We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dale Keano. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dale below.
Dale, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
My focus has always been the Asian American Music Scene. My purpose is guaranteeing my community deserves cinematic visuals for their music no matter what the budget is. I’ve gotten really creative at stretching a dollar and figuring out how to accomplish big visions.
We’ve been in business for 8 years now and we’ve created with some of the biggest names – Ruby Ibarra, Dub P, Heartbreaka, Chow Mane, Dane Amar, Yung Jae, and many more. We’ve accumulated over 80 million views on Youtube. Directed by Dale Keano appears on all those.
I bring all this up because the success of these videos has directly allowed most of my clients to level up. Starting in their hometowns and now they are performing all over the world, with their faces all over billboards, streaming off the roof compared to when the started. It fulfills me knowing all our hard work means something.
Dale, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Dale Keano. I’m a Cambodian America music video director based in the bay area. I started from ground zero with no handouts and no access. I learned every hat in the kitchen and became a master in my craft. Everything through youtube and google. No excuses. And every single video was executed to the max, never cookie cutter.
I am most proud for not giving up. That somehow my passion aligned with helping my community. Along with all the traveling and milestones that has happened, cheers to chasing dreams!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I first started, I only knew how to make beats. I jumped the cliff. Quit my secure high paying 9-5 and dove right into it. Opened up my studio doors and within the first month of business, I immediately came with the realization – no one likes my beats and they can get cheap ones from online beatmakers. So i had to adapt.
While networking with musicians all over, I kept hearing that everyone needed visuals for their music. I love to learn so I dropped $30K in one day on camera gear – not having any prior experience at all. The learning began. Worked on “portfolio buiding” aka “free work” for a good year just to get my name out and get better and better. That was probably the toughest year of my life. Barely making ends meet, shout out to my wife and family for supporting me.
Wasnt able to pay any bills. Toyota called to threaten and take my car back. Verizon closing my service. Internet shut down on us randomly. But eventually it all worked out.
Yung Jae came to with a video concept for his hit single “Feel Like”. It was alignment for not giving up. Every video I worked on brought me to this oppurtinity. It hit 5 million views in the first month and since then every single asian american musician reached out to me. The rest was history.
Can’t tell you how many times I prepared my resume and my wife reminded me to stick through it all.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Entitlement. Good things take time. You have to learn, fail, and get better. Persistency is key.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://burgundysuite.com
- Instagram: @dalekeano
- Youtube: @BurgundySuiteTV
Image Credits
Kevin Ha