curtain back a little bit on what is traditionally a little bit of a curtain drawn Wizard of Oz kind of industry, I think industry knowledge is is very, very valuable and important. And you learn that with experience, I believe there should be ways to learn it if you want to learn it. And so we want to be able to provide value to the people that want to just learn a little bit more about not only how to get into the industry, but how to grow within the industry.

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22:00  

That's wonderful. Well, Rob, thank you for sharing a bit of your story about your endeavor with Showcal, and really appreciate your time.

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22:08  

Yeah, thank you so much, Cameron. I really appreciate it. It's all in fun.