Wearing Pants Again
“Wearing Pants Again” is a podcast that explores the journeys of artists and storytellers, uncovering the lessons, challenges, and experiences behind their craft. Through honest conversations and personal reflection, host Lauren Siegal examines what it really takes to create, grow, and keep showing up.
Wearing Pants Again
The Heart of Visual Storytelling with Amy Mariani Wright
From circus performer to Emmy-nominated visual storyteller, Amy Mariani Wright has taken a path that is anything but ordinary. Now a senior videographer at BluePearl Pet Hospital, she channels creativity into projects that tell compelling visual stories and humanize veterinary medicine. Growing up with clown parents and traveling the country provided her with a foundation of curiosity and adaptability—qualities that continue to shape her work today.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Amy's journey into a career of visual storytelling.
- Leading video and photography initiatives for a national organization.
- Creating engaging stories that highlight people, their work, and specialized fields.
- Applying professional techniques from photography and cinematography to elevate storytelling.
- Professional versus personal measurements of success.
- Curiosity and building trust to improve as a storyteller.
Whether you’re a content creator or simply curious about the craft of storytelling, Amy’s journey offers inspiration to approach creative work with a fresh perspective.
For more information, click here for the podcast episode page.
Hi, everyone. I'm really excited to introduce you to my guest today, Amy Mariani-Wright. Amy is the senior videographer at Blue Pearl Pet Hospitals, a network of more than 100 specialty and emergency veterinary hospitals across the United States. Amy's career spans visual storytelling across various industries, including journalism, nonprofits, and government. I've actually had the pleasure of meeting Amy here in Tampa. We both studied mass communications at the University of South Florida. Before we dive in, it would mean a lot if you could follow and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. If you could leave a five-star review, that would also mean a lot to me. And if there's someone you know who you think would also enjoy the podcast, be sure to share it with them. Here is the episode now, and I hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Oh, of course. Thank you for having me. So I feel like you've had a really interesting career journey that I'm excited to talk more about, but I kind of am fascinated to ask about the very beginning because you had, I think, a kind of an unconventional childhood. So can you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 00:Yeah. So my family literally ran away and joined the circus when I was seven years old. My mother and my stepdad are both clowns. They actually met each other at a clown convention. You know, they say they're There's a convention for everything. There's obviously a convention for clowns. They met, fell in clown love. I was already around, but they had my sister. And the four of us, they got the opportunity to join the circus and off we went. And we traveled with various shows for the next six years until we settled in Orlando, Florida. And I
Speaker 01:understand you, you participated in the circus itself. What kind of stuff did you do?
Speaker 00:I did. So for the first year that we were on the road, we were on a show called Roberts Brothers Circus. I actually found, which way? This way. That's actually the logo and all that. I found the license placement thrift shop down here in Florida because there's a lot of circus folk down here. But I was an elephant rider, actually. Her name was Lisa. I tell people she was my best friend because she was. Elephants are very empathetic and sweet creatures. So I started off doing that. On another show, I was a juggler's assistant. So I would hand him the sharp knife. and the clubs and all of the other stuff. But if I wasn't performing, I was always doing some sort of training. So I also had the opportunity to train with some world-class gymnasts from Hungary and Bulgaria. And I picked up a little Hungarian-Bulgarian too, but nothing I can repeat on this podcast.
Speaker 01:So were you doing school
Speaker 00:on the road? We were, yeah. So my mom... We, you know, even though I was born in the Bronx, we ended up moving upstate. I call it like fake upstakes. It's not like near Canada. It's still just up the river in a town called Red Hook. It was a smaller area. And the school literally just let my mom take the books and was like, yeah, you know, make sure she's done with them by this time, because the circus wasn't a full year thing. They kind of start in the spring and then go through summer and through the fall, unless you're Ringling, which I'll get to that in a second. So I would do half the school year in real life with teachers and students and all of that. And then I just finish out the rest on my own with my mom and my dad helping me. Eventually, when we ended up touring with Ringling Brothers, they have a different tour schedule. They actually run from January to November, and they had a teacher on staff. So I did go to a private school during that time. It's called the School for Young Performers, where it was kind of like Little house on the prairie where all the grades were in one class. And she just, you know, taught us all and met our individual needs. And other people from the show actually stepped in to help. During the seventh grade, I was one of the clowns used to be a math teacher. So he stepped in and taught me math because I was the oldest kid. So he helped me with like algebra and like all that other stuff that you learn in middle school.
Speaker 01:Wow. So what was that like for you growing
Speaker 00:up in, in the circus? It was very interesting. You know, I, I definitely enjoyed it. I'm very proud of the fact that through the circus mainly, and then a little bit with my, my personal career, I've been to 48 out of 50 States and all, and I can't, I want to go to all 50 before I'm 40. So I got like two more left and, you know, certain amount of years left, not, not that many, but not enough. But yeah, Every state is gorgeous and beautiful, and the people are so cool. And I really enjoyed the opportunity to see all of the different areas in this country. But then in the road, or when you're on the road and in the circus, you have an opportunity to meet and be friends with people from all over the world. So when I was on Ringling, a couple of my friends were... you know, kind of my age and in the acrobatic troop that had come from China. And they taught me a little Chinese and they taught me a little or I taught them a little English and through that, and a lot of like, you know, body language, like, you know, kind of fake sign language that we made up, we were able to be friends and communicate, I wouldn't have had that opportunity anywhere else. So I think it allowed me to be open and exposed to so many different places and people. And that is invaluable. And I just think it's so cool to meet somebody different than you and then find out that they're actually not so different. You know, like the Chinese girls are my age and we all were boy crazy. It didn't matter what part of the world we were from.
Speaker 01:That's awesome though. I feel like that's honestly kind of the best way to become immersed and to learn about the world. And you were just living that ever since you were a child. What are the two states that you still need to go to?
Speaker 00:Oregon and Alaska. So like that little corner up there crawling towards it. But I've been able to go out to Hawaii, which was fantastic. I've been up to Washington, which is gorgeous. The Pacific Northwest is absolutely gorgeous. But yeah, I've been to all the other states besides those two.
Speaker 01:Very cool. I just went to Alaska a few months ago, so it is jealous. So you went to USF for school and then, so your first job was working on the radio. How did you kind of decide to go into that?
Speaker 00:I just really wanted to break ground in the multimedia industry in general, whether it was, you know, writing for a newspaper or on the radio. So, you know, so much of this industry is who you know, right? And I love that and I hate that because part of it is like, well, I work really hard and I'm talented, so that should be enough. And it is, but there are a lot of talented people out there and there are a lot of hardworking people out there. So keeping your network open and jumping on opportunities that you have through a friend of a friend of a friend, do it, right? Because that at least gets your foot in the door, your talent and your tenacity is still going to actually get you the job. So when it came to doing traffic reporting for the radio, my mom worked with a woman whose sister was on television, the local Orlando Bright House, well, now Spectrum affiliate, Channel News 13. And she had a friend at Clear Channel, which is now iHeartRadio, who was looking for a traffic reporter. So it was kind of this meandering way of me finding and getting an interview. But they hired me. Originally, it was just kind of a summer fill-in job because I was living in Orlando for the summer, but then I would come back to Tampa for school. And it just so happened that Clear Channel was looking to consolidate their traffic reporting into a Tampa hub. at the same time that I was coming back to Tampa. So they were like, oh, well, you know, you could still do Orlando traffic out of Tampa and then you can do Tampa and Jacksonville as well, right? And I'm like, yeah, sure, I can read maps. I can, you know, look at traffic cams. I can figure it out. So I ended up doing that for a few years. Of course, I worked the shifts nobody wanted, overnights, weekends. You know, I joked that I would, you know, go to the club Friday night, wipe the glare off my face and then go read the traffic for Saturday morning. but I enjoyed it. I met a lot of cool people. Radio is, you know, it, the, the industry of radio has changed a lot since I was in it. And I only did traffic reporting, which is a very small segment of what radio offers, but it's just filled with such like cool people from all different backgrounds. And, and I made a lot of friends that I'm, I wouldn't have made if I didn't have that.
Speaker 01:And so now you are the senior videographer for Blue Pearl pet hospital, um, Did you always know that visual storytelling is what you wanted to do? I
Speaker 00:did, you know, ever since I was a little kid, I was always playing with cameras. So my parents, you know, being performers, performers are the most critical. It's like football players watching tape, performers are the same way. So they would stick me out in the audience with a video camera and I would tape their acts and then they would come home and watch it and critique themselves and, oh, let's do this better, let's do that better. Sometimes they would get a little annoyed because I take some creative liberties. I do some camera movements, I do some Zooms and they're like, we didn't ask you to do all that. But playing around with my cousins, My uncle had this old video camera that recorded straight to a VHS tape and did not have a battery. We had to plug it into the wall. And our favorite thing was to do movie spoofs and to make music videos. So, you know, that's kind of how I started playing with video. And then once I, you know, got to college, I knew I wanted to be a storyteller. I knew I wanted to connect and tell other people's stories and help them tell in a way that they couldn't on their own. And I just kind of, I thought I would be a writer at first, but I kind of fell into video because of just my previous playing around with that medium. I also was, you know, honestly a little worried about the future of newspapers. You know, I wasn't sure what type of job security there would be. And I felt that there was more flexibility in visual storytelling because it still combines writing, stills, video, you know, and you can, you have an opportunity to be emotional and connect with people emotionally in a different way than you do through the written word. The written word, you absolutely connect. I can't tell you how many times I read like a in an in-depth piece about something, I'm boohooing at the end of it. So it obviously has its place and has its power. But I knew that because of my skills and my background, the visuals would help me be able to do that.
Speaker 01:Do you feel like your background in journalism kind of shaped what you bring to your career, what you bring to your role now?
Speaker 00:Absolutely. My background in journalism has taught me quite a few things. It's taught me to remain open-minded, that the first story you get or the first explanation you get is not complete, right? There's an old saying that's like, there's side A, side B, and there's the truth. It's somewhere in the middle. But it also taught me to listen. It taught me to just remain curious and to always question why. And not in a, you know, bad way, but just in a way of like, you know, a lot of the storytelling that I get to do in my current job, we're talking to a lot of people who work with pets all day long. And Blue Pearl Pet Hospital does only specialty and emergency pets. So they are seeing pets and owners at their worst. And it's scary, but these people are highly compassionate and highly intelligent. So when they tell me like, oh, it's just, it feels so good to work here. And I'm like, well, why tell me specifically, like, why, what is it about this job that makes you feel good? You know, you come in and things don't go the way you want and you do everything you can and you still have to say goodbye or you still have to help somebody say goodbye or, you know, this, this, and that, like, why do you still keep coming after that? You know? And, and just trying to be emotionally open and vulnerable myself, Because people don't want to open up to people who aren't open. And that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to tell you my life story. But when I'm interviewing you, I'm going to keep eye contact. I'm not going to use a notepad. I'll have it with me because at the end I go, let me check my notes real quick to make sure I didn't forget anything, but I'm not going to have it in my hand. I'm going to sit and I'm going to lean in and I'm going to pay attention to you. And I try to make people feel like it's a conversation. And all of that I got from doing interviews over and over and over and over again in news. And I was lucky that I was able to cover a breadth of topics, but I always found myself kind of migrating towards animals. And it's like, oh, well, let me pitch a story about the local shelter or like this nonprofit's doing this or like the cops found a pig. Let's talk about that. Or they're chasing an emu. That was a real story. And they were chasing a kangaroo. That's another real story because this is Florida and that's where these things happen. But it's honestly, I don't think I would have the career I have today, the job I have today, or feel as satisfied in the career and job I have today if I did not have my news background. I owe it everything.
Speaker 01:How do you navigate telling stories that are sensitive but still uplifting? Because I feel like, especially with animals, I'm sure that can be hard.
Speaker 00:It is. It is. It absolutely is. And there are certain stories that... I don't want to say we don't tell because we tell all stories that are appropriate, but it really, for my job, because here's where the difference is between what I do in news. So in news, you always want to remain compassionate and you always want to remain sensitive, but sometimes you have to talk about the bad things. And sometimes you have to you know, report on death and destruction and assaults and fires and all sorts of things. You know, I had the opportunity to cover the Pulse shooting in 2016 for three days straight. And that was me getting on TV once an hour for 12 hours or 10 hours, whatever it was, saying, having no updates that were good. You know, the numbers of the people affected kept going up. The information we kept getting was not anything happy because it was an awful mass shooting. So, but when it comes to corporate storytelling, you want to focus more on the happy and the why, because at the end of the day, you're trying to communicate the best positive outcome. So for example, if I do a story about an animal, And they end up being really sick, but then they get better. I try to show the animal healthy in the beginning of the story, even if I don't normally even if I won't like verbally or visual or like text on screen refer to it. So you kind of know, oh, this still has a happy ending. You know, the person might be talking about their dog being paralyzed, but I just saw them walk in the beginning of the video. So like you kind of, you know, Tarantino'd it where you told me the end without telling me the end. So I think that's kind of how I balance. And I also, I just try to match the energy in my storytelling of the people who are telling me the story. You know, so if someone is, you know, very vulnerable and whatnot, I'm not gonna put music behind it that's very like cheery and jazzy and funky or anything like that. But if I have somebody that's a little more upbeat and all that, then I'll match the music to that. So it's really following the cues that other people are giving you in order to kind of balance that. But that is a big thing that I try to do is balance that reality with a little hint of like, don't worry, dog walks again we're fine just stay tuned to the end to find out how
Speaker 01:do you have a process of preparation for shoots i guess specifically when you're doing a video shoot and what does that look like
Speaker 00:yeah so it kind of depends on the type of shoot that i'm doing so if i'm doing what i call a testimonial shoot i usually end up going to at least two places so i'll go to because we don't we won't reach out to the client until after the care has been already done. Mainly because they're in a very stressful time. And it's like, you know, I don't want to be like, Hey, you want to do a story where your dog's in surgery? It's like, no, hold on. We'll wait till the dog comes out, make sure everything's good. So yeah, I'll go to their place. What I do is usually we find out because they've either submitted something to us or written something on social media. So I'll obviously read up about that. I'll also read up about the condition that affected the animal and the animal itself. So for example, a lot of our short snouted dogs and cats, specifically dogs like the pugs, the French bulldogs, the cute smush faces, they're adorable. Those babies can't breathe. They got short noses, so they have a lot of breathing issues. They also have some spinal issues. So I want to be versed in what the person went through medically because I'm still going to have them explain it, but I also want them to feel like they're not having to relive it again. So, you know, I can, if I know what they're talking about and they know what they're talking about, then it's just like easier for us to like go over that part and then get to the part that matters of like, how was your animal treated during their care? but how were you treated during their care? Because that's half of it too, right? The people are the ones bringing in the animals. So they need to feel that they've been well taken care of and that they've been heard and that their concerns have been addressed. And then the second part of it is I will go to the hospital where the treatment happened, and I will talk to the people involved. So I'll talk to a usually clinician, and at least a technician, sometimes somebody else, because there's many people who are involved in the pets care. And the same thing, I'll kind of, you know, familiarize myself with the procedure and what happened, but also try to familiarize myself with that person. I'll do a little LinkedIn stalking. Yeah, our clinicians all have bios that are on the website. So I'll read those too. And I'll try to kind of connect those little nuggets of personality that I get through my internet stalking into the interview just to have them open up a little bit, right? Something that somebody taught me, a... famous news photographer, I mean, I don't know if he's famous, he's famous to me, but a news photographer that used to work at CBS named Les Rose. He went to USF, so he would come to USF and talk to us and all that stuff. He shot a lot of stuff with Steve Hartman, who did that On the Road series, one of my favorite storytellers. I look to his stories a lot for inspiration and education and all that. He once told me that to make somebody connect with you, you first need to make them laugh. And that's true for the person that you're interviewing. And it's also true for the story that you're telling. So I always think about that, too. It's like, how can I make somebody laugh? How can I make somebody smile? Because the second they do that, it lets down their guard. And then we can talk. And then we're talking like old friends, which is the best compliment anybody can ever give me is the interviews over and they go, Oh, that wasn't so bad. I'm like, yay, it wasn't so bad. And then, you know, I do other shoots as well. So that's like a testimonial shoot. Sometimes I'll do what I call just like a B-roll shoot. And that's when I'm just capturing B-roll of a service because I tend to do a lot of editing for various things because we're all over the place. We're doing YouTube commercials. We're doing trade shows. We have videos on the website. We have social media. There's like all this stuff. So I'm always working on a repository of video. And for that, I'll familiarize myself with each service and what each service does. So when I come in, I can be a better director of like, okay, cardiology, let's get an 8kg on this cat. Oh, okay, we're diagnostic imaging. Can we fake an ultrasound? Can we fake a CT? Oh, let's do an MRI. Okay, well, I can't be in there with my camera because a giant magnet is going to pull me through. Where can I stand? How does the window look? Oh, this looks cool. So just educating myself so I can be a better director, but that also that the people I'm working with don't have to spend the whole time explaining everything to me just so that I'm more in the loop than like somebody who just came off the street.
Speaker 01:When you're doing interviews, I guess, you know, in your current role, and then even thinking back when you were a multimedia journalist at Spectrum, can you tell me some of, do you have any other techniques that you kind of implement when you're trying to make somebody feel more comfortable on camera?
Speaker 00:So this is, I start all of my interviews like this, and this is the corniest thing you've ever heard in your life, but I'll tell you. So I lean in real close to the person. I go, okay. I promise you, this is gonna be the hardest thing I ask you the entire time, are you ready? And they're always like, yeah. And I go, what's your name and how do you spell it? And they always laugh or smile because it's so stupid. But it works because anybody, especially when they've been, because people, and I don't blame them, right? They're all like, okay, I want to say the perfect thing. I want to look good. I want to make sure the right amount of eye contact, but not too much. But the second I can like make them laugh, they, okay. All right. All right. My name is Amy. It's A-M-Y. So that's one of my, my tips. And then my another, another tip is I tell them is exactly what you did in the beginning of this interview. You were like, listen, I'm editing this. You know, I'm not going to, I like looking good. I like sounding good. And if you don't look and sound good that I don't look and sound good. And that ain't going to happen. You know? So I let people know that like, listen, like you're in good hands with me. My, my job here is to portray you in your, truth and your light. And you may not see how fabulous you are. But that's because you're looking at yourself from the inside. And we're all our worst critic, I see how fabulous you are. And my job is to let everybody else see how fabulous you are, including yourself. And that's my favorite thing when people you know, a if they tell me the end of the interview, oh, wasn't so bad. But then be when they're like, wow, like, you made me sound good. And I'm like, I didn't make you do anything. You said those words. I just put some video on top of it.
Speaker 01:I found that in my job, too, is a lot of people, you know, trying to get people to do interviews for things. And a lot of them, they'll say, oh, I don't want to. I'm not good on camera. And it's like, yes, you are. I've seen you do it before. I think people just get nervous about it.
Speaker 00:They do. And I don't blame them because it's very intimidating because it's so permanent. You know, it's, it's on, it's going on a, I was gonna say it's going on tape, but it's not tape anymore, but it's, it's being recorded into a hard drive. And, and I don't have control over how that's edited or how I'm put together. You know, they're leaving that control in your hands, which is huge, especially, you know, people in medicine, whether it's pet medicine or human medicine, they're extremely intelligent. And they're also used to being in control, right? They're the one with the scalpel in their hands. There's the one with the stethoscope in their hands. They're the ones who are calling the shots. So for them to let go of that control a little bit is, is, is really hard and admirable when they allow folks like you and I to, to come in and share their stories. And I think a lot of that comes back to like the trust of like, if you trust me, then, you know, if I can get you to trust me and believe in me that I'm not going to do, I'm we can make something magical because at the end of the day we may be using news practices absolutely but i work for the same company they work for so i can't call it journalism because we're all getting paid by the same person you know what i mean um so that kind of has that security as well it's like listen i'm interested in making us all look good we all work for the same people we all have to go to the same bosses like you can trust me. This isn't going to be a gotcha moment because that's not what I'm here for.
Speaker 01:So I understand you recently finished up a really cool photo shoot for Blue Pearl. Can you tell me about that? I
Speaker 00:did, yes. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. So first of all, shout out to James Luetti. He is a local photographer who I've been partnering with for the past few years. Because I can shoot and I do shoot, but sometimes a job, an idea, it's too big. And I'm like... I want to direct this. I want to produce this. I want to work with another talented photographer to make my idea come to life. And then also, like, you know, you're better in numbers. People will bring ideas and solves and techniques that you didn't think of. Or sometimes you can't figure it out and you can just go, hey, can you figure this out for me? So shout out to James Lolletti. He goes by Photoset on Instagram. Also, Chaz Miley is a lighting extraordinaire that he works with James and has worked with me as well. But what I'm always trying to do is that I feel that in the veterinary medicine space, the photos can be kind of samey. You know, everybody's like, okay, it's going to be warm. It's going to be bright. We're going to be smiling and there's going to be hands on pets and the pets are going to look happy and we're all going to look happy and yay. And it's like, those are great. And those are beautiful photos. But how is that going to make us look different than everybody else, right? We've got 0.5 seconds to get somebody's attention, whether it's having them come in as a client, just having them gain knowledge of us or recruiting. I do a lot of stuff that supports our recruiting efforts because we can't provide the medicine we provide without the people who do it. So we need the talent. So I've always tried to borrow techniques and ideas from other industries that do other things and kind of make them work for vet med. So- For this last particular shoot I did, I've been kind of, you know, our colors are like black and blue. I didn't realize I was on brand colors until I was getting ready for this. And I was like, well, it's too late to change now. So it is what it is. But really leaning into that. So instead of the photos being kind of warm and bright and airy, they're kind of dark in the background and they use blue light to pop them off from the background. So they're not just sitting in a black hole, high contrast. So it's not, airy but it's like what's the right word it's not airy but it's more defined you know not that we've turned the structure up but that you see the lines and you can see the separation and it's not that they're just like floating in heaven the animals still look happy and healthy for photo shoots like this I actually will hire trained animals because I don't want to a bother an actual sick dog or cat, but two or B, you know, I don't want to be able to turn to the trainer and be like, make Fluffy do this. I can't really do that with, with a client or with somebody's pet. I mean, my, my cats won't listen. I tried once and they, they're terrible actors, terrible, never going to be a show mom. But something else that I was really excited to do was that you see this a lot in cinema, especially with the Marvel movies, anything J.J. Abrams does, Star Trek. You see these anamorphic lenses that create those lines. that are really cool. So when you're playing, if you get the particular lens and then you have the particular light, you can make those lines, whatever you want. So we were doing blue ovals and doing that all in camera for this shoot. And what it does is that I'm all about creating leading lines in photography. So I want the photo to kind of draw you in and just like the lines of somebody's arm or maybe how like the stethoscope is coming in or maybe how the surgical light is coming in draws you to the part of the image that I want you to see. So I was using that to do that, but also to communicate high tech, state of the art, top of the game medicine, because the only other times you've seen that type of technique use is in real life. out of this world, high tech, futuristic sort of imagery. So kind of bringing in all that subtext for people so they can associate those things with Blue Pearl without us just coming out and saying it. Because a lot of times they're just going to look at the photo and then move on. They're not, you know, and... I've ordered special scrubs so the logo's a little bigger than what we wear in the hospital so it's easier to see. And then the thing that I'm most proud of with these shoots and all of these shoots is that when it comes to our actual on-camera talent that's performing the medicine on camera, they are always real Blue Pearl associates. The only time I've ever hired a human to pretend to be somebody on camera for this place has been to pretend to be a client. But every time you see somebody in a white coat, somebody in scrubs, somebody who is playing the role of somebody in the hospital, they're not playing. They actually do that role. And that's really important to me because medicine is so particular. I don't want to hire an actor who doesn't know how to hold a stethoscope right, and then they look silly, and then we look silly. But also, at the end of the day, these are the rock stars. These are the people who are actually performing said medicine who are... getting certified so they have every letter of the alphabet after their name, who are spending their free time reading articles and reading journals and going to continuing education classes, they should be the ones who get to be on the website. They should be the ones who get to be in the brochures and in the videos because without them, this place wouldn't exist and my job wouldn't exist.
Speaker 01:What's one of the most rewarding stories that you've told through your work at Blue Pearl? Oh,
Speaker 00:man.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:You know, at Blue Pearl, it's hard to pick just one because there are a lot of stories that we've been able to tell that are just so inspiring because these are folks who, I mean, I've been there, you know, I've, I've, been on the client side of Blue Pearl and had a very sick cat and went through the motion that everybody else does and came to that unfortunate conclusion that it was time to say goodbye. So knowing that has kind of made me more sensitive as a storyteller because before I sympathized with them because I loved animals and I love my pets and I love all my niece dogs and nephew dogs and cats and all that stuff. But then I became a client and now I'm like, oh, now I empathize with you guys. Now I get it. But I think at the end of the day, what calls back to me isn't necessarily one particular story, but it's a type of story that I've been able to talk about or a segment of the the company that I've been able to talk about, and that's our Pet Blood Bank program. And that is really cool and inspiring and just sticks with me because, A, I didn't even know that was a thing until I started, which absolutely makes sense. Mammals need blood. It's like people need blood. It absolutely makes sense. We just don't think about it. But you've got these animals who are coming in and who are donating blood every few weeks. I think it's like eight weeks nine weeks depending on the animal and they're so happy to do it and they know exactly what's going to happen and they come in and their tails are wagging or they're purring or you know they're just jumping on the technician or the doctor who's going to be doing the draw and just seeing how that animal not only like makes a difference for the other animals right but it makes such a difference for the people involved like the clients feel so proud the people in the hospital can rest easy because they are getting such a needed blood you know blood supply in-house they don't have to go buying it or searching for it or anything like that it's such a huge need so being able to tell those stories and to be able to talk about our pet blood bank program is is really exciting to me because i think it's something that i hope will be become more popular and more common knowledge as, you know, society, at least in this country, becomes more pet-friendly and pet-focused.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I mean, I haven't even seen, I admit I haven't seen any of it yet, but I'm already getting emotional just from you telling me about it. So, because, I mean, Blue Pearl, you guys are all around the country, so what's the process of Coming up with ideas and I guess specifically with stories, how do you identify which stories that you're going to tell and how do you find those stories?
Speaker 00:Yeah, I mean, a lot of it, you know, coming back onto the journalism, you know, instincts and background is... I treat the job like it's news in the sense that I make contacts and I make friends. Every time I go to a hospital, I make friends with people there. I follow up with them afterwards. So good to see you. Here's some BTS shots I took of us. A couple months go by. Hey, how's it going? Anything going on in your hospital? Your kid graduated sixth grade, right? How's he doing? And people come to me with stuff because they think of me. And they'll be like, oh, you know, Amy might be interested in this. Let me give her a call. Or, oh, this could be a good video. Let me call her up. And actually felt bad because one of our hospital in Clearwater is going to be doing some interesting things in November. And I'm going to be on maternity leave. So I was like, I wish I could do this video. But I'm not going to be around. But I did kick it to somebody else who I thought would be able to do something with it on our social team. So that's a big part of it. But also, too... I will create and pitch ideas as well. So something that I'm working on right now, I'm calling specialty spotlights. And what I'm doing is I'm going to different hospitals. Cause I don't want to do all the shooting in one hospital. We have over a hundred hospitals nationwide. I like to travel and spread the love, especially cause all our hospitals are different and they have different people in them. They're in different locations. You know, I don't want all my video to look and sound the same, but I'm doing something called specialty spotlights where I'm creating these kind of long form like three minute videos where i'm explaining to you know folks like you and me non-medical folks what the specialty is but then also giving insight to like who are these people that choose this specialty and why is it what makes them tick so i just finished editing one about surgery it's not out yet um i still have to like spread it through the channel. So it gets like uploaded and posted and like all that stuff. But a big part of it is like, what is veterinary surgery? What can I expect if I have to interact with this department? But also, why do these people work in this department? You know, and you get to hear from the actual surgeons who talk about like, this is one of the rare departments that we can go in and actually physically fix something. And that's super satisfying, you know, to be able to go in and immediately alleviate or lessen an animal's strife just with my hands. That's incredible. That's such an amazing feeling. And then they're excited to have an opportunity to collaborate with other specialties on to continue that care. And it's like everybody's got their place and ticks in their own way. And I feel like if we can help these folks seem as human as they really are, to people who are coming to interact with them and sometimes their worst time, it just makes it smoothly for everybody. Because I know personally, I want to see somebody who's really excited to do what they do. If I have to go to a cardiologist, I want them to love the heart and the blood vessels and the arteries and all that stuff. I want them to think it's the coolest thing in the world. Because if they're excited about what they do, then they're going to bring that energy towards me and I'm going to feel like I'm in good hands. So that's kind of... one project in particular that I'm, that I'm working on that I'm excited about.
Speaker 01:Yeah. I love that idea for something like that. Look, I know you said you finished the edit or like, I guess let's use that for an example. Do you, when you come up with the idea, do you already have a vision of what you want the final product to look like? Or do you feel like it, a lot of it takes shape in the editing post-production process?
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:So it's a little bit of both. So I have a rough of like, I wanna open this way. I wanna make sure I have B-roll of these certain things, but I also leave myself open because you don't really know everything you're going to have, even in like, I'll pre-interview people and stuff, but you get into the interview and they throw these bombs that you had not heard before. And you hadn't came out of nowhere and you're like, well, I got a whole nother thing going on here. This is great. So I do have like a little loose planning of what I expect, especially when it comes to tone. I think tone is very important in this job because you want to seem hopeful, but not like, too happy and you want to seem somber but not sad. There's a very thin line that I try to walk because it can't be Yay. Happy circus. Because it is specially in emergency medicine, but it can't be Sarah McLachlan's arms of an angel because I hear that and I turn it off. I don't want people doing that to my stuff. So part of it too, is like setting that tone and different specialties to me have a different tone. So like surgery, for example, to me, it's more of in like, I joke, I call it like medical mystery.
Unknown:Okay.
Speaker 00:but basically like an inquisitive tone and like a curiosity of like, all right, we're getting in there. We're literally going into the animal and seeing what's up. But then it has that lightheartedness of we're able to bring this immediate relief to pets and their families. So a lot of it is like plan because you wanna make sure you get everything that you wanna get because a lot of times, especially if I'm traveling, like I'm only gonna be in that hospital for a day or two. So I need to be able to get everything I need because it's not, you know, monetarily wise, I'm not gonna be able to go back. But at the same time, you want to leave yourself open to change that list based on what you hear. So I always like to do interviews first and then B-roll afterwards because the interview is going to influence the B-roll that I get because they're going to say stuff in interviews that I don't even know about. And then I want to be like, oh, I got to get that on B-roll. Oh, I got to make sure I get that on B-roll and things like that.
Speaker 01:And then once a project is done, how do you measure the success of it? I guess both professionally and then also personally.
Speaker 00:Well, I hate everything that I do, like everybody does. I feel that. Well, I hate it. And then six months later, I come back to it and be like, oh, isn't that bad? All right. So to me, success, really success is use, right? honestly, you know, in my job, it's, it's a little freer in the sense that like, yes, I get certain projects that I have to do like certain requests and things like that, but I also do things on my own. And I'm like here, like, I think this would be good for this. I think this would be good for that. So for example, um, I did a story that was more of like a recruitment lens, but about a particular doctor who, um, her hospital, she was working at this hospital. It was not a Blue Pearl hospital. It became acquired by Blue Pearl. She ended up going to to relief, which is like not quitting, but like just doing like part time because she was like, I don't know, corporate da da da da da. But then she saw that Blue Pearl was making a good difference in her hospital and came back and is now the medical director. So I found out about that story. at a leadership summit because the president of the company was like, oh, this sounds cool. We should try to do this. So then I did it. And now he uses that video. All these other people use that video. Our parent company, Mars, likes that video. Recruiting likes that video. So when I see one story, I do have a lot of legs and work for a lot of different departments. That to me is success because I don't do what I do for people not to look at it. The more eyes that, and the more use something can have, I feel is an indication of success. A lot of times too, I'll do an individual story. I'll do like the surgery piece that I'm almost finished with. And it'll be like three minutes long. And then there'll be a bunch of different versions because we'll do cut downs. And I'll basically give it to different departments. Be like, if you want a shorter version, let me know. And then we'll talk about it. What are you looking for? And I'll make that for you. So to me, that's also success as well, because I feel like then my work is inspiring other people to become creative and think about like, oh, I could use this for this. Let me talk to Amy, or I could use this for that. Let me talk to Amy. In addition to the video work, I do a lot of photography as well. And that's always super exciting to see my stuff in print and actually see it in a banner or on a website for an ad or something like that. To me, in this job, use is success. And as long as this stuff remains useful and relevant, then I am successful. Now, from a personal aspect, I think success to me is that everything that I do should be better than the one I did before. I never want to feel like I'm regressing. I always want to feel like I've pushed the bar and I've pushed the limit. And that's why I enjoy working with other creatives when I have the opportunity, you know, working with other videographers, working with other photographers, because especially, you know, with James, who I mentioned before, like the things we've done, he's like, oh, I've never done this with anyone before. And I'm like, that's what I want to hear. Like, I want us to be more creative and I want us to do different things and learn different techniques because, you know, my mom used to say growing up, if you're, If you're green, you're growing. If you're ripe, you're rotten. And I never want to be ripe. I always want to be growing. I always want to be doing something new. And I always want to be challenging myself. And sometimes it's not going to work. I can't tell you how many music tracks I went through for the surgery piece. I'm usually like pretty decisive when it comes to music. I went through like seven tracks because I couldn't figure it. Then again, tone, right? Trying to find that like fine line and that balance of tone. So... I just, personal success to me is to feel like I've pushed it and that I was better than I was yesterday. And I hope tomorrow I'll be better than I was today. I
Speaker 01:love that. Sometimes I'm given in my job, given kind of an assignment where it's like, okay, we need to make a video about this. And maybe I sort of have a vision in my mind of what I want it to look like. But then it's it almost at a certain point, it almost feels impossible because you're trying to think of like, how am I going to get it to this amazing end product? Do you ever deal with that? And if so, how do you work through that?
Speaker 00:I do deal with that. I deal with that with myself. Sometimes I deal with that when I'm working with others. And sometimes when I'm working with others, and I deal with that, I feel like it's because I'm not explaining myself well. And then I'll kind of sit back and be like, okay, hold on, let me let me think through what I'm trying to tell you. Because then maybe it'll make more sense. But when you first think of an idea, or you first associate or you first start a project, it's very easy to feel overwhelmed, because you're looking at everything that needs to be done at once. So I think about it like going to the grocery store. You make your list and then you go to the produce section and you get what you need. You go to the meat section, you get what you need. You go to the bakery and you get what you need. Imagine if you walked into that grocery store and you had to go to all those sections at the same time and grab everything at once. That's impossible. But that's what it feels like when you first start a project because you're like, I have to do all of these things and I got to do them right now. So What I try to do is I try to list things out and I try to see the relationship between things. And I'm like, okay, if I get this done, then it's going to set me up to do this. And then it's going to set me up to do that. And then set me up to do this. And sometimes it's just a really big task or a really big thing that I don't know how to do. I'll break that up into mini tasks and be like, okay, well, I need, I want to do this like motion graphics thing I've never done before, but I just, I saw in like a silk almond commercial and I want to replicate it. All right, well. Let's find the ad and let's watch it. Let's download it and slow it down and try to figure it out that way. And then maybe you'll see some of the techniques and then you'll be able to go online and find a tutorial or somebody else who did something similar. And I know an issue I have is like, I can see in my head what I want to do, but I don't know how to explain it. So how do I like go on the internet and ask like, how do I do this? But a lot of it is just like, to me, it's like peeling back the layers of what seems like in some and realizing that it just starts with this tiny thing that once you do that, you can build and build and build, and then you've got everything.
Speaker 01:Do you think that creativity is something that people are born with, or is it a skill that you can develop?
Speaker 00:I think it's both. I think it is something that some people are innately born with, But I absolutely think it is a skill that needs to be honed and developed. I look at it the same way as I look at a major athlete. Michael Jordan, have you seen that documentary that they did called The Last Dance about the Chicago team that he was on, the Bulls and all that? I've heard of it. Actually, I don't think I've seen it. It's really good. It's really good. And what I learned, and I say this with love, what I learned is that Michael Jordan's a maniac because he is so focused on winning and doing this and doing that that he practices nonstop and he makes his team practice nonstop. Yeah, he was born gifted. He was born gifted with being able to play basketball and having good eye-hand coordination and being tall and being strong and all of that stuff. But if he just relied on that, He would not be Michael. I wouldn't know who he is. I'm not a basketball fan. I just know him because I'm alive in America, you know, but I look at creativity is the same thing. Is that like, yeah, we all could be. We are all born creative in some way, shape or form. Some of us are more creative than others because of how our minds work. And that is what it is. But that doesn't mean that somebody. cannot be creative, cannot hone that creativity, can't learn to be creative. I think a lot of people who think they're not creative or think they can't be creative just become intimidated by what they think being creative means. And I think if they had an opportunity to kind of like let go of that intimidation and try to just be creative in their own ways, that they would find that they're more creative than they thought. But I absolutely think it's something that can be worked on. I think it's something that can be honed. And I think it comes through in a lot of different ways. You know, just because you want to be a videographer doesn't mean you can't find creativity looking at paintings. Because so much in paintings is shadows and composition and color and perspective and emotion. Those are all things that have come through in photo and video too. So we're all connected and creativity is all connected in different ways. I think you just have to kind of let go and be open to it coming to you.
Speaker 01:And what advice would you give to somebody who wants to build a career in visual storytelling?
Speaker 00:Remain curious. Always remain curious. Always be interested in what people have to say. regardless of what they're talking about. So much of visual storytelling, especially if you're doing interview-based storytelling, is having that curiosity and having people feel comfortable around you because that comfortability and that vulnerability comes through on camera. And especially if you're talking to people who are in a high care type of job, veterinary medicine, human medicine, social work, things like that, firefighters, police officers, all of that stuff, you want them to be able to trust you. And they're not gonna trust you if they don't feel that you care. But it's not hard to care. Everybody has got an interesting story to tell. That's something I learned from Steve Hartman, who he still does some stuff. He's just not as frequent anymore. But he has a lovely story. It's one of my favorites of this woman who her and her husband adopted these boys that were in the foster system and all this stuff. But the beginning of the story is her going, well, I'm not interesting. I don't have a story to tell. And then he tells this beautiful story about her. And he's like so much for not being interesting. You know, like everybody's got something to say. And I think when you're getting into visual storytelling, The thing that we have the opportunity to do that not everybody has if they're not using visuals is all of the communication that is nonverbal. You've got music. You've got composition. You've got body language. You've got so much going on that is not spoken that can help you communicate that story. So I would lean into that. Lean into the pauses. Lean into the laughs. You know, don't have everybody just like talking right after each other. Give people time to breathe because that's how conversations are. That's how reality is. And, you know, at the end of the day, trust your gut, trust your instinct and think to yourself, like, is this something I would be interested in? Is this something I would want to watch? Is this something my friends would want to watch? I know I'm going to butcher the quote, but I want to say that like I read a John Waters quote that was like, you know, if my friends don't like my movies, then I'm upset. Like, I don't care what the critics say, but if my friends don't like my movies, then I'm upset. You know, and that's kind of it too, because if you do something and at least one other person likes it, or at least one other person resonates with it, or it means something to them, then you've done your job. Then you've done it. Because if it touches one person, it has the opportunity to touch so many other people.
Speaker 01:I love that metric of just one person. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. And if you could go back and look at your younger self earlier on in your career, what advice would you give that version of yourself?
Speaker 00:Oh, my God. I would tell her to calm down, to relax, dude. I would get so worked up about... You know, when I worked at Bay News 9, I started as a photojournalist, which I'm very happy I did because that helped me fall in love with visual media more. But that's not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be a multimedia journalist. I wanted to be on camera. I wanted to write my own stuff. I wanted to do live shots. And I applied for that job a few times before I got it. And every time I didn't get it, it was the end of the world. But I wasn't ready. And I look back and of course, you know, hindsight is 20-20. But I look back and I'm like, I wasn't ready. You know, the news director was right, you know, and the reporters who helped me refine and worked with me to be ready were right that I wasn't ready. So I think that, you know, a couple of things I would tell myself is no is not the end of the world. It's not no forever. It's no right now. And to also just if you want something bad enough, just keep going for it. You know, don't give up. Don't feel like you're never going to get it. Just keep going for it and keep getting better and find those people who you trust to give you real feedback and to help you. I would not be where I am today if I didn't have so many people in my past and in my present who support and help me professionally, personally, creatively every day because we all make each other better. So you're not going to do it by yourself. It's not going to happen right away. And you need to calm down and not give yourself a hernia trying to make it all happen today.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I think that's good advice. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 00:Oh, it was such a pleasure chatting with you about all this. I thank you so much for thinking to invite me.
Speaker 01:That is it for today's episode. If you liked what you heard, please follow and subscribe to the podcast and feel free to share it with a friend. I will leave Amy's website and social media links in the show notes, so be sure to check that out as well. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.
