The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast Transcripts: Sam Newton – His Process to Land Paid Travel Clients and Being Original in the Creative Field (#49)

Pierre Lambert: Good morning, podcast! Welcome to a new episode of Pierre T. Lambert Show! I hope you’re having an amazing day and that you’re ready for another great episode. Today, my guest is Sam Newton. Let me tell you how I found out about Sam before telling you who Sam is. I was scrolling on Instagram and one of my friends sent me a video of someone rapping on some camera talk and I said that it’s funny and it reminded me that I had seen something similar and then, I went to his profile and I discovered that not only he hadn’t made a rap video about camera bands, but he also had made a funny video about Lightroom presets and that’s when I thought, I need to have Sam on the podcast because not only his video look amazing, but they’re also funny. That’s when I discovered that Sam doesn’t do videos only but Sam is also a travel videographer, a very serious and professional one, that works with brands from all around the world and on top of that, on his creative side, he makes funny videos, also more serious videos, but he loves to share those different sides of his personality online and that’s what I appreciate because us, as human beings, we don’t have only one side. We don’t create only one type of thing and I thought it would be interesting to have Sam share his point of view on all that. He is also good at rapping, so we have travel videography, rapping, editing, and business. I discovered that further down the line, so it’s going to be a really wide-ranging conversation around creativity, around business, around getting started, and most importantly, around finding your unique voice and really honing into it and how you can go further with your craft in the different things that you love in life. I know it sounds like a lot in what I just said in my intro, but trust me, you’re going to love that conversation. It’s not only funny. It’s also packed with gems. So if you’re ready, everyone, let’s welcome Sam to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Sam.

Sam Newton: Thank you so much for having me.

Pierre Lambert: It’s a real pleasure and I’m pumped about this because I discovered your work.  I was just telling you lately through your rap video and before that, I’m hundred percent sure I’ve seen some of your comic videos where you were. I think it was making fun of presets and influencers, and I’m pretty sure I saw that a while back and I just never clicked. I was thinking, that’s cool, and then continued to scroll down the infinite, social media world.

Sam Newton: Yes. My funny stuff seems to be this stuff that spreads around a little bit quicker. So, that’s how most people end up finding my videos.

Pierre Lambert: Well, that’s why, it’s so interesting so I’ll link everything in the show notes, but your funny stuff is well done so it’s the funny stuff that takes a lot of work.

Sam Newton: Yes, my kind of style of humor, I guess, is a kind of taking one joke and stretching it, making people watch a video and say, he spent way too much effort on putting together this video or this one joke so, that’s kind of my style of humor. Kind of like when a family guy tells one joke and they extend it for five minutes and to the point where it’s almost not funny anymore, but then it pushes again. It tells that kind of stupid humor and it seems like other people are starting to connect with it a little bit.

Pierre Lambert: Yes, it seems like it for sure. Your travel influencer videos have almost a million or 900k something like that.

Sam Newton: That was the first one to ever really pop off for me, I guess, and I saw all the views of my years videos for a joke. I didn’t want to make something so cliche or so I thought, what if I kind of make one that makes fun of these my year videos. I made it and it blew up and it’s kind of funny because a lot of people don’t even get the nuance jokes because my jokes are so subtle in there and I opened the video and in the first 20 seconds, I talk about how I have traveling money and women and how I have it all and a lot of people like, dislike it or click away because they don’t realize that it’s a joke but, again, that’s kind of my humor. I like it very subtle and nuanced in a world full of Instagram comedy that needs crying, laughing emojis in your face all the time for you to get that it’s something’s funny. I like subtle humor where half the people leave the room thinking that it was a joke and the other half say, “what”?

Pierre Lambert: What was that?

Sam Newton: It just happened?

Pierre Lambert: I’m confused, it looked really beautiful, but there were parts I didn’t get. It was just strange. The guy was licking the sand. I don’t get it.

Sam Newton: And to me, that’s what makes it funnier, is that the videos are odd and I feel that  with comedy in general, people tend to not necessarily have high-quality stuff and they just need to make it funny or they need to make it loud and in your face, for people to know that it’s supposed to be funny. My videos aren’t necessarily like that and it takes a very specific type of humor but, that’s just who I am and it seems to work

Pierre Lambert: Well, it works and I liked septal sarcasm, so it is a home run on many of those clips. That’s what I was thinking, creatively speaking, if you want to make good my year video, you need to spend a lot of time but if you want to make it funny, you need to be able to do a good my year video or a good recap video, and then you need to be able to tweak it so that, that becomes funny and I think that’s harder than the actual original video.

Sam Newton: Yes, I’ve never been big into transitions and fast effects and flashy videos because I have two kinds of brands of myself. I have my funny videos, which is what everybody seems to find me and then what’s cool is they find me through the funny stuff which goes more viral and spreads a lot easier, and then they go to my YouTube page and they say, wow, he’s a real creator. He has different films that mean something to him and that aren’t just all jokes and so, kind of building on those two brands, the funny videos kind of lead into the serious videos, which is nice.

Pierre Lambert: It’s a nice entry point for your content. I did wonder while looking at your videos, is this one funny because it looks serious?

Sam Newton: I struggle with that too, because a lot of people will come to my page, especially because I want to be a serious creator at times, and a lot of people, they’ll watch one of my videos with my grandma or sit down and I interviewed her and I used that voiceover and looped it over some of my favorite moments and some people they’ll come and say, wow this is so genuine and heartfelt. I didn’t know you could make videos like this because the whole time you’re sitting there expecting the sound to make an a** of himself and drop some kind of jokes somewhere but, it’s kind of difficult. I figured out little ways on my YouTube. I think the easiest way now is I just hop on before the video even starts and first serious video, at least, just to get people in the right space, so to speak, because that is jarring when especially if you’ve seen most of my funny stuff and then, you go to watch a serious video, I guess you’re kind of sitting there waiting for me to make a joke and then when it doesn’t happen, you’re saying, he can make serious ones.

Pierre Lambert: It’s like trying to watch a Jim Carrey movie, but it’s never funny and you’re waiting for it the whole movie. 

Sam Newton: Yes. Like Adam Sandler on uncut gems when he’s just serious the whole time but, for me, I appreciate people in the artistic field that have variety and show different sides of themselves and that’s kind of what I go for and I think people connect with it pretty well.

Pierre Lambert: Yes and I think, it’s important for your sanity as a creator, because I feel that the external world likes to put us in one box. You’re in this box and you can’t be in two boxes. Now, we don’t know how to split it. When you’re able to spread it out, as you say, and be diverse, that’s where I found out that we can shine through also as people because we go crazy in the same thing we do.

Sam Newton: Yes and I never want to be the funny guy who also makes good videos. I want to be a high-quality filmmaker who is also really funny on the side so, I’m trying my best to balance, but like I said when most people find me through my funnier videos, for those of you who don’t know me, my year video was the first one to blow up and it has about 850,000 and then I do kind of funny raps on the side and they just blow up on Instagram, at least thousands of shares and a lot of people find me overnight and then immediately, like you said, people put you in this box like, this guy is a comedian and that’s why I try to have this balance. I want you guys to know I’m funny, I like to have a good time, but also, I make serious stuff. I make stuff that means something to me and try to push my ultimate kind of brand or my ultimate reason why I do it all and even the comedy, it feeds into my main purposes. I want to challenge the status quo, especially my niche, in particular, the travel filmmaking, which blew up with the Jay Alvarrez and the Sam Kolder’s cool hype videos and there’s no problem with those kinds of videos, but I think a lot of young people getting into it nowadays are just seeing that and thinking, I need my videos to look like this for me to get into the travel filmmaking industry and I want to approach it in a different way where if you can tell a good story, if you can be your true and genuine self, it’s going to be a long game. It’s not going to happen overnight, but you can build an audience and that will happen. I think my funny videos kind of call out the things in my industry and people laugh, but in the end, it’s kind of a method. At the end of the day, it’s funny but it also challenges the status quo, this is the way everybody does it but, I think, we can maybe tour it a different way. We cannot necessarily fake who we are to travel and make good stuff.

Pierre Lambert: Try to mimic someone and that brings up a super important question. We’re going to dig into who you truly are. What has defined you up until now, but before that, just a thought came up, do you think crazy transitions or transitions are a crutch, sorry, my accent, a crutch because that sounds funny now, a crutch to not plan for edge?

Sam Newton: They can be and at the end of the day too, I never want to mingle on anyone’s specific side of the industry because the reason people get into filmmaking is because of those trendy transitions and that’s perfectly fine. It’s cool to see more people wanting to create because of that, my issue would be then people not expanding and growing as creators and never getting out of it and getting diving into storyline so it definitely can be a crutch. I think a lot of people, especially in the travel industry, right? A lot of people just go somewhere, film a bunch of cool and dope videos, then they get back and they look at their timeline.

Pierre Lambert: Exactly.

Sam Newton: I need this transition to make it look cool and then, it doesn’t become a story of what you did or where you were, and it just becomes a story of how sick can I make this look, and to me, that just becomes so hollow and those trends die fast. The videos last 10 years, the videos you go back to watch, or the videos that made you feel something and I think a lot of these videos with just transitions and stuff are going to be cool and they’re going to work for the time being, but they’re not going to be something that really connects with people and again, I don’t want to mingle on any of the specific creators that still use trendy transitions because it can be done well, but again, I think, you just have to be real and being intentional is the most key thing, just asking yourself if this is even necessary, and for what I do, for the most part, I don’t need them.

Pierre Lambert: You’re touching such a great point. The idea if you need them. I was watching a good movie and it struck my mind.

Sam Newton: That’s so good.

Pierre Lambert: I did watch the last out, the latest that I hadn’t seen recently and then I watched a bunch of things where the cinematography was great, but, what I remember that struck me is you barely see those transitions in real movies. You never see them actually, or hardly ever. Every time, it has to go Sci-fi or they’re trying to go into a machine, that’s when you see those but the rest of the time, you don’t see those transitions. I was in a helicopter the other day when we were shooting around the city at night and this morning I made a one minute 22nd clip and I wish I had planned. My buddy calls me it’s 4:00 PM. He asked if I wanted to fly at eight. I’m saying, oh, what? Okay, but I had to use a few maybe zoom out transitions to change the settings or the field of view and stuff but I remember thinking when I was editing this morning, how much better is it if you can plan shots and how they’re going to work with each other and I feel that that’s what they do in Hollywood when they do things well, they don’t need to rely on something on artifacts to clip two parts together.

Sam Newton: Oh yes. I mean, again, if you’re intentional about it and I think all the best filmmakers, the ones that I enjoy watching, they’ve mastered the art of a transition through sound and I think that’s so underutilized and like everyone talks about sound design and how important it is. But the idea of using sounds as a transition to me was kind of a new concept up until eight months ago, nine months ago and then, I started diving into my sound design, and then you can just have a hard cut from one clip to another but if, again, if you intentionally plan what the first clip is, what the second clip is, and you use the right sound to carry you from the first clip to the second clip, it’s so subconscious with the viewer watching, but those transitions are so much more effective and so much more powerful to me and I think if you’re watching all of the leaders in the industry and you’re watching their films and you ask, okay, why did that flow so well? And then, you close your eyes and just listen to the whole sequence just the way the sound pushes you through it. A lot of times those transitions are done without visually putting them on.

Pierre Lambert: Yes. So it doesn’t distract you from the main story. All right. Let’s dig into your story. Tell us a little bit, what’s your movie volume chapter one?

Sam Newton: It wouldn’t be that exciting or a movie but well, I’m a five-foot, nine goofy looking white kid, who started watching travel videos right after I got out of college and I didn’t see anybody in the travel industry that resonated with me because everyone was so cool and was so beautiful and did backflips at skydive. Early in the game, 2015, 2016 when they’re starting, when I say early in the game, early in the travel, YouTube

Pierre Lambert: and Instagram was barely recognized.

Sam Newton: Yeah, exactly. Everyone. It just felt that everybody did cool things and I am not this interesting, and that made me self-conscious and backtracking a little bit more and in high school, I filmed videos of my friends and I filmed funny rap songs then, that was what we did. Me and my friends who had smoked some weed, we’d made songs and it was just fun. It was a lot of fun and it was just the purest form of art because we didn’t feel that we were being judged. We didn’t have any platform. Then, I got to college and I stopped that because I didn’t want to be known as the rapper guy who really wanted to be known. I started falling in love with making videos. I wanted to be known as the videographer and then once I got out of college, I made a name for myself on my campus and I was thinking, what’s the next thing that excites me and it’s the travel. I never really traveled much and me and my friend, I went to Europe and we hit up, not even kidding, we sent 5,000 emails and we got two or three companies to pay us a little bit of money and then we got your rail, the European rail system and wombat city hostile, a hostile chain out there to sponsor travel and free places to stay and this was no portfolio in the travel space and I was not that good at the time, but looking back, I said, this is possible. If I can do this right now with no nothing at all, and it was just all about putting in the right amount of effort because there were a lot of no’s and a lot of rejections, but we kept pushing through until we found the right people and getting on the phone with the right people and creating those connections and just basically saying, give us a shot. That’s all we need and that was okay because you just got to be able to brush that off and keep pushing. We worked with Shangri-La, out in the Philippines. That was our seventh trip in, but that gives you an idea of starting with free videos for the European rail system to working on a project with Shangri-La out in Boracay in the Philippines so it all clicked in my head. I said, okay, well, if I can do this with little to no experience, what if I gave it a shot. During the first year, all I did was I would come back home and film some weddings, save some money up, and then go travel again and then I pitched different clients and built up a portfolio and rinse and repeat and I did that for about three years. Then, I met my business partner, Luke, Luke Jackson Clark at watch Luke on Instagram, an incredible guy and we met in a hostel in Thailand as every cliche creator, you need your Thailand trip but we met at a hustle in Thailand. We clicked, we had very similar visions about wanting to integrate our lives with travel and we created our travel collective move to create, which we work on different brand projects all around the world and that’s what’s provided me the ability to travel for the past four years now and then with that, I traveled the world, we hit 37 countries in four years, lots nonstop traveling and I got back and I never really shared my story on YouTube. I had an okay Instagram following, I had 13,000 followers or something just for all my travels, but I never really shared my story. I never really shared who I was, and then to bring the story full circle, I hadn’t seen anybody in the travel film industry that connected with me. I watched all these travel films and no one seems like they’re a real person, as ugly as that sounds, no one seems like they would have been my friend, or I could just have banter with them and talk sh*t and have some fun, have some laughs. Everyone was so serious and so cool and so tight and I said, this isn’t me and so I made that first kind of funny video and I started my funny content creator niche brand, getting everybody to film their hand and it’s all kind of snowballed into what it is today, which I’m proud of and I think a lot of people who follow me, follow me for that purpose because I’d like to think, I’m the same person with the camera on me, as I am with it off and I’m pretty proud of that.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. The first question that popped up and everyone’s going to be asking is, what did you study in college?

Sam Newton: This is always a fun one. I laugh because the technical answer is digital media, but I have a heavy caveat. I went to UC Davis, which is an agriculture science school in the middle of nowhere, California, up by Sacramento and nobody went there for arts. I went there because it’s a really good school. It was the best school I got into and I didn’t fall in love with videography until my sophomore year of college so I didn’t even know I was going to be a videographer but it was a blessing in disguise, my major was digital media. I switched into my junior year. There were probably 30 people in the major, not even lying when I say I was better than most of my professors at using a camera. I remember vividly a professor asking, trying to give us a sample of using a DSLR in class and I had to walk up and walk him through the settings and get it all right and I was thinking, this is dumb, however, I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way because that’s where I got my entrepreneurial side of videography, which I think is the most underrated aspect of it. There’s a lot of people with talent, but how many people can convert that talent into clients and convert that talent into a lifestyle and go full time and that’s where a lot of people drop off and I learned quickly that I was good at communicating. I was good at the business aspect and I found that through the fact that nobody at my college was in my major so nobody made videos. I created a monopoly, I was the video guy. I made sorority videos, and sorority girls are the queens of social media so they share the things out of any video you make which was good for me at the time. One, I was a single 20-year-old college guy so every sorority girl on campus knew who I was. I love that but second, they share it and then other clubs on campus find you and they’re saying, wow, I need a video and then I make a video for the different clubs on campus, and then it got to a point where, if you were a club on campus without a Sam Newton video, then you weren’t doing it right so I created this. I was the video guy on campus and that’s how I built my entrepreneurial side and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way. If I went to another actual videography school, there would have been so much more competition. I wouldn’t have been able to hustle. I wouldn’t have been able to push myself out of my comfort zone, so long-winded answer, digital media was my major, but the major itself had little to no effect. All my learnings came from YouTube. Everything was self-taught and I just pushed myself.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. It reminds me of the concept of blue ocean and red oceans where the concept goes by, you’d rather be it’s the same as a private, which is you’d rather be a small fish, in a big pond versus a big fish in a small pond like today. Yes, it’s the contrary. You’d rather be the big fish in the small pond and that’s something that I think is recalled because a lot of people are like, I want to drop it. I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to do this or that. My parents forced me to but what I always say is that if you do go to university or wherever, whether you pay for it or not, that’s another question, leverage what is available, and that’s what you did perfectly. You’re saying, all right, let’s leverage everyone.

Sam Newton: It’s hilarious, because in the My Year video, again, I say in that video that I dropped out of college, 20 seconds after I say it, I quit my nine to five job so I thought that was hilarious. I was like, people are going to get that. I didn’t quit my nine-to-five job and drop out of college, you can’t do both. I thought that was a joke that people are going to connect with like no one, few people caught on, but nobody. But, I get DMS all the time from kids who also think about dropping out of college and I never dropped out of college. I went all four years. I graduated. It was a joke I never actually did but, again, people always ask, should I go to college? I’m a big advocate of saying yes you should because it’s four years of just no pressure. It’s four years of exploring yourself. Don’t bury yourself in student loans if you don’t have to, if you can go to a college, that’s a little bit cheaper, if you can do it in a way, I went to a state college and so it wasn’t insanely expensive. I had probably $25,000 student loans, which I ended up paying off the majority before I even graduated through building my business but four years of college, you don’t have pressure and you build these networks of people that are so incredible and you connect with so many people that just want to make videos with no intention other than just creating something, which is so pure and so incredible because once you get out of that bubble, once you get into the real-life, everyone always asks what’s in it for me? I’ll help you out but what’s in it for me. What money do you have? What exposure do you have? In college, it’s cool because you’re just saying, I have this friend from my dorm, and we’ll go around and make a funny video. Let’s have some fun with it and it’s just this pure, artistic expression, which is really cool and again, there’s no one way of doing it. My way was the big fish in the small pond, but obviously, you can go to a film school and connect with so many other creators that are like-minded and build it that way. It’s just all about how you approach your situation, be as intentional as possible, and think, how can I make this into something good because again, if you use college for years to just party and have fun, it’ll be great but then it will be over and you’re going to go into a job you hate and just build on the cycle again.

Pierre Lambert: Yes, that’s a good one. I feel that it’s the same in most arts, photography also. If you’re going for it, let’s say you’re trying to pursue a professional route, you might lose that pure aspect of just shooting for shooting, which I find so refreshing. When was the last time I did it? It’s not that often, that’s what I realized. I’m always, okay, I’m going to shoot a video around my next shoot or I’m going to go shoot and do this or scout a location. It’s very rare that I’m just out there just for fun.

Sam Newton: Yes, I think that’s why I fell back in love with rapping because it was something I used to do and I used to love, and then I gave it up for six, seven years and I think a lot of people listening right now, might be laughing like, who is this guy thinking he’s a rapper, but I promise you, go to my YouTube, I got some bars. That’s why, I started rapping again and it was just this again, nobody knew I rap, nobody knew what I could do and there was no pressure. There was no pressure and it was this pure and I would say to a lot of younger creators, you’re in an incredible time in your life where you don’t necessarily need to force yourself. People always want to know how they can get big quickly and how they can get followers. The moment that happens is the moment you have pressure on. The moment you have an audience and the moment you have expectations and it’s so cool. Looking back now, if I can go back four years and just go back to traveling with no audience and no expectations and making films, just because this is cool. This is what I loved. It’s something that I think a lot of people early on at least take for granted because nowadays, if you don’t have the followers or don’t have that base, then you’re not considered successful when that’s just not even close to.

Pierre Lambert: There’s a next Sam Newton funny video about having followers very soon. I feel you’ll know one until you have a follower. I also shared the same feeling where if you could go back and just create it without anything at the back of your head or any pressure, that’s pretty cool. I think I feel it’s something we have to unlearn all the time.

Sam Newton: Just defining success and that’s a big thing, always stepping back and just reminding yourself, what does success mean to you because a lot of times, everyone’s going through life with other people’s definition of success and for me, I’m not a big car guy, I don’t care if I have a cool car. If I could whip up in a Porsche, that would be great, but I have my Subaru Outback and I love it. It gets me from point A to point B. It allows me to have a little bit nicer of an apartment, which allows me to travel more, and you just have to define what exactly success means to you and if that means you’re traveling all the time and having a lot of followers, that might be what success means to you, but have you thought about it? Have you asked yourself? And I think a lot of people don’t take those approaches of being intentional, asking yourself, what is it? Why do I want any of this? This is such an essential part and a lot of people will find different answers to what they truly want and there’s a lot of different ways to get there.

Pierre Lambert: Do you remember a specific example of maybe a moment you got sidetracked with success or maybe it was an object or trip or something, and you’re saying, this is not for me.

Sam Newton: Yes, it’s not necessarily, this is not for me, but a big step back was, we went to New Zealand and Australia, the most incredible road trip ever but I kind of stacked a few clients in their last-minute where I was thinking, this is what I do I’m a travel videographer. I didn’t think of it. It’s decent pay, let’s go. I threw it in and then the whole trip I was just focusing on okay, let me make sure more, the Australia part, but let me make sure I get these shots for these clients, so we need to get this. We need to get that and the trip itself was, don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of fun. I went out with five of my best friends, we were just road trips, we ran around in turtlenecks. It was a blast, but there were a lot of times where I had to ask myself, what was the real reason that I fell in love with traveling in the first place and I clung so hard to the idea that I’m a travel videographer so I need to like work with clients and the past year and a half of traveling, I kind of burnt myself out a little bit because all I was doing was working with clients, and I never really traveled just because it’s what I love to do, and ironically enough, I kind of hit a wall creatively and I was like, I’m going to take this winter off, which is the first big chunk of time I’ve ever taken off from traveling, so I did that from December through February and as everyone knows, that was the worst time to ever take travel off because I haven’t been able to go anywhere, it’s just always constantly reflecting. It’s just so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of just like, this is what I need to do because everyone’s doing it. This is what I need to do because, and you’ll listen to podcasts like this that tell you, this is what you have to do and that’s why I’m a big proponent of, when I do come on podcasts, I say, this is my story, but it’s not the right way to do it, it’s not the wrong way to do it. It’s just the way I did it and everyone needs to take a little bit of pressure off themselves and understand that there are so many different routes. There’s not a one-step system that fits everyone.

Pierre Lambert: How did that pause affect your work? Let’s go all the way up to the beginning of March and then we can talk about the second new life. I’m joking, but the world 2.0.

Sam Newton: Overall. Great. It was awesome to just kind of slow down. Every year for my birthday, I throw a mini film festival with all of my friends and we get about 150 people out. It was one of those emotional times for me, we live in an internet age where everyone gives you validation, the likes, and Instagram and it’s such an incredible feeling when you post something online and I can’t lie to say it’s not a great feeling when you post something online and everyone’s just immediately saying, this is great. This is awesome. Share, share, share and you’re just sitting there refreshing your phone thinking, I’m the best. I’m so cool but then that dies after a day, that dies after two days, the cycle is really short and then you’re chasing it again. You’re like, I want that back. I need that validation back and so the coolest part about me stopping to travel was I threw this film festival to bring people together, to bring my community together and it was an overwhelming experience to be like, wow, I had 80 people subscribers and Instagram followers. At the time, I think I had 40,000 YouTube subscribers, and to think 80 people out of 40,000 doesn’t seem that much but when I’m sitting there talking to 80 people that showed up, one dude drove 11 hours from Arizona to my event by himself and I said, dude, what? Those are the moments that make me step back and say, this is why I do it. This real, genuine community, the real people behind it, not just those fast likes that fly through.

Pierre Lambert: I don’t know what happened. I had a baby in November so I don’t know what happened in the world.

Sam Newton: I’ve been playing call of duty for three months. I have no idea what’s going on.

Pierre Lambert: But it’s funny. You say you paused, what was it? October and December. Oh, sorry. December and February.

Sam Newton: December through February yes, so we got back.

Pierre Lambert: I kind of took the same thing just because we had a baby and so from November until, we got to go to Europe in March to see my family, and then ever since I was like, okay, I’m going to go to pull their Shafter. I’m going to go here and there and there and I was going to go to Nepal in March and then I guess I’m going nowhere.

Sam Newton: Well, I can relate.

Pierre Lambert: How did you adapt? What has shifted? How was it for you since COVID?

Sam Newton: I will answer this question after I run to the bathroom.

Pierre Lambert: and the sponsor of the day… presets pack!

Sam Newton: One second.

Pierre Lambert: Welcome back and let’s thank our second sponsor of the day transition pack influencers, 5.0. We’re talking about that little virus thing, that is having a joke on most of humanity right now and it’s like, you think I’m so small? Huh? But look how much of a mess I make so tell me more about CoVid. What happened to you?

Sam Newton: For me, obviously the first when it hit, everyone took it in their way and for me, I’m a videographer and as most creative to know, we have to be in our room for two weeks at a time, easy let’s do it. I have to edit a video like that. As much as I like to show people that I travel all the time, 80% of my life is locked in front of a laptop editing, trying to convince people I’m always traveling but when it first happened, it didn’t hit me you go through ups and downs and there were different times where I didn’t do anything for a week and I’m thinking, what just happened? It all blurred together but overall I think I took the relatively productive approach and I focused a lot on YouTube and I can’t do much with clients, so let me focus on YouTube and it was incredible. I think I jumped 20 something thousand subscribers over quarantine alone and I worked on a lot of fun projects and it forced me to get out of my comfort zone in terms of like, I obviously can’t travel when I identify as a travel videographer, how can I still make travel videos and I got unique and I played around, I ended up making some music and that, and three months down the line made a music video and that worked out so, I tried my best, but just like everybody, it was a bad time and being completely locked up. Now, I feel that everyone’s gotten somewhat used to it and it’s a half lockdown, especially in America. Americans, you can’t lock us up.

Pierre Lambert: It’s always been half, it’s all been one half.

Sam Newton: All in America. That’s a whole nother topic. It’s a whole nother topic. You don’t give us rules to follow. All right. Not Americans but now it’s a little bit easier and I’m just kind of keeping eyes on when things do open up but overall I think, I wouldn’t say necessarily it was good for me, but I was able to adapt.

Pierre Lambert: Yes. There’s this saying that there’s always something good that comes out of everything depending on how you decide to take it and I guess that’s also applicable in that case now, is it easy at the moment? I don’t think so, but maybe in two years, you’ll be like, actually it was the best thing ever. I would have never done those YouTube things, you know?

Sam Newton: Yes. I just feel, for everyone, March, April, and May just blur together.

Pierre Lambert: I don’t even know how it’s August right now, the end of August. I haven’t stayed that long in the same place forever. I’m still alive and I haven’t traveled.

Sam Newton: For us, it’s easy to look back on years and be say,  2017, that’s when I did this trip and it makes it very definable and for the first time I just have a very similar routine that blends so just the past six months, I can’t put a finger on what happens.

Pierre Lambert: It feels like university. Like, it’s a block of five years.

Sam Newton: A university without nearly as many friends.

Pierre Lambert: Yes, that’s true. That’s a social part that s*cks, for sure, and that’s where I want to dig into because you have your brand, let’s call it, with your YouTube videos, with your Instagram, and then if I’m correct, you also have an agency creating a lot of content for brands.

Sam Newton: Yes, so we define ourselves as a travel collective. It’s a blurred line essentially, that’s where the majority of my money comes from as travel clients and when we first started, we realized that not that many people, not that many big brands wanted to give big budgets to singular people so my first company quote-unquote, was Sam Newton media, and it was my first name, my last name. It was my Instagram handle, shameless plugs, San Newton Media but that was my company name and I realized that a lot of people didn’t want to give $10,000 to one guy. It didn’t feel right on a corporate level, and that’s when I was talking about me and my business partner, Luke, we connected and we kind of talked about the same issues that we had. He’s 100% in photography, I’m 100% in videography and we were able to merge our portfolio, give it a name, and once it was an entity, once it was something big. Now, all of a sudden we were getting looks from, we would reach out to companies instead of as Sam Newton, I was reaching out as moved to create and it was much bigger. It fell on the corporate side of things, like a much bigger company and so a lot of people would resonate with that a lot more and it was pretty funny. We had a girl on our team named Alyssa, an incredible human being, and then she stopped working with us after about the first six months, but we kept her email and when we’d reach out, we’d send emails to companies as Alyssa, no last name, just Alyssa with MTC and then they would Email us back and if it was a yes, then I would say, okay, let me forward it to Sam, our founder, and I would just forward that same email to myself cause I was Alyssa and it made people feel that there were a lot more hands in the pot and call it what you will, but it worked out and we would still provide an incredible product but that allowed us to start landing those much bigger $10,000, $15,000 contracts, which were contracts that initially I would only have dreamed of and then now we were able to create this entity around it now. All of a sudden companies were much more comfortable with giving moves, to create $15,000 and not just Sam Newton.

Pierre Lambert: That’s great advice! You just gave out there and I’ll bounce on it because I’ve used it many times also through different businesses, having a different email and so if you’re small out there listening, and you don’t have Alyssa, you don’t have a Jack, you don’t have five people working for me, you just create another email, let’s say your customer-facing, you create support whatever your business is and that helps put some distance between you and your customer and your products, but also, especially if you’re seeking clients, it gives you leverage for negotiation where suddenly Allysa is negotiating for Sam and then checks with Sam, but the creative side.

Sam Newton: I would just say, make sure if it is contact or support, just end it with a name, even obviously, if it’s not a real name, because then it makes it a more human approach and now this is the kind of stuff that excites me about the creative industry, because not that many people talk about it, but the business aspect of it and how to make it work. It’s that the human side is so underrated it’s unvalued, and people don’t talk about it. It’s every client I’ve ever had, I’ve maintained via just being myself. They want a friend. When I first started my emails, they’re cordial, they’re professional but once that first wall has been broken, I immediately start talking as if I’m just talking to a friend. When I talk to clients, I have every client’s phone number and I can give them a phone call and then start with a pan like, « Jennifer what’s good. I haven’t talked to you in a while. How are things up here? » And then you’re making the natural human connection and it makes working with people so much easier than just, « Hi Jennifer, please see attached version two. » I have worked on X, X, and X, and then it’s like you’re working with a robot, which everyone works within 2020 anyways, so that human side of things, I can never underestimate how important it is to create a human connection, that’s why when I link up an email, my first thing I ever want to do is get them off email and onto the phone, and if I can go one step forward further than that and get them off the phone and in person. I literally landed one of my clients because I said I was going to be in San Francisco. Can we set up a meeting, and they said yes, and the moment they said, yes, I bought a flight to San Francisco. I was not going to be in San Francisco whatsoever but I was saying, Hey, I’m planning on being in San Francisco next week, I would love to meet, and they were saying, we have some time on Wednesday, and so I bought a ticket flew in Wednesday morning and flew out the next day and just by going in person, it was so invaluable and we went from talking about a thousand dollar project to talking about $8,000, in just one meeting just by having that human connection and a lot of times in person, people will give you information that they would never give you on emails. Think about an email and you have time to delete and write in person, sometimes they just let things slip, sometimes they’re saying, we’re working on a campaign in a month and we need somebody, and you’re like, that’s me. I’m here. What do we gotta do? And then you don’t step off the brake. Meeting in person, which is harder now, but phone calls at least just get that human connection.

Pierre Lambert: Yes. This is a good piece of advice for anyone, and it’s not even just a creative aspect, it’s for any industry, any business and I remember when we were on the world tour with my wife, this is what happened exactly here, we didn’t have a following. It was very minimal, et cetera. I was a photographer so I knew what I was doing in terms of photos, but just by her being able to reach out to clients or just reach out to people, very targeted, trying to speak to the human behind. We landed a full weekend in different resorts in the Maldives and we did some work with them. We had the blog, et cetera, but most people would think you would need a hundred K or million or whatever to be there, but just if you’re professional, if you do a good job, and if you’re a nice human being that goes so much further.

Sam Newton: Yes. 100% and on a more psychological level, it’s a lot harder for people to say no to you in person, a fun little snippet for people out there. People will say yes, 10 times more often in person than they will over the email because again, companies are often bureaucratic in that they need to send it through eight or nine different people or if it’s an individual, a lot of people will look at an email and sit and analyze it and figure out, but if you’re in person and you have to make a jump decision and you’re saying, okay, fine, let’s do something. Then they’re going to stick to their word and they’re going to follow through with that project so kind of getting people, don’t give people the opportunity to think and analyze as it sounds manipulative, but I promise you, it’s true. If you have a conversation, you’ll get their genuine feeling at that moment and then if they commit to something, you can hold them and say, Hey, remember when you said there was this campaign coming up and you’d consider me? I just wanted to follow up and see if that’s still a possibility and then now they are a lot more. I did kind of agree to this, let’s just go with, let’s just go with him or her anyway.

Pierre Lambert: Yes. A lot of their project is like, they start with one but actually, they have five more to do in the backlog, but they didn’t tell you about it. It’s just like, yeah, we’ll just do the first one and see,

Sam Newton: Free work is a very controversial subject. My biggest number one piece of advice to everyone that ever asked me is, do something for free. Do it intentionally, get your foot in the door, say, Hey, this is what I can provide. I don’t always give out free videos, but I enjoy your brand, show them that you’ve done the research, I enjoy your brand because of this, this, this, and this. I want to prove to you what I can do and ideally down the line. If you enjoy the video, we can open the dialogue for a bigger project. I’ve done that probably 10 different times, and it’s worked 8, 9, 8 or nine of the times. And I’ve been able to leverage different bigger projects and create genuine connections because there’s no expectation you come in, you over-deliver, you give them this free video that just blows them out of the water that I call this thing, you’re incredible, make them need you, and obviously, I’m just speaking on behalf of videographers, but it works with everything like you said, but make them need you, and then they open up the dialogue for something even better, a thousand dollars, $2,000, $3,000 and worst-case scenario, they say, no, thank you, we don’t want to work on anything then that’s perfectly fine. Why? Because now you have a video that you can put in your portfolio to then leverage other clients with, so it’s a win-win and I think it’s the most underutilized. It’s the same as just putting together a spec ad for Adidas, to show people what you can do.

Pierre Lambert: That is the best you can do as a pro, if you don’t have a portfolio you don’t need clients. You just buy the shoes and go shoot them.

Sam Newton: Yes, exactly. Most companies will send you a free x that they own in exchange for a video. It’s what I’ve figured out and you’re saying, Hey, this is what I do, all I need is an opportunity, let me prove to you what I can do and a lot of companies will be like, here’s a backpack, go for it. Let’s see and then you take their product, you make an incredible video, and then worst-case scenario, they don’t want to work with you, and now you have a bad-ass backpack commercial that you can throw in your portfolio.

Pierre Lambert: Did you get that Porsche?

Sam Newton: Come on. No, this is the kind of information that people try to sell you every single day and I’m just dropping time so if you guys want to Venmo me @samnewtonmedia.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. You should just launch your influencer course.

Sam Newton: How to influence? Step one, you buy your sickest pair of jeans. Step two, that’s it!

Pierre Lambert: Your video that blew up could have a big a** and I even created the course.

Sam Newton: That’s the one thing, down the line, I might do some kind of course, because obviously, I am very passionate about the business side of things and as much as I like to joke around, I think there are a lot of things that I could offer.

Pierre Lambert: And since no one gets it to joke, you would just try to look for your course. That’s why I’m being serious about it.

Sam Newton: Just link it in.

Pierre Lambert: That’s a joke, but it’s not a joke.

Sam Newton: That’s the same. Trust me. I’ve done just about everything in the industry and then I make fun of the light room, preset bundles, and then I sit there while all of my friends, the people that I’m making fun of, I don’t think a lot of people realize they’re also my friends. They’re people in the industry that I consider good friends, and I also make fun of them and it’s lighthearted, no one thinks I’m attacking anybody and it’s good and the funny part is, I’ll make fun of people for presets and then I talked to my friend and he’s like, oh yeah, my lightroom presets, I just made $20,000 last month and I’m just like, yeah, who wins here? The quirky-looking white dude and making fun of you or the guy who is making a living out of something they loved.

Pierre Lambert: Did you create those influences on presets or not? ,

Sam Newton: No.

Pierre Lambert: You should have put them. I’m being serious. You oversold them a little bit. You oversold them slightly so people might say, Hey, I applied for it but the bag didn’t change into Bali. I don’t, I don’t get any.

Sam Newton: It would probably take a lot of effort. It would need to be a Photoshop with how much that it changed and for people that don’t know, I released a funny lightroom preset video that made fun of how many people have Lightroom presets and instead of just changing the colors, it would change the entire background, so it would just be someone on the couch and then it would swipe and then they’d be on a beach in Bali.

Pierre Lambert: That was the best. I liked that one. It’s pretty accurate because I do wonder, like you said, in the beginning, there is so much pressure through social media of being cool sometimes. I mean, it’s not something new. It existed in high school or wherever, but I feel that it’s almost like high school just blending into adult life somehow and because as a traveler, I’ve never traveled. Sorry, but I’ve never hiked like places in jeans with tight shoes and a tight t-shirt.

Sam Newton: I like how you apologize to me. Sorry.

Pierre Lambert: Who does that? I’ve seen once, people hike in converse, but they didn’t have the rest of the clothing.

Sam Newton: Pierre, you very obviously haven’t gotten to the top of a mountain in Norway in ripped black jeans, there’s no better than doing a backflip in, 10 degrees Celsius or five degrees Celsius cold. You got your sick jeans, you’re doing a backflip, you’re filming your hand. No better feeling, man.

Pierre Lambert: I missed out completely.

Sam Newton: You haven’t lived.

Pierre Lambert: Throw my camera away and just exchange it for jeans.

Sam Newton: Yes, exactly.

Pierre Lambert: No, but that’s an important point and that’s also why. In a way, I don’t pay too much attention to that in my videos, just trying to keep it slightly real to people, maybe my mom would love for me to look like a movie star in every video, but that’s not going to happen, mom so trying to keep it real is important. What’s in the pipes for you going forwards?

Sam Newton: Going forward. Right now focusing on YouTube is a big thing. I got screwed by tax season here and I ended up paying. It’s a good thing, how I do my taxes every creative knows this, you pay a lump sum at the end of the year. I paid estimates throughout the year, I ended up making more money than I showed up, and I paid $8,000 at the end of tax season,  it drained me so I’ve had to do a few projects, which pause my YouTube, but now I’ve got that freedom back, I’m going to get back onto YouTube and pushed that because I just love the community that I’m building on YouTube and loved the potential that’s there.it’s just such an incredible platform and then two, in terms of just actual projects, we are filming a mini-documentary with my friend Jack greener, who is a recovering quadriplegic, he was fully paralyzed about 19 months ago and now has not only made a full recovery, he is walking and even hiking and now plans on being the first recovered quadriplegic to hike Mount Whitney, which is the highest peak in the lower 48 of the United States. It’s 14,500 feet and we’re going to do a documentary of his entire journey from becoming it’s called paralyzed to peaks from being completely paralyzed to summiting one of the largest peaks in North America, which is incredible and am I in the right shape for it? Probably not, but I gotta start working out for it. It’s going to be a bit of a climb, but, I’m excited and, and that’s the kind of stuff, again, there are people who find me through my funny stuff and realize I’m a jokester, but these are the kinds of projects that get me going because it’s a real genuine story and his story is so powerful and so motivating and just to get that out to the world and, and being a part of that is awesome so I’m looking forward to that.

Pierre Lambert: I loved the video you did with your grandmother, sharing her thoughts and insight and that was good.

Sam Newton: It’s one of my favorites and again, at the end of the day, even if people didn’t like it, when I look back on my channel, that’s the one that every time I watch, I tear up. I almost fully cry at the end and if I’m not creating for any other reason, but this question, why am I creating? So, that’s the kind of video even if none of my subscribers liked it, I would come back in 10 years and say, that’s the reason why I do it as opposed to « what’s in my camera bag » that gets a million views that I’m just thinking, that was dumb. I haven’t done one yet.

Pierre Lambert: I didn’t get a million views, so if you have tips, let me know. Maybe you should do what’s in my camera bag shown by your grandmother. She’s the one walking us through it. That’d be good.

Sam Newton: You’re giving an idea. I can’t go close to my grandma anymore, man. I gotta do it from across the room and just have her.

Pierre Lambert: That’s even better. She can say whatever she wants about it.

Sam Newton: If she has to guess what every piece of gear is.

Pierre Lambert: That’s a good idea. Travel-wise, are you going to travel? Are you trying to travel? What’s happening?

Sam Newton: Oh yeah. Once things open up, worst-case scenario, obviously Americans are probably going to be the last on the list of people allowed to leave but in October I plan I’m going somewhere, right? So worst case, as long as there isn’t a huge second wave or third wave or fourth wave or whatever you want to call it. I want to go on either road trip, which I’m planning to go, just exploring America, going San Diego up the west coast, into Oregon, Washington, across into Montana, Wyoming, down into Colorado, then across into Utah and down so it’s huge, it would be three weeks.

Pierre Lambert: The bucket list Instagram shots right there. I’m in the middle of the road on a skateboard with a mountain.

Sam Newton: One pair of pants and my penny board but, it’d be like the ultimate American road trip.

Pierre Lambert: With the van?

Sam Newton: Yes. I’m going to make it happen. I want to get some company that is going to sponsor it.

Pierre Lambert: Van company that does Airbnb, but with vans, have you heard of it?

Sam Newton: I think I have.

Pierre Lambert: I remembered the name, but I said recently and I say, oh, that’s cool, they’re working with all the influencers.

Sam Newton: Yeah, I’ll figure it out one way or another. My 2010 Subaru Outback with 150,000 miles on it might not be the best car.

Pierre Lambert: Can you sleep in it?

Sam Newton: Yes. It’s big enough, sir. It’s the perfect outdoor car. I love it but ideally, if I can do a 10,000-mile road trip, I can do it in somebody else’s car and put the miles on that and not online, but that’s the plan. If things don’t open up, but if things do open up, then I’m for sure. Just going to keep tabs, make sure I follow all the rules and regulations correctly. If I need to take a COVID test upon arrival if I need a quarantine somewhere for two weeks, and that means I can explore that same place for two weeks, I might just do it but I think for now I’m just kind of keeping tabs on things and figuring it out.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. I think it’s a good point to wrap up and also I’m going to ask you the last question. What would you recommend people to creatively do right now? Because I feel that there’s been a peak of creativity around the beginning where everyone’s saying, I’m going to find ideas at home or whatever and everyone was working out and being creative and then people dropped working out and then they dropped being creative and at one point we all potato couches. I speak for myself a little bit and now I feel it’s going up a little bit more. People are coming back and they’re saying, I did become a potato. What can we do now? Do you have any tips for the creative side?

Sam Newton: My biggest tip right now, it wouldn’t necessarily be the creative side as much as it would be just improving as a creator. I don’t know if that makes sense, but put yourself out there as much as you can, I think that was my biggest setback as a creative. I didn’t put myself not necessarily in my videos, but I didn’t put myself out there. People knew my videos were good, but they didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t transparent and the moment I started opening up and sharing myself and my own story in my videos then people started connecting with me a lot more and I created such an authentic community and I love it and, I would say that’s the number one, put yourself out there, tell your story. Everyone’s looking for other stories to tell and even if you don’t think it’s interesting enough for other people, screw it. You’re going to want that video in five, 10 years, right? Not necessarily your individual story, but you have best friends, you have parents if anybody is listening, we were talking about the grandma video. If you want to go to my channel Sam Newton media and type in advice from grandma, you’ll get an idea, it’s just an interview I did with my grandma, just for my own. I wanted to interview her about life and she dropped some knowledge bombs and she was adorable and I took that footage and granted, I put a lot of cool travel footage over it, but, if the footage that I had put over her interview was just footage of my friends hanging out. It would have been an equally wholesome video so take advantage of what you have in front of you. I think a lot of people are always looking for what’s next, instead of what’s now, and then create something because the worst-case scenario doesn’t blow up. It doesn’t catch the algorithm and worst-case scenario, you just have a video that you can come back and watch eight years and be like, wow, that was a cool time in my life, even though I might not have thought of that at that time.

Pierre Lambert: Did you discover a different side of your grandmother through the interview?

Sam Newton: Yes and no. There’s a reason I interviewed her. She’s always been the wisdom in my life, my grandpa was always the tough guy and my grandma was the wisdom, but she has so much sass too, which is incredible and she’s also just hilarious and down for jokes. She’s not the super cute, quiet grandma if I wanted to drop some jokes in there, here and there she will and she’s really funny and so I wanted to capture that. I knew the way she made me feel and I don’t ever want to forget that so I’m going to get that. Just talking and it gets me emotional but I wanted to capture that.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. I mean, I’m just thinking when we have kids and stuff and they don’t know your grandfather, they don’t know your grandmother.

Sam Newton: Exactly. It’s something that I had right in front of me and, instead of just looking, why aren’t my videos looking cool enough? Why aren’t they doing well? Enough numbers may be for one’s crazy idea, crazy idea, create something for yourself or create something that you’re not going to share. You want to talk about boosting your creative energy, creating something that you’re not going to share with the world, and something that you’re going to share with a small group of friends. Again, if you can sit your family down and make a cool video for someone’s birthday, I promise you that feeling will stay with you forever. My dad doesn’t cry very often, but he was tearing up at my film festival. That’s cool.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. I love that advice and something. I could take it even for myself. Do you have a video about your story that if people want to know your story, what should they type?

Sam Newton: Yes, I have a few. I think I’m pretty transparent now on my YouTube channel. I would say the best video, there’s a video called three years 30 Countries, which briefly talks about how I became a travel videographer. Three years, 30 countries have named it. And then more of my past year there, there’d be two more videos. There’s what matters most, which is the video that I premiered at my film festival, which is an ode to all the people that got me to where I am today, and then there is my year 2019, which I very obviously had to make another my year because those clicks worked but my last my year video, it starts funny, the first my year video that I did, but then it takes a hard turn and goes into a serious kind of analysis on the year and kind of my views on the travel industry so, my year 2019, what matters most and three years 30 countries would be the three that kind of break down my story the best.

Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. Everyone’s going to take it. We’re going to add one more question. If you don’t mind, it’s like me shooting one more photo, one more photo.

Sam Newton: Let’s do it. The classic. Last one, last one.

Pierre Lambert: I used to do that even with clients who were paying for time and I have another shoot and say no, wait, we need to get something, I have an idea. Let’s not drop it. I want to hear from you, it’s a little bit of a selfish question when you create my story or about your stories, videos, and stuff. Context, I have none that I made, except one, I launched the course. I explain super quickly where I come from, just to explain that I’m not some dude that just came out of nowhere and pretends he knows. What’s your thought process where you decided to focus on because as you mentioned in your funny video, it’s very easy to quit my nine to five and get a ticket there and I’m living my best life. Do you dry it out? Do you write it down? What do you focus on?

Sam Newton: Yes, writing it down. Journaling. I think that’s the biggest thing. My funny videos are what most people know, but the biggest thing people wouldn’t know is I’m just an emotional Sapp and I journal a lot and I’ll just write down my thoughts and how I’m feeling and music is really important to me and I’ll listen for a song and if I find a song that really really clicks, I’ll just drink a cup of coffee, listen to that song, get all up in my fields and just start writing and a lot of people realize once you watch my videos, they’re very voiceover centric so I love the idea of voiceovers carrying because to me, you can add another layer to your video with saying something not only visually, but also audibly, just sitting down, listening to music and just writing how I’m feeling and whether I pick a topic, whether it’s my friends and then just sit and talk about how they made me feel and connect and at the end of the day, just write something, I’m personally a fan. There’s no such thing as writer’s block, it’s you stopping writing so if you don’t know what to write, write something, just keep going, it might be bad, just write something, put something down, put something on, on the piece of paper and then come back and look back at it and be say, that sucked or that’s a good point. I’m going to take that into the final draft.

Pierre Lambert: And then you go on from that. Do you use the same music after?

Sam Newton: Yeah, so I’ll, I’ll take that same song, that’s the only way I can create. Any videographer out there knows the fun aspect of taking a song that you love and ruining it by playing it 1 million times in your edit but that’s how it is. I sit there and I listened, I cue up the same song, I’ll go to an art grid, affiliate so all my music has to come from art grid, shout out art grid but I’ll go to their site and I’ll find an incredible song and I’ll sit there and I’ll queue it up 50 times and I’ll sit in my bed, I’ll have my journal and I’ll just write.

Pierre Lambert: That’s good. I like it.

Sam Newton: I like my narrations come first. And then my visuals kind of assist that, especially now, when I haven’t been able to curate the visuals. Now, I’m recycling footage. I’m like, what can I find, so I can use the narration as the glue, and then the footage can be a little bit random here and there because it

Pierre Lambert: comes from story blocks.

Sam Newton: Art grid, dog. Art grid. Don’t let them hear though.

Pierre Lambert: They have stock footage now, too. Right?

Sam Newton: Let me tell you about accurate stock footage. If you want two months for free go to any of my YouTube videos and use the link of my description for accurate

Pierre Lambert: That’s true. They reached out a few times, but my assistant has been ignoring them. That’s good. I already have all the music people in my description so, if I add a third one, I don’t think it’s going to matter much.

Sam Newton: Everyone, these music sites there, our art lists, music bed, epidemic sound. They find creators early on and they latch on. I don’t know any of my friends that are bigger creators. Everyone’s affiliated with one.

Pierre Lambert: I know, who pays for it?

Sam Newton: You guys listening right now. You’re the ones.

Pierre Lambert: Well, I would pay for it if I had to do client work with music and I wasn’t already affiliated.

Sam Newton: If I were to buy it, I’d buy an art list.

Pierre Lambert: There we go, or the new Pierre T. Lambert music platform with a Pierre singing in his shower with different beats.

Sam Newton: I’ll donate some rap songs to that.

Pierre Lambert: Oh really? I might redo your rap songs. Is that okay?

Sam Newton: You can be the first one to license a camera, man, it’s a hot commodity.

Pierre Lambert: Love it. It’s going to be great in my edits. All right. Awesome. I love the ideas. I hope anyone listening out there might try it. I’m going to try to take more time to plan it because that part where you’re just sitting down and writing with the music in repeat. I have to take like an hour and do nothing. I mean, nothing, it’s so weird. There is a point where you’re not productive or you think it’s not productive, but it is very productive.

Sam Newton: Oh yeah. That’s a whole nother conversation, just diving into stoicism, just getting your hour of just stillness for the day, clears your mind. It’s a whole nother podcast right here.

Pierre Lambert: We were talking about when the creator friend, I have to consider shooting part of my work too because I get caught up and the rest and he says, I feel like when I go shoot, I don’t work so he’s like, I spent 12 hours shooting and I felt like I didn’t work today. I’m like, that’s great but yeah, I guess it is part of the job, right? My wife thinks I’m just having fun. I say, enjoy it, but that’s awesome.

Sam Newton: That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we do it.

Pierre Lambert: All right, Sam, we’ll see you somewhere around the world. Hopefully not virtually, soon.

Sam Newton: One day, man, one day.

Pierre Lambert: I heard the 50% of America is enjoying life as normal, anyway, so join the 50.

Sam Newton: What? Did something happen? What did I miss?

Pierre Lambert: The world is fun, but I can always say I’m better off now than in 1918 or 1942. All right, guys. Thank you so much, Sam. Thank you so much for dropping those bombs and hopefully, you’ll wrap on some of those ideas in the future.

Sam Newton: Well, I appreciate you having me so much. It was a ton of fun. Thank you, everyone, if you made it to the end of this episode, that’s rad. Feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram and I’d love to hear what you guys’ thoughts are.

Pierre Lambert: Bye.