Brett Winn: From Film School to Theatrical Marketing Visionary

Episode Description

In this episode, we explore the inspiring career of Brett Winn, a filmmaker, cinephile, and marketing powerhouse. After graduating from Ithaca College, Brett left New Jersey behind and headed to Los Angeles, where he built an impressive career working with entertainment giants like FX, FOX, Disney, and more.

Brett’s creative journey includes co-directing the award-winning indie film My Date With Drew, one of the most profitable films ever made on a shoestring budget. As co-founder of The Refinery and now partner and Executive Creative Director at RAVE Collective, Brett has spent nearly 30 years crafting groundbreaking marketing campaigns for major studios, networks, and streaming platforms.

In this episode, we cover:
πŸŽ₯ Brett’s transition from filmmaker to creative marketing leader
πŸ’Ό The evolution of his career and building successful businesses
🎸 His passion for music and performing with his band, Aspen
πŸš— Fun facts about his car obsession (he’s owned over 50!)
πŸ† Lessons on perseverance, teamwork, and leadership

Whether you’re a creative professional, entrepreneur, or movie enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights, inspiration, and fascinating stories from behind the scenes of Hollywood and beyond. 🎧

#AgencySidePodcast #EntertainmentMarketing #Filmmaking #CreativeLeadership #MarketingInnovator #InspirationForCreatives

Episode Outline and Highlights

[05:58] The Transition from Production Assistant to Creative

[11:52] Career Growth and Pivotal Moments

[17:55] Navigating the Creative Industry

[26:35] The Magic of Collaboration in Music Production

[40:47] The Passion for Cars and Personal Stories

[48:47] Exploring AI's Role in Creative Industries

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Brett Winn: From Film School to Theatrical Marketing VisionaryBrett Winn: From Film School to Theatrical Marketing Visionary

Today's Guest

Brett Winn

Chief Executive Officers

Brett Winn is a filmmaker at heart and a true cinephile. He graduated from Ithaca College and immediately left New Jersey in his rearview mirror and headed out west to Los Angeles. Brett has worked at FX, FOX BROADCASTING, STUDIO CITY, TRAILER PARK and DISNEY as VP of Creative Film Services before opening the doors of The Refinery in 2008. In 2003, Brett co-directed and edited the award-winning, fan favorite film, My Date With Drew. The film was released theatrically in 2005 and given it’s $1100 budget, is listed as one of the most profitable films (clearly only based on percentages). Today, he is a partner and executive creative director at RAVE Collective, a Los Angeles based entertainment marketing agency. He’s president elect of the Los Angeles chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and recorded in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America 2023-2024. He brings nearly 3 decades of award-winning experience writing, producing, editing and directing marketing materials for every major studio, network, cable provider and streaming service and has worked directly with Tom Cruise, Stephen Speilberg, David O. Russell and numerous others. After 16 years of hard work and perseverance, he could not be more proud of his amazing team, his incredible roster of clients and the incredible work we get to collaborate on. Interesting facts about Brett: β€’ He’s from the same city as his greatest hero: Rocky β€’ Brett plays lead guitar in an original band, Aspen, opening for big acts like Berlin, Marshall Tucker Band, Ambrosia, Dokken, The Motels and numerous others. β€’ Brett is a huge car nut and has owned over 50 cars in his lifetime.

Episode transcript

Justin Levinson (00:00.701)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm here today with Brett Nguyen, who is a leader in the theatrical marketing world for many a year, running successful AV departments and now is the owner, CEO of Rave Collective. And I'm happy to have him here today. Thank you so much, Brett.

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Brett Winn (00:19.49)

Thank you for having me on. I'm excited. This is always fun to talk about.

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Justin Levinson (00:23.581)

We're gonna end our call with dueling guitars and see who can.

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Brett Winn (00:26.318)

Yes! Yeah, we'll to do a little Hotel California solo. What do you think?

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Justin Levinson (00:30.525)

Totally. But yeah, man, I'm so happy to chat with you. I obviously, I've seen your, you know, I've seen your work, as well as, you know, followed, you know, a lot of your career. So I'm excited to speak with you. So I guess we'll just get right into it. How did you get into this wonderful world of creative advertising, entertainment marketing?

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Brett Winn (00:52.238)

And the same in marketing. By accident, like most people. You know, I went to film school in Ithaca, New York, at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. And I moved out right after graduation and desperately tried to find a job. I wanted to be a filmmaker and a director. But I found a job at FX Networks. They had just launched FX Networks. I think there's like 12 people in all of FX.

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Justin Levinson (00:57.917)

Yep.

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Brett Winn (01:18.062)

and I got a job as a production assistant in the on-air promotions department. And at the time I didn't know what an on-air promo was, but I was excited to work and excited for the job. And the greatest part about getting in at a network that was brand new like that is everybody had a voice in the room. So if we sat in a room and we were talking about, we'll make a great 30 second spot, there was only eight people in the room and I was one of them. And so everybody was given an opportunity to speak.

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and I used it as an opportunity to learn the craft and learn what went into it. And it actually really excited me. In fact, what excited me most was that that was the path towards trailers at the time, right? For me, it was always about the movies and about trailers. so promos were like mini trailers, you know? And that kind of lit the fire.

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Justin Levinson (02:04.219)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (02:08.199)

What did you study when you were at Ithaca? What was your major there? Cool.

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Brett Winn (02:12.074)

Film and television. Yeah, I actually went to Ithaca College because on the tour they said we could get our hands on the equipment day one. And I know that like NYU and some other schools, you were doing film theory for the first two years before you ever touched a piece of equipment. And I was always that guy. I just hands on, even growing up like in high school, I would use my dad's eight millimeter camera and then hook up two VCRs together with pause, play, record to edit, you know.

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Justin Levinson (02:37.299)

That's cool. And I'm sure it was beautiful out there in Ithaca too.

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Brett Winn (02:41.102)

for five months out of the year. was gorgeous. And then the other half was freezing. Yeah, yeah.

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Justin Levinson (02:43.987)

Yeah, then the other half was freezing. Yeah, well, let you on a little secret. I'm actually in, I'm in Shelburne, Vermont. So it's a little outside of Burlington right now. So I know a thing or two about freezing my nuggies off here for half the year. It's, February's are bleak, but we lived in LA for a long time. you know, I have had some solace from the brutal Northeast weather for a while till now I've returned to it.

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Brett Winn (03:11.872)

Yeah, I graduated and I was like, soon as I came out to LA for all I like, I'm probably never gonna move back. And I think this coming July will be 30 years, which is dating me. yeah, it's been a hot minute.

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Justin Levinson (03:21.459)

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, and so your job at FX, you had already moved to LA when you picked up that job. Yeah.

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Brett Winn (03:27.79)

Yeah, I moved out in July, think like July 4th weekend I moved out and I think I started FX in August, September-ish.

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Justin Levinson (03:37.181)

Cool, and what was your title? you just a production assistant or? Yeah. Were you a bit of a gopher? Did you have to get coffees and stuff before you got input?

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Brett Winn (03:40.61)

Production assistant. Yeah, production assistant. And I think, yeah, my God. In fact, probably too much of a gopher. I've just always been a hard worker. feel like coming from the East Coast in New Jersey, where I grew up, was just a work ethic. I was working since I was 13 years old, under the table as a stock boy or whatever. And so I just always had this work ethic that was, if it needed to get done, I'm going to do it. And I remember,

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some of the producers at FX were working on like an upfront reel or some giant sizzle reel for all the upcoming shows. And so they had an agency that they were working with and the agency was in like an online session to do all the color correcting and finishing. But they were at a nighttime session and all the tapes that they needed were supposed to be delivered to the session. they delivered everything to the finishing house. And then I got to call it like,

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nine o'clock at night saying, my God, we forgot one reel. And I said, no problem. So I drove from my house in Burbank to Luca Lake all the way over to Fox Plaza in Century City, took the tape, drove it to the studio, drove back home, went back to bed or went, you know, and then I got a call at 11 o'clock saying, my God, we forgot two more tapes. So I got in the car, I went back, did it again, came home, and then I got a call at quarter to four in the morning. And like,

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we need this three more tapes that we just didn't realize we needed, but we needed to finish. And I dragged myself out of bed and said, okay, drove over the hill again, got the tapes, took it to them, came back, went to sleep, and then still got to work by 9 a.m. And when I got into work, I remember my bosses going, we know what you did. We're very appreciative, but don't ever, ever, ever do that again. No one would ever ask you to drive somewhere through, know, quarter to four in the morning. We don't want you getting in an accident.

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Justin Levinson (05:29.839)

Hahaha.

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Brett Winn (05:37.378)

you know, but I don't know how to live. That's kind of been the way I operate and still today, that's it. If something needs to get done, it needs to get done.

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Justin Levinson (05:37.531)

Yeah, heroic.

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Justin Levinson (05:47.549)

I love it. Well, besides all of our other commonalities, having guitars, black frame glasses, we actually are both from New Jersey, because I was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, so that's where I grew up for a long time, in Westfield, and then my parents relocated to Vermont. So I've got a little bit of that New Jersey hustle in me still.

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Brett Winn (05:58.242)

yeah!

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Brett Winn (06:05.098)

You're in like the Bon Jovi area of Jersey, aren't you? Yeah, I was in South Jersey in Cherry Hill, yeah, Bon Jovi. Yeah, I was in a Bon Jovi cover band in high school, so.

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Justin Levinson (06:07.527)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Justin Levinson (06:17.667)

Nice. That's cool. And are you still playing much music these days or you kind of got a lot going on, I'm sure.

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Brett Winn (06:25.742)

You know what, I have been, although this last year not so much, but about five, six years ago, it was before pandemic, I joined a band called Aspen and they've been around for like 20 years and I'm friends with the lead singer songwriter. And he was like, we talked about playing. He's like, are you playing or do you want to be playing? I was like, my God, I'd love to be playing. He well, my guitar player just backed out. Do you want to play with the band? And I was like, okay.

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He said, all right, learn these six songs, which were all originals, which is a lot harder to learn an original than it is a song you've heard on the radio for years. And so I learned them. then the next thing you know, we started playing the Canyon Club circuit. So we were opening for big bands for the better part, four or five years up until the pandemic. But we opened for Ambrosia, Berlin, the motels, Docken, Little River Band. Like, yeah, it was pretty wild. Like, enter to...

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Justin Levinson (07:21.427)

Peace.

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Brett Winn (07:24.686)

you know, go from playing in bars in college and the down in Dirty Tall, and having a green room and like, you know, it's kind of like a house of blues. on average, there are a couple hundred people there and at best it was 1500 people, you know, that was fun.

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Justin Levinson (07:37.107)

Wow, that's a cool gig. you have all the, you got like nice in-ear monitors and great stage sounds and? No.

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Brett Winn (07:43.266)

No, I never did that. No, no, no. But because we played at the Canyon Club so much, we knew the sound engineers. And so most of the time we got it dialed in, but it was fast. What about you? you putting it out? Do you play?

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Justin Levinson (07:54.695)

Yeah. I've tried to play a little bit more lately, but I actually like, you know, I actually am too anxious of a person to really to do it well. I'm actually getting more anxious the older I get. I don't know. just, like, don't have, I don't know. I really don't know. When I was young playing music, I felt more comfortable.

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Brett Winn (08:15.98)

Why is that? Why is that?

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Justin Levinson (08:23.699)

And I think now when I get on stage, sometimes I just, you know, I'm thinking about so many other things. I'm not really like in the moment and I sort of have kind of just, I don't feel like I can really play my best. So I've really made music more of a private thing for a while where I have a good friend here that we do some co-writing with. I don't know where my music journey is gonna go anymore, but I still like doing it. I just don't know if I...

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I want to do in front of other human beings.

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Brett Winn (08:55.702)

I mean, it's a different, you know, we all get something out of it. Like I still have a guitar right here that I pick up and play between Zoom calls all day, you know, just because I love, it just puts me in a happy place, puts me in a mindset. But it is interesting playing on stage and I've played since I was in high school and playing again, I realized that, you know, if you're in the pocket, if you're in that zone with the band, I'll get on stage and we'll start playing and I'll be very aware that we're playing. And the next thing you know, I blink and like the whole set's over and we're walking off stage.

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Justin Levinson (09:25.523)

Hmm.

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Brett Winn (09:25.762)

And I kind of have this moment of like, I was so present that I don't even realize what happened, you know? I think that that's, it's, I can't tell if it's like an awesome thing or like a scary thing that you like, open in time past and like, you have to like stop and think about, or my wife will show me videos or whatever. I'm like, yeah, I forgot that I did that. I forgot that this happened. But I also know, I don't know that I'm ever more present and in the moment than when I'm playing with the band.

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Justin Levinson (09:31.217)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (09:37.747)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (09:53.009)

Yeah, and I've felt that experience before. I think for me now, I'm sort of getting that zen feeling when I'm in a studio now. I think that's sort of, less, I'm more in my element there and I just feel, you know, not that everybody's eyes are on me. So that's interesting.

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Brett Winn (10:09.07)

Can we hit pause for one second? that possible? There's, is that, or just two seconds. got someone at the door. And no one asked me to him. be right back.

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Justin Levinson (10:12.947)

Yeah, yeah take a second take a second go for it no worries man, it's all good we can edit

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Brett Winn (10:59.16)

That's so funny. I'm sorry.

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Justin Levinson (11:01.779)

No worries, man, that's the beautiful thing about AV is that we can edit this, so there's no problem there. But what I wanted to ask you though, I guess going back to your experience at FX, so I guess maybe you can give me a little bit of some insights on where you went from a PA and being this gopher. What was your next step there?

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Brett Winn (11:05.558)

Yeah, we didn't even exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Brett Winn (11:29.24)

So I worked my way up to be a coordinator. And then I saw a job posting at Fox network, which was like the big brother to FX. And it was in their on air promotions department. So I'm like, I know that. Sorry, I can't breathe because I was running.

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so it was, it was actually for a post production producer for the on air promotion department. So it was, it was the night shift. It was a graveyard shift. was 10 PM to 6 AM. and it was in the online conform Bay and basically post production producer looks at all the promos, the last stop before they get shipped and uploaded to the networks, and the affiliates. And so it's like, you'd have to look at every single spot that came through.

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Justin Levinson (11:52.765)

You

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Brett Winn (12:20.598)

and make sure that the tags matched. You know, if there's an audio tag that it matched the video tag, that's the graphics were right. It was the last QC process. There was a ton of paperwork to fill out. So that was sort of a step up. And then that led to getting into the audio side of finishing. So I started supervising mix sessions and directing voiceover talent.

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Justin Levinson (12:36.808)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (12:50.202)

for the promos and really after understanding how promos went together, I still had a passion to write and produce promos, write and produce and eventually edit promos. So let me breathe.

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Justin Levinson (13:06.547)

Well, I was gonna say why you're why you're breathing is that that's kind of an inspiring story I think for many people that are in the industry that I speak to today because a lot of people are working those graveyard shifts and are in doing those doing the post-production and they don't find it as creative and they really are hoping to be able to Eventually get to that creative stuff, which I think you're getting to you So you're getting to that inspiring

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Brett Winn (13:28.78)

Yeah, this is where I'm getting. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (13:31.571)

story that a lot of people that yeah, I mean, a lot of people I talk to every day are trying to get from the finishing coordinator to the creative coordinator from, you know, post production supervisor to producing. if you really look at a lot of people's careers, sometimes people get really siloed in that one particular part, and they don't, they're not able to make that transition. So the fact that you were able to make that transition, get creative, and then also be able to be an agency owner.

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Brett Winn (13:39.906)

guest.

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Brett Winn (13:53.207)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (14:00.883)

That's pretty cool. So maybe you can tell me how you got to the creative part.

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Brett Winn (14:03.662)

This was the pivotal moment in my career and I honestly like have my wife to thank for it. She wasn't my wife at the time, she was my girlfriend. We had just started dating. And you know, I was always a creative guy, wanted to be a filmmaker. So I was always writing scripts. I was always shooting things. I just shot, I wrote and directed a short film that I'd done on the side. And she's an actress. And so she was about to go on tour with a play through Canada at the Fringe Festival.

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And as she was leaving, she's like, you know, your mind's like all over the place. Like you're working at Fox, you're writing these scripts, you made a short film. What do you want to do? You know, like what's the one thing you want to do? And I was like, well, I don't know there's one thing, but I really want to be a writer producer at Fox. Like I've been here all this time. I think at that point I've been like two or three years. and she's like, well, can you just focus on doing that? She's like, I'm to be gone for two months. You've got all the time in the world. What would you do if you could just do that?

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And I said, was like, that's actually not a bad idea. So I went to one of the creative director producers and was like, hey, I really love to be writing and producing. What can I work on? Is there something I can work on? I'll stay late. I'll stay and sit with the editors. And I remember they were doing, at the time they would do the movie of the week packages on Fox, right? So for the summer, they would have movie of the week. And the creative director who's in charge of that at the time, that was like her least favorite thing to do.

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She's like, I want to work on the series. I don't want to work on these dumb movie of the weeks. And I think the first one was demolition man. The Sylvester Stallone movie, which I was a huge Stallone fan because I grew up next to Philly. And I was like, I'll do it. I'd love to do it. And so I wrote some scripts. I ran a buyer. She gave me some tweaks. And then we finally got to a place. She's like, okay, go sit in an edit bay and work with an editor and make these. And so what I would do is I get in at 10. At that point, I was in a normal shift. do my audio room producing job from 10 to six.

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and then get some dinner and then at six, I'd go sit down with the editors and from six to usually midnight or one or two, I'd work on the cut. And so I presented a 30 second spot to her to show in a meeting and she showed it in the meeting and everyone's like, great, approved, do the cut downs. And she got credit for it because no one knew that I was doing it behind the scenes. So she goes, this is great. Can you do the cut downs? We did the cut downs and that package went. And then on Friday, she said, wow, that was great. You want to do another one? And I was like,

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Brett Winn (16:29.294)

Yeah, that'd be great. So then the next week I did it. So this went on for the whole summer. I think I ended up doing like nine or 10 of those packages. So like nine, 10 weeks straight of 10 to six, six to whenever, you know. And at the end of it, I remember I had like a reel of spots. I had a reel of stuff that I produce. And so I went into the VP. I made an appointment with the VP of OnAir Promo and I said, hey, listen, I've been working on these spots. Here's the reel of stuff.

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Justin Levinson (16:41.255)

Wow.

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Brett Winn (16:58.414)

how do I become a writer producer here? How do I make that shift? And I'll never forget. He looked at me and said, you know, I think you should find another job. I was like, are you kidding me? Like I've killed myself all summer to do this. I didn't say this to him, I'm thinking I killed myself. And so I was like, all right, I guess. And so I started asking around of like, hey, can someone help me find a company to be a writer producer? And so.

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Justin Levinson (17:14.641)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (17:26.636)

I got some suggestions of boutique shops with at the time I was like, yeah, I guess there are outside agencies that do this. Not everything is in-house at the network. And I went in on an interview at a company called Studio City owned by Stu Weiss. And so I went in and I presented this reel of movie packages from the whole summer. I just sat down not thinking anything. And so he said, I saw your reel. It's really great.

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We'd really love you to work here. And he did the classic Hollywood thing, which I still can't believe I participated in this, but he literally wrote a number on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to me. And I remember looking at the number and thinking, okay, and I flipped it back over and I said, this is great. I really appreciate it. I have some things I need to work out. Is it okay if I get back to you tomorrow? And he said, yeah, I guess so. And so I left and I drove down Ventura Boulevard and I stopped right at the...

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corner Laurel Canyon and Ventura and there was a gas station there with a payphone. This is going to date me as well. And I called my then girlfriend, Pam, who were just about to move in together. And I said, Hey, remember that three bedroom townhouse in Studio City that you loved, but we couldn't afford? And she said, yeah. said, tell them we'll take it. Cause I just doubled my salary.

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Justin Levinson (18:29.565)

Ha

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Justin Levinson (18:44.435)

That's awesome. Well, why did the other guy say you should find a new job? What do you think was the thought behind that?

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Brett Winn (18:52.078)

You know, I think what happened was there was someone else who kind of came up the ranks before me and did a similar thing and ended up becoming a writer producer and it didn't work out so well for whatever reason. I was afraid to take the chance again that it would reflect badly on him. Again, this is conjecture. don't really know. But at the same time, like that was the best thing that ever happened to me in my career because it sent me on this trajectory of

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Justin Levinson (19:16.338)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (19:19.126)

I was at Studio City and had a lot of success as a writer, producer, editor. And from Studio City, I got recruited to go to Trailer Park. That was a trailer house, which is where I wanted to end up, to go and launch a broadcast division at Trailer Park, because they didn't do on-air promos. And so I launched into that. And during some downtime, Tim Nett, the owner, came to me and said, hey, listen, we've got a movie. Do you some downtime? You want to cut a trailer? Actually, there's TV spots for a movie and then a trailer. But I was like, yeah, I'd love to.

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I didn't understand that the trailer world was different than the broadcast world. Cause the broadcast world, whatever you cut was going to finish eventually, you know, and the trailer world, I didn't realize, there's multiple agencies on it. You could cut a bunch of spots and never, none of them ever see the light of day, or they go through rounds and rounds and rounds and rounds of revisions. and so the first couple of spots I cut finished at like version one or with a minor tweak and, and everyone's like,

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Justin Levinson (19:56.595)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (20:08.712)

down.

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Brett Winn (20:16.206)

this is crazy, who's this guy cutting version ones that are finishing? And I didn't know any different because the broadcast world, that wasn't that abnormal for you to cut a spot, especially if they needed it to air that night. Like there was no time for revisions. And then I ended up cutting a trailer for a movie called The Hot Chick with Rob Schneider. And that finished. And that kind of set me on the trajectory trailer park. In fact, they're like, we don't want you to do broadcasts anymore, just do trailers.

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Justin Levinson (20:28.381)

Yeah, interesting.

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Brett Winn (20:46.382)

Which was exciting for me because that was my dream job anyway.

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Justin Levinson (20:50.331)

Yeah, that, you know, sounds like, yeah, FX did really do you a favor on that. It seems like the gold really was getting that portfolio of that work on your.

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Brett Winn (20:59.918)

Yeah, there's no other way to do it, right? If you're passionate about it and whether it is, you've got some innate skill or ability, or it's a 10,000 hour rule of just doing it enough to get good at it. But I think that's it. That's the hard part is in a creative industry, you can work super hard at it and be okay. And you could work no time at all, but have a gift of whatever and it pops. And I do believe anybody can do it if you want it badly.

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Justin Levinson (21:02.323)‍

Mm-hmm.

Justin Levinson (21:24.499)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (21:29.816)

but it may take you more or less effort than someone else.

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Justin Levinson (21:34.547)

Totally. Yeah, I try to when I'm mentoring people that are coming up in this industry to really put a lot of emphasis on their portfolios and make sure that they're like up to date and they have all their, you know, that it's just that it really pops because that is really where the gold is. this in this industry, no one's going to really look at your resume, you know, there. mean, if you're a copywriter, they'll look at your packet or something, but they're not going to look at your

like they're not gonna be like, well, he went to Hofstra between 92 and like, nobody cares. Like they want to say, where is the, give me the password and let me in there and see what you've been doing. And I want to know exactly what your creative input was on each of these projects. What was, you what your specific contributions, you know, and they want an honest, you know, they want an honest report of that. don't want, you know, clients don't want

Brett Winn (22:18.339)

Yes.

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Justin Levinson (22:27.271)

three or four candidates claiming the same artistic contribution.

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Brett Winn (22:32.046)

Well, it's hard because a lot of times, yes, there's a lot of emphasis on the editor in our business, but you know, a really great creative director can take a good editor and make them great. And yet a really great editor can take a decent creative director and make him or her look great too. You know, it's a balance and it's really hard to tell. I do think that a lot of times two brains are better than one. And so if you've got the right producer, editor, creative director, editor, together bouncing ideas that just gel,

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Justin Levinson (22:42.931)

Mm-hmm.

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Justin Levinson (22:48.764)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (23:01.794)

then greatness can happen, but I don't know, it's not always the case. And I've seen this, because I've hired people who are like, wow, that was really great. And then they come over and they do good work, but I'm like, wow, I think that it was the relationship you had with your producer, creative director that got you to that level. splitting up the dynamic duo doesn't always work.

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Justin Levinson (23:20.605)

You can't get Lenin and McCartney away from each other. It's just not the same, right? Simon and Garfunkel.

‍

Brett Winn (23:23.084)

Nope. Yes. Yeah. There's that magic that happens of bouncing ideas. Cause I think being in a dark room and speaking as an editor, I'm just by myself, there's a limit, right? To, to, I'm going to push myself to be great, but at some point in time I've memorized the sequence. And this is something that it's interesting as an editor that happens is

‍

Once you've made all the edits, you know what it looks like, you know how it flows to you, makes perfect sense. And it's not till someone else comes in and looks at it with fresh eyes or you, I don't know if you had this, if you're editing, you have someone come in behind you and just watch it over your shoulder. You see it with fresh eyes because you're trying to interpret what they're thinking, not just what you've done till now. And I think that such a crucial part in the editing process to have someone else get eyeballs on it and say, Ooh, that doesn't really work for me. And you'd be like, why? And part of it is it works for you because you've seen it a hundred times.

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Justin Levinson (24:16.945)

Yeah, you know, can't, I don't have the technical chops for editorial or producing editorial. I mean, I watch it all the time, seeing other people's work and I haven't had an idea of what makes it good and what makes it not as good. But I can really relate to you in terms of like my experience in music when you are, you know, when you're in a studio recording a song and, you know.

‍

you've heard it the way you've heard it in your head a lot and it makes sense to you but then somebody's like well you know this could be a lot better and you want to know why and then once they give the input you realize wow yeah that that is better than what I was doing because I've just written the same song again that I've already wrote before and now this is different so yeah I totally understand that sometimes having two brains you know yeah that that's definitely something

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Brett Winn (25:07.214)

But it's also, it comes with being able to delineate for yourself. Like when someone coming in is making it different to make it different, and when someone's coming in to make it different to make it better. And that's something only you can really decide or the client can decide, yes. you know, and it's okay to stand your ground. Like that's the other part about it. Just because someone comes in and makes a suggestion doesn't mean you have to take it. And I think that that's that balance and a good group, you know, good pair that's working together.

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Justin Levinson (25:20.467)

True. Yeah, that is true.

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Brett Winn (25:34.178)

will understand if you push back and say, is why I did that and this is why I believe in it, that they should have enough to say, okay, let's move on to the next thing, you know.

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Justin Levinson (25:42.675)

Yeah, mean, imagine it's like personalities, I'm sure are pretty important in the business because if you're partnered with somebody, they have to under, you got to have an understanding with each other. I imagine. Have you, do you, are there any people that you've enjoyed collaborating with over the years in particular that you've had sort of that like, you know, cosmic experience with the John and Paul?

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Brett Winn (25:47.047)

Newt.

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Brett Winn (26:05.606)

Magic, Magic, Magic. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yes. In fact, it's an editor. His name is Rob Nelson, although it goes by Rob Benjamin now. And so Rob came to work with us. He was working on UFC, cutting UFC promos in Vegas. And we got connected and he ended up moving to LA to come work for Refinery for me at Refinery. And he just always had this magic sauce that I'm like, wow, dude, he's just got to, he's a filmmaker at heart. He's a filmmaker.

‍

period, but just comes to table with great ideas. so to be able to sit down and say, hey, what if we did this? What if we do that? And then you kind of leave him alone and you come back and like this magic would happen. And I think the trailer that we worked on together for Kong, there's a trailer for Kong Skull Island that, you know, when the magic happens and it wasn't, it was obviously a lot Rob.

‍

but it also was the whole team coming in and getting excited by what Ralph was doing and our music supervisor came in and I'll never forget, we cut it to a rascal song, we got to get out of this place. then the client, and then we went to this big orchestral build for the backend and the client was like, I love it, but I want the whole trailer to be that one song. And so we're trying to figure out how to crack that puzzle because the song just didn't build. And so we had this idea of what if we slowed down that

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Justin Levinson (27:09.276)

Nice.

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Brett Winn (27:27.822)

progression halftime and had a big orchestra do it and have a choir come in and chant the lyrics versus, know, so we built out this massive choir and we got to record it and come in and, and yeah, and it finished. And so just to be able to sit and look at like, that's where when people are fired up and they're in the zone and the magic happens, it's, it's awesome. You look back in time, like, man, I don't know how we could ever recreate that if we tried.

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Justin Levinson (27:55.097)

Yeah, I mean, how do you recreate that? How do you create that? How did you get those people all together with that vision? Like, putting the orchestra together, like what goes into that?

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Brett Winn (28:06.83)

Well, was, you know, Rob and myself and Joe Pisterizi, who's our music supervisor sat in a room and we're trying to figure it out. And I think I was like, you know, was like, well, if we took that progression and just went, ba-bam, ba-bam, you know, but did it at that pace. And then we're like, and then I know if Rob or Joe is like, then we can have them sing, we gotta get out of this place. like, and it all started, by the way, we're all musicians, Rob's a musician, Joe's a musician. So.

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Justin Levinson (28:30.61)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (28:35.276)

I don't know that that would have happened with just any group.

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Justin Levinson (28:37.937)

Yeah. Did you have to find specific musicians for this project?

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Brett Winn (28:44.684)

I think we have a lot of music production companies that we work with on the slide. And so I think Joe just reached out to somebody he trusted and said, here's the big idea. And then they went and put it together and then got the orchestra in to do it and the choir. And yeah, it super fun.

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Justin Levinson (28:49.651)

Mmm.

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Justin Levinson (29:01.085)

That's pretty cool. It must be pretty amazing when you've had this idea and then you first get that track back and you're playing it and you're like, wow, that's what I heard in my head. That's cool. Yeah.

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Brett Winn (29:07.31)

my God, we all freaked out. Yeah, yeah, we all freaked out. And it's know, there's a trailerization side of the business that we do a lot, but that in particular was for me as a musician too, to be like, yeah, we sat in a room and kind of wrote that or re-imagined what it could be. And it wasn't a trailerization. It was like a completely different song, even though it was built on the same idea.

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Justin Levinson (29:35.357)

Yeah, that's cool. There must be some advantage to being a musician and having sort of like that rhythmic connection to, you know, everything. mean, even for you don't cut, right? You're not an editor yourself, but I'm sure you advise. you do edit. You do. Okay.

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Brett Winn (29:48.878)

I am, I know I am. I do edit, that was the major part of my career. fact, was the harder transition was for me to get out of the seat and to work with other editors, right? Is to like sit down and be like, I have an idea, do this. And then they start cutting, you're like, no, move over. then you like jump in and I know I upset a lot of my editors when I was first starting, when we first launched the business and I was still cutting a lot. And then over time, I to use your voice versus your hands, you know.

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Justin Levinson (30:04.349)

Hahaha

‍

Justin Levinson (30:13.619)

Well, I'll see you.

‍

Brett Winn (30:17.23)

You have to use your words to describe to people what you're looking for. But yeah, I mean, I definitely usually inquire when we hire editors if they have some sort of musical background because cutting music is half the battle. You know, if you can't really, you know, if someone comes in without any musical knowledge, then yeah, you might be cutting it to a beat, but you're cutting the wrong beat. know, it's like, that's always interesting when you watch people do it. You're like, yes, it's.

‍

Justin Levinson (30:30.387)

Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (30:41.468)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (30:45.774)

on a beat it's not on the beat it's not a beat you know

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Justin Levinson (30:47.314)

Totally. Well, maybe you can tell us a little a little bit about your your new venture or continuation of a previous venture in a different capacity. What's that all about?

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Brett Winn (31:00.81)

Yeah, you know, after 16 years and I love my partners, we've had a wonderful experience. In fact, they're still my best friends. Adam and I are way into cars and go driving almost, you know, most Sunday mornings. We've got a lot of same passions. We've traveled together. In fact, we just went to Fiji with his now wife. It was his fiance at the time and my wife, went to Fiji last year together. But we got to a point in time where the company has grown so much that...

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Some of the clarity and focus in what we were doing was getting lost along the way. And now that we had leadership teams below us, when it was just the partners working together and we were at the helm of all the campaigns, it was easy. Because if we cross streams or I went to a client that they were working on, we all kind of knew it and we were cool about it. But as you start to have leadership teams and there's more people going after the work, some of the lines were getting crossed and it was getting a little muddy. it just, reached a point in.

‍

the company's life where it made more sense for me to branch off doing the AV side and for them to branch off doing the print side. And so they kept the name Refinery. And so now if you want posters or billboards or digital, you go to Refinery. And if you want AV centric materials, you go to Rave. So we basically just changed the name. The entire staff, the entire crew is the same, but it also opened me up to

‍

bringing on some fresh perspective to the business. so ironically, not with any kind of intention, but just because of timing, I ended up connecting with Ben Andron, who ran Bond AV for the last nine years. And he had parted ways with Bond and we sat down to have lunch just to talk about the industry and started talking about the way we ran our teams and the way we ran our jobs and the clients that we had and realized like, wait a second.

‍

What if we did this thing together, you know? And it took a few months to kind of figure it out, but I'm excited to say he came over to partner with me at Rave and brings a similar perspective. know, we sat down and we were talking about like, what's at the heart of who we are and what we do? What is that statement? What's our mission statement? And he had said, he's like, I pitched this thing to Bond, but they didn't really go for it. And I'm like, well, what is it? And he said,

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Justin Levinson (32:51.261)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (33:19.458)

good people doing great work together. And I was like, my God, dude, that's who we are. That's who Refinery, who Rave is today. That's what we're all about. And so we adopted it right away. And he came on, which is great, Rob Nelson, Rob Benjamin, who had worked with me and did that Kong trailer and left. He came back. We have another guy, Phil DeCord.

‍

who cut the original Matrix trailer. He was at a company called Geronimo. So he's with us now. And then Jim Pasco, who kind of headed up our creative content division, but there's some blurry lines between what fell on the print side and what fell on the AV side. And now he's partnered to kind of take that to a whole new level and branch off with the creative content, digital, social.

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Justin Levinson (33:46.589)

Cool.

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Brett Winn (34:10.574)

experience that component to what we do on the AV side and really expand it and grow it. So it's one of those things, nothing changes if nothing changes. And so I think I just changed everything in America.

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Justin Levinson (34:17.235)

Cool.

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Justin Levinson (34:22.936)

That's great though, man. It's nice to shake things up, you know. I feel the same way. I'm always excited to try new tools and new things and bring new people into the world or new people into our company. yeah, does, it can spark new things and take you to new places. So I'm excited to see the work that you guys start putting out. It's exciting.

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Brett Winn (34:48.002)

Yeah, me too. It's funded to see the perspective shift, you know, and hopefully a new fire, you know, kind of got ignited and it's so crazy how it happens. And it's not even intentional, but I think someone gets excited about something and then someone else gets excited about the same thing. And all of a sudden now, you know, like we went to the Cleo Awards last night and I always think of it like a high school reunion because it's like, we get to see everybody, all our friends in the industry, but it was amazing how many people had already heard about the change.

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and came up and congratulated us and we're excited to hear more. And it just, was, was awesome to feel, I don't know. So, so much excitement in the industry around us by our peers. It's really a wild experience. I hope everybody feels that at some point in their career, you know, it's not every day that that happens, but I'm gonna hold onto it as long as we can.

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Justin Levinson (35:32.68)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (35:42.533)

Yeah, you know, as much of, you know, as hard as this particular industry is in creative agency world, I do find that it, of course I'm in a different place in it than you are as I do handle more of like the hiring and recruitment and all that stuff. But I will say that when I went out on my own and tried something new, like the first day that I launched, like,

‍

I mean, I had like a thousand LinkedIn likes and messages of like, congratulations, and can't wait to work with you, and I'm so excited. And you know, it does mean a lot because I remember like that was such a leap for me. I was so like vulnerable and so like, man, you know, you're looking to get clients and you're just wondering if you're just like gonna be like, hello, hello, hello. You know, you're hoping to get some response. And when you get that response, you're like, wow, this is, you know.

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Brett Winn (36:11.543)

Not really.

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Justin Levinson (36:37.615)

It is inspiring. So I'm glad that you guys are getting that, you know, a warm reception because, you know, that's cool.

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Brett Winn (36:43.982)

Well, and it's hard, it's hard as entrepreneurs, know, it can be lonely because not too many people understand the trials and tribulations that go along with it unless you sitting or have sat in the seat before, you know.

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Justin Levinson (36:55.697)

Yeah. And if you're working in this particular space too, you've really been, you've got to get, you've been slapped in the face a number of times, especially in the last couple of years with the consolidation and between, you know, the, budget's getting smaller and, you know, the, the, strikes and global pandemic. mean, there's just been so much, I mean, not saying that every industry hasn't been affected because the whole world has been affected, but this particular space I think has just

‍

Brett Winn (37:23.832)

I was pretty flat.

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Justin Levinson (37:25.149)

been so much friction. Yeah. And

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Brett Winn (37:27.192)

Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like I'm just now starting to see a little bit of an uptick. Like we thought maybe the flood gates would open and all of a sudden we'd be swamped again, but I am starting to see, you know, I think we've gotten over the hump. feel like everyone was ready to go back into production. Then Iotzi threatened to strike, right? The crew union threatened to strike. And I think everybody was just like, time out. We're just going to hold again. And we found ourselves in the middle of the summer struggling, like really struggling.

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Justin Levinson (37:54.024)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (37:55.008)

And so it's starting to feel like, you know, once they said, okay, now things are starting to go to production and then being, you know, on creative advertising side, it's like, especially on the AV side, like our, my print partners would get in early because they were like, okay, it's back on the two photo shoots. But a lot of our work doesn't happen until they have footage. And so, you know, now it's starting to feel like, okay, the footage is starting to come in.

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Justin Levinson (38:12.328)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (38:17.945)

That's good to hear. I mean, I'm optimistic about the new year. I mean, obviously I don't have a crystal ball, but I feel like I'm getting that same sort of vibe from a lot of owners that things are starting to feel a little bit more normal. But I still think there are some smaller shops that are still really struggling and just trying to keep the lights on. So it's a mix. But yeah, I mean,

‍

This is a business that I don't think, it's like, you know, even during the, like the great depression, people would still go to see theater, you know? It's like people need this in their lives. And so, although it's like changing and the landscape is changing and there's so many things at us, coming at us from AI to just all these crazy things. You know, I think it's this space, like I said, it's a need and the scale will...

‍

level out at some

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Brett Winn (39:18.828)

Yeah, it's been interesting because I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends and I'm in an organization called EO, which is an entrepreneur's organization. And it's made up of business owners in all walks of life. In fact, very few of them are in our walk of life. But you tend to find that we all go through the same struggles, If you're owning a business, like, OK, how do I make payroll? How do I market ourselves? How do we hire and fire people? How do we, you know,

‍

take care of leases and, you know, but it's been super helpful in navigating because everybody's gone through the rise and fall over time and being in an arena with people who can make, you know, share experiences is so incredibly helpful and helps us learn and grow as entrepreneurs and learn and grow as people. And it's been helpful. I really don't know where I was going with that. Cause you started down a path and I just,

‍

engine and I didn't mean to.

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Justin Levinson (40:17.843)

I almost don't know where I'm going every time I say something. So it doesn't really matter. I'm just praying that the words are gonna come to me and I'm gonna get through the sentence. there's no judgment if you lose your train of thought on the Agency Side podcast because I am the king of losing his thought over here. But I did have a thought that I was on my mind that I would want to ask you before we wrapped up our call is that you are a, I've read that you are a car enthusiast. So I am just curious on what that,

‍

what that is all about and what kind of cars you are enthusiastic about.

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Brett Winn (40:53.23)

discovered that I am a huge Porsche fan. I am a Porsche file, I think. And this is gonna sound crazy. I'm 51 years old and I think I've owned 53 cars in my lifetime so far. A lot of yeah, in fact, my wife, you know, we cooled off a little we the last car that I had was a

‍

Justin Levinson (40:56.69)

Mmm.

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Brett Winn (41:17.262)

Porsche GT3 is a 2014 Porsche GT3, which was actually my dream car and like the pinnacle for me of like, yes, I've driven Lamborghinis and Ferraris and everything, but the Porsche GT3 is to me, like the best, easiest car to drive, whether it's in the canyons or on a track, and I've done both. And then, you know, the last year and a half was really a struggle, you know, with work and stuff. And so we downsized a little bit and it was interesting.

‍

You know, to have my kids go, daddy, why are you selling the Porsche? And it's like, well, because it's time and there's nothing we have now that we can't get again. but yeah. And then just like, have a, I have a problem, which I'm getting better, almost like the guitar, the guitar collection thing of, you know, I'll see a great deal on a Porsche. And you know, I think I saw an older one and for some reason, as I've gotten older now, like I actually, the cars that everyone hates are the models that everyone hates. I'm slowly being attracted to.

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I don't know why. But in 9-11, if you know anything about 9-11s, the 1999 to 2004 was called the 996 model. And it's when they went from air-cooled to water-cooled and the shape changed and they got kind of straight as opposed to so curvy. it's one of the most hated 9-11s that there is, if anyone hates 9-11s.

‍

Justin Levinson (42:17.117)

Nice.

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Brett Winn (42:44.302)

And so I saw one in Vegas and the price was right and he had kind of GT3 eyes did so sitting on better wheels and tires and had a wing and better suspension, done all the work that I would have done. And I threw out like a low ball offer on eBay, not thinking about it. And he accepted the offer and I was like, crap, I really don't want to this right now. I then had to go, I called him and I said, hey, listen, I'm going to give you your deposit money, but I really shouldn't buy the car.

‍

And he was cool and it was good. But then I had to my wife that like, hey, I need to tell you the truth about something. We almost just ended up with another 9-11, but I stopped the deal and she's like, what are you doing? And I was like,

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Justin Levinson (43:25.363)

That's so funny. So you lost them. You were an honor. That's honorable of you to eat the deposit though, right?

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Brett Winn (43:31.586)

Well, you know, I, I, I've eBay'd, you know, for a long, long time and I've always been like, you know, I, if you bought something from me, it's a commitment and I believe in upholding the commitment. so.

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Justin Levinson (43:40.571)

Yeah, I respect that. I didn't even know you could buy cars on eBay. I didn't even know that was a thing. That's crazy.

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Brett Winn (43:46.616)

my gosh. Yeah, it's a little crazy. my God. Any car, any car all over. And then my problem is, you know, because I've had so many and we've had a 996 before. I know the ins and outs. I know what it would sell for. I know if we bought the car, I could probably bring it here, dial it in, have some fun with it for a while and flip it and either get all our money back or more. and so for me, it's been battling the addiction of like, why do you need that right now? And what I realized is

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Justin Levinson (44:07.153)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (44:13.646)

and this is gonna sound crazy, is we've got an old Porsche that's been in the shop since April. And again, it's a 924, and I don't know if you know anything about 924s, most people know 944s, which is like 16 candles Porsche. But the 924 I bought about a year ago, year and a half ago, and it was the car identical to the one I took to my senior prom. So it was my aunt's car, she had lent it to me, and I found one identical to it and bought it.

‍

and then got this harebrained idea to turn it into the race version of the car, which is called the Carrera GT, which had fender flares and a different nose and a scoop and the whole thing. so bought all the pieces, got everything together and it's been in the body shop. And because they gave me a deal to do all the body work, they're not in a rush to get it done. And so it's been sitting there. It's all, I think today, or I called yesterday and it was ready for paint.

‍

which hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll get it back and then I can cool my jets on the car looking. We've had it all. We've had it from BMWs and Porsches to Camaros and Trans Ams and Mustangs and we had a Shelby GT350 and I had a Lotus Elise and we've had motorcycles. I'm just a driver. If you set me up on the weekend, it was always cars and guitars. the funny thing is I went back and looked to the, I had a yearbook picture from high school.

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Justin Levinson (45:15.571)

Yes.

‍

Justin Levinson (45:30.963)

Yeah.

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Brett Winn (45:40.588)

and it's me sitting on the hood of my 86 Firebird with an Ovation guitar. And I'm like, all these years later, nothing's changed.

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Justin Levinson (45:44.915)

This

‍

The same guy. That's funny. You know, I wasn't a car guy, but my father-in-law is a huge car guy. And I needed to become a car guy to learn the language, you know, and they're big Formula One people. they're, you know, every always watching the races there. And they're my father-in-law is very into like, you know, the European cars and also like vintage stuff like he

‍

He actually fixes them, like Alfa Romeo's and like Ferrari's. he does all these like, you know, he fixes the cars that nobody else can in this area, which is pretty cool. So he got me kind of into those things. And I drove a real crap car for, I mean, I've always driven crap cars. But since being in this family, I finally bought like a really nice, fairly new BMW, like,

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Brett Winn (46:29.646)

I'm losing.

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Justin Levinson (46:45.043)

It makes a huge difference. It's like the E it's like an electric It's electric and so it's a hybrid I guess so plug-in electric the E I don't know. can't remember the number offhand I'm not showing my car guy swagger here, but it's a it's a nice. It's a lug luxurious It's the kind of car where when you drive it people are like wow, that's a pretty nice car You got there I go through the car wash and I get the cheapest one and the guys like

‍

Brett Winn (46:45.934)

What did you get?

‍

Brett Winn (46:54.427)

good, yeah, yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (47:12.691)

you sure you don't want to spend 20 on this one? That's a nice car. I'm just like, dude, I just like, no, I just want the cheapest one. So yeah, but I

‍

Brett Winn (47:21.836)

I'd love to see your father-in-law shop sometime. That sounds awesome.

‍

Justin Levinson (47:26.289)

Yeah, Piers repairs. He's the man. knows everything about all about he and he fixes he takes care of us to in our car issues and stuff helps with their tires and everything. So I'm an aspiring car enthusiast. I'm getting there. But

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Brett Winn (47:39.886)

Any Sunday morning you feel like witnessing firsthand the car community, I'll take you through a drive in the canyons. We always end up in Malibu and it's, you know, that's the beautiful thing about Los Angeles. The car culture here is incredible. And usually I've built up a good group of friends. So when we go out, there's always some crazy cars that go with us, but you know, you park anywhere and next thing you know, you're having conversations with people about, you know, their cars and their experiences.

‍

You know, it's always funny. It's like people are just dying for things that we have in common. Like the second we get on, it's like we're gonna talk guitars and art. And I think that's the thing I like about music in general and cars is that, you you can walk in a room, I would say 95 % of the time, if you talk about cars or guitars, you got them. And in presentation.

‍

Justin Levinson (48:14.914)

Totally.

‍

Justin Levinson (48:28.487)

Yeah, it's an icebreaker. that's cool, man. Well, thanks so much, Brett, for being on and chatting with me. I appreciate your time, really wonderful conversation. And I wish you all the best of luck in the new rebrand endeavor. And I look forward to looking at all the stuff you guys put out.

‍

Brett Winn (48:47.778)

Thank you, thank you. We didn't even really tap into the AI stuff. That's like a whole other podcast conversation to get into. Because I think that's where I was going before is that I had a conversation with one of my entrepreneurial friends like four years ago or three years ago. said, dude, the AI thing's coming. You should get on board and you should be a thought leader. And I was like, I don't want to be the guy that single-handedly crushes our industry. And now I've come around on the other side.

‍

Justin Levinson (48:54.675)

Well, I'll be.

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Brett Winn (49:14.058)

of really wanting to get involved with how we can use AI as a tool for what we do specifically. And I'm trying to make connections with the right people to be part of the think tank, because I'm coming to it from a positive place. I don't want it to eliminate those jobs. I want it to make our jobs easier.

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Justin Levinson (49:30.951)

Yeah, it's funny, like I actually got a, I have a client that sent me a job description. Maybe I can tell you how bizarre this one is when we're talking about AI. They need, this person asked me for an AI artist, someone who can take a set of storyboard images, 20, 30, grayscale, comic book.

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ish illustrations convert them into something approaching photoreal still images with gen AI we need persistence of character and environment as boarded within scenes. Ideally, we want a stable diffusion guy who also knows commie comfy UI. Some of these other platforms may or may not work with this DalΓ­ Adobe Firefly and a video canvas art. I mean, I don't even know what the hell this is.

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Brett Winn (50:23.874)

Yeah, open AI has a lot. mid journey can probably do it. think Dali could definitely do it. You know, I think really what we're finding in, and this is what's so funny is like AI can't do anything without human interaction. And so really, if you look at it as a tool of like, there's a tool that can do crazy things, but I still have to be able to navigate that tool to get what I want or what a client wants. And I think that that's the part about AI of like,

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Justin Levinson (50:31.634)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (50:38.739)

Totally.

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Brett Winn (50:52.586)

Yes, I can have it create an image. like, my God, that's amazing. I can never draw that. I'm like, okay, but can you get it to do exactly what you want, exactly the way you want it? And again, you're talking about a sculptor. It's like, can you chisel a piece of marble? Can you use clay to create? And the people who master it, it's not everybody. And I think it's the same thing with AI. Yes, it's an amazing creative tool and it can do awesome things. And to the layman,

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Yeah, you could go in and you could probably make something and I'd be like, wow, that's pretty cool. If I'm not an artist or if I'm not a photographer, or if I'm not an illustrator, then I'd be like, shit, I couldn't do that. That's amazing. I did that for you. But then there's another degree to that where the illustrator goes in and says, okay, how do I take something I've done to make it better? Or how do I navigate it in my own style?

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Justin Levinson (51:42.557)

Exactly. Yeah, that prompt engineering, being the one with the vision to operate the AI, I think that that definitely gives me some peace of mind that we won't all be synthesized into.

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Brett Winn (51:56.142)

Well, and the funny thing is, it's like, look at, we look at animation today, right? That's all CG animation, right? If it's computer generated imagery, CGI, it's like, that's been around for decades. And now you're able to do it using typing prompts versus commands on a keyboard or a pen or, know, and really, if you start to look at that way, like it's not that far off from what we're doing. It's just way more powerful. You know?

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Justin Levinson (52:20.851)

Totally. Yeah, that that that is true. And yeah, it's gonna be an interesting ride. And we'll definitely have to get you on we'll do a Brett Wynn part two, the AI analysis. So maybe it

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Brett Winn (52:30.894)

Yes, let's do it. Well, hopefully by then, I'm diving in. I'm not allowed to say I've gotten access to some new AI software that we, two of my people and I got on like as an alpha tester. It's not even a beta test, it's an alpha tester. And so once we kind of have a good gauge on that, I can reveal, I can share experiences and it's fun, man. mean, I think, you know,

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At first you're like, this is incredible. And then you start to go, okay, it's incredible, but how would I really use it? Like, what am I, what's the tool for and how would I navigate it? What would I need to do to get it to a place where I could offer my services because I've mastered that tool.

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Justin Levinson (53:10.631)

Yep, that totally makes sense. Well, if you test it and you do like it, let me know because I'm desperately looking for sponsors for this podcast. So maybe I can hit up this AI company and get them to jump in my.

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Brett Winn (53:22.498)

Well, know what, a buddy of mine, Chad Nelson, who's working for this particular part in OpenAI is an AI expert and has been playing around with it and is the thought leader. He's my connection to getting on this platform. If I'm happy to share his information with you and if he has time and would do a podcast, I think it'd be really fascinating to get his.

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Justin Levinson (53:44.103)

would love that. I really would sincerely would love that contact information and follow through that.

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Brett Winn (53:49.806)

Okay. Yeah, just email me after this and then I'll share it.

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Justin Levinson (53:54.173)

Cool, Brett. Well, thanks so much for being on then and I will look forward to our next conversation. All right, man. Cheers, be well.

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Brett Winn (54:00.928)

Love it. Thanks for having me. See ya.

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Agency Side host Justin Levison

Agency Side host and the creative matchmaker extraordinaire at Coming Up Creative. Connecting top talent with leading agencies by day, uncovering industry secrets by night (well, whenever we record).

Justin Levinson

Entrepreneur & Podcaster