Smart Tools for the Modern Filmmaker with Luke DeBoer

Welcome to On Production presented by Wrapbook. Today, I'm delighted to have Luke DeBoer with us, a filmmaker and the founder and CEO of Sethero, which is a call sheet software that is transforming some coordination in the film and TV production world, from producing his very first feature film at just 17 to developing production tools. Luke's journey is really a story to the power of innovation in film and TV production, so I'm excited to explore his insights into filmmaking and how sethero is making an impact on the industry. Welcome to the show. Hey, Cameron,

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0:55  

thanks. I'm glad to be here. So

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0:57  

Luke, can you share with me what inspired you to produce your first feature film at such a young age, and how did that experience shape your career going forward? Sure. Yeah.

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1:06  

I mean, I, similar to many people who work in this industry, grew up like loving movies and watching the behind the scenes videos of Lord of the Rings and just wanting to be a part of this kind of creation of art and storytelling. And so when I was high schooler, I got a bunch of friends together and made backyard movies, and then kind of got an ambitious idea to create a feature film. And so I did that when I was 17. And, you know, we raised $25,000 from investors, you know, basically trusting adults who saw my vision and wanted to invest in it. And from then on, you know, I just went and started creating and and after that, I went into the ad department and really found my place as a second ad working in the production office. And, you know, kind of the rest of the story unfolds from there.

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1:54  

And you know, have you continued to make films? Is this still a passion of yours, or is it mostly on the entertainment technology side

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2:00  

I have after I did my first feature film, I worked on a bunch of movies, basically, usually feature films as an AD. The last one that I actually worked on was a couple years ago, and now I've really transitioned into running my startup full time and helping improve the workflows of ad's out there all over the country and really, frankly, the globe.

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2:19  

Now let's talk about this. So the audience for on production is producers, production people, the people that are interested in the craft of filmmaking, tell us about, you know, the specific challenges in production that prompted you to develop sethero. And tell me, how does it address these issues?

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2:38  

Yeah, totally. Well, I frankly, was frustrated by the lack of clear communication tools within the industry. Basically, at the time, the industry standard was you create a call sheet in Excel, you save it out as a PDF, and you attach it to an email with maybe 100 people BC seed. And this sort of analog process of just emailing everything back and forth was not cutting it in the real world, complex, ever changing environment of production, and so we created set hero as a tool to help streamline that process. I like to say that as an AD, I'm trying to communicate complex requirements in a changing environment to an array of people that are coming and going, basically as contractors. And so in order to streamline that process, we really created a tool that allows people to build their schedules, to create their call sheets, and do that all digitally, and then publish that out to everybody via text message and email, and then update that like issue revisions seamlessly across the digital platform as well. So there's no more, you know, giant email threads that are updated every five minutes. It's all handled digitally. Can you talk to

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3:53  

me about the evolution of call sheets? A lot of people know about Sethero because of call sheets. So how have they evolved with technology? Describe what a call sheet is, or what you think about call sheets their relevance today. I mean, it's such a ubiquitous artifact in production, people know what a call sheet is, so just give me the evolution of call sheets, please.

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4:17  

Sure the quick version of the evolution of call sheets. I mean, if you want to take it back to the studio days, you think about, sort of this golden era of Hollywood where people often lived, actually in housing on the production lot, and a call sheet was, frankly slipped under their door or put in some kind of mailbox as sort of like, Hey, here's your slip of paper showing you the plan for the next day. And as technology has progressed and as the world has evolved, we see that the industry as a whole has really distributed, democratized, and, frankly, globalized, in a way that's caused us to work with teams that are much more. Distributed in terms of location and the call sheet is really this one central document that has still remained. It hasn't changed in all these years as sort of the flight plan for the day. It's the source of truth that tells everyone what we're going to be doing today and whether we're on track and who's coming in and who is coming in when, and for that reason, the call sheet is sort of a indispensable part of production. Despite all the other things that have changed and are changing in the industry, people still need to know where to show up and when to show up and what they're doing. So that's not going away anytime soon.

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5:35  

Tell me really like the evolution of your business with Sethero. I mean, I've heard of Sethero as you've been around for quite a while about the call sheets, but I know that you've continued to add features and you really listen to your customers and build a lot of stuff like tell us about the process of really starting your business and going on this entrepreneurial journey. Yeah, it's

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5:56  

been very, very interesting, crazy ride. So I started set hero with basically just an idea, and got some initial traction with a business accelerator in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I was at the time and had a couple who, couple people who believed in me and wanted to be early customers of what I was working on. And so, you know, from there, just started building features that I would have found useful as an AD, and started scaling up from there. So, you know, first it was call sheets, then we added production reports, and then we've really been building out sort of the crew management side in terms of handling your contact Rolodex of crew members and and crewing up for projects. And really it's always been centrally about what is going to help ADs and producers, or anyone who's filling sort of that management role, what's going to help them. And we've been excited to kind of continue to explore new features and and the main thing that we do, I mean, most of our customers really, really come to us and use us for the call sheets, because that really is the central component of what we specialize in. Can you

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7:02  

tell me, Luke, can you sort of discuss a particular instance where set hero dramatically improved the efficiency or communication on set?

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7:10  

So one example that I think of is one of our customers is UFC. They are producing, frankly, hundreds of productions a year of different live events. And this is sort of a non typical like when I created Sethero, I was thinking, Oh, feature films are going to use this. And we have just seen a huge range of projects make use of call sheets and and what we do anywhere from short films, music videos, non scripted content, but especially in the live entertainment world, it's been a sort of a surprise for me at the number of people that have utilized that. So sports leagues like UFC are using it to help manage all the production requirements of all the different sports, sporting matches, live events that they they have to film and broadcast. And so that's one example, but yeah, there's hundreds.

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7:59  

That's awesome. So I am curious, like bringing in sort of these users that you weren't, maybe even immediately expecting to be customers that have found value in the tools that you build. How has user feedback influenced the development of Sethero And what's your approach to sort of iterating on the product? Like I

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8:18  

have this saying that I like to say, which is that Sethero powers productions and productions power set hero, we're nothing without our users. And part of why we've been able to do what we've done is because we have tried to listen very closely to what people actually want. There's a lot of people in the production tech space that kind of come from that tech background, and they might be able to build an attractive product, or something that you know looks pretty cool, but the reality is, if it doesn't work on the ground for people in production, then people don't want to use it. And so you could have something that is just sort of a fluffy, modern looking call sheet, but doesn't actually print Well, or doesn't transfer over onto an iPad in the way that a production is used to. There's all these intricacies that come with being part of a production, and so we've tried to keep our product very much focused on what the industry standard is and what people want and expect from a call sheet. Part of that is a very printer friendly format that doesn't waste paper or space. And also part of that is that there be sort of this live updating revision process that sort of standardizes or follows, like the typical industry standards of color revisions. You know, that's just one example of kind of the way that we listen to our users. We also have, like, a live request form that people fill out to request a feature, and then an upvoting board that any user can go to and upvote a feature. And as those features rise up the list, we make extra priority for them in our development queue. So we're really trying to listen well to. People out there with their boots on the ground in the mess of production. That's great. Luke, so

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10:03  

I mean, looking ahead, are there any new features or capabilities that your users or people that are curious about Sethero should expect, or that you're particularly excited about?

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10:13  

Yeah, there's almost too many to list. I don't know where to start. It is really exciting. The progress that we've made even this year in shipping features has been, you know, far exceeding any previous year in terms of just the velocity and the size of the kinds of features that we're shipping. The ones that I'm excited about coming up actually, are less about call sheets and more about the process of everything that surrounds the call sheets. So a big pain point that we hear from producers is finding their crew and getting them added into projects. So if you are working, you know, if you're running a global production company, you might have contacts in all, all over in every city, and you want to be able to find a way to, like, okay, we're shooting in LA. I know eight DPs that are located in LA, how do I A consolidate that list and then B, find availability and confirm availability for those individuals? And so I'm really excited about the potential that we have to help with that process of sort of helping people get that first step going way before they even have to start worrying about call sheets. Super

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11:21  

interesting. Pivoting the conversation a little bit. Luke, you spend all of your time thinking about set productivity. You've been a filmmaker, you've been a first ad. You've thought about the scheduling. You're really thinking about shaving minutes off of hours for your customers so that they can put that back into their production. And for anybody that's been on set, those minutes compound, they're very important to an AD. I'm curious, just based off of your experience and what you've seen in doing all this research and building products around these these issues, you know, what hot tips do you have for filmmakers of managing, managing their sets more efficiently. What are the best things that you've seen? Yeah, that's

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12:04  

a great question. So important, I would say the biggest thing that I have taken away from the hundreds of clients that I work with every day who are doing this as well as my own experience, is number one, that communication is a two way street, and I think too often, we kind of want the production office to operate like sort of this entity that just disseminates the information and tells everyone the plan. In reality, I think listening is a very underrated, underutilized skill in production office workers. It's one of the things I tried to do when I was in AD was not just, you know, send emails out to people, but actually go and talk to them, actually make a priority, to show up at lunch every day, and to sit down with the department heads and to give them the call sheet and say, like, what are you seeing here that I'm not seeing? And really trying to value their input back to you, because that is your greatest asset, is utilizing the strengths of each department member, particularly the department heads. So communication is a two way street. And then the other thing I would say is that if you're not prepared in some fashion for sort of a digital workflow, you've really got to start building out a toolkit for a digital based workflow. I love what you guys are doing at wrapbook with digital time cards, a digital payroll, just turnkey kind of solutions like that. Sethero is definitely great for call sheets. There's a lot of other tools out there for production, accounting, payroll, even petty cash cards, extras, skins, all of that stuff. There are digital tools for that, and so build out your kind of kit of digital tools, find the ways for that, the tools to work together. And that will be a superpower, because when you're in the heat of production and people need a solution for something, if you can be the one that comes forward and says, Hey, I have this tool. I know how to use it, I can, you know, turn this on in a couple hours, you're gonna be, you know, just like a hero on set. So those are two tools that come to mind, or two tips that come to mind.

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14:06  

That's really awesome. That's really great. You know, lastly, Luke, I'm curious. I mean, you've been building these types of tools for the industry for a while. You know, before we started to record, we were kind of just discussing, like, what an exciting time it is in the industry with so many sort of digital tools addressing all kinds of challenges that happen on set, operationally, in pre production, production and post production. I'm curious, just from your vantage point, what are you most excited about looking to the future with technology and sort of the beach the future of filmcraft?

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14:41  

Yeah, the future is bright and scary, and I think it's like, it's important that we acknowledge both, that there really is a lot of potential happening right now. Of course, there's endless conversations about AI and its impact on the creation of art, the creation of video, and so. So many other movements happening right now. Obviously, the number of digital tools out there is just blossoming, and the ecosystems are developing around connecting those tools together. There's three real big things that I see happening in the industry that I think I want to call out. Number one is that there is a virtualization happening in the production industry. This is not just limited to virtual production. And you know, virtual reality kind of sets volume stages are a great example of that, but just the capability that we're going to have now, with the enhanced visual effects and AI to create content without actually going somewhere, it that is going to explode, and it's going to change, sort of, our workflows all around the world. And the second thing is globalization. If you talk to anyone in LA right now that's in the production industry, they're kind of freaking out because, you know, I was talking to a pretty high level AD in the in the LA area, and he was saying, you know, in four years, LA is going to be like Detroit. I don't know if that's true, but I do know what's happening right now is that there is so much global production happening and a competitive market that's moving beyond just the US and into the world that's always been there. But in in the modern world that we have right now, it's just becoming more and more easy to move to another shooting location that has better tax incentives, and to do that pretty seamlessly with camera to cloud workflows with, you know, cloud based information tools. It's the barriers have lessened to global production. So that's virtualization, globalization. And then the third thing that I see happening is democratization. This is sort of happening in two ways, but obviously the accessibility of technology is, well, it's more accessible to the everyday person than it ever was, and so you don't have to have a kind of crazy budget to make a pretty good looking piece of art. You just have to have the creativity and innovation to do it, and the stories that are being told, the places that it's coming from, are just becoming way more diverse than they used to be. And at the same time, I think that's clashing up against sort of a pretty structured, studio led distribution model that the internet is both enabling and breaking. At the same time. I could go more into any of that, but yeah, virtualization, globalization and democratization, those things are happening in the industry. They are changing things. And the reality is, I'm excited for a lot of those things. I think they will make a lot of cool changes. My one fear with all of it is that we lose the point of it all, which is telling great stories and making compelling art and and that is something that you can't outsource to an AI. It's not something that you can achieve just by using a fancy volume stage. It actually goes much deeper into sort of the core of the human heart and the human experience. And those are things that I think are great storytellers will need to tap into in order to continue telling great, great works and great stories. So I think it's a it's an exciting future, and it's also, you know, a little daunting. And I think it's good for us to realize that we live in a in an active history, that we can be participants in it and shape it. It is really an exciting time, and, you know, it's interesting. You know, even even in our journey here at Wrap book,

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18:31  

there is an element of democratization, and that these tools, by making them more accessible and readily available, it lowers a barrier of entry that allows more people to share their stories, and that's a really powerful engine in the world, globally, for people to understand each other and to tell these these stories that connect us or help us understand ourselves or each other. So it is extremely exciting. And it's it's awesome to be a part of that narrative with you on the side of the tool makers for this industry. So it's great. I think what's interesting the film industry is it has always been like this ultimate creative act, the actual work product itself, you know, images, music, story, all coming together and sharing these just really powerful narratives that can be distributed to billions of people over space and time. You know. You can watch a movie from 100 years ago and it is still amazing, you know, and, and that's a really powerful thing. And this industry has always had such innovative craftspeople building tools in order to enable this sort of ultimate creative act, and I see that as not being any different today, like we still aim to do that. And it's really awesome to hear your sort of takeout, Luke. I think that's a really interesting, sort of cogent way of articulating some of these dynamics that are at play. I really want to thank you for joining me on On Production, sharing a bit of your story. And sharing the great work that you're doing. Thanks again.

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20:03  

Yeah, thank you, Cameron. I'm excited to see what's ahead, and thank you for having me as a part of this conversation.