We recently connected with Joshua Browne and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Joshua , thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
Without the support of my Mother and Grandmother, there was no way for me to enter the video production industry. I started filming when I was 12 years old by total accident. On a cold January morning, my grandmother surprised me with a wonderful birthday fly lesson surprise, a two-seater Cessna 152. She purchased a small, inexpensive camcorder from Walmart to commemorate the flight. It was love at first sight when I got that camera in my hand. The flight lessons fell by the wayside, but my passion for film continued to grow as my tape collected grew to hundreds of tapes. I was obsessed with how worlds could be created and stories told with a bit of creativity. Without their investment, support, and encouragement to keep going while I was in the difficult phase of mastering my craft, I didn’t have the resources and access to information on this field to keep going.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I got into the film production industry by total happenstance. Like many teens, I was interested in all sorts of things. Everything from archeology, architecture, and marine biology, I was interested in it all. However, none of these felids could harness and focus my ADHD / dyslexic mind. However, once I got a film camera in my hand for the first time, everything changed for me. It felt like magic. I’ve always wanted to be a showman but was too shy to get on stage to be one. Film allowed me to express myself, let my voice be heard, and be vulnerable, and was the only thing that could wrangle my hyperactive mind. I could sit down for hours engulfed in creating films, and the time would just instantly fly by.
Mike Cruise, who owned one of the largest film production companies in Birmingham, Alabama, where I lived at the time, introduced me professionally to the film production industry. I made a list of Birmingham’s top 5 production companies right after graduating high school at around 17 years old. I visited these 5 production companies and told them I was doing a school project on film production. Because I was so young and they believed my little fib, many of these owners were willing to give me advice on the business. But one, in particular, took a special liking to me and what I was doing, and that was Mike. He saw right through the school project thing and asked me what I really wanted to do, and I told him the truth that I was doing research for starting my own film production company. He immediately took me under his wing. He gave me my first professional project, showed me how to create an invoice and contract, and even gave me my first professional editing system. All he asked was that I pay it forward, and when I hit it big to do that business with him, and we shook on that.
I’ve been in the film production industry professionally since 1999, and my projects have taken me as far as India. KAIOS Production is a full-service video production company providing high-quality production services to clients globally. We offer a wide range of video production services like video editing, commercials, online videos, social media content, documentaries, product showcases, live events, training videos, motion graphics, 4k video production, equipment rental, stock footage, and studio rental to video production professionals. We’ve worked with entertainment, government, and business clients globally.
What makes KAIOS Productions unique is our focus on what may seem like old-school customer service. Taking time to connect with clients to understand their specific business needs and help them communicate them visually. We aren’t a high volume business which allows us to take a more hands-on approach with clients. Typically after each project is completed, we receive likes on our personal Facebook pages because people enjoy their experience of connecting and working with real people.
Although we are a smaller production company, we offer clients a first-class online project tracking solution. Each client receives a user portal that allows them to track the progress of their projects throughout the various stages of production. They can also make payments online, review contracts, request consultations and request additional video content, all from their personalized user portal. Clients stay in the know about their projects via their user portal on the go from any mobile devices.
Our primary goal with KAIOS Productions is to provide clients with a one-stop-shop for all their video needs at a price within reach for large and small businesses. We work tirelessly to get to the emotional core of what we visually communicate to our client’s customers. We want to leave our customers with timeless pieces that they can use and get value from for many years to come.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Client referrals have been the primary way we get new clients. Our goal is to provide customers with an experience worth sharing. Typically we don’t even have to ask for a referral. When people are excited about an experience, they automatically feel compelled to share that experience with someone they know. One of our clients sent us 5 paid referrals. You want clients to become brand ambassadors for your business. Doing the work and meeting the contractual obligations is one thing, but it’s when you take the extra steps to keep clients in the loop on their project, educating clients on the process, managing expectations, underpromising and overdelivering, and making a genuine connection with them, that will garner that compulsory review and referral.
We also make sure to offer incentives for clients who send referral business our way by providing service discounts and, in some cases, even free service. We have the 3 and free referral rewards program where if a client sends us 3 paid clients, your next project is free.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
My first professional project was a multi-camera shoot for a traveling ballerina show. This live event had been on the road for an entire year traveling all over the US. This was their final show of this year-long tour, and they were giving it all they had at this packed-out show. We had three cameras rolling, and we were so excited to finally be in the big leagues.
After the show ended, we went back to our studio to review the footage for editing. Still riding high from a show well done, or so we thought. As the footage began to roll, I asked my friend and co-founder of the company Kenton Kennedy, to turn up the volume on the editor. All we hear is static. We switched out the tape to see if maybe the other cameras had audio, and to our dismay, not one camera had any audio. We were in shock and total disbelief. How could this happen? All I could think about was Mike Cruise, who was my mentor and gave us this job being angry at me and never working with us again.
Rewind back to the show, and we made a rooky mistake by plugging our cameras into the venue’s mixing board and blindly trusting that the audio technician was actually sending audio to our cameras. We didn’t check because we saw the digital level lights on the mixing board moving up and down.We didn’t know that just because you see the level lights moving on the audio board, we still needed to do a test and listen to the audio to verify that audio was being sent to the cameras.
Reluctantly I had to call the client and meet her in the Hobby Lobby parking lot to tell her what happened and to give her her money back. She was livid! She cursed me and snatched the money out of my hand, speeding off in disgust. I was so upset and just knew that I had it coming from Mike probably even worst.
I brought back the equipment we had rented from Mike and told him what happened and braced myself; but to my surprise, he said GREAT! Now you’ve learned and will never do that again! I couldn’t believe it!He explained that it happens to everyone at least once and not to beat myself up for an honest mistake. Without hesitation, he says ready for your next project! We where on our next project within 24 hours and haven’t stoped since.
Mike Cruise was right; I’ve never once recorded without audio again to date and was a lesson for me in being thorough and not to be to hard on yourself. Learn the lesson and keep marching forward.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kaiospro.com
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/kaiospro
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/kaiosproductions
- Other: https://vimeo.com/kaiospro