Diving Deep: Underwater Filmmaking and the Art of Entrepreneurial Storytelling | Armin Korsos

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Armin Korsos, founder of Kamanite, about his unique background, the challenges of underwater cinematography, and his journey into filmmaking. Armin shares insights on entrepreneurship, the importance of building effective teams, and the creative process behind his projects, including a recent documentary on ultra cycling. The conversation highlights the intersection of passion and profit in the creative industry. In this conversation, Armin Korsos discusses the distinctions between solopreneurs and business owners, the challenges of self-funding documentary projects, and the evolving landscape of the film industry. He emphasizes the importance of self-distribution and community building through events like Filmmaker Friday Chicago. Armin shares insights on the entrepreneurial mindset, the necessity of networking, and the value of learning through action and iteration in creative endeavors.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.76)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Sparta, Tennessee, go volunteers. Joining me today, Armin Corso of Kamanite, is it just Kamanite or is it Kamanite films, Kamanite media? Just Kamanite, all right, perfect. Armin, welcome to the show.

Armin Korsos (00:26.117)
Just came in and it's good. Yeah.

Thank you so much for having me. is great. Very excited to dive in.

Christian Brim (00:34.21)
Well, let's start with Camonite. What is the origin story of that word?

Armin Korsos (00:40.965)
So I was born in Grand Cayman to Hungarian parents. And there's a type of really beautiful sedimentary rock called Caymanite that you can find in the Cayman Islands. And for whatever reason, you can find Caymanite rock in Grand Cayman and in Hungary. And so my parents, I'm a hundred percent Hungarian born in Grand Cayman. That was like a really cool personal connection.

Christian Brim (00:46.35)
Okay.

Christian Brim (00:52.27)
Okay.

Christian Brim (01:02.83)
Weird.

Christian Brim (01:08.75)
Yeah, you had to name it that. You didn't have a choice.

Armin Korsos (01:11.823)
Yeah. And you know, naming a business, you have to name it something that's not like, you know, some random name that is in every city, you know, like it has to be something unique and easy to remember. So.

Christian Brim (01:22.382)
True. Do you have a sample of caimanite that you can show us?

Armin Korsos (01:29.548)
I actually do.

Christian Brim (01:32.046)
Perfect.

Armin Korsos (01:33.681)
Yeah, so this was on my last trip there. were filming a documentary and here is a

Christian Brim (01:42.894)
Wow, that's beautiful.

Armin Korsos (01:44.421)
You could see it. Yeah, so it's got beautiful little layers in it. And this is polished, so it looks quite nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (01:51.02)
Yeah, yeah. So has that sparked any interest in geology?

Armin Korsos (01:57.881)
I'm interested in a lot of things. mean, I find it fascinating. It's really cool. The film we're shooting on one of the islands came in Brack. It's just like a big cliff and you walk up to the cliff and there's just like little sections of the cliff that are Caymanite rock. And for whatever reason, through the millions of years of geology and sediment settling, you could see like beautiful Caymanite rock and people will, you know, take

get it out with hammers and chisels. So I find it interesting. I I'm not a geologist, probably never will be, but I find it fascinating. So yeah.

Christian Brim (02:31.384)
That's no

Very fascinating. Okay, so you mentioned filming in the Caribbean, I'm assuming. Is there underwater photography involved?

Armin Korsos (02:50.573)
Not for this film, but underwater cinematography is obviously a huge destination in Grand Canyon. There's a lot of people go there for that, for sure.

Christian Brim (02:52.205)
Okay.

Christian Brim (02:59.18)
Have you watched Last Breath that was recently released? For one, the visceral reaction I had to the underwater dark was like, I like I tensed up at my core, but the underwater photography in that film was just beautiful. I mean, was beautiful to watch. You could watch it without the sound and just, yeah, crazy.

Armin Korsos (03:04.079)
Yes, yep.

Armin Korsos (03:22.127)
Yeah.

Armin Korsos (03:25.805)
It's supremely challenging. We filmed a surfing film last year in May in Mexico that we actually just recently in the last few days, the ink is still wet from this news. We got into Mountain Film Festival and we were selected for Beyond the Short, thank you, Beyond the Short as well. And then we're waiting on a couple other festivals, but that film had quite a bit of underwater cinematography.

Christian Brim (03:41.282)
Congratulations.

Armin Korsos (03:52.113)
One of my friends has a dive housing that he got custom made for his Sony. And it's so challenging. I mean, the amount of hours of filming we did for you to get like four seconds here, eight seconds there, where like the sun lines up perfectly with the wave. And then the wave is the perfect height. You're in the wave filming as the, you know, the wave curls over and the surfer also has to hit that spot, right? At the perfect moment. Like

Christian Brim (04:13.141)
Yeah.

Armin Korsos (04:19.053)
And you're being tossed around by the ocean. Like, it's not like a studio situation. So that featured a lot of underwater cinematography that was, it just added so much. You know, like I think the surfers know like being in the water is a huge part of surfing, of course, but I think conveying that in a film is important. I don't think any surfing film will be the same if there's no in the water filming. If you're always from land, I think it's totally different. So, you know.

Christian Brim (04:21.132)
Right.

Christian Brim (04:43.566)
100%. 100%. All right. So, let's, let's go to your origin story. How did you get started in this?

Armin Korsos (04:52.817)
Yeah. So we did a lot of crazy travel trips. So when was growing up, our philosophy was always the most frugal trip of the longest time possible. Um, so we did quite a few. Yes. Lots of tents. So one of our, of course, tents. Yeah. If you're doing any long trip in hotels, you know, yeah. So we did a 80 day, 12,000 mile road trip.

Christian Brim (05:05.912)
Did it involve tents? Okay. Okay.

Christian Brim (05:14.178)
Frugal, you've, yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (05:21.73)
Holy cow.

Armin Korsos (05:22.767)
That was like roughly Chicago to British Columbia down to Mexico and then back to Chicago. If you could draw the triangle. and we camped every single day of that. no, no hotel escape any point, but I, my dad was always a photographer and he used photography to take photos, for inspiration for his paintings. He's an oil painter.

Christian Brim (05:35.288)
Beautiful.

Christian Brim (05:48.844)
Okay.

Armin Korsos (05:48.987)
So we always had cameras growing up and he was always really good at documenting my brother and I growing up. And we would bring cameras on the trips and I really loved all these national parks in the country, so stunning. And we went from North to South, seeing all these beautiful parks and that was so inspiring, especially at young age. I didn't know anything about photography, but we always had cameras. My dad had a Nikon D50.

Christian Brim (06:16.287)
guys.

Armin Korsos (06:16.689)
from like, you know, it's like 18 years old now or 20 years old at this point, but digital SLR camera and started documenting it. And then eventually we got little point and shoot cameras, you know, when they started coming out and I had the original GoPro Hero 2 HD. And then I ended up making videos of these trips. And by the time I was in high school, like, you know, it's kind of came to the point where like sophomore, junior year, have to kind of decide like what you're going to do for school after high school.

And a lot of my friends are like, these like trip videos are really good. And I had a lot of joy in putting together the stories and really putting a story together of the trip, where if someone who watched it, who didn't join us on the trip could get a really good sense of like what the trip was like, whether it's like a huge rainstorm or like a beautiful campsite or hiking or, you know, animals or what, have you. And I was like, well, I think I liked this the most.

Christian Brim (07:04.589)
Right?

Armin Korsos (07:15.505)
and then I decided to apply to Columbia College, Chicago, cause I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. and it just financially made sense. If we're talking about profit, you know, school is very expensive and I managed to make it happen by living at home and commuting for three and a half years. I say three and a half cause I had managed to get some college credits from high school that allowed me to graduate early, which also financially made a lot of sense. And then.

Christian Brim (07:38.968)
Right.

Armin Korsos (07:43.697)
Um, I actually had a few scholarships from portfolio pieces. Um, they had like, uh, you know, you submit a project and then they evaluate it, how good it is. And then they give you a scholarship. So my highest paid project at the time when I was like 17, 18 was that $8,000 scholarship I got for this video that I did on a photographer. Yeah. And I was like, you know, as a 17 year old, like how much money do you really make working a minimum wage job in the summer? Like a couple thousand dollars. So when I got that scholarship, said,

Christian Brim (08:01.324)
That's huge. Right.

Armin Korsos (08:13.649)
Oh my God, $8,000. Like it was such an unfathomable sum of money. And that like it truly made me tear up because it drove down the cost of attendance so much.

Christian Brim (08:25.582)
If you were to ascribe a value to that photograph or were to sell it, would you have priced it at $8,000?

Armin Korsos (08:35.089)
Probably lower. mean, was, so it was a video. was like a, a, a vignette on like an artist, like a artist profile video. You could say he's like a street photographer in Chicago. Um, I would have for sure price it lower. I mean, at the time you're like, Oh, if I could get like 300 or 500 bucks for this, I'd be so happy. And the school gave me 8,000, which is amazing. And I was actually able to have school fully paid off within five months of graduating school.

Christian Brim (08:36.204)
Yeah, I was a video.

Christian Brim (08:52.962)
Right.

Christian Brim (09:03.244)
Very nice.

Armin Korsos (09:03.441)
which is pretty unheard of. I, I, I had a great time at school and I'm still reaping the benefits of the connections and the people that I met there. But, um, I think I got out a lot out of it for the price I paid. I don't know if, you know, if I, if you were to ask me if that school cost me 150,000 versus 30, I don't know if it's worth 150. Um, but

Christian Brim (09:27.831)
Yes.

Armin Korsos (09:29.945)
depends on your financial background, of course, but I was very happy to get that burden off my shoulders. And I graduated in December of 2020. and two weeks later, like first few days of the new year, I got my LLC, got my production company started and having my loans paid off within five months of that. by like May of that year of 2021 loans paid off, I could see I had it's with such a clear vision instead of like, well,

I could buy this equipment, but I have such a big financial burden on my shoulders with this loan. And I know a lot of people like choose to, you know, defer or do like the lowest payments, but I thought it was the right thing to do to just pay this off as soon as possible. And then I could like fully focus on my business. and a lot has changed then, but that was, that was like a big first step. I think of like, you know, not starting your business in the red, so to speak.

Christian Brim (10:13.315)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (10:21.816)
So you went, no, absolutely. I mean, I talk about it in the book, Profit First for Creatives, you know, I am not, I'm in a lot of ways, I'm anti Dave Ramsey. I think Dave Ramsey's a little too dogmatic for my taste, but most of his financial advice has been centered around individuals and not businesses and debt.

is a potential part of business. It doesn't have to be, but this idea that it is an anathema to avoid, I don't agree with him on. And in the book I discuss like, but you need to understand it and understand that it is leverage and it makes things more risky. And if you're going into a blind,

Armin Korsos (11:15.558)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:20.462)
and not understanding the commitment and the impact that it's going to have on your business. You're, you're going to have trouble, but, but there are, you know, and, and usually where I see that show up is people, using debt to fund a non-profitable business. Like, it's, it's, it's kind of like to me, putting your credit card, your vacation on a credit card.

It doesn't make any sense. Like if your business isn't making money, you shouldn't keep putting more money on it and burden yourself with a future liability. You need to figure out how to make it profitable. Now, if you're, if you're investing in equipment or expansion or something that has a clear path to profitability, you're leveraging the profitability you already have. then that can make sense. so I'll get off, I'll get off my soapbox.

Armin Korsos (12:16.985)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Christian Brim (12:19.406)
So going out of college, you had no question that you wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was never, okay.

Armin Korsos (12:26.105)
No. Yeah. I think that came from my team sports background. I was a swimmer and water pol player in high school and I got the chance to be the team captain for the water polo team. my senior year with my friend and we, you know, going to state and just taking a team, like the fundamentals of taking a team with each person has a unique ability. Like this guy's left handed. This guy's a fast swimmer. This guy's bigger. Let's put him in this.

in the center position or a center defender, or maybe someone has a really big wingspan. Let's make him the goalie, you know, stuff like that. Like I think I really loved the team element of taking everyone's unique ability and taking their, their skillset and like assembling a team. And we, we did that very successfully on a project we shot last year in June, where we.

Christian Brim (13:13.496)
Mm-hmm.

Armin Korsos (13:21.541)
We filmed a cyclist by the name of Phil Fox at a world record around Lake Ontario. he's an, what's called an ultra cyclist. So he did the 500 miles in 30 hours without stopping. And we, I'll get into that, the equipment a little bit later, but, he does basically the, the, these bike rides for fundraising for bike MS, for MS research. which I loved the story and I loved everything that he was doing.

We, I knew I had to put a really good team together to document this. And we ended up doing two camera cars, one with the, the camera arm on it. And then one that was kind of the leapfrog vehicles. So if you picture like a constantly moving cyclist, someone has to leapfrog ahead and get the tripod shots. I, the team I assembled, which was, Jeremy, Chad, Peyton and Max, none of them have had ever met each other before the trip.

Christian Brim (14:00.205)
Mm-hmm.

Armin Korsos (14:19.087)
but I knew each of their personalities and I'd worked with every single one of them independently. And I knew like this team is going to be great. And we clicked immediately, which obviously it's kind of like a guy's bachelor party, right? Like if there's one bad apple, like it could ruin the whole trip. And I knew like I needed people would drive and they understood the project and the goals and.

Christian Brim (14:33.505)
Right.

Armin Korsos (14:42.757)
Like this is going to be a lot of filming and not very much sleep and it's going to be crazy. And it's through Canada. We have to cross back to the U S border. And it was a lot of logistics, but the team got along so great. And I'm happy to say like everybody walked away as friends afterwards and we've all stayed in touch. And I'd pick the same exact team again for the next crazy trip like that or crazy project. but I think that's where to tie back. Like I think I I knew I wanted to start a company and pitch for projects and build teams.

from my team sports background. And I, there is a sort of a competitive nature to pitching for projects. And, and I don't necessarily believe in the, win the project, you lost it mentality. I think I do have an abundance mindset of like, is infinite amount of money out there, infinite number of projects. Like, you know, I do have that mindset, but there is still some competitiveness to.

executing a project well and just like putting a really good team together. And even if there's no actual competition necessarily, there is in my head. And I think, you know, being like team captain, so to speak, directing that project was really special. And that's the mentality I bring to all of our projects is you have to pick a really good team to execute. I think that's the job of a business owner and a director and, and, you know,

Christian Brim (15:58.304)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's interesting. You know, as a producer or director, you have that baked into the pie. It's kind of like, you know, a lot of businesses that start out, they start out as, as one person and you know, then they may add employees, you know, down the road, but as a producer or director, even though they're not employees, you have that.

on you from the outset of building a team. And I think that that mindset is actually very helpful because you mentioned before we came on the book, Who Not How, it focuses on the thing that you need done and who is the best fit for it. And as an individual business owner,

Where everything's on you, you don't have that same mindset.

Armin Korsos (17:01.029)
Yeah, I think there is a difference between like a solo, what people call a solopreneur and a business owner. while we haven't grown to the point yet of bringing on full-time employees, like I regularly lean on, you know, short-term contractors for projects. just because like I have a finite number of hours in the day and between the events we're hosting and my production work and, and,

Christian Brim (17:07.916)
Mm-hmm.

Armin Korsos (17:28.175)
The biggest challenge of the last year has been pushing through self-funded projects all the way to completion with very little funding, right? Like if you have $10,000 for an editor, like you could find someone within a week and give it to them and it's done within a certain number of time. But I think pitching the passion and pitching a project when there's no money, it's difficult, but we're in the learning phases of, you know, pushing these self-produced projects and really pushing for the experiential.

in-person screenings and self distributing the projects. Instead of the old school way, I think of only relying on film festivals and hoping for the best. And it's kind of a hail Mary and let's apply. And then the projects kind of go to die, so to speak. And they get just published, you know, on YouTube or Vimeo. So it just, yeah, I, the, these projects, like it's, it's easy to delegate once you have the funding.

But especially in documentaries when I think a lot of success is measured by, we broke even. know, like Docs is not the, I'll say this, like Docs is not the way to make money. It is not, it's not the way to make it big or make, like it's definitely, you have to have a passion for, you have to have a passion for storytelling. I think the moneymaker is branded storytelling, brand films, branded series, episodic series, which I've seen the rise of.

Christian Brim (18:40.023)
You're

Armin Korsos (18:55.963)
quite abruptly in the past few years. But yeah, I think all the learnings from the self-funded projects really do carry over into the paid projects. And again, it comes back to picking the right people for the right project and seeing how each skill set can be leveraged into a certain project.

Christian Brim (19:18.69)
I know you don't have a lot of tenure in the industry to necessarily have the experience of how things have changed, that might give you a certain insight being relatively new to the industry. How do you see things? You mentioned the old way of doing things. I've just kind of been an observer over the years of like the business model of

film and movie production and how frankly from a layman's term from an outsider's perspective how screwed up it seems like it doesn't it doesn't seem to be like that that's not the most effective way but you know then again if your idea is just to sell subscriptions like Netflix you

have a formula that works and you just keep pumping it out and giving them what they want. That's not necessarily the creative element, right? Like it's just, here's the formula. Let's, you we're going to move this from 21st century Chicago to 19th century London. And it's the same story, but you know, so how do you, how do you see, things shifting in the industry?

Armin Korsos (20:43.097)
I'm so glad you bring this up. I've seen a lot of shifting specifically. didn't attend Sundance this year, but I had friends texting me from the festival and the kind of the verdict from this year is that there's no major documentary film acquisitions at all, which brings up this is specifically to documentary films, but

Christian Brim (21:04.258)
Mmm. Okay.

Christian Brim (21:12.131)
Mm-hmm.

Armin Korsos (21:13.009)
It brings up an interesting question of what we used to have is Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO, bidding wars late into the night to acquire big films. And what you would have is a film with, say an $800,000 budget. They'd get into Sundance. They've had the, you know, they'll have the names on the films, the producers, whoever's involved, they get in, they get nominated or they win. And

It's kind of that exclusive club that 14,000 people submit films to Sundance every year. And very few get into the top three in each category and even fewer of course, when, what used to happen is you'd make a doc for 800 grand and you'd get in and then it would get acquired for 2.2, 2.5 or $3 million. You'd walk away with a big check. Everyone gets paid, everyone's happy. And now your film is on a big streaming platform.

The shift I've seen is that it's they're favoring episodic documentary formats because you can pump it full of more ads than a feature film length. So it's very similar to, you know, like the home improvement shows or like the gold mining shows on Discovery Channel. Like none of those are actually like...

Christian Brim (22:24.171)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Armin Korsos (22:36.175)
you know, it's, it's entertainment. Like it's not really a documentary film series anymore. It's more just entertainment. So, but then that brings up the shift in the question of, well, then is it, does, these festivals still have the same value as they used to? Because if before you could get, your film, then, and now that's not the case anymore. So now all you get is maybe a trophy or like, you know, like credits, like you could brag about it. Like it's an interesting shift. And that brings me up to,

Christian Brim (22:59.982)
Right.

Armin Korsos (23:06.223)
My next point about, I think the future is self-distribution, which I think is significantly more difficult. And it takes a very specific type of film to be able to do that, specifically an entertaining film. I had a friend of mine working on like an Alzheimer's film, very serious topic. People are not going to go out on a fun Friday night and go watch a documentary film about Alzheimer's. But if it's a film about cycling or surfing, or it's kind of like you know, feel good adventure film, those are

Christian Brim (23:28.332)
Right. No.

Armin Korsos (23:35.995)
perfect for self-distribution and something we're working on this year is two films that are in post for us right now are 15 minutes runtime each, but how can you make a 15 minute film into a two or three hour event where people pay tickets and it's an entertaining nine out and you could do a screening with 80 to 100 people that pay tickets and they go and watch your films in person rather than relying on festivals, you're relying on

self distributing and you could then partner with stores like something we're working on right now for a cycling film is the specialized stores in Chicago. A few of them have already agreed to in person experiential events where we screen the film and we do, you know, a rough structure could be brand intro film screening behind the scenes Q and a and then like networking hanging out with everyone who's, you know, like minded to you because they all came to watch the same film as you. So you probably have a lot on common with them.

That model is very fascinating to me and interesting. And what we're going for this year with these films because yes, the festivals are great. I'm very, very excited to go to Mountain Film, but I love the in-person, like I'm doing the screening. Here's the tickets. You came out. Let's watch this film. I think films also need to be experienced in person. think sending a link or just putting a link up online or...

you know, putting the film up on Amazon Prime and someone pays you $6 to watch the film, right? Or you can rent or buy it or whatever the options are now. It's just not the same. And we're going for that this year. Yeah.

Christian Brim (25:08.31)
No, it isn't. Yeah, and I think a couple of things came up to me while you were talking is like Sundance, like, you know, that didn't always exist. And Netflix didn't always exist in its current iteration. And it's this idea that you have to chase the way it was or the established thing.

Well, in my mind, the problem with that is, that those, those things squeeze out the profit, right? If, if you can find a novel thing, like these experiential events, like the cycling shops that that sounds like a brilliant novel idea of way to, feature film, but also have the economic component.

that kind of fills in the gaps. I think that's what I love about working with creatives is that like, well, okay, yeah, you can go the old old model, but it's going to be much harder. And it's going to not make you as much money. Yeah, one in 14,000 chance to win a prize. I mean, like that, that's not good odds.

Armin Korsos (26:34.295)
Absolutely not. And I like my odds more of creating my own events and, and try my luck that way. And that brings me to our community events that I've been hosting called Filmmaker Friday Chicago, where 10 months ago, I saw a gap in the market in Chicago for in-person events where filmmakers and creatives could come together and meet and network with each other. And for like five, six months before that,

I had the idea already. had the name, everything planned out and I was going over and over like, who would even come out? Why is there even another event? am I, is it too competitive? Is this even possible? How do I find the venues? Who would even come? Right. And our first event, we were like, let's keep it modest. 30 people. Right. And then the 30 filled up in like a day or two. we expand it to 50.

By our third event, was 150. By our fourth event, was 240 people in person. And since then we've had over 800 unique people attend over 10 months. And now we're regularly hosting 200 person events and it's a mix of two formats. One is just networking only for three hours, 6 to 9 PM. The other one that I really, really love that's been really successful is panel discussions. So there's networking before and after, but the middle hour.

Christian Brim (27:32.674)
Wow.

Armin Korsos (27:54.737)
is a panel with industry professionals speaking about a specific topic. And we're lucky enough to partner up with the Chicago Cultural Center last year. And we're about to host our second event with them next Friday on March 14th. And we have another event with them in April and more to come after that, of course. But if venues like that where it's a like we're in the Claudia Cassidy Theater, it's a 200 person.

private theater with a stage with stage lighting, beautiful projector. And you could bring in high profile guests and, host of really meaningful conversation. And the people that attend could then they show up and network before, but then afterwards they can continue the conversation with everybody who attended as well. And I bring that up because that was a big hurdle for me to, think mental hurdle, honestly, not physical hurdle to overcome like.

the doubts, right? Like, is this even possible? Who would even be interested in this? And we just posted our RSVP link publicly for our next Friday's event. And we had 300 people RSVP in four hours, and it's filled up.

Christian Brim (29:04.769)
That's incredible. I think it speaks to, you talked about the fear of doing it. And I think that's that fear of every artist, to use that term very broadly, is that I'm gonna put this thing out there and is anybody gonna like it? You know? But if it's something you're passionate about and it's coming from your soul, it's like, I don't have a choice, I gotta put it out there. Right? Like, and...

And maybe nobody will like it, but I don't have a choice. I got to put it out there. We've started a very similar, not similar, not as cool. We started here in Oklahoma City last month a connection event for creative entrepreneurs. And it was just, we just saw the need for community.

like, you know, creative entrepreneurs, there's, there's a lot of communities around creatives where it's more like a show and tell and, it's, know, but, but not people getting together for the purpose of like, business, like, you know, connecting with people that, to collaborate with, to commiserate with, you know, and we're hoping.

You know, if we get traction here in Oklahoma City to take that model to other geographies where we have a higher density of clients and prospects. you know, like, you know, potentially LA, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, something, you know, Boston, maybe. But I think what I see talking to creative entrepreneurs is there is this.

longing for community. and it's a gap in the market if you want to call it that, but you know, it sounds like you've hit on that.

Armin Korsos (31:02.353)
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. I'm always urging people to start their own events if they see a gap and they feel need. And I think our success with this event has been really simple, is I just created an event that I would love to attend myself. And it's the event I wish I had when I was starting out. And to talk about profit, this is actually a zero profit venture for me. We don't charge tickets.

Christian Brim (31:22.531)
Yes.

Armin Korsos (31:29.321)
It actually cost me money to run the events. Luckily we have venue partnerships that allow us to join without paying a venue fee for the evening. But there's other costs that come up, of course. But the network and the connections are invaluable. it's probably what I'm most proud of starting last year across all my different ventures and different business ideas.

It's been incredible. I think touching on even film is such a broad bucket that there's so many different subsections. Like we're about to tap into the advertising world with different agency producers and how they produce really high end commercials. have a high dive is a very big agency based in Chicago. They've done over 50 Superbowl commercials since 2016. Like tapping into that, like that is, that's a crazy number, especially when you consider their thing about 120 or 150 employees.

Christian Brim (32:18.488)
Wow.

Armin Korsos (32:26.683)
How are they able to compete with giants like DDB or Leo Burnett or these other big agencies? But then we've also, our next topic next Friday is AI and the future of the film industry and how drastically this industry is gonna be changing and has been for the past few years because of this new development and what you need to do to stay on top of that wave and make sure you're not getting trampled, so to speak.

Christian Brim (32:39.054)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (32:54.04)
Yeah.

Armin Korsos (32:55.013)
That's something I'm very vocal about. think every creative should be using as many tools as they can to make, to work as efficiently as possible to therefore also make as much money as possible. I think if you're able to capitalize on that and, and pitch on more projects and, and pump out more rough cuts or for scripts or even, you know, quicken your video editing. think all of that is, is, is all benefit. There's no drawback.

So yeah, the events have been great. We're excited to keep building it. We're doing at least one a month. And the people I've met through it have been incredible. A lot of people have come up to me and said, I've been hired because of the networking that I've made with connections at these events and I've made money from it. that is something that makes me so happy. I'm not even involved with it. It's not even my project. It's not something, it's just someone who I met at the event and they said, I love these events. I've been coming every month for five months.

Christian Brim (33:35.414)
Yes.

Armin Korsos (33:51.749)
And there's nothing I encourage more. think you should be going to as many events and meet as many people as possible because your network is your net worth. And that's how you're going to be getting work and executing on these projects. And it's been incredible, incredible to build it up.

Christian Brim (34:07.97)
Well, I think the thing that stands out to me in talking to you is that you're an entrepreneur first and look at the world as an entrepreneur of like, here's a problem or a need to fix as opposed to, well, I'm a videographer or a producer or, know, whatever skill you may have.

you're, you're not, you're not stuck, stuck there because that w when you approach the world from your skills, you, you greatly limit your opportunities because you're only going to see things through the lens.

Armin Korsos (34:52.355)
And I think I read quite a bit of books. So I'm glad you mentioned who, not how, but there's, I have a whole list of like 15 of my top books that I love recommending to people. But the biggest takeaway from these books is you could read, read, read all these books and self-help business, whatever, and prepare, but you will never learn anything from that until you start doing. And that was not something that I, yeah. And that's not something that I.

Christian Brim (34:55.32)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (35:15.7)
I preach.

Armin Korsos (35:19.737)
was born with, like I used to be so frightened of starting, right? Like is that first step is so frightening, but I think this, this filmmaker Friday thing and even, dynamic camera systems, right? This camera arm subdivision that we started with came and I, that came from, I want to film more projects that are fast paced action. so basically this arm is useful for filming cars, cyclists, motorcycles, runners, anything faster than a walking pace. And we.

The cycling project came up with Phil Fox and I said, you know, I've been thinking about this arm for two, three years. I've been seriously researching it for the past five months, weighing all the pros and cons. It's a substantial investment. mean, with the travel case, the total amount is like $15,000 for this, for this rig. But when you weigh the realized and unrealized gains, meaning like actual profit versus.

Christian Brim (36:00.546)
Sure.

Armin Korsos (36:14.331)
How many days am I testing this and shooting with this that I'm not burning money on rental fees. Also, nevermind that the arm that we got, there's nothing like this in all of Chicago, actually the entire Midwest. There's only 10 of them in the whole world. We have the only arm like this from Minnesota to Miami. And that was important for us. mean, it's obviously strategically as a business is super valuable to own a piece of equipment that is super rare and specialized. But also I bought it as

Christian Brim (36:19.469)
Right?

Armin Korsos (36:44.649)
And an add-on to came in, I for us to execute a project like this. So there's no way we could have filmed that project by hanging out the side or the back of a car or do any of that. But tying it back to similar filmmaker Friday, I didn't know how to rig this thing up. I didn't know how to shoot with it. I didn't know how to anything like that was our first project with it. And I think it's honestly the unofficial world record of longest, black arm camera filming project in the history of black arms, because we filmed for.

Of the 30 hour world record, we filmed for 24 hours and it was 500 miles of filming. Just for perspective, most commercials. Here's a ruler. Most, most commercials are one city block and you go all the way down the block and then all the way back. You do that back and forth like 30 times until you get that perfect shot. You're never driving on open roads for 500 miles through two different countries and international border crossings. Um, but that was a huge challenge that was up for, said, this is the right tool for the job.

Christian Brim (37:38.744)
No.

Armin Korsos (37:44.753)
This is a huge challenge for us. We need to figure out a solution, the right tool for executing the visuals for this. It's safe from a business ROI standpoint. Maybe there's no direct ROI currently, but with the projects we're able to execute now, the way we're pitching for projects is way different now because we have this in-house, right? Like a client doesn't, if we're pitching for a brand series for a motorcycle commercial or a motorcycle brand, that client doesn't need to go then.

then go find another camera car film company to put together with us and then get all the action shots and make like, it's just too much. Like I want it to be like, here's the creative concept. Yes, filming motorcycles is complicated, but we have experience with this. We have the equipment. It's all in the budget. It's all in the pitch and let's go do it. So that was another example of, and we actually got that in May and we actually started Filmmaker Friday in June. So was like back to back months of like,

two on paper relatively risky moves you could say, but after we took that first step, we started really learning like, I learned so much on that Ontario world record filming project. now it's like the, none of the equipment is new. None of it is like, I know how to troubleshoot everything. And it's the same thing with Filmmaker Friday. Like we know the frequency of the events that work. We know what kind of events people want to attend. We know what the no show rate is because it's an unpaid event. So.

No show rates 30 to 50%. So then you need to take a look at the venue and say, Hey, I want this number of people to show up. We need to multiply that by 30 or 50 % to make sure that we fill the venue. but none of that, you, could never guess the no show rate if you've never done events in person.

Christian Brim (39:27.798)
No, no. And I go back to what you said from the outset of this is that, know, you can read all you want until you do something. You don't really, even if you learn a concept reading it, you've got to go. The, the, the, example I use in my book is, you know, you can watch all the golf videos you want until you go to the practice range. You're not going to get any better, right? You know, and,

Armin Korsos (39:55.087)
Exactly.

Christian Brim (39:56.998)
Yeah, I just posted on LinkedIn this week that, you know, I tracked the metrics on my book and only 6 % of the people that of the books that were bought. Now, I don't know how many bought it and didn't read it, but only 6 % actually sign up for the free resources of the book. And so I'm like, well, that that actually makes sense because a lot of people will say that they know that they

have a problem or they have an opportunity and they'll think a lot about it, but they won't do. And they get paralyzed in that fear of what if, what if, what if, but you can't answer the what if until you go out there and do it. And then you're like, you iterate. mean, that's the thing is act and iterate that, you and do it, fail fast as they say.

Armin Korsos (40:49.233)
Exactly. And it's, think also surveys have been a huge, huge thing for us too with these events is setting up surveys immediately after these events and really seeing like what's working and what's not and how can we polish this? Clearly the model has been working great. So it's very minuscule changes, but you could never send out a survey if you've never actually launched the product. You like, you don't know how to improve. It's like version two, version three, version four of a product like.

Christian Brim (41:12.31)
No, exactly.

Armin Korsos (41:17.935)
You know, clearly it's like cars, like you're not supposed to buy the car in the first year it's launched because it's going to have a ton of problems. You know, got to wait until they iron those out and you don't have any recalls on it.

Christian Brim (41:30.646)
Armin, I feel like we could continue this conversation long into the evening, but our time is up. Thank you very, very much for your experience here and your candor. How can people find more information about Kamenite and you?

Armin Korsos (41:45.477)
So on Instagram, if you search Caymanite, it's underscore Caymanite. Our website is caymanite.us. My Instagram is armincreates, all in one. And then if you just search Filmmaker Friday Chicago on Instagram, it's Filmmaker Friday Chicago on Instagram.

Christian Brim (42:05.102)
Perfect, listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and we'll replace Armin. Until then, ta ta for now.

Armin Korsos (42:21.723)
Thank you so much for having me.