 Welcome to Suncoast Spotlight, a television program all about people who create film, video, television, commercials, documentaries, music videos, web, and other entertainment content. I'm Jeannie Corcoran, your Sarasota County Film Commissioner, and this program is created in partnership with Suncoast Technical College and its Digital Filmmaking Department, as well as the Education Channel. Our guest today is the founder and CEO of Mars Vision Productions. From right here in Sarasota County, Mark Palmer, his company has been creating quality award-winning content across a wide spectrum of genres for over a decade right here. From high-end dramatic storytelling to comedy and horror and indie films to clever and unique TV commercials and corporate and industrial projects so much, Mark has never been afraid to jump off the deep end and plunge into the water of creativity to make something special. Thanks for being with us, Mark. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Great. It's nice to have you here, and you and I have been talking recently about some of the adventurous things you've been doing. But tell me before we get into some of your projects, a little bit about your background, how you became the owner and CEO of a video production company of your own. Well, much like these students here, I went to school, but I went to school for motion picture, and I went to Valencia Community College, and I went there and I discovered photography. And I took a course in photography, and one of the guys that actually was taking it used to shoot for Life Magazine. Oh, nice. Super old, and he was telling us stories about the actual textbook images, first-hand accounts of the people we were studying, because that's how old a guy was in the community college. And that got me turned on, and then I went to Daytona Beach Community College for still photography, and then I graduated. So basically, I have a degree in film and a degree in still photography, and they kind of compliment each other. Right. I've seen the quality of your work. You're framing, and you have a really unusual and unique artistic eye for putting things together. I've never seen a video you've done yet that's flat and lifeless. Everything has its own unique spark. Where do you get these ideas? Well, I think basically, one of the big reasons I didn't maybe move to LA or New York is I just wanted to start creating from one, and I found myself being able to create a lot quicker with still photography, and then I got bored of it. And then I went back to my film kind of baseline to tell stories and just to do super creative stuff. And, you know, just crazy ideas, because at the end of the day, there's so much visual media out there, and I see so many boring stuff, and I try every time with my clients, and 95% of them are like, no, no, we just want the talking head, cut the b-roll, but every once in a while, I get that, you know, rare project that I get to do, something kind of creative. And those are really fun. So, yeah, I think that's pretty interesting. One of the projects that really caught my eye was wrapped around a drama action adventure James Bond kind of story. Tell me how that came to be because the James Bond impersonator you used was a ringer, honestly. He looked just like him. Yeah. So, about pushing two years ago, I was hired by a real estate company to produce a video, and of course, I pitched them with a big James Bond idea, and what I did was like, are you all in? I said to the guys, like, I'm all in, all right. So we came up with a seven minute script, which I think to now is a little too long, but we tried to place this house as a house that Bond would live in, and we hired a dead lookalike ringer for Daniel Craig, and we casted a Bond girl, and we shot two, it's like 18 hour days, super long days, and we posted this beautiful thing. Sports cars. Where did you get those sports cars? Yeah, we made a few phone calls. It's always good when you're in this business is to have friends and not burn any bridges, because every once in a while, you make out that phone call and say, hey, can I have that $100,000 Jaguar? I'll put your name in the credits. All you can do is ask. You never know what you can get about your resources. So we had the Jag. We had a gun fight. We had gangsters. We even had a little love scene in it, and then at the end, it comes out. Even a beautiful jewelry. A beautiful jewelry. We got the jewelry. Women noticed that sort of thing. Even the jewelry we got from St. Armand's Circle at a jewelry store, and we had a co-sign. It was like a $40,000 piece. Wow. One of my producers co-signed it with him, and I'm like, oh, he was very nervous. I've never seen him so in charge of a prop before, really. But yeah, that was one of those things that kind of went full circle and we went over the top with it. And it got a lot of views, but not to go into some other things, but it was a little too over the top for some of the people involved, so we actually had to kind of take it down from the web. Just dial it back a little. We had to dial it down. But at the time, it had 67,000 views within about two weeks, so did it help to sell the house? Did it not? It's yet to be told, but it definitely established really interesting high-end storytelling for houses. And what a calling card for you. Yeah, it worked really well for me, and it looks like a movie, and of course it looks like a movie. That's what we try to do. And you see this beautiful story and it's interrupted by a few house photos, because oh yeah, I'm selling a house, and then you've got to come back to Storyline. But it was a very interesting project. It's funny you chose those things and chose them that way because we get asked as the film commission for Sarasota County, we're always getting asked, oh, we need a mansion on the water, we need a mansion on the beach, we need a place that looks like James Bond would live there. I'm looking for one right now. The problem is they want it remote. They want a mansion on the beach that, quote, looks like James Bond would live there, but they don't want other houses around it, so that means I've got to find a place that has acreage in addition to having, you know, that fabulous multi-million gazillion dollar mansion. Yeah, I've got a place. You've got a place? Yeah, after the show. We'll talk. We'll talk off live. Before about relationships, for anybody watching this show, for anybody at home, for anybody in the business or who wants to be in the business, for students, professionals, adults, teenagers, 20-somethings, whatever age you are, I really think relationships are the absolute foundation of everything we do. The connections you make and the resources you find. And like you were saying, never burn a resource, never burn a location because you might want it again. Right. And, you know, there's so many really skilled people in our industry. And you need two things. A little bit of luck and a little bit of skill. And the luck comes from you know somebody, you work with a project and then another person knows somebody and this person goes all of a sudden, oh, hey, you get a phone call and you realize two years ago you worked with the guy, but now he's doing something else. And so when it comes down to like, you know, getting out there and getting work in the industry, especially if you're, you know, a below the line person, you know, an assistant camera or a sound person, you know, being able to work with somebody because when they go to the next level, most likely you'll go to the next level because they know you do a good job and they'll call you back. Right. And I know I've got crew lists that go back decades. I've probably got crew lists that are 20 years old from projects that I worked on. People never change their cell phone. And most of the time they never change their email. So even years and years later, you can get a hold of somebody you worked with that impressed you that you liked that might fill that little niche that somebody needs on their project. Do you keep your crew lists? I have a real tight crew list. I mean, I work a lot with, you know, John Rusnick, anybody who's done small films in the area knows of him and, you know, he's just a great resource. You know, he's just a one-man band of knowledge when it comes to props and sets and gags and, you know, anything like that. And then I work with another guy, Joey Durango, Durango Films. He does a lot of music videos, you know, great editor, you know, work with, you know, Ron, he's another guy that's local. So we keep it local as far as my little crews go, but we always come and go. I have interns that come and go. And I always give an intern the light stand test. And I'll tell you what the light stand test is. I have a light stand and I give it to, say, one of you students out here, right? And it doesn't quite work right. It's a little old and banged up. So one person will take it and not ask me how to set it up. And they'll struggle with it, right? So that means when they're on set, they're just going to always do something and not ask how to get it done right. One person will do it right, but complain that it's banged up. Sometimes in making movies, you've got to work with the gear. You don't need people complaining about the gear. So I instantly know your personality on set within about 32 seconds of me giving you my bust the light stand. And remember that. To all of our crew out there, remember, you may be tested. All right. The light stand test, you come to Mars vision. That's right. You never know. Well, we have to take a short break and we will be right back. So everyone, just please stay with us. If you'd like to start a career in automotive body repair, our automotive collision and repair program covers a large array of the basic necessary skills you need. 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You're watching Sunco Spotlight and our guest today is Mark Palmer, the CEO and the founder of Mars Vision Productions who does many fascinating projects and many nuts and bolts, bread and butter foundational kind of projects as well. Corporates, industrials, tell us a little bit about those because they're kind of a bread and butter to keep a business going and sometimes they're not so glamorous. No, and they are and I think 90% of the stuff, when you are in this business, you have to tell stories and whenever that story happens, it could be as mundane as manufacturing or as awesome as a James Bond, you know, little short movie. And a lot of that comes down to lighting human faces because you're always going to be setting up and capturing content and more times than not, that content's coming from a human on camera. So I think a lot of things that lend my stuff that looks a little bit maybe better than other people's stuff is because I went to photography school, so I already had an inherent idea about lighting. So my interviews are kind of just feel better, I think. And I think when you do corporate video, it's important to realize that they love their product. I mean, they're into it. So you have to kind of be into it too. And I kind of enjoy it too because I get to learn about a new product, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, oh, I never knew about this company or that company. Oh, that's interesting what you do here. And all the companies, you've got to be aware that, I don't say corporate videos are the same, but the storyline of manufacturing corporate videos is kind of the same. What do they do? They create a product, good quality control. They sell the product, it fits the need, end user, look at my widget, right? So that story is always going to be there. But the passion for my corporate videos I try to do is get the passion of the people behind the project, why they actually love doing what they do and what really motivates that engineer to put that extra mile in when he's designing whatever he's designing. And can't you tell at that moment when you're videotaping a client and they're speaking themselves on camera about their project, that moment when they just come to life with the love of it, the passion of it? Yes. It's kind of a magic thing even in a dry world like corporate videos and industrial videos. And it could be a two-headed monster too because sometimes they get so passionate they get really detailed and, you know, they go down the engineering speak and you need to bring them back to like the sales speak. And the other point of that is, you know, as a director, corporate video, I mean, I've known a lot of, I don't say known a lot of, but I've seen news people just put the camera on and let people talk and, you know, you are responsible for everything in your frame, everything from what it looks like, what you're talking. So if that, if that CEO did not deliver, help him deliver better. You know, that is your job to bring across what he needs to bring across. You know, he didn't hire you. It's really, I mean, you can think of that way to push the button and let him talk. You know, if you really are worth your salt. He can do that with his cell phone. Yeah. You know, tell him what he's messing up on, tell him what could be better, you know, mold that story because at the end of the day, they don't do it every day. You know, every day I'm like with another CEO, tell another story, another sales pitch, and I get to see a bunch of sales pitches. I get to see a bunch of corporate video stories. I kind of know what works, what doesn't work, and where the passion kind of comes from. Sure. And that's why you hire professionals, instead of using your iPhone. I mean, everyone now thinks, I can be a filmmaker. I've got an iPhone. I've got a Sony. I've got a Samsung. I've got something that's got XYZ resolution and, wow, I can do my own videos and put them up on YouTube. And boy, do they look it. I think we are drowning. We're drowning in a tsunami of garbage, really, and from that rises these occasional little beautiful, gorgeous pieces that you never expect, and it almost overwhelms the good content that's out there when you go on a YouTube or you go on Vimeo, and suddenly you don't know what to look at, and nine times out of ten, what you're looking at is so amateurish, you're embarrassed for the person who made it. So when you give advice to new filmmakers, and not just people doing indie films and short films, but when doing documentaries or music videos. You know, I have to tell you, the number one advice I'd have as somebody getting out of school today is, first of all, before you even start your project, just make sure you hire a sound guy or you know about sound. Because I can show you a black frame for five seconds with good sound design, and you will sit in a theater staring at a black screen because it's engaging with the ears. The minute the sound goes weird and it's bad, you're losing the person. So the first thing is sound, right? Make sure you have decent sound. And then I say the second thing is, know what you can shoot and what you can shoot. I mean, a lot of people will go on a short film and like, oh man, we're going to shoot this gangster and he's like a pimp and he's got all this great gold everywhere, and then he's sitting in a chair behind in a cubicle. You know, so you have to think about, you know, the overall script. Build your world. If you can't shoot that world, but maybe you need to change their character to fit your resources. And I see that over and over again with like first projects that come out and stuff like that. So I would say, you know, don't over, don't overshoot your budget or what you can do. Keep with great sound. And if you really want to work instantly in the industry, and you, so this is a secret for all people who want to work in the industry. Oh, secrets. We know secrets. All right. So learn how to do sound. Sound because it's the actual cheapest equipment to own. It's a very highly paid position on set. And when you have your little sound package, just the least amount of gear to show up to a set. And once you kind of learn that, it's going to last you long. So a camera will come and go. A mic's still good today. It is 10 years from now. I know sound guys still working on the 15 and 20-year-old mics. Wow. That are still, you know, working. And I think it's the glorious jobs that people go to school for. I want to be a cameraman. I want to be a producer or director. Well, they're out there. People are competing, right? I don't know too many people going to video school that, oh, man, I'm going to come out and be a great sound guy. So instantly, you can become a sound person because everybody needs a sound person for their project, no matter how low it is, and kind of, I think, start working in the industry. So I've already made that comment to one person, graduate at Ringling in L.A. And now he's working all the time doing sound. And his little sound kid, he invested 10 grand, which will be good for the next five years. Right. I remember when I was a kid here in Sarasota County because I went to school here. I was working as a PA on different projects. I belonged to FMPTA, Fartemotion Picture and Television Association. And I would get sent out in my spare time in nights and weekends to work on commercials. And I'd just be, you know, doing all sorts of odds and ends. And one of the guys that was our sound guy, Big Boom Mike, and he was always running around with the, you know, the Mickey Mouse ears on and carrying his kid on the front and doing the boom and doing this and tweaking this and tweaking that, I didn't think about him for two decades. I went out west. I'm working on the west coast and I'm working out there on projects. I come back here 20 years later and he's still one of the leading sound guys in the Tampa Bay region. And his hair is just snow white and he's still got the Mickey Mouse ears on and he's still wearing the gear on the front and he's still got the boom mic and everything else. And he's still making a great living. And people pass his name around to this day. And when someone says to me, who do you know that does great audio? As the film commissioner, I'm not allowed to show favoritism. So we always have to give at least three names. And he's always one of the ones because we've never had a complaint. We've never had a project that says he did a bad job and, you know, word of mouth and reputation lives on for decades, decades. True. Absolutely. And I think you feel that way about your people too. Yeah. I think, you know, I live in a small town, you know, Sarasota and, you know, just being able to put out good work and knowing that, you know, you got to wake up and go to work at the same stamp small town, you know, so making good relationships is very important. Right. So we'll talk a little bit more when we come back about using live animals. That's a good project for you to talk about. And I don't mean, well, we'll tell the audience more. It's a good reason to stay with us. That's a good story. And we will be back in just a couple minutes. So stay tuned. Save the day. Thursday, February 8th, 2018 for the fourth annual Six and a Mix, presented by the Sarasota County Film Commission and Suncoast Technical College. There will be six film and video workshops, a mixer with the local film production community, and presentations from professional film makers. Six and a Mix is open to the public, free to students, and is a must attend event for anyone interested in film and video production. Six and a Mix, Thursday, February 8th at three, be there. Welcome back. You're still watching Suncoast Spotlight. I'm Jeannie Corcoran, the Sarasota County Film Commissioner, your host and my guest today, one of my favorite filmmakers and video production company owners, Mark Palmer from Mars Vision Productions. And you have been here at least a dozen years. Isn't that right? I'm pushing 14. I started at 04, so yeah, 18 will be 14 years. And yet, look at you. You're only 25. Yeah. Only 25. Only 25. That's right. Well, I saw one of your projects recently, and it made me laugh out loud. Tell me about the bear. In the world of film and video, you're going to have opportunities to get things that are maybe sometimes not normal. And I had an opportunity at PGA National Golf Course in Palm Beach. They have a set of golf holes called the Bear Trap, and there's a bronze bear. And me being super creative and me being my personality, the marketing director was talking and like, yeah, these are a bear trap. Why don't you just get a real bear? Let's do a spot with a real bear. Get a real bear coming up, licking the bronze statue. It'd be great. We love it. And now, half the time I say that stuff and nobody ever wants to do it. Or they laugh. I'm just joking. Well, she calls me up like, I think we really want to do it. Give me your proposal. I was like, whatever. No, you're not. You're not going to do it. Call me up next week. And finally, we get to a point where I need to go find a bear. We're actually doing this. So, apparently, I called up in the Florida Blue Page as there's a bear handler. And that number took me to somebody in Wyoming. And the guy in Wyoming says, too far from me for travel, but I know a guy down in Naples. He's got three bears, and his name is Dirk, who owns Tonk, the 750-pound grizzly. I'm like, perfect. Call him up. Give them a price. Give them a price. Clients set the budget. Poof. Now I've got to go shoot a bear spot over at West Palm. And they want me to get insurance from $1 million. I've got to get $5 million insurance. Like, how many people can a bear eat for $5 million? I mean, come on. And then we had to shut down the golf course. Then we had another security border, another security border. And we had to put a bunch of electrical fencing up. And you don't really direct a bear. A bear kind of does not. I wanted to. But a bear kind of moves from A to B and kind of does some stuff. And bears really do love honey and marshmallows, because that's what the trainer used. And it was amazing. And so we had a good time. And they let you put honey on the bronze statue so the bear wouldn't look at it? Yeah. And the bear never really gave me the right look. Imagine that. Like, he was supposed to have opened his mouth and more. So I ended up going into After Effects and compositing a shot that really never happened. But they use it all the time now. And it was an interesting experience. And also, when you're working with animals, listen to the trainer. For instance, I had a crew member. It was in the morning. Bear comes out of the trail. Everybody was like, oh my god, that's a giant bear, like 10 feet away. And one of the things in the safety meeting was please don't have food around the bear. And of course, in the morning, one of my crew in Miami, the PA, is like chomping on a donut, drinking a coffee. Bear comes out of the trainer, looks at him and says, really, really? You know? Do you really want my bear to take that away from you? Those funny things happen. So pay attention to safety meetings. And I think it's one of those things where don't be afraid to try it. You know? I mean, some things will work out, some things won't. And at the end of the day, just go out and do it. Life is short. Why not go shoot a bear on a golf course that's found grisly? Use your terminology. Shoot a bear? Shoot a bear. Film a bear. Film a bear. Right. Yeah, film a bear. No shooting the bears. No shooting the bear. That's right. Film a bear. So that was an interesting project and fun, too. Yeah. And it certainly is memorable. That's a diverse reel. When I look at the reel you have on your website, MarsVisionProductions.com? Yep, MarsVisionProductions.com. It's been a couple of years but I need to update the website. But working on that for 2018. And you do things with fire. Tell me about what you've done lately with fire. So my latest project is a short film, 27 Minutes with Katherine Parks. She's the writer and producer and I directed it. And I'm kind of a lazy producer so when people come to me and say, hey, I've done all the work, would you direct it, Mark? I'm like, you did all the work? Okay. So it's a great story and it has great local actors in it. And we just want to do something with the community and with her being involved in the local theater. And so it highlights a lot of people in the community. And this particular piece is a romantic comedy and the fire scene, which we may or may not go to, I don't know if we'll go to, I'll set it up. The fire scene is basically when she realizes that there's other people that she may be interested in and if she just took a little time and paid attention, she would know this. And so it's an interesting little scene and then hopefully we're posting it right now and we'll be done, I believe. Before the end of the year. Saturday or Sunday. Oh, great. Yeah. So I have one more sound design thing to hook up and post always takes more than you think. Always. Just remember that. It always takes more than you think. So yeah, it's a good piece. Right. I did a television program, children's program out west for a while and for every, I don't know, every 24 minute episode, because they were only half hour shows, every 24 minute episode took us probably 15 hours or more to get posted because we had so many elements. We had green screen. We had kids. We had dancing. We had singing. We had choreography. We had dat tapes that we had to feed the music into. It always takes so much longer than you think. So for everybody out there listening, put it in your budget. Lots of budget for lots of editing. Yeah. And I think, you know, don't skip on your sound. Don't skip on your sound. And don't skip on your sound. Everything else? Yeah. And you're lighting. You've got to light well. You've just got to light. Well, yeah. I have some simple secret rules of lighting. There's only really two rules of lighting and this is for another place. I don't have enough time to go into it now, but because of my photography background, when I say these rules to people, people are like, oh my God, is that all there is to it? Well, I think of that. It really is really simple. Well. I can boil it right down. Well, when we do our fourth annual six in a mix event here at the Suncoast Technical College, one of the workshops we usually do is lighting and technical and different things like that. And maybe we will shanghai you to come in and talk a little about your secrets of lighting. Yeah. Actually, I'm pretty nerd about it. Nerd is good when you're doing tech. That's right. So what do you see next on your horizon? Do you see more commercials? Do you see, I know you've done some horror films with a lot of special effects and prosthetics. Well, that's, you know, that's, my buddy John's done that much more than I have. I've taken some stills for him, but I think in my future, I just, I'm ready for the next step. And I'm looking for that. Like I said, I know I had the skill set. Now I just got to have the luck to find the person who knows the person because I'm not afraid to tackle it. So I think that's where I want to lead into some more, you know, regional national spots. So that's another piece of advice for the up and comers out there. Be fearless. Be fearless. Yeah. Be fearless. Go for it because if you don't, as my mother used to say, if you never ask, the answer is always no. True. So ask. Try it, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So we'll see you at Six in a Mix, February 8th, for anybody watching this show, February 8th, 2018, Six in a Mix at Suncoast Technical College. And I think we had you there last year as one of our pitch companies. You were listening to pitches from other people and building relationships with people that wanted to be actors. They wanted to be crew. They wanted to pitch a script and so forth. So we'll be doing that again this year. Yeah, that's great. We'll have some pitch elements. We'll have creative elements for actors. We'll have technical elements for crew. So we'll make sure that you're a part of that as you were last year and as much or as little as you want to be. And for everybody out there watching, stay tuned to Suncoast Spotlight. You meet great people like Mark all the time and find out the resources you have here you may have never known existed. And I think we're about running out of time. So Mark, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I look forward to seeing your great work continue. All right. Thank you. And to all of you out there that took the time to be with us, thanks a lot. We'll see you next time.