Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Steblay.
Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Today I am the Executive Producer and Creative Director of Uncle Toad’s Media Group, an award-winning production company focused on live broadcast and TV programming. We specialize in action sports and entertainment and help brands like Red Bull, Vans, Volcom, Natural Selection Tour and more reach both niche and mainstream audiences around the globe.
It was a long and unpredictable path to get to this point. I graduated film school at UC Santa Cruz and then landed a small job as a producer on an independent documentary about the surf industry. Growing up in Southern California, this was an opportunity to get my feet wet. After the film was done, I ended up at a large media company in Santa Monica called Wasserman Media Group where I was an Associate Editor. This is where I was first introduced to live broadcasting and live streaming. After some time there, I went on to chase my passion as a Director of Photography and worked for a couple of years filming professional surfers for commercial projects. Eventually, I found my way back into broadcasting, blending my experience in action sports with broadcasting. Now, at Uncle Toad’s, we are one of the world’s largest broadcasters of action sports and I get to travel the world working with some awesome clients.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I wouldn’t say it’s been smooth at all; there are so many changes of direction you take on your journey in professional life. Being able to adapt and grow with my strengths and weaknesses has helped me become successful in what I do. I never in a million years would have guessed I would be doing what I am today, but I think it goes to show you should never put yourself in a box. Even today, what Uncle Toad’s is good at is adapting as our clients change, as their goals evolve and as consumers and fans do as well.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My role as Executive Producer and Creative Director really means I am a jack of all trades. I help seek out new opportunities, then dive in to execute those jobs to the best of my ability. This means managing large creative teams and making sure that we are all on the same page for our desired outcome. I really pride myself on the technology and creative approach in our projects; that’s where the Creative Director portion of my title comes into play. I view technology as a tool to be leveraged in a creative fashion. To me, it’s no different than a paintbrush. That being said, I love the artistic side of how we cover things and the stories we get to tell while doing it. We take authenticity very seriously, so when we approach a client like Vans, we always aim to produce work that aligns with their brand which tends to be more organic “lo fi”. On the other hand, we work with a global snowboarding tour called Natural Selection, which is cutting-edge and modern. Both projects call for different artistic approaches so we need to be able to adapt and authentically fit our work into the bigger creative picture.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Because of the type of work we do, which takes us to the tops of glaciers in Alaska to the beaches in Fiji, the ability to adapt and be fluid allows us to not only find opportunities but is also an essential skill for our projects. A lot of the sports we work in are all-weather dependent, which means we might get delayed or need to adjust our months of planning on the fly to not just get perfect weather, but in some cases, to survive (our snow projects like Natural Selection take us deep into the backcountry where natural hazards are everywhere). To add to that, you have to be collaborative. Production is a team sport and a person is critical to the success of any creative endeavor.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.uncletoads.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-steblay-629bb05/
