Speaking and Communicating Podcast

>> Speaker A: Selling, like true sales, is storytelling. In order to clarify why this is such a beautiful solution to something that you have shown is a conflict or a problem or an obstacle, welcome back.

>> Speaker B: To the speaking and communicating podcast. I am your host, Robert Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify.

>> Speaker C: And leave us a reading and a review.

>> Speaker B: Now let's get communicating.

James Patrick O'Malley is a communications expert and filmmaker

Now, let's get communicating with James Patrick O'Malley. He is in Brazil, but he's an american joining us today with over 30 years in the filmmaking industry, and he is currently a communications expert. Well, he's been helping with communication in 30 years, too. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hey, James.

>> Speaker A: Hello, Roberta. How are you today?

>> Speaker B: I'm doing fantastic. Good to see you. How are you?

>> Speaker A: Thank you. I'm exceptional. Thank you. And it is such a pleasure and honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I know we've had some chats before, and it's always wonderful to speak with you. So this is going to be great.

>> Speaker B: It's going to be great indeed. Thank you, James. And it's my pleasure to have you on the show today. When you say exceptional, um, not many people say I'm exceptional. When you ask them how you are. So this is really good.

>> Speaker A: Yes, I'm exceptional. The idea is, the more you say you're exceptional, the more exceptional you actually are. Right? It's the feeling, uh. It's kind of like that idea of standing in front of the mirror and saying, I love you, I love you. I love you to yourself. Right? At first, if you don't have that habit or that regular practice, it's inside you're thinking, oh, wow. Yeah, I know. But, I don't know, maybe. Am I?

>> Speaker B: It's kind of weird.

>> Speaker A: It's kind of weird. But after a while, it's pretty amazing. So, yes, being exceptional is great. And it's also a wonderful way to meet people for the first time. Because most people, whether you know them or not, and you say, so, how are you? And they come back with, oh, I'm fine. Um, I'm okay. I'm good. And they're like, how are you? And if you say I'm exceptional, they go, that's a first.

>> Speaker B: Is it possible?

>> Speaker A: Are you pulling my leg?

>> Speaker B: Right. But it's so important what you're saying, though, because we're going to talk about communication. And before I ask for your background, all communication starts from within. No?

>> Speaker A: Yeah, it does. And it's interesting because that whole idea of, uh, being able to perceive the words that want to come out and know over time in practice, whether or not those words that come out are going to be words you're really thrilled about having come out of your mouth, or if they're words that, uh, you second guess or you're unsure about. And so that whole practice, the training, the practice, and it's not practicing how to say hi, but the practice of being really specific about which words you want to be in your daily vocabulary has this huge impact immediately, and even more so over time, on, um, actually how people feel about hearing those words that come out of your mouth, regardless of the subject, whether it's positive or.

>> Speaker B: Negative, which is, like we said, it's a part of the whole communication industry, so to speak.

Communication is about decision making, says film director David Zuckerman

So before we get into that, please give us your background.

>> Speaker A: Well, as you said, I'm in Brazil right now, Rio de Janeiro. That's because I'm a dual national Brazilian American. I was born in the United States. I grew up in the midwest. Milwaukee, to be exact. I've lived in Chicago, I've lived in California, and, uh, I have lived down in Brazil. And, uh, Brazil was the first place that I actually worked on a feature film when I was a teenager. We were living down here in 1978. I'm dating myself, and I got invited by a, uh, fast friend that I made who was part of the cast of the film Savage Harvest. We're in lions Attack, which was supposed to be shot in Africa, actually, which is interesting because you are from the.

>> Speaker B: We've got the lions. Yes.

>> Speaker A: Yeah. And Tom Skerritt and Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papa state had an awesome cast, had an awesome crew of veterans. And when they finally were going to start filming the scenes in Africa with the lions, they were about to bring the lions that were all trained, that were in the United States into Africa, and the government said, no, can't repatriate lines into Africa. Not allowed at this time. So I said, what terrain, what geography? Looks like Africa. And they ended up literally just outside of Rio de Janeiro, in the mountains out of the city of Rio de Janeiro. And that's how I got to meet them. And once I worked on that film, it was a mix of everything, because I grew up drawing, I grew up doing photography and actually darkroom photography and black and white and color processing and printing. And so I had that artistic background already, and my parents were teachers, my mom a pianist. So there's music in the house. And so when I got to work on a film, that was the mix of every possible artistic thing and fantastic because it was so exotic feeling to me. So I knew at that moment that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in film. And in a broader sense, I wanted to be in communication. And because films are storytelling, they're communication. So when we went back to the states, I tried everything possible to get into film. And living in Milwaukee, it was kind of a small community at that time, so it was difficult. It took time. But I finally did get a break and started working commercials and working in, uh, corporate. So a lot of advertising, a lot of marketing, a lot of communication, and started working on feature films and lighting and moved my way up. So when I started my production company in the states about 35 years ago, I started producing and then started directing and basically did that so I could be one of the people making decisions. Because as a crew member, so many people have so much trouble making decisions. That's what I found. And today, as a communicator jumping to today, I think that that's one of the things that I feel is so important to help people with in the process of learning how to communicate better, it's learning how to make decisions better, because communication is a series of on the go, run and gun decisions. What is coming out of my mouth, and how is that going to color me in this environment, in this group of people, or in this large space? If I'm working with a team, how are those words going to validate what I have to say? Are going to embrace the people on the team so they feel like they are acknowledged and we are grateful for their presence. And yet, at the same time, you're trying to communicate something that enables them to exceed their own expectations. And hopefully, as a team, exceed the client's expectations, the boss's expectations, or even at home, exceed your wife's expectations or your husband's expectations. Right. So it is about decision making. I think communication is decision making because you decide what's coming out that hasn't.

>> Speaker B: Been articulated that way before. And we probably have talked about those parts of communication. But to actually say it is decision making is quite interesting, because a lot of the time, we think only leaders or somebody, yeah, somebody who leads a team makes the decisions. But I'd like for us to expand on that. Whatever station you're in and the way you communicate, to have made that decision, to say what comes out of your mouth, I think that's that. If you can just expand, expand on that, that's an interesting perspective.

>> Speaker A: And it's interesting that you said, thank you for that. It's interesting, you said about leaders and leadership, because leadership is also a decision. You could be an assistant, and I'll use filmmaking for an example. There are many people that have worked in filmmaking or have experienced a filmmaking set, and they see the production assistants running around doing all the things, getting the coffee for people, and they think, oh, that's the grunt work. That's the guy that's going to do this grunt work and the dirty work so other people can sit in their chairs and make decisions. No, the assistant is critical because that assistant can decide to be a leader and become a person that is going to exceed the expectations of the people around him and make the ability to succeed on the set even greater. And so, just like in an office space, you know, it could be the male guy. The male guy can decide to be a leader and exceed expectations. And it's not a leader in the sense, the misguided sense that he's going to go and tell people how they should open their mail or how they should sort it or how they should even do their own job. No, he's going to be a leader because he's going to demonstrate this ability to be so present, so pleasant, so grateful, and so precise, and so wonderful, so exceptional that everyone around them is going to be, wow, I can't wait till I get the mail. I can't wait till I get the mail.

>> Speaker B: Because of how he does it. Not just that. Um, I'm a mailman. I deliver mail. But the exceptional part, as you said, because wherever you are, are you exceptional in that? So you think that's displaying the leadership characteristics?

>> Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. I believe so. I mean, it's easy for someone to say. I could say, oh, as a director or a producer. Ah, leadership and assistant's not leading anything. Yeah, I'm the leader. I'm the decider. This was me that made this happen. And, uh, I'm the one that called them to come work on this so that they could get me coffee and all that. Well, that guy's not even a leader because his mentality isn't that of a leader. The leader would be, if we don't have coffee, how's the client going to be smiling in front of the monitor? He's going to be like, where's my freaking coffee? How do you execute.

The definition of leadership is finding the flow of an issue

What's the value of the investment? Let's say it's a five, uh, hundred thousand dollars commercial that you're doing for a big brand, and you just have one day to do it. If everybody on that crew of commercial like that, you probably have a crew of 70, 80 cast of 2030, got 100 plus people going, plus all the vendors outside of the actual shoot day, you have all of this money on the line, maybe 300,000. That 500,000 will flow out on that very day. Every single person needs to be there. 110%. They need each be a leader.

>> Speaker B: Mhm.

>> Speaker A: And so for me, the definition of leadership isn't who's the guy I'm going to turn to, and I'm not quite sure what to do. Well, if you're not sure what to do, you should be surrounded by people that know what to do. And if you're there and you don't know what to do, and you think like a leader, you're going to figure out how to get it done, you.

>> Speaker B: Know how to find the answer, you know where to look for it, or how to look for it, or how to find the answer. It doesn't mean you have all the answers already, but you know where to look for them.

>> Speaker A: No, I never have all the answers, but I love finding them.

>> Speaker B: Yes.

>> Speaker A: Right. And that's also part of the joy of everything from filmmaking, from working on movie sets to commercial sets, to all of these things. As well as working in post production, as well as working one on one with a, uh, client that I'm coaching that's going to go to another country and give a presentation with English as a second language. They're going to give a presentation at a major conference that is a huge international conference. M. And there's everything riding on it. He's never given that presentation before, and we've never addressed these issues before. The beauty of it is being exceptional in the moment of discovering together, what is that opening, what is that flow that will enable them to go to that foreign country, be jet lagged, be with people they don't know, be up on a stage in front of 750 eager eyes. Also, peers like professionals that have expertise, and how is he going to flow in a way that makes them go, wow, how incredible. So being with someone and trying to figure out ways to enable them to find it. Because it's not about me at that point, because I can't say, hey, huh? You just do this. And then they go there and, well, that didn't come from them. It has to come from them, just like an actor on a stage, you have to, as a director or producer or assistant director, you have to find the flow point for them to be their very best. And it's not telling them how to do a line. It's not telling them how to hit a mark. It's giving them the flexibility and the opening, the creative opening, for them to just allow themselves to bring their best to the screen or bring their best to the stage. And to me, that's amazing, because, number one, it's humbling, because I know that I'm not the one that's doing it, but if he succeeds or she succeeds, I can feel incredible, because they've succeeded, because they found the opening, and that opening they'll take with them for the rest of their life as they find other openings for other events, for other challenges. And to me, that's the most amazing part of working with people, one on one or in a mass group or as a team, is getting everyone to know that they matter and that they are the one that has a solution. And if they need to find another way to do it, we're here to support them.

>> Speaker B: That's what, uh, leadership is, certainly. And it's funny you mentioned those who go to other countries, different culture, different language. When I taught in South Korea as well, that used to be the challenge of the worry of, do I speak perfect English? If I go and present in America to my american colleagues, will they. And you are so brilliant, that's not even going to be an issue. And I feel like that sometimes those coming from those backgrounds have this pressure that they need to speak perfectly. And I tell them all the time, we don't speak perfect English. We grew up. We don't. We butcher it all the time. So that's not what. But they need to find that flow, as you said.

There are two different ways to tell a story in advertising and marketing

And speaking of advertising and marketing, would you like to explain to us what is the process like of crafting the story, the message? Because we talk about storytelling a lot.

>> Speaker A: Well, usually it falls under the purview of the advertising agency, especially when it's a, uh, larger project with a bigger budget. Typically, the client already has an agency that's going to do it. And so there will be teams, and there will be. There are two different ways to go about. And these days, the latter, which is unscripted storytelling, has become more popular with reality shows. And the number of ways that we can see people simply express themselves on the fly with social media, because these days, the selfie, the, oh, I'm here. And this and the more people have this ability to just let it out and let their personality carry the story and know their subject enough so that they can craft the words enough to be engaging and all of that, it's coming to the point where that's trumping the crafted script. Now, obviously feature films, novels, books, whether they're creative books or technical books, those all require time and thought compared to a reality show because you are trying to carry the audience very specifically from line to line. Cinematography in those narrative disciplines, literally, the cinematographer is also using light, camera position, lens angle. Uh, there are so many aspects of it that will help give that audience exactly what they need to know. Because the idea in a narrative situation is to lead the people step by step to a certain place very, very creatively, very carefully. And so a, uh, script in that sense for advertising, getting back to your original question or request, a script for advertising is not only telling a story might be a comedy script, it might be a little more technical, trying to show you in 30 seconds why you should buy this product. But that requires additional depth. Because in order for the people to act to be activated these days, it's called an activation to get someone to do something. So in order to get them activated, the story has to be tied to the spine of the brand, the company's brand. Because the act of a commercial isn't only for you, let's say a car. It's not just for you to buy that model of car from that year, but it's for you to identify the style, the visual feel, the emotional feel, the slickness as well. Because some commercials can be really simple, some can be really complex and really slick, really perfect and glossy. That is going to influence your perception of the brand. And so making a movie, it's about the movie, it's about the story, it's about taking you down a path and getting you to look exactly where you need to look. So you do or don't understand where you are at specific moments for specific reasons. The commercial wants you to get through the 30 seconds or the 60 seconds and to not only know about that product, but to more importantly, embed deeper into your subconscious that this brand represents. This feeling I got from this feeling.

>> Speaker B: As well, which is what we talk about when, when you make a presentation that make your audience feel a certain way. So there's that parallel from what you just said.

>> Speaker A: Exactly.

>> Speaker B: Mhm.

>> Speaker C: Exactly.

>> Speaker A: And it's 30 seconds. It's fast. If you're sitting in front of a commercial that you don't like or you're dying to get back to the show. It seems like it takes forever, but 30 seconds is really fast. It's 900 frames at 30 frames per second. So as an editor, um, 900 frames. So I have 900 frames to work with. And you lose some, usually at the beginning and the end if you're fading in and fading out. So you're somewhere around 900 frames in a 30 frame per second commercial to get across, hopefully an idea that sells products, but also embeds deeper in the person's subconscious, the way that they should feel, so that the next time they see it, they feel it even deeper and even deeper and even deeper. It's a repetition and repetition, like in music, like african music and brazilian music, there's a lot of repetition in the rhythms and the beats, because that breeds transcendence. So in advertising, if you're able to repeat over and over and over again a precisely crafted thing that has a precisely crafted result, that breeds a transcendence, that becomes a subconscious reaction. So when you see the Nike swoosh, it's like, oh, Nike, you don't need to think about it. It's there, one frame of it, and it's registered there. It's a very different way of storytelling than even a corporate film or unscripted. And I've done a lot of unscripted where I've had a client come and say, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do, and I don't have an ad agency, but I need to tell this story, but there's really not a script. And so in those instances, often I'll do a deep dive with them on what are the things that we want to show? What are the things that you want to show? Let's look at all of our resources that we have, and then we will literally go and just capture everything possible. And when people are involved or animals are involved in Mother Nature is involved. There's one on my website that was, we're filming a, one of, uh, Frank Lloyd Wright's houses, and it's down in Phoenix, Arizona. And it had been rescued by a developer. He rescued it from another developer that wanted to tear it down and build a big development. And it's one of his famous designs. It's a circular house, so it looks like a dragon circling, and it was positioned in the cardinal points so that the center of the house was a sundial. So the sun would rise and it would do a sundial, and so you could tell the time of year, and the sundial would tell you the time throughout the year. Really just gorgeous. And of course, like Frank Lloyd Wright, the furniture is wooden, and it's built into the wooden frame. And it was really amazing. And they wanted to make a documentary, but they didn't yet have the money for the documentary, and they didn't yet have the money to fully build out a museum that they were going to put in there with a cinema in there, a theater to show films and entertain kids and talk about Frank Lloyd Wright and all that. So they want to do a trailer. They had money, they had an idea, but they didn't have a script. So I went down there with three key people of mine, a guy that did drone helicopter work, like large drone helicopter work before everyone had a drone, and another cameraman and myself. And we went down there, and we spent three days shooting everything possible. And at night, I would shoot nighttime lapses with stars passing, but incorporating the house in there. Daytime lapses, drone footage from above. It's just. It turned out gorgeous. There's no narrative story to it, but it represented the emotion of what they wanted you to feel is the awe of being in this space. So we were able to get incredible footage even during one of our timelapse, uh, shooting a storm came through. So you saw the storm come through. And one of the people involved with the project is a composer, so he did original music with storm, and it ended up telling the story that was way beyond what any of us knew would occur. We could not have created a more. With. Without a script and without a lot more resources, we could not have created what ended up being. And that's one of the things that I think is so fantastic about filmmaking communicating is what is going to occur. And do we have the wisdom to step back and allow divine intervention to provide us with all of the magic things that we need in order to come up with something that is beyond what we could have created with our limited resources and our limited size team. And it ended up being just spectacular. The client was thrilled to death with the result. It was because we just let it roll and got out of the way and allowed. I know it's divine intervention. The flow is there, and the idea is to allow it to occur so that later in post production, that's where you start to craft the story. Once you gather all the footage, you get as much material as you can and you craft the story with that. Whereas with a feature film, you want to shoot as little as possible to completely tell that script. And this angle is going to be here, like the filmmakers with the greatest experience. They don't shoot six cameras, all shooting with different focal lengths at the same time, to try to get all a ton of footage to deal with in post. This is going to be a close up. This one's going to be a two shot. Maybe I'll continue the whole take because I'll do several two shots out of this where I'll have the two, the protagonist, and the antagonist, together in the shot. But filmmakers, uh, like Clint Eastwood is the uber example, which is one take.

>> Speaker B: One take.

>> Speaker A: There's a technical issue. That's why Warner brothers will give him any film he wants to make. They'll finance any film he wants to make, because he makes every film under budget, under schedule, and it ends up doing box office because he literally, he.

>> Speaker B: Doesn'T say cut the entire time.

>> Speaker A: One take. One take.

Some directors believe the best expression is going to occur in the first take

He'll go to the next angle because he knows I'm, um, the protagonist that's talking about the thing to the person. I know. I want it like that.

>> Speaker C: Roll.

>> Speaker A: And then you deliver your line. Even if you flub the line or you don't feel a star doesn't feel like he's done his best thing. Can I do another? Can I get another one? No. You want to waste everyone's time, literally. There are anecdotes of him saying to stars, Matt Damon was one of his films. You want to waste everybody's time here. Now, uh, moving on.

>> Speaker B: Masterpieces, though. But they don't do many takes until there's a perfect way of saying the line and everything. How is that possible?

>> Speaker A: Well, there are people that want to keep trying and want to keep trying and want to keep trying. There are also directors that believe that the best actual real expression is going to occur in the first take.

>> Speaker B: Uh, authenticity.

>> Speaker A: Now, in my experience of doing many commercials, hundreds of commercials, as well as corporates, and I've done over a thousand projects over my career, either directing, producing, editing, supporting. It's the first take or the last take. And we've had clients have gone, let's do another one.

>> Speaker B: Let's do another one.

>> Speaker A: Like, well, when we were shooting 35 millimeter motion picture film, we would say to them, look, we only have this much film here, so if you keep doing other ones, we're going to not have enough film to complete the day. Nowadays, it's way easier to say, let's do another one, because we have little cards, you know, cards for saving the digital file. And they're big and they're fast, and so they can go on and on and on. But in the days of film, the film was counted.

It depends on the actor. For me, there have been actors that get better

>> Speaker B: What do you think changes from first take to, okay, let me just keep repeating it and think I'm doing better. What do you think is a little special about that first take?

>> Speaker A: I think it depends on the actor. For me, there have been actors that have gotten better and better and better for one reason or another. And oftentimes they're actors that are maybe real people. Maybe together with your professional actors, you're shooting with either kids that don't have that much experience or you're working with someone. If you're shooting something that maybe involves a, uh, corporate executive or in some instances, you'll, you'll have one actor, but you need someone that looks like their mother, and their mother's gonna come to the door and smile, but their mother is a mother. It's a real person. Real person. Some people call them civilians.

>> Speaker B: But do you think, like, for instance, sorry to interrupt you, James. Like, the reason Clint Eastwood likes those first takes. Do they feel more authentic, more real, rather than when you just now trying to be perfect? I'm trying to be perfect. Let me do the 10th time. Is that the reason?

>> Speaker A: I think it's both. He, he comes from an old school, like he did the Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns. And at that point in time, those were smaller budgets. I mean, there were big films done, ambitious films done with smaller budgets. And so the footage count, as you call it, the footage of the film you're rolling is always an issue. The footage count, always an issue. And so for him, as a filmmaker, he probably knows, look, I've got professional actors. I've got top crew. I've got only so many days, and I've got only so much film. I can do one take because let's not waste everybody's time. That's because doing ten takes isn't going to be the difference between whether it wins or not.

>> Speaker B: Make the movie better than before.

Every day is storytelling, right? Everything we do is storytelling

Uh, before you go, please just give us, if somebody wants to prepare a presentation or they want to, the storytelling part, what would be one tip you could share with them? Because a lot of the work you've done in over three decades involves storytelling.

>> Speaker A: Yes. Well, every day is storytelling, right? Everything we do from when we get up in the morning and try to get what we want or explain something to a client or explain something to a child or to family, uh, it's selling and storytelling. And selling is not selling. Like, I'm going to force you into believing that you need something you don't. Selling, like true sales, is storytelling in order to clarify why this is such a beautiful solution to something that you have shown is a conflict or a problem or an obstacle. So storytelling is that advertising, in its best sense, is storytelling in order to show you how we can solve your problem or your issue that you're trying to solve, whether that's with our new product or whether that's with our service or whatever that is. And so storytelling and sales are together. In fact, the greatest salesmen, especially the modern sales people, you know, the Alex Hormozis, and there's a long list of top notch salespeople these days that have redefined selling, or at least have clarified selling. And it's storytelling. And it's storytelling. It's asking questions to find out really what is the problem, and then storytelling to show how this is the solution. The storytelling elucidates, it clarifies the solution. So storytelling needs to be relevant. It needs to be relevant to the audience. And in the sense that I could go to Europe and try to tell a story, especially with a joke in English, to someone who speaks another language, where the translation of the joke doesn't.

>> Speaker B: Work, it won't land. Yes, I'm multilingual as well. I've tried to say something as well. And then when my english friends said, that sounds funny, please, can you tell it to me? It just doesn't land the same. Exactly. Yes, it needs to be relevant.

James Patrick O'Malley is the communications expert behind Carnaval Pictures

Thank you so much, James Patrick O'Malley, for being here today. The communications expert with over three decades of filmmaking experience. Would you like to share your socials or your website before you go?

>> Speaker A: The easiest one to remember would be my LinkedIn, which is James Patrick O'Malley altogether O'malley. And, uh, my company is Carnaval Pictures. Carnaval? Like in Brazil. C A r n A v a l pictures. And I'd love to see you come by to say hi.

>> Speaker B: Uh, James Patrick O'Malley. Thank you so much for being on the show. This has been so much fun.

>> Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. It's been an honor and a pleasure, as always. Like I said before, it's super fun talking with you.

>> Speaker B: My absolute pleasure, James.

>> Speaker C: Thank you for joining us on the speaking on communicating podcast. Once again, please log on to Apple and Spotify. Leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on the show that will be of benefit to you. We encourage you to continue to get communicating and let us know how communication skills continue to improve your life professionally and personally. And stay tuned for more episodes to come.