Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Blake Vaz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Blake, thanks for joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?
A few years ago, when I finally decided to venture out on my own and start my film and video production company, I was a little insecure about whether I would be able to find a team that had the same vision and passion for our craft.
At that time, I was leaving a director position at an advertising agency. I had almost 10 years of experience managing small to medium teams, but I knew that to grow my business as I envisioned, I had to start by looking for partners in crime.
I never had a true mentor, but I have met incredibly talented people on my journey, some of whom I learned from as much as they were learning from me. I knew I had to put together a team with the same drive, passion, and respect for our craft. Filmmaking is a community process, no ONE person can deliver a quality product, be it a commercial, a social media video, or a feature film. It is a collaborative medium, if correctly done each person and each department should be not only involved in the process but also growing as filmmakers.
As I got my first clients, I realized that the budgets were tiny, so I had to make do with what I had. At that time, it was basically just me and my trusted friend and cinematographer Daniel Gomez. As our clients grew, the budgets grew bigger, and the projects started becoming more complex. We no longer had the bandwidth to do this with a small team, but I was initially worried about the people I was going to be bringing on board. Daniel, myself, and our small group of collaborators had mastered our creative relationship, and we were functioning like a well-oiled machine, I was nervous about bringing teammates who might not fit within the culture or had that same drive and love for what we do.
If there is something I am extremely proud of about my company Valagardo Productions, is that we are constantly being told by our clients that our sets are professional and hard-working, yet they can tell we always have positive energy and vibes, and that makes a HUGE difference, enough that almost every single one of our clients has commented on it.
As the company grew, I also got married. In my wife Violeta I not only found the love of my life and my perfect complement, but I also found a creative, smart, and professional person who immediately fit in my work life as well. Serving as a producer in Valagardo, she has been an integral part of the success of our most recent work. It was a great example of finding someone who is also passionate about what we do, so it was easy for her to fit into the culture because of her love for film.
Our team enjoys working together because we all love what we do and want the final product to reflect that. So, getting the right people was a huge deal for me and for Valagardo. There is a lot of talent in Los Angeles, there are countless filmmakers, creators, crew members, actors, etc. who are excellent at what they do, however, sometimes personalities and work styles simply don’t mesh. I wanted to build a team of people who are not only incredibly talented but who also love what we do just as much as I do.
Once I see that the work style and attitude of a person fits with our culture, I will immediately try to make them a part of the Valagardo family. Not only does my team know they will be working at a company where they can help create award-winning content, but they also know that while our shoot days are demanding they are also always a fun and positive experience.
Most production companies think of the client first, of course, they are obviously the ones keeping us in business, but I always put my team at the same level of importance as my clients. We CANNOT do what we do without any single member of our team. Because of this, I demand the same respect from both sides.
Talent is easy to find, most people in this industry can show you a reel or a portfolio full of amazing work, but the only way you can tell the type of team member they are is by working with them. Most of my team has come from recommendations, but I met a few by accident and ended up hiring as soon as I saw their work ethic and positive attitude. Skills can be learned, but the way a person treats others is hard to change. If you are part of Valagardo I truly consider you family, but I expect you to work just as hard as I do, and believe me, I don’t know anyone who works harder than I do.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am many things, I started my professional career as a software engineer, I am also a musician, and a singer, and have always been a creative person. I moved to Los Angeles, from the borderland of El Paso-Texas/Juarez-Mexico almost 20 years ago, in search of “glory” via my rock band The Mulberry Purple. We had a decent run, but the music industry was changing, and genres were evolving. My love for film and visual media has always been closely tied to my music, and that is how I first started messing around with a camera from a very young age.
Once I entered the corporate world and started as a computer programmer, I quickly realized that I had no true passion for it. So, I decided to pivot. I first moved into the content world when I started working at the LA Times, and from there I quickly shifted my career into the video space, creating content for news media outlets.
Carving a self-made path from the beginning, I started changing the way I saw what I did from a job to a passion, so I decided to go after what I was passionate about. I moved into the ad agency world soon after, where I learned by observing and honestly being thrown into the fire. I threw myself into everything I could, sometimes putting myself in bad situations as I wanted to say yes to everything. Working with the creative, events, accounts, web, digital and production teams. Eager to show my talents I overworked myself constantly. I truly became a producer and director there, and while some of my efforts went unnoticed – as they usually do in the ad world – I left with the best film-set education and trial-by-fire mentality. At the agency, I won an Emmy© Award for a TV Magazine show I produced.
I finally ventured on my own and founded Valagardo Productions in 2016 and haven’t looked back. I am proud to share that my short films have been selected for over 100 festivals and won over 30 awards, and we have produced award-winning content for international brands such as Lexus, Hyundai, Toyota, ESPN, Wells Fargo, Korbel, Coors, and Hennessy, to name a few.
I am proud of where we are now as a company and of the excellent high-quality content and films we produce, sometimes even with major budgetary restrictions, we always make magic happen. Not only does our work speak for itself, but also the relationships we’ve forged with our clients and the incredible team we have been able to put together, I am confident that this is simply the beginning of amazing things to come.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
As most small business owners will tell you, starting from scratch is hard. You must put every single ounce of yourself into your work, especially because at that early stage you might not even have money to hire anyone to help you. My story is no different, not just when it comes to my business but my path in general. I come from a place where the arts are not seen as a great source of income, it’s even looked down upon. As I started my creative career at the age of 15 with my band, the doors closed rapidly, not just from outsiders but from within. Family members and friends questioned my decision to pursue that avenue when I was on the path to becoming an engineer.
I also became a father at a very young age, I was 19 when my daughter Reneé was born and 22 when my son Saúl was born. I was attending college full-time, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in computer science. NOT an easy path at all. I was married, a father of two kids, and working full time. It was hard, and it took a toll on my family, not long after I finally got my degree I also got divorced. I felt like a failure, and felt like I was letting my children down, but at the time the job market was dead in Texas, and the only thing that was going well in my life surprisingly, was my band. I made up my mind that I had to leave town, not only to pursue my music dreams in Los Angeles but also to try my luck as a computer programmer who had recently graduated, in a much larger work market.
Through sheer determination, our little band found some success, and through hard work and support from one another, my bandmates and I moved to a huge city, we didn’t know anyone in town, and we did not know where to start, but we were sure about something, we believed in ourselves and our music. Ultimately, the music dream slowly faded away but not completely. We still make music now for my movies and commercials, and each one of the members of the band has pivoted to a successful career that in one way or another feeds our hunger for creating. We had NO money, we slept in cars, we had to borrow money from each other for gas just so we could go to work. Little by little creating a home, creating a career, and creating a family of like-minded individuals. In my case that came in the form of film and video. The love I’ve had since I was a young kid came back and put me exactly where I was supposed to be. Today I am firmly there, with a small but successful production company, in LA of all places! EVERYONE works in the industry; it is highly competitive. If I told you every detail, every story, every disappointment, every loss, you’d ask me “Why are you still here?”.
The answer is perseverance, belief in myself, and honestly KNOWING that I am talented, that my work has meaning, and that there are like-minded individuals who see the world as I do. That is what makes it all worth it. It might be a small number of people out there that get my work, my art, my creations, but that small group truly GETS IT, and that is extremely satisfying.
This is cheesy but true, like millions of people I am obsessed with Michael Jordan, yes, his game was beautiful to watch, but what I truly admire is his work ethic and determination. I try to follow that example of not giving up, of belief in oneself, and the passion to see your dreams to the end. There is a commercial in which he says, “I have failed over, and over and over again, and that is why I am successful.”
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I’d like to think that I value authenticity and honesty. I am authentic, what you see is what you get. I do what I love, and I am passionate about the work I put out on my social media channels. My work reflects who I am. My goal is obviously to continue to have a successful production company and every job I take on I jump on it with the same passion and determination I put in the movies I write and direct.
I wouldn’t say I have a huge social media following but what I do have is because they are into what I am into. I don’t just post my work, I post about what inspires my work, what inspires my creative world. You get to see my work and why I do what I do. Ultimately, there are many ways one can try to figure out how to grow your audience, via managing tools, and services or diving deep into analytics and demographics. Personally, I prefer organic growth, if you land on my channels or profiles, you either connect with who I am and what my work is about and follow me or you don’t and never come back. I prefer honesty over gimmicks and quality over quantity. Consumers are smart, those who are meant to work with you or follow you will do so, and those are the people I am after.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blakevaz.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/blakevaz
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/blakevaz
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/blakevaz
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/blakevaz
- Other: www.valagardo.com
Image Credits
Blake Vaz. Daniel Gomez Bagby. Violeta Vaz