Community Highlights: Meet RadFox

Today we’d like to introduce you to RadFox. They and their team shared their story with us below:

We’re Canon Brownell and Skyler Bocciolatt, two filmmakers who met in college about ten years ago. Sharing peer groups, whispers of us needing to meet began to reach both of our ears, which cumulated at a birthday party for a mutual friend. Friendly competition fueled the initial meeting, and as the semester came to an end we flirted with the idea of attending a summer internship program in Los Angeles. We ended up rooming together in LA in the summer of 2014 and began working on a short film competition which resulted in us taking home the trophy – we obviously started to scheme further from there.

As we approached graduation, Los Angeles was brought up as the clear choice to continue our endeavors. We got an apartment and started to grind. Skyler worked in camera rental houses while Canon found himself shooting, editing, and producing for Youtubers, musicians, and anything else he could get his hands on. We continued to network independently and gradually after months of yelling random business names at each other from our bedrooms, the domain name was available and RadFox was born.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Nope, nothing but an easy street over here! Seriously though, creating your own business when your facial hair has barely finished growing isn’t exactly the easiest way to launch a career (Canon’s still working on that mustache). It’s taken time for us to be able to be referred for bigger budgets and gain clients’ trust. There’s also the fact that we’re filmmakers first and business owners second. Budgeting, bookkeeping, and insurance requirements – these are all things that we just taught ourselves along the way. Sometimes you just have to learn through mistakes.

When you do finally manage to land a bigger job, your biggest obstacle can become yourself. It’s easy to let imposter syndrome and self-doubt take over. Especially in a city where there are so many other talented creatives. Even when you manage to succeed, you convince yourself it was pure luck that the project didn’t end up being a complete dumpster fire. But hey, that’s filmmaking baby.

As you know, we’re big fans of RadFox LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We’re both driven by a passion to create. Whether that’s creating films or a business, we find immense pride in being able to build something from the ground up. We try to maintain that “young and hungry” attitude, especially when it means being able to bring an idea to life. RadFox has been an incredibly liberating endeavor because it allows us the infrastructure to create when we are inspired vs having to find other people to get our ideas off the ground.

Since we also work as independent contractors, we’re able to bring a unique perspective and set of skills to running a production company. We’re able to accomplish a surprising amount just between the two of us which can create an intriguing value for our smaller clients. For most clients though, it takes far more than just the two of us. That’s when our work as independent contractors really comes into play as we pull in all of the amazingly talented people we’ve met and worked with along the way. We really rely on our friends both new and old for perspective on jobs. We may call up our gaffer when we need the rundown on how to complete a lighting effect, or we will talk to other small production companies to compare approaches on bidding. We are constantly calling creatives to discuss our process and to learn from one another.

When determining the scope of a project, we always aim to surpass what the budget would typically allow. It may seem limiting to let budgets dictate creative but finding boundaries for any given project is important and allows you to create the best product given the resources available. This was the exact approach we used on a recent music video. We only had a small amount of money to work with and we went back and forth about what how to elevate the project. Eventually, we landed on shooting everything in Las Vegas due to the innate production value the city holds. As a team of five (two of which were the band members), we worked through the night over the course of 36 hours to get everything done on time. We wore a lot of hats, but getting back to those scrappy roots, we both walked away beaming from ear to ear without going over budget. This approach of a small and lean team isn’t always the best option but that type of close-knit collaboration is something we strive to never lose on any of our sets. Assuming we can continue down that path, we will be forever proud of wherever RadFox takes us.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
The James and Roger Deakins podcast has been a wealth of knowledge for Sky. It’s the perfect thing to listen to while walking the dog and it’s a fantastic midsection of creatives that have been in the industry for the switch from film to digital so you hear about how things used to be done and how they’re being done now from the best in the biz.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.radfoxfilms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radfoxfilms/ 

Image Credits
Buckman Ferguson