We recently connected with Steve Taylor and have shared our conversation below.
Steve, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
The “industry standard” in education is simply to make money. Education is a byproduct of that standard. I had to walk a tightrope as an educator to maintain students in a non-traditional course. If I didn’t have enough students my program would be shut down. If I didn’t prepare my students for real world jobs, I couldn’t keep teaching. That balance never became easy but as I diligently worked to not only prepare students for work but started getting many of them jobs, the classroom enrollment blossomed. I recruited heavily, worked with industry non-stop, learned on the job with my students and ended up with a program that was highly successful in training and placing students in jobs within the television/film production world. I and my students thrived within that world. The educational world didn’t know what to do with me but since I had tons of students, I was given a lecture now and then and then given the leeway to do as I had been doing. I travelled with students all over the country to work and learn together. I ended up in IATSE along with many of my students as we all learned together. I think that’s what made the program different. I was willing to put in the work to learn with the students. I wasn’t their expert. I was their partner.
Steve, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The first thing to know about me is that I never liked school. I barely graduated high school but somehow ended up with a bachelors degree in Mass Communications and worked for over a decade in the radio broadcasting business. A small vocational school close to my hometown was looking for someone to teach a brand new Radio Broadcasting Program and even though I didn’t want to teach, I applied and ended up with the job. We managed to put a full time fm radio station on the air at that vocational center staffed only by high school students. Soon, the radio business became automated and I got bored. I had no television experience but we added television to our curriculum and started managing one of our local school districts cable channels. I was still bored so we started filming basketball and football games and rebroadcasting them on that channel. That is where I fell in love with working and learning with students. I wrote grants for equipment and we continued on that road until I was offered a position at a local university teaching in a multimedia program. Once I took that job, I stopped being bored. The position didn’t call for television/film production to be incorporated but the industry around us was booming at the time. I spent massive amounts of time on the road to Louisiana meeting production people, visiting movie sets and of course volunteering for the least desirable jobs with anyone who would have me and my students. Speaking of my students, my program was destined for failure without the most outstanding, talented and driven students in the world. None of us knew where our hard work would lead us but we were all willing to stand together and work. We produced videos for lots of people to develop our talent. Just a few of those clients were the city of New Orleans, multiple jobs with the state of Arkansas, pilots for Nat Geo, television highlights from NCAA Division One National Championship Events and many more. The doors opened for my students not because of the school we represented but the work ethic we showed. We are still known as the Alien Nation mainly because we are different. I taught my students that we aren’t the stars, our clients are. We are to make them look better than they’ve ever looked before every time we work!!!! If we make others feel incredible about themselves, they’ll want us around all the time! As our clients grow, we grow with them.
I am most proud of my students, many who never graduated because they started working so quickly once they entered my program. Television/Film production is not for the faint of heart. 14 hour days are the norm in every imaginable setting. Watching these students not only learn but thrive within that environment has been remarkable. While times are tough for many right now, they are all still in love with making magic happen behind the scenes. From prop masters to steadicam ops to production coordinators and everything in-between, the Alien Nation is well represented from coast to coast.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Not sure if this fits exactly but this was definitely risky.
My students and I had been doing a good bit of sports programming locally. One day I see an ad needing someone to film television highlights for the NCAA Division One Mens and Women’s Track National Championship in the same state we were located. I love sports and had never been to any kind of national championship event but had no idea what these highlights were. I sent an email and received a call the next day. The first question asked was, are you close to the venue. Even though we were almost six hours away I told him sure we’re in the same state. He said he couldn’t afford the big production houses and just needed someone to fulfill his contract. We agreed on a price that would have me break even for the trip (hotel, gas, food) and off we went. We found out the day we went that we had to film every event each day, edict the winners into a highlight reel and upload via satellite that very night so that news stations around the world could record their local athletes win for their local news. Talk about pressure!!!!! We made the upload window that night with 2 minutes to spare!!!! Talk about a learning experience that opened our eyes and opened more doors. We ended up doing six national championship events over the next four years. No risk. No reward!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Our reputation was built on the backs of every student that I placed on a job. Most started as an intern making no money so any or all of them could have just taken the easy road and not really worked that hard. I made sure before sending them out that the students understood that I was not the path to their professional careers. The people they were going to work for was that path. Make a great impression and the next job will probably be a paid position.
Case in point….. I had six students placed as interns on a mid level Gerrard Butler movie. No pay. Students had to fund their own way to the location, find their own lodging, pay for their own meals. Those six students covered most of the departments on set. Halfway through filming the students were doing such good work the union decided that they had to go because they were doing union level work. After rushing down to set and negotiating all but one student became paid PA’s to meet the unions demands. The television/film world isn’t very big. Once word got out about our program I stopped having to find work because I was getting calls from every major network and film productions around the country. I was in awe of every student then. I am still in awe of my students no matter where they are now.
