Transcript:

Ross Borden (00:00):

What do you have like 15 million followers now on social

Cole Walliser (00:03):

Across platform? I think I’m closer to 20. But yeah,

Ross Borden (00:06):

Man, my man. The audience probably knows you from the glam bot. You basically have met probably more celebrities than anyone on Earth. Tell me about the big breaks in your early career that kind of set everything else up.

Cole Walliser (00:19):

I directed a video for a huge artist. We had a bunch of other cool guests in these videos. I was like, oh, this is my big break. Lo and behold, nothing really came from it. As far as jobs, how

Ross Borden (00:30):

Were you finding brand deals and paying the bills as a creator, especially what worked for you?

Cole Walliser (00:36):

I did this in my directing days with spec commercials.

Ross Borden (00:40):

This is creator, the podcast from Matador Network. I’m your host, Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. Alright, we’re back with another episode of Creator the podcast today, very special guest, Cole Waller, the man, the myth, the legend. Cole, thank you for coming and please, for those not familiar with your work and your channels, please introduce yourself.

Cole Walliser (01:17):

Yeah, rah Ross, thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here. Yeah, as stated, my name’s Cole Waller. I’m by traded director. This is my traditional role, but it’s evolved sort of into a talent host, content creator, actor. It’s grown quite a bit in the past couple years, but the core of my being, I believe, is I would label myself a director.

Ross Borden (01:35):

Give me a quick highlight reel of where you grew up, where you’re from, and then how you became a creator and a director. Would love a little bit of background for those that are not familiar.

Cole Walliser (01:47):

Yeah, let’s get right into it. I am Canadian. I’m from Vancouver, Canada. That is where I grew up and spent my formative years. I started creating stuff on HI eight, maybe MiniDV, way back in the day before there was any way to distribute content or share stuff. I just loved, I learned early, I loved making things and video stuff was just a really cool, fun thing to do, and I started playing around with it. And never

Ross Borden (02:15):

When you were a kid, how old were you when you started making stuff with that?

Cole Walliser (02:20):

Well, on my own, probably 15, but I do remember playing with family video camera kind of a thing. But when I was 15, I used to go up to my friend’s cabin up the coast of British Columbia, and we would just be all 10 boys just going cliff jumping, playing golf, going wake surfing, doing all these fun stuff. And my friend’s mom would have a video camera and she’d film everything. And I would take that footage and two vvcs back in the day, edit a thing together. And so I did this every summer. We would go do it. I have a multitude of these sort of recap videos, and that was the first time I took my own initiative to really, really make something and it really just never stopped.

Ross Borden (03:01):

Wow. I love it. And then what brought you to the us? Was that work or did you decide to come live here anyway based in LA now, right?

Cole Walliser (03:08):

I’m based in la yeah, it was work. So I mean, it was 15, so I made stuff all sort of through high school. When I went to college, I bought a good video camera. I bought a computer to start really trying to learn how to do it and do these tiny jobs. As I was going through school, I realized I would want to always try to do this as a career, you know what I mean? I was like, okay, I have a degree in psychology, but I was, I just making videos and doing tiny things for different clients along the way, and I decided that, okay, I want to give it a shot. And at the time it was just like you had to go to la, this was sort of before this is right as social as YouTube was kind of coming online, but it wasn’t really like that was a path at the time. So it was like, you got to go to la, so I moved to la.

Ross Borden (03:53):

So you never went to film school, you didn’t do any of your schooling was not about being a creator or director or filmmaker. It was all sort of on the passion project side of things?

Cole Walliser (04:03):

Yeah, I thought about it because as I was learning how to do filmmaking, I was like, okay, I was in college and I was like, oh, maybe I can transfer to UCLA or USC or something and go to film school down there, or even film school, Vancouver. Vancouver has a decent film school, but I was very much enamored with this DIY, Robert Rodriguez, Quint Tarantino thing. Just go make movies and learn. And so with the advent of even mini DB cameras back then I was like, I’m just going to go make stuff. I enjoy the process. I’d rather just go make things than to sit in another classroom. So that was my approach.

Ross Borden (04:43):

So you get to la, assume you don’t have too many connections here in California. What were the steps between getting here and being a complete novice, messing around on your own and doing creative things on the side and actually making this a career?

Cole Walliser (05:01):

Yeah, I did have some connections. So aside from me exploring filmmaking, I also used to dance. So I used to do hip hop choreography and I knew a bunch of dancers from la, so dancers from LA would come up to Vancouver, teach classes, workshops. I would go meet them, we would, so I had friends out here that were in the industry through the dance community. And so it wasn’t like they were in any position to hand me jobs, but I knew people that were working out here. So that really, I think helped. You could just understand where stuff is and how to operate or some of my friends had agents and I could meet other people through them. So that I think was really helpful. And though I guess they did kind of give me work because I ended up editing choreography reels, dance reels. So I would do a dance reel for $250 back in the day. It would take me two weeks to edit it, you know what I mean? But it was like whatever jobs you can get was definitely what I was trying to do. And so through that, it literally was just like one little job. Is each job’s a little bit better than the last one and just keep on, just on the grind back in the day.

Ross Borden (06:11):

And then what about big breaks? When did you get into, A lot of the audience probably knows you from the glam bot in the fact that you’re on every red carpet now or that you’re a commercial director doing music videos and films and all kinds of stuff. So when did you get from, tell me about the big breaks in your early career that set everything else up?

Cole Walliser (06:35):

Yeah, there was one tangible big break and then one sort of fake out big break. So I’m shooting stuff for dancers and I have friends that are choreographing for different artists. And back in the day, my friends were choreographing for Miley Cyrus and we wanted to do these online dance videos. This is a little series we did with the crew of Step Up Two and John Chu and all of his dancers, and then Miley Cyrus and her community of dancers. We did these online dance battle videos on YouTube in 2008. And so they asked me to direct Miley Cyrus’s side of the videos, which obviously I’m my, yes, of course is super cool. So we get a bunch of dancers, we do a bunch of dance videos, and in my mind I’m like, oh, this is my big break. I’m working. Miley Hannah, Montana era is the biggest thing in entertainment,

Ross Borden (07:23):

Right? Massive. Yeah.

Cole Walliser (07:24):

Yeah. I’m directing these videos and they’re going on YouTube and they’re going viral. Other big celebrities are reporting on ’em. Like Madonna made a reply video on YouTube and Entertainment Tonight are talking about these things. And I’m like, oh, this is crazy. We made it in a sense, you know what I mean? I directed a video for a huge artist. We had a bunch of other cool guests in these videos. I was like, oh, this is my big break. Lo and behold, nothing really came from it as far as jobs, but it did do a lot of things for my career in so far as because it was a topic of a conversation at the time. Now it added to my confidence I could walk into a room because in LA it’s like you go somewhere and you’re like, oh, I’m a director. I do this. They’re like, oh, have you done anything I might have seen? Yeah,

Ross Borden (08:12):

Anything I, yeah, anything I know.

Cole Walliser (08:14):

Yeah. And so early in my career, the answer’s just like, no. But then that gave me something to talk about where I’m like, oh, I did this thing. And at the time I’m like, oh yeah, I saw that. I heard about it or whatever. So that’s sort of added to the confidence, which was super helpful. But it’s not like I started getting calls to go direct other things. It was a cool thing on the resume, but that was kind of it. The thing that I actually attribute to my actual big break was working for Pink. So my good friend Allison Falk, who has gone on to have a huge career as a choreographer, her first big job or one of her first big jobs was directing, sorry, choreographing a tour for Pink. She wanted just some footage of her working with Pink. And so she asked me to come to rehearsal for free to just shoot some stuff. And I’m like, of course this is one of my best friends, still is. And so I’m like, okay, cool, I’ll show up. So I show up, I meet Pink, I meet the tour director, I meet the other dancers. We film some BTS just for her. But in me meeting everybody, her and her choreography partner threw out the idea like, oh, we should bring Cole on for a couple of days, film some stuff. And then I had a goodbye.

Ross Borden (09:25):

Hank and her partner had the idea, or your friend and

Cole Walliser (09:28):

Her, no, sorry. My friend Alison with her choreography partner at the time, Leo, were in a meeting with Pink with the tour director, this other guy, Baz, and they throw out the idea of like, oh, we should just bring Cole on to film a couple of days. And then Pink and the tour director were like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. We should get some more footage. So they brought me on to film. Five Days was the official first job, and it turned into eight or nine years of work of on and off tour directing a ton of music videos, opening videos for a tour, two documentaries of Early Life on the Road. It just turned into this huge thing. And from that working with Pink, that did segue into a lot of other work, and it all sort of started from me being like, oh, I’ll come shoot you for free.

(10:13):

Now, I don’t advise doing that. There’s a huge problem with working for free, but there is certain instances where if you personally feel there’s value, then I think you should entertain the idea of doing it. If someone’s telling you that there’s value and you should work for free, tell them to get the heck out of there and never call you again. But if there’s a situation where you feel like there’s value in doing something and you can afford the time to go do it, there often is a reason to do it on occasion. Not all the time, not every time, but sometimes.

Ross Borden (10:45):

So those are the two big breaks. And then when someone says, Hey, Cole, what do you do? What space are you in? You do something in entertainment, how do you explain? Are you director first and foremost? Tell us about, you said you’re at your office in LA right now. What is the current status of your business and what do you call yourself?

Cole Walliser (11:07):

Yeah, it’s changed recently because of the amount of time and even sort of the exposure I have on social these past couple of years. Five years ago it would be director, that’s it. I wouldn’t say anything else. But now, because I mean my career has expanded in a variety of ways because of social. I usually say I’m a director, then I go, but sometimes I’m on camera too. So I’m either hosting, doing some acting, just doing some on-camera things. So I basically kind of say I’m behind the camera and occasionally in front. But the hosting thing has grown quite a bit where I hosted a TV show on Hulu called Exposure. I’ve done a ton of other hosting gigs. I was just in Saudi Arabia hosting a red carpet show for a designer named Ellie Saab. So the on-camera stuff is growing, and for me it’s a really fun and exciting new thing. It’s like a whole new avenue of my career. And not that directing is boring in any way. This is still the most filling creative pursuit, but just being on camera is a fun new aspect that is really exciting for me, and I’m really enjoying doing it a lot right now

Ross Borden (12:23):

With the two big projects we’ve done with you at Matador that were really more in front of the camera than anything. The host of our Visit California series and then the Samsung series. So you touched on that. Let’s talk about that. I remember we did that Samsung Showcase program with you and a couple other creators, and then I remember the agency, the head of the agency called me and they said, Hey, what is Matador’s relationship with Cole? The client’s interested in bringing him on to do something much bigger in this Hulu show where he’d be the host. Is it cool? And I was like, hell yeah, you should absolutely reach out to him. And then that became exposure. So tell us a little bit about that whole adventure with Samsung and what you guys did with exposure.

Cole Walliser (13:07):

Yeah, this was a super cool experience, and it’s a bummer that we only did one season because for me, this was one of the most rewarding projects I’ve done simply because as I mentioned before, content was a thing. I was making content was editing videos, I was trying to create stuff. And then this is really an art that I’ve spent my entire life just being obsessed about and working in and creating. And so to have a show that’s celebrating this art form, the show itself was predominantly about photography, and it was using Samsung phones in a reality competition show. So we had eight competitors from a variety of backgrounds, semi-professional photographers to hobbyists to moms who take cool pictures of their kids, really, really cool variety of group. And we would task ’em with different challenges each week to go do a cool portrait or an action shot or whatever. So yeah, just celebrating the photography art form and hosting that show, being a judge of the contestants was just such a rewarding experience, and it was really, really cool. I’m really proud of the work that we all did, and it sort of stemmed from our initial Samsung thing together. So it all worked out.

Ross Borden (14:24):

Yeah, it was cool. I saw a few episodes, I really liked it. So shifting gears a little bit, as I said in the beginning, I feel like most people know you. And what do you have 15 million followers now on social, across the board,

Cole Walliser (14:38):

Across platform? I think I’m closer to 20, but yeah,

Ross Borden (14:41):

Man, my man crushing it. So I feel like a lot of people see you in those videos that are the glam bot videos. So walk us through a little bit, even for those who already know exactly what I’m talking about, walk us through a little bit of how that came to be. I think it was with E originally, or maybe you correct me if I’m wrong, but was that your idea? How did that whole thing happen? Because now you basically have met probably more celebrities than anyone on earth, and you’re on every red carpet. So walk us through that whole experience.

Cole Walliser (15:14):

Yeah, it’s pretty wild because I think that this coming year will be my 10th year doing it. I think it depends if I count. We missed one during the pandemic, but that’s neither here nor there. But so it is the glam bot is an E thing. So E has the best red carpet show for all the award shows, and they have a variety of interview booths. And in 2016, we started this thing called the glam bot. This wasn’t my invention. This was a thing that repurposed a camera system to shoot talent. So the camera system is typically used in tabletop commercials, which is often food commercials. So when you see a taco break in half and it’s all in slow motion and the food goes flying or a coke is pouring and the camera’s whipping around, this is the camera system that shoots those things.

(16:05):

It’s a motion control arm with a high speed camera. And that’s typically what it’s used for. I don’t know where the idea came from. My assumption is that this was an executive at combined with a couple other vendors to shoot talent with it. They did a camera test. They’re like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then they’re like, we need a director to direct talent on the red carpet. And they wanted someone that had done movement. And so me with my history in dance, I shot a lot of dance. They wanted someone that had shot beauty. And the segue from pink was I started doing stuff with covergirl, and then I directed stuff for Pantene, Revlon, all these beauty brands for a variety of your years. So I had a ton of experience shooting pop stars, female pop stars and beauty, and they wanted someone that was comfortable around sort of a-listers.

(16:55):

And through my work with Pink, I ended up working with Katie Perry, Cher, Britney, and again, a ton of pop stars. So I sort of had this roster of people that I directed prior to even starting the glam bot. And this initially was a job as a director. I would show up for the weekends, I would direct talent, I’d create all these cool slowmo videos with the talent, and then I would go home. It wasn’t until 2018 I had the idea 20 18, 20 19, I started thinking about, I started doing some versions of BTS, but in 2020, that’s when everything was really dialed in, and there was actually a good amount of content that I was actively pushing out in 2020 based on the glam bot. And that’s when my socials took off. And this was right at the start of the pandemic, and then everybody’s getting on TikTok, and it was just this storm of everybody consuming content and my content was brand new and I had a ton of it. So this was a perfect story.

Ross Borden (17:53):

How do you negotiate that with E? Are you saying, I directed this in your contract so I can use this content? Oh,

Cole Walliser (18:02):

In the contract, they own all the footage for sure. Oh,

Ross Borden (18:05):

Okay. Yeah. But you use it, you can still use it on

Cole Walliser (18:07):

Your Well, so at the time it was like, I think we need to remember the climate of social a little before 2020, right? Brands were not jumping on social 20 17, 20 18, 20 19. Even celebrities were not really full in on social back then. Some were playing around with it and some brands were like, okay, maybe we should have a bit of a presence. But I still think the industry was kind of like social, you know what I mean? It wasn’t the real thing. It wasn’t TV movies, it wasn’t these million dollar commercials. It was this secondary thing. And so at the time, I could take a photo on the red carpet and post on my social. That’s fine. And so it was one of these things where don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness, but it wasn’t even, it was that conscious of it. It wasn’t like I was like, oh, I know they’re going to have a problem with this. It was really just like, this stuff is cool and I’m promoting E. You know what I mean?

Ross Borden (19:12):

Totally. This is cool stuff for them too. Yeah.

Cole Walliser (19:15):

So obviously I just started making them. I was just putting in the work. I was editing them. I would just sit down again during the pandemic, it was not much going on, so it was Friday night, I was like, I guess I’m going to edit a glam bot. I’d sit down, cut for two or three hours and post it the next day or something, and then I would tag them and it was just getting traction. And basically, obviously we’ve had conversations through the years and now we have a more formal process for how these get made and approvals and things, because technically in the contract, all the footage shot in that booth he owns. So despite the fact that I brought my own cameras, it’s occurring on their set. So they own the footage, which is fine. They’re paying for everything to be there,

Ross Borden (19:56):

Totally

Cole Walliser (19:56):

Fine. But we’ve just sort of reached this understanding where I’m making this content and it’s good for the brand, it’s good for them, it’s good for me, it’s fun, good content, it’s good for everybody. So now we just have an agreement for how this all functions. But back in the day I was just like, this is cool. I’m going to shoot it, I’m going to post it. And I didn’t really think twice about it because it was still promoting E and the event and the footage, and it is really all good, but we definitely needed to have some conversations along the way for how this operated.

Ross Borden (20:25):

At some point the lawyers are like, hang on, we should have some sort of agreement in writing.

Cole Walliser (20:28):

Oh, I had conversations with lawyers for sure, but I mean it’s all good. We worked it all out.

Ross Borden (20:33):

Who is your favorite glam bot celebrity interaction or encounter? Who is the best?

Cole Walliser (20:40):

Yeah, this is a good question. I was trying to add up. I think I do over a hundred. I do 500 a year I think because we typically do five events. We do Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, golden Globes, and then sometimes SAG awards or People’s Choice Awards. There’s a couple that vary in there, but we kind of do five events and I’ve done over a hundred at each event every time. Maybe early years we would do 80, but I think at the Grammys this past year we did like 160 or something like that, just like an insane amount. So I’ve then 500 a year for the past, not fully 10 years, maybe like eight or nine years. There’s many. There’s thousands of glamor bots I’ve done over the years, but clearly there’s a few that stick out in my mind. I think the answer that I typically give the answer is I think Brad Pitt at the 2020 Oscars, and the reason why is Brad Pitt is because I’ve shot a ton of cool celebrities and talent, but Brad Pitt was a person that I grew up watching his movies, so as a kid watching him and all sorts of stuff for me to meet him and also he was super cool, he was super nice, super personable, and then the glam bot was super awesome.

(21:58):

I was like, all these factors like, oh, this is probably one of the best interactions. But I also think Ariana Grande both in 2020 and this past year in 2024 was really sweet. Billie Eilish was really sweet. So there’s a bunch that stand out, but I think Brad Pitt tops it.

Ross Borden (22:12):

That’s awesome. So as things have now you’re content creator, your talent, you’re a director, you have massive socials. Tell us about what sort of pays the bills now, where’s your career going? Are you doing more directing? Are you doing more brand partnerships and stuff that’s social first content? What is the most lucrative? Because this podcast is about people learning about becoming a creator, and a big part of that is going full on and quitting your day job so you can do this and pay the bills. What are the things that are really moving the needle for you as a business right now?

Cole Walliser (22:51):

As a business? I mean, I’m still doing traditional directing things, but what I’ve realized through this whole experience of developing a following online is that when I do a brand partnership or when I do something on social, I am sort of doing three jobs in one. So it’s like if I’m doing a thing for covergirl or even the Super Bowl commercial, I directed this year for CVS, I’m getting hired to direct a thing, and that’s the one job I have, which is a big job, which is an awesome job, which is creatively fulfilling a lot of the time. And you’re working with the ad agency, the client, whatever, you do your prep, you show up, you direct, and then you go home. That’s one job. If I do a brand partnership, I’ve done a ton of these over the years, but I’ll just say whatever brand it is, they’re hiring me to direct the thing typically safer for when I work with you guys, which is actually quite lovely.

(23:50):

It is fun to alleviate the mental brain capacity it takes to create something and just be talent, but that’s a different story. But typically I’m being hired to direct the thing that we’re making to post, so I’m getting paid for that. So that’s my directing fee in the same sense that when I direct a commercial, I get a directing fee, but I’m also getting paid a talent fee because typically on a brand deal on social, I’m the talent in this brand deal. So I’m directing it and I’m sort of starring in it. That’s another fee because as I just mentioned, I can do a brand deal where I’m not directing, so someone else is going to come in and produce and direct it, and then I’ll just be talent. But typically I’m directing it and I’m talent. So that’s two jobs. And then I also get paid for distribution. I get paid to post this on my social, so I get paid to give access to this brand to my entire audience. So I get paid a third time. So in every brand deal, typically I essentially have three pretty good jobs because you can sustain yourself just if you were just talent, you could sustain yourself if you’re just a director or you could sustain yourself if you just had an audience that you were sort of selling.

Ross Borden (24:55):

So

Cole Walliser (24:56):

In that regard,

Ross Borden (24:57):

Triple threat,

Cole Walliser (25:00):

The bills are paid easier through brand deals because each job is really three jobs. So if I do five brand deal jobs, that’s almost the equivalent of 15 directing jobs. And so it just becomes easier to kind of make a living. I’m just adding more value in these types of jobs because I’m selling things three times, so, so as my socials have grown, that capacity has grown as well. And in a good way, this is helping me sort of reposition my directing because I’ve been a short form director for my entire career. Music, videos, commercials, promo stuff, but the dream has always been to move into narrative. And so now that I have this business that is supporting me and my endeavors through content, I’m able to spend time, kind of time is the limiting factor in everything that I do now, but I’m able to spend some time developing narrative projects. So different short films, different features, working on scripts. This has been a thing that I’ve wanted to do, but now this current structure sort of empowers me to do that with a little bit more effectiveness or with a little less struggle because I am able to make a living doing content. I can spend time and energy working on development now.

Ross Borden (26:28):

Tell us about that. Tell us about the development stuff and the writing and the narrative stuff that you’re working on.

Cole Walliser (26:36):

In all of my short form stuff, I’ve always had this sort of interest and I guess sort of narrative storytelling is always a thing that is sort of weaved through what I do, even if it’s doing a documentary on pink on our life on the road, or even in some of the music videos I did for, they always sort of have these narrative storylines because this is the thing that’s enamored me about film since the beginning, but now I’m just at the place where it’s like, okay, it’s kind of interesting because I do think that on some level, my career as a director has had some success. I’ve directed stuff for some of these big stars and I’ve done some really cool projects, but in the grand scheme of how Hollywood works, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I can direct a feature. I know I can direct a feature.

(27:28):

I think a lot of maybe audience members would be like, yeah, of course this guy can direct a feature, but the people actually paying for the money for a feature to be made, it doesn’t necessarily, it doesn’t guarantee that, which I do understand and directing feature films, you end up in this bit of a catch 22 where nobody knows you can direct a feature film until you’ve directed a feature film and they don’t want to take any risks because if they’re putting up a hundred thousand or a hundred million, it’s a risk if someone hasn’t sort of necessarily been vetted. So it’s always sort of tricky to break in. And while I do feel like I’m in a good position based on the fact that I’ve worked in the industry for a long time, and I do know a lot of people, this is still a new avenue that one must break into.

(28:18):

And it somewhat, I mean I guess it’s somewhat surprising of how sort of unrelated those two things are. Short form directing and long form directing, these are, it’s almost like they’re separate industries in a sense. So my approach, I could wait around until someone has a script that they feel like I’m the right director for, or I can spend my time and energy trying to develop something that is interesting, fascinating, a story that I want to tell and it be good enough for someone to give me some money for. That’s kind of the thing where I’m much more in control of that destiny and so I’m spending time and energy on that pursuit.

Ross Borden (28:58):

So tell us a little bit more about that process. So you’re basically using smaller films and projects as a stepping stone to establish a formal career and experience as a narrative director. Are you finding stories that you think are interesting or people you think are interesting and then doing the whole thing and sort of going to raise money for that film? Or what is that process like to get a sort of indie film funded if you’re the director?

Cole Walliser (29:26):

Yeah, there’s no one way, and in all of my years pursuing interest in this field, I’ve done so much research on how these early movies get made and there’s almost nothing in common between all of them. It’s like everybody, you just bootstrap it and figure it out. Friends and family, some one rich person, you beg money, you get a script to some actor, you know what I mean? There’s a million different ways and there’s very few consistent themes other than you’re just busting your ass until it happens. So for me, I’ve done a bunch of short films early in my career, but then I started working and I’ve just been sort of thankfully been able to work. But it’s more about me developing stories that I find interesting and that I want to tell. I think that’s sort of the guiding parameter for my pursuit now.

(30:18):

And it’s less I could find news articles and things and I have that I found interesting and sort of worked on developing things, but it opens a bit of a can of worms with regards to licensing and story rights and all these things. I’m almost better suited to come up with something in my head or something that I’ve realized or thought of or seen or whatever that’s not directly related to a true thing and create and craft a story that I want to tell. And so there’s almost two avenues of which I’m pursuing this in. There’s a couple of different features I’ve been working on, but also I’ve been sort of working on shorts. I think that me directing a short now is another interesting way to do this and do the festival circuits because me as a director obviously has changed since. I mean, I literally was at the start of my career when I was doing shorts and my experience has obviously changed since then. So I think doing a short now would be an interesting approach and one that I do think I want to do in the near future.

Ross Borden (31:21):

So if you develop a short that you’re obsessed with, you really have a lot of confidence in, tell us about, a little about the importance of the festival circuits. You’re entering it into film festivals, presumably not just to reach people and audiences that are physically there, but for the prestige or the recognition that comes with those, or are you trying to win awards or what’s the goal there?

Cole Walliser (31:43):

Yeah, I mean the goal really would be to get the right people to see and talk about it because obviously you can do a short and throw that up online and have anywhere from 10 people to 10,000 to a hundred thousand people watch this thing. But for me, the goal would be to get studio executives to see my work and to be curious about me as a filmmaker to then either have me pitch ideas or basically open the door in the traditional sense. So the film festival circuit is a way to obviously feature film execs are tapped into what’s happening on the film circuit, and that is the audience that I want to target or showcase my work to rather than the general audience. I do think that there are cases where someone does a short film, they put it online and this blows up and they get a film deal.

(32:42):

This does happen, but maybe I don’t have that much self-confidence in my ability to short film to hack. I dunno how to do a viral short film. You know what I mean? I know how to do viral content, but a viral short film is the thing that I’m never really tried to do. So that is a bit scary and daunting, but I do feel like I can craft a story that is ena and captivating and at least get some interest based on the festival circuit. So it’s not even like to win awards. Win awards is of course nice and the recognition is always great, but it really would be to get my work, the work that I want to do in front of the right people. That would be kind of the goal of doing

Ross Borden (33:25):

The

Cole Walliser (33:25):

Short film circuit. Makes sense.

Ross Borden (33:27):

So shifting gears back to being a content creator and talent, I forget if you had a manager when I first met you, or I think you’re with CA right now in terms of an agency, but what is your advice to creators as they’re getting bigger? Let’s think social media creators versus directors or just pure talent. How important is it to have a manager? How important is it to be part of an agency where you have a team representing you and what kind of value does that bring and what are the sort of pros and cons early on?

Cole Walliser (34:02):

That’s a really good question and one that I don’t know if I know the answer to. I obviously can speak to my own experience, but I do think my trajectory into representation is a little bit different than a traditional creator because I know that there’s agencies and managers that work just with creators. But for me, because my big goal is in narrative storytelling, in the traditional sense in Hollywood, I always wanted to sign with a traditional agency and traditional management. So yeah, as you mentioned, I’m with CA sort of across the board for directing for talent and all things. And then my management company is Entertainment 360, which represent a ton of traditional people and they both have amazing digital departments, but I know there’s companies like Whaler and these other companies that rep just creators. And I don’t know if I can advise someone who has success on social and is looking for reps, whether that is the right move because I’ve never worked with them in that, or not just Whaler, but other social media, first companies.

(35:19):

I know they do a lot of cool work, but I don’t know, I don’t if I can advise of whether that’s a good idea or not. I will say that for me, wanting to be in the traditional space and having always wanted to be with a big agency and a big management company, and having spent many years unsigned with these companies thinking I deserve, I should be signed with one of these big companies, I did make a decision that I was never going to knock down representations door. I was never going to submit myself to a, I was never going to submit myself to big management companies. My approach, and I think this can be applied to anybody seeking representation, my approach was like, I am going to work on my career. I’m going to build my career to be the best that I can as possible.

(36:10):

And when I’m in the position where I add value to these companies, they will come to me. You know what I mean? Or at least they will express interest or it’ll happen organically because I know if I knock on the door of a big agency and I submit my stuff, they might be like, yeah, he’s doing cool stuff. We could probably work him, but they’re not going to be driven to really help me in my career. But if I sort of grow my career as big as I can till they notice, then this dynamic is a thing that’s going to work and whether I really love both of my representation both in the agency and the management side, maybe we just sort of all click. Or maybe this was a result of waiting until that time I did the TV show on Hulu. I was not rep at CAA when I did that and I had a friend of a friend work the deal, but it was from that job that got me representation and it’s been great since then. So that was my trajectory. But I do think that people can help along the way and if something organically happens, if a management or agency expresses interest in you and your work, I do think that it is good to explore that because I think that people on your side helping you and your career is good. You just have to find the right person. A bunch of people that say they can help and then don’t help. They’re everywhere.

Ross Borden (37:33):

Yeah, I’ve seen quite a bit of that with especially people who represent digital creators where they we’re like, we have 15 K for this project. And they’re like, how about 20 5K? And we’re like, we lose interest. And I think the creator maybe never even knows that there is a great offer for a fun project to go on a trip for 15 grand and the hotshot agent has just ruined a revenue opportunity for the creator. So I think that’s good advice about finding someone who actually has a chops and has experienced and also knows where you are in your career.

Cole Walliser (38:10):

And I think there’s one misconception about reps too. Okay, because again, I signed with CAA in 2021, I started working as a director in 2009, and I’ve had versions of reps In the commercial world, you basically sign with a production company and it’s like they pitch you to get work. And I’ve been with a variety of music video reps and commercial reps, production company reps, and still bottom line, I think there’s this misconception that, okay, you get an agent and they’re going to get you all your work. This is not at all what happens, right? It’s really still up to you to procure all of your own work and to build your own career. And I learned those lessons along the way, signing with a variety of people thinking that they’re going to bring me work and then they don’t. And then I’m like, what the heck? And it still really just relies on me. So it’s like I just think that you’re better suited to just figure out the best way to move forward and build your own career. And when people pop in and they can help and then great. And if you start a relationship and it’s still beneficial, keep it going. And if you start a relationship and it’s not, then you can stop it. So it just still ends up being your responsibility and there are people that can help and nobody’s going to do the work for you.

Ross Borden (39:20):

Totally. And I think when obviously now I would say most of your work I would imagine is finding you or finding your representation and then they’re saying, Hey Cole, what do you think about this? But in the earlier days before that was the case, how were you finding brand deals and paying the bills as a creator? Especially not much as on the directing side, but I’ve talked to different people. People are like, some people find a brand they love and they go hit up LinkedIn, a bunch of people on LinkedIn and try and get something going there. Some people use the product that they love on their channel and hope they get noticed by the brand. What worked for you in that arena?

Cole Walliser (40:03):

I did this in my directing days with spec commercials. So I directed a bunch of spec commercials. I did a Coke spec commercial, did a bunch of some car stuff back in the day just because that’s how you did it as a director, you just do a spec and submit it to somebody. I think that actually, I think that worked with Mercedes. I had a Mercedes and I was a fan of the brand and we shot some cool stuff. This is early social and I posted it on social and I got a hold of the Mercedes social people and I started a relationship work and I ended up working with the Mercedes for four years based off sort of spec work.

Ross Borden (40:43):

Can you explain to the audience what that means and why it’s important?

Cole Walliser (40:48):

Yeah. Spec work is on speculation, so it’s basically me doing a job that doesn’t exist. So I did a Coke commercial, as I mentioned, friends with a bunch of dancers. We basically did a dance Coke commercial and it’s basically taking any product or anything. And essentially, typically when you say spect, it means a commercial, but I guess it could sort of mean anything. But we did a 32nd commercial with my friend who was a dancer on a super hot day and basically just made a commercial on spec, so nobody’s paying us. We had the idea, we went, we shot it, we produced it, and then we tried to get Coke to see it. But

Ross Borden (41:24):

Still those specs are, and you were successful, they actually saw it and gave you a no,

Cole Walliser (41:28):

Coke didn’t see it. I don’t think Coke saw that one. But what I was going to say is it still is a piece of work that you’ve done that you can use for any other brand. So I can take that and be like, Hey, I did this thing on spec and they understand that it’s not a job, but you’re sort of still evaluating the work and how good, so I can use that to show any brand, hey, I can do this cool work. Even though it wasn’t sort of like a commission job. It still

Ross Borden (41:54):

Is at level shows you’re capable of.

Cole Walliser (41:56):

Exactly. And in a concise way,

Ross Borden (41:59):

I was also going to ask about that on your site, which is awesome. You have a reel and I feel like reels are still important and you put all your best work into your reel and it’s sort of the overall in one or two minutes your portfolio of what you’re capable of. How do you go about making a reel and is it important? Is that right or do you not really need a reel?

Cole Walliser (42:25):

I still think reels are important. It depends on what kind of jobs you’re going for, but I do think they’re really helpful because you can get an overview of someone’s work and aesthetic in a minute or two, whereas yes, we do have our social profiles and I can scroll and find stuff, but I don’t know if the random things I’m clicking on are going to be your best work or your worst work or what I’m really getting. So I do think a reel is a great way to bring someone up to speed with the work that you’ve done. And so it is a bit of work to edit these things and to keep track of all your stuff. But I do think that I am confident that I can send someone my reel and then click on it and be like, oh, I have an idea of what Cole does. Rather than just being like, Hey, look at my social, you might see me golfing or driving my car. It’s not, it’s not really my work, right? So I do think it really is helpful. And even lately, I started doing behind camera and on camera in a single reel. So it’s like there’s a section where it’s like me on camera doing stuff and there’s a section for me as a director, again, the goal is to give someone a full scope of the breadth of my work and capabilities, which now includes me on camera that is now in, I mean I have two rails, I have just a directing one, and then I have sort of an on camera slash directing one.

Ross Borden (43:40):

I assume now you have a full team around you who helps you with a lot of the heavy lifting for all these different channels. Do you have a team? And at what point were you like, damn, I need some help and I can afford to help. And if I get a small team around me, I could just do more

Cole Walliser (44:01):

Is a team, one person. I have one person, so me and another person is a team, I guess. Yeah,

Ross Borden (44:08):

That’s really impressive. They must be very productive.

Cole Walliser (44:12):

Yeah, it’s very stressful at times. Actually, no, but I’m at the point that I do want to figure out an effective way to scale, but basically I have one full-time assistant and she knows how to shoot and edit and she helps me with organization stuff and we delegate different things, but she’s super helpful in all of the pursuits, kind of like a jack of all trades kind of a thing, which has been really good. But we do hit bottlenecks and bandwidth limits, especially because I have a new business endeavor that I’m pursuing and this is going to require not only more content, but more logistics, more just operational things. And so I do need to sort of scale in some sense, and I don’t know how to do that per se, so I’m figuring that out. And also what that means is this more staff? Is it more like part-time vendors? I don’t really know, and this is all the thing I’m currently trying to figure out, but what’s

Ross Borden (45:12):

The new business? Do we get a sneak peek at the new business venture?

Cole Walliser (45:16):

Yeah, the new business venture is a coffee company. So I started a coffee company during the pandemic. I’ve just been obsessed with coffee for a long time, and I started sourcing a roast and we made mugs and we’ve done a bunch of other cool fun things like during the month of May, which is API heritage month, we released Asian-based coffee roasted by Asian roaster, and all the proceeds went to sort of help API sort of communities.

Ross Borden (45:40):

Awesome, love that.

Cole Walliser (45:42):

I will say, I will give you the little spiel that’s actually probably very aligned with the audience here is the whole idea of this new coffee company is to pursue it is for people that wake up and have their coffee to pursue their creative dreams. So the tagline is, fuel your creativity. And basically it’s for anybody that gets up, has a cup of coffee and does their creative thing. And I want to curate a community of people that are pursuing creative endeavors to just sort of gather around coffee and creativity essentially. And so we have a bunch of marketing initiatives. I want to do a bunch of event things. There’s a lot of things that I’m trying to do with this. It isn’t just really about coffee. Coffee is sort of like the binding thing amongst everybody, but it also is an avenue for myself as a creator where I’m going to do a little bit of merch, I’m going to do some other sort of products, some clothing stuff, some other home stuff. It just is an avenue for me to express all of my creative ideas and get a bunch of other creatives on board as well. So that’s kind of the approach, and I am super excited about all the things to come.

Ross Borden (46:56):

Love that, man, that’s really exciting. Congrats on that.

Cole Walliser (46:59):

Thank you.

Ross Borden (47:00):

And there be, is it just DTC to get the coffee or are you going to have shops in LA or any retail storefronts or just direct to consumer

Cole Walliser (47:12):

Coffee? Just to start? It’ll be direct to consumer. I think in the previous coffee version, we were in a couple retail spaces here just based on personal relationships that I have. So I think we’re going to be d, d, C, but I want to get into little farmer’s markets, little other markets and things around LA specifically like West side, like Santa Monica, Venice, where I’m based and we want to do popups, we want to do events, we want to do a bunch of cool fun things. So all of that is to come.

Ross Borden (47:43):

Awesome, man. Love it.

Cole Walliser (47:44):

Let I seen someone to run it. So anybody out there wants to loves coffee and is creative. Then

Ross Borden (47:48):

If what people should hear is Cole’s hiring more interns, assistants, editors, and now he needs to staff his entire coffee brand with great people. Alright, so since we are, as you know, Matador’s, a travel brand, two quick questions for you to end the interview. One, have you ever done anything abroad, a project that you’ve done while traveling or you got to travel for a project that was really special?

Cole Walliser (48:18):

Yeah, I have done a variety of work while traveling. As mentioned early on tour with Pink, this was my first time going overseas, my first time doing a lot of travel with her and the team there. So I mean, I have obviously great fond memories of that and really, really cool. But we would go to a place and it’s like we’re in the venue the whole time, so you don’t get to see, you have days off, but it’s not like when we did the Visit California thing where we’re really doing these activities in different locations. But another one that stands out was actually a thing with Mercedes, which was in 2022. We shot a commercial in Portugal and it was in Portugal for five days South Portugal on the beach shooting the launch for one of their new cars. And this was really, really cool.

(49:10):

Again, I was just talent on this one, but stayed like Beachside kind of hotel. The other talent was Madeline Pech. So she was working all the time and I would just come in and out and do stuff here and there. So I was chilling a bit. I got to see Portugal is my first time there. It just beautiful weather, really cool production. So that one stands out. But then even just, I just got home maybe two weeks ago from almost like a global jaunt where I was in Saudi Arabia hosting a red carpet for Ellie Saab as I mentioned. And then I was in Bangkok working on some writing. This is my personal time. And then I went to Australia, to Sydney and I directed a bunch of Somo videos for the TikTok awards out there. So it was quite an epic trip. I was gone for three weeks. It was exhausting but fun. And so yeah, that’s the most recent thing. I literally got back 10 days ago.

Ross Borden (50:00):

Alright, so perfect time to ask you my question I ask everyone, which is, if your passport only worked in three countries of the world and you had to limit your entire life to those three countries, what would those three countries be?

Cole Walliser (50:13):

Wait, so three additional countries to the home country?

Ross Borden (50:17):

No, not additional. Including us. If that’s one of your countries. That’s one of your countries. Then you got two more left.

Cole Walliser (50:22):

Oh, well then I only get to pick one because I’m Canadian, I have to go to Canada. So it’s like it has to be US and Canada, which is a bummer because now it’s down to just one man. Where would I go? One country I could travel to? I think Italy.

Ross Borden (50:39):

Italy,

Cole Walliser (50:40):

Yeah. I love it out there. And I think it’s a variety. There’s a variety of things. You can get sunny beach stuff, you can get cold mountain stuff because I’m kind of thinking, okay, I do love Thailand, Indonesia, could I go to Bali forever? I think that would end up getting, you would be tired. But I think that for the amount, there’s so many, I love Italy and there’s such a different variety of places and things and environments. I mean I could travel up and down Italy forever, so I’m going to say Italy.

Ross Borden (51:06):

Yeah, that’s a good answer. Alright, Canada, US and Italy, that’s official. Cole, thanks so much for your time. I know you’re a busy guy. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate you coming on,

Cole Walliser (51:15):

Dude. Thank you, Ross. It was a pleasure chatting. I love just talking about just the creative pursuit on things as I’m basing my entire coffee company on it. So this has been a lovely conversation and thank you for having me.

Ross Borden (51:27):

Creator the podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are a leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.