Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mark Camperell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Mark, thanks for joining us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?
Time away from my business is precious. Figuring out how to do that can sometimes be an exercise in futility. You’ll have plans to get out of town for a few days and a client will emerge from the woodwork with a project that must be completed in that same timeframe. It never fails. Murphy’s Law right? I think the key to surviving these scenarios is to have a crew you can delegate tasks to, that can be trusted by your clients, and that doesn’t need to be micromanaged. Building this type of crew takes time and effort. Ultimately, I still travel with a Pro Tools rig and project materials, just in case I need to step in on something. It’s not that I don’t trust my people, it’s just that you never know what could go wrong. A good vacation is one where I don’t need to use my gear, despite being prepared. This preparation has saved us a couple of times for sure.
One can’t be picky though about what is considered a “vacation.” Sometimes all you get is a day here or a day there or even just a half day. For example, I love baseball and one of the best ways for me to recharge is to go see a ball game. Getting out of the studio for a single day for a ball game can do wonders for my psyche.
For lots of entrepreneurs, stepping away can be difficult. Perhaps you wear all the hats. Perhaps your margins are so thin that you can’t afford to close for even an afternoon. I get it. But here is a recent example I noticed from a business in town. It was a holiday weekend and I went out for some drinks with friends. We agreed to meet at a specific pub in town. When we got there, they were closed! They had a sign on the door that said they were closed because they were in Tahoe for the holiday weekend and they’d be open again the following Tuesday. We thought, who wouldn’t want to be open on a holiday weekend in the restaurant industry? Seems like a real missed opportunity. However, if it allowed the owners/operators/employees a chance to take a break and recharge… why not? They’ll be better suited for the next rush when they’ve had a chance to breathe. That pub has been there for years and people keep going back. They’re obviously doing something right, and as an established favorite in town, a one-weekend-closure isn’t going to take a bite out of their ability to succeed.
Taking a break takes maturity. It takes planning. It takes courage. So many of us get into that go-getter mode of productivity and can’t stop. We’re addicted to the rush. Recognizing you need a breather can be the biggest hurdle. Once you do though, you can plan through (almost) anything the world can throw your way. And if the pandemic taught us anything, its that we shouldn’t put off the things that we want to do. We may never get a chance to do them again.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Mark Camperell, I’m the Founder & Creative Director at Empty Sea Audio. We have a presence in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. I went to college for Business, Music Production and Sound for Film. I studied at Loyola Marymount University under Rodger Pardee who has had a great career as an Educator, Sound Effects Editor and Field Recordist. His passion for the craft really lit a fire beneath me to be curious about sound as a medium for storytelling and not just a technical necessity for motion pictures.
When I graduated, I got an internship at the now defunct Soundelux DMG. The internship turned into a full-time job and I worked there until 2007 when I started Empty Sea Audio. In 2007, I was a casualty of some corporate restructuring and was unfortunately laid off. In trying to figure out what was next I decided to brand my services as a way to appear larger than just a one-person sound company. From there, I enlisted the help of friends and former colleagues to build a small team in order to tackle larger projects and faster turnaround demands. Over time, clients kept coming back and our team evolved into our current roster of talent. At first, we focused on staying lean in order to be able to weather the ups and downs of a new venture. This meant keeping overhead extremely low by not having that latest gear or even a facility. Everyone worked from home or in their own studio spaces.
In 2012, we moved in with a client and had our first studio space. In 2013, we upgraded to an even bigger facility that allowed us to have several team members working together under the same roof along with a larger mix room. When the pandemic hit, we pivoted back to a leaner overhead model. Our lease expired on that facility in 2021 and we let it go, opting to four-wall mix stage spaces for larger projects. This allows us to pay for overhead when we need it and not when we don’t, which has really been instrumental in keeping us afloat all these years.
Our business now consists mostly of full-service sound design and mixing services for Film, TV, Video Games, Commercials, and Virtual Reality. Our model allows our clients to have top quality sound at a price or schedule that works for their project. The projects have kept getting larger and more demanding. We’ve tackled feature films (Wild Boys & Cassidy Red). We’ve done streaming series (Breakwater & The Off Season). Our team members have subcontracted with other companies to provide sound design for major series (The Flash & Legends of Tomorrow being a couple). We’ve even done brand mnemonics for network logos (FXP, FX & FOX Entertainment). We’ve provided Dialog Editorial and Mastering services for AAA Video Game titles (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II & The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom). We’ve been nominated for and won awards, which is always nice. But accolades aren’t really what we’re after. We always have just focused on providing amazing service to our clients.
Our projects have run the gamut of genres and disciplines. We must have proficient knowledge across multiple mediums in order to see our clients’ vision through, and our team members’ experience reflects that. Our varied experiences across these mediums has made us extremely versatile in our industry. It’s also allowed us to survive. When you’re small, you can’t always be choosy about the types of projects that come your way.
I think what sets us apart from other companies is that we take a non-adversarial approach to our work. At the starting-line we tell our clients, “we’re on the same team! You sought us out for a reason. We aren’t here to re-write your story, we’re here to augment it. So lets remain on the same team throughout to make this the best sounding project possible!” When everyone is on the same page, being creative partners rather than simply churning out factory work, projects really can soar and all the stakeholders feel valued and appreciated. Eventually our clients began to seek us out earlier in their process, asking our opinion on the lore behind weapons or how to shoot specific scenes with sound in mind. We’re collaborators. We’re on the same side. When you treat your clients as teammates good things will happen.
As far as what we’re proud of, I think about our longevity. We’ve been around for over 15 years! Some of our team members have been with us the entire time. Others just for a year or two. It’s been a hell of a journey and one that we couldn’t have survived without the efforts of all the people who have come aboard our projects. We’re still here providing the same top shelf quality sound services to our clients. The projects we’ve done? No one can take our names off of those. We’re proud of who we are, where we’ve come from, what we can do, and the fact that we’re still out here doing it!
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
The first few years were tough. I was working on Pro Tools LE, as were most of our team members. We’re talking MBOX’s and 002’s. Very much “prosumer” gear. We weren’t working with big budgets. We didn’t have a facility. I literally had clients sitting on the bed in my bedroom while we did playbacks. Not the glamourous, boutique Hollywood facility I dreamed of. A year in, I took out a small loan. The loan was used to purchase sound libraries, a couple microphones, a budget-friendly field recorder, a ton of plugins, a computer, and our first Pro Tools HD rig.
It took me 6 years to pay back the loan and interest in full. Aside from that, we had no other investments in the business. For years, anything we made that was profit was put right back into the business for new equipment and savings for an office space. 3 years in, I moved to a house where I had a dedicated room for playbacks. No more clients on my bed! 2 years later we were given a chance to share office space with a client in return for a reduced rate on a big project. I thought of that reduced rate as an investment in my sanity. After 5 years of working from my home, I definitely had cabin fever. 18 months later, we moved into a bigger & better space and began paying rent. All that money reinvested in the business came in handy then. We stayed in that space until the pandemic hit and then moved out in late February 2021.
Being responsible with the loan that I took out and then pumping initial successes back into the business set us up for long-term success. It also forced me to take the mindset of, “we’re not trying to win the lottery, we’re trying to grow a business.” I’ve managed to maintain that mindset throughout our existence. It helps to ground our success in reality and allows us to survive the lean times. The pandemic was challenging. The strikes have been also. But adhering to the mantra that’s kept us around for so long is why we’re still here. To me, having cash around for rainy days is better than having a private chef on retainer or a tequila bar in the studio.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
You don’t survive, as long as we have, without organization, focus, good contacts, repeat clients, a talented team, and a good reputation. Part of our reputation is the branding created around Empty Sea Audio. It’s bigger than myself. We’ve always been a team. Having the team has also allowed us to attract talent. I would say that I’m a competent sound designer and re-recording mixer, but I think my core strength is actually assembling teams that are uniquely suited for specific projects. The people that make up our team are all wildly responsible for our success. They are also very talented in individual ways that add strength to the business.
What really seals the deal though is that we have incredible follow-through. When we say we’re going to do something, we do it. We hit our deadlines. We hit our budgets. We find ways to tell our clients’ stories in exciting ways that elevate the experience for the audience. We add value to the clients’ products. None of this would be possible without the team members we have. They are Empty Sea Audio and they are our reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emptyseaaudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emptyseaaudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmptySeaAudio/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empty-sea-audio/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/empty_sea