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Interview with Kevin (3/5/25)
Kevin Merritt 00:00 A show we did like in the Meadowlands or something in New Jersey. And I got a job managing credentials and which is all the passes that people, you know, the different access passes that people have. And, you know, so instead of doing in a spreadsheet, I created a little database to manage it so I could pull different reports and run different kind of analytics. I didn't call it analytics back then, but run it on that. So all this stuff was kind of happening and I realized around 2005, 2006, that I needed to sort of form my own company to both sort of like, protect myself also just as an entity to put all this stuff under. K Kevin Merritt 00:43 And really what happened is I got offered a contract with the Tribeca Film Festival and they wanted to license some software that I had written and bring me in on that. And so I was like, oh, you know, I. I better look more professional than just little me. And so I created an LLC and I call it One Foot Productions. One Foot was the name of. It was kind of a joke, a name from an album I'd produced probably seven or eight years before. And just there's a long story behind that. But as a joke, we said that the album was produced by One Foot Productions, but it was just sort of this like, fake entity that didn't really exist. But I kept it for this. It was, you know, people always wonder what One Foot Productions really is about. K Kevin Merritt 01:38 Is it, you know, people have said, oh, is it about like balance standing one foot? I'm like, well, that's cool. That's really like, you know, I don't know, serene? J Julian Brooks 01:48 Just let them assign the meaning, you. K Kevin Merritt 01:50 Know, and it makes sense because, you know, events are chaotic. But One Foot Productions, we can do it standing one foot, you know, in balance with communists. That's really not a way. We were joking around in this recording session about the different sizes of grand pianos. And, you know, people sort of tout their piano by the size, you know, kind of in this macho way of like, oh, you know, I have a nine foot grand, I have a 12 foot grand, you know, and I'm a pianist. So it's sort of. We were joking around and this one guy's like, you know, have you ever seen the guy that plays the one foot grand? And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, it's like just one foot. But man, this thing is amazing. K Kevin Merritt 02:26 He was like going on with the story and we kept buying into it, like, are you serious? There's like a. Someone makes a one Foot grand piano. And the whole thing ended up. He was like just, you know, he was kind of just making up the stories. He went along and. But as a joke, you know, I said that album was produced by One Foot Productions kind of for his benefit. It was an inside joke. And then I just kept that because I like the name and I. We made up a fun little logo with your foot. And so, you know, and at the time, too, I know I'm going in these random tangents. I hope that's okay, but. J Julian Brooks 03:03 Yeah, that's fine. K Kevin Merritt 03:04 David Letterman was really big around that, you know, late 90s, whatever. And his company was called Worldwide Pants. And it was like. We all thought it was just funny how, like, people would just name their companies, random things, you know, that didn't really mean anything. And so that's kind of. I was like, yeah, One Foot Productions. It doesn't really mean anything, but whatever, you know. But it stuck. Now here we are 20 years later. J Julian Brooks 03:29 That's awesome. So I guess my next question is, like, was there a moment when you thought, like, this is it, or that you're really doing all this? Obviously, it's like a big commitment to start a business. So was that moment kind of soon after you decided to start the business, or was it more somewhere along the road? K Kevin Merritt 03:49 No, it was somewhere along the road. I mean, I. I don't know if I. You know, it was. If everyone has this experience, but I imagine a lot of people have the experience whenever they start a company. It's sort of the imposter syndrome that they feel like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be found out that my company's actually just me. It's not really a real company. And I think, like, there's. There was that part when, you know. Cause I'd never. I've never fancied myself a business person who wanted to start a company. I never really thought about it. I didn't grow up, you know, with parents that had their own companies. So it just wasn't in my kind of vision to. To start and run my own company. And so really, you know, when I. K Kevin Merritt 04:37 When I started it, there was. Part of me was like, why. Why do I have a company? Like, who am I to have a company? Like, this is weird. And then, though, what. What happened in the first, like, couple years is I started to see, like, the value in it. I started to start. I really started to see that. Oh, by. By kind of wrapping everything. I do. Like, I've always been. Been a Fan of. Of, you know, follow your bliss, and then everything else will sort of work itself out. And that's really what I did. I just was following all the things I loved. I love music, I love theater, I love live entertainment. I love computers. I love programming. You know, I. I like tech. And I saw, like, One Foot as being this thing that could. K Kevin Merritt 05:25 Could sort of support all those things. So rather than feeling like I was fractured like this, like four different people in one, I was like, wait a minute, you know, if I wrap it all under One foot and create a mission statement for One Foot, which I didn't have when I first started it was literally, I had a name. That was it. You know, I didn't think about branding. I didn't think about what. What was our, you know, what was our sort of goals. But in those first couple years, I started to say, well, wait a minute, this could support everything I do. And then I don't have to feel so fractured. And. And that's when I decided, like, One Foot would, you know, be about technology, that part of our company would be about using technology and harnessing technology, you know, to. K Kevin Merritt 06:08 To what I felt, you know, I always say, I think computers should do, you know, what computers. What computers do well, and humans should do what humans do well, you know, And I always felt that I would go on productions and see humans doing work that computers could do just better and easier, like, monotonous work, like data entry or. Or creating reports or all this stuff. I was like, God, that's such a waste of human potential when a computer can do this stuff so quickly. And my theory was, like, if we could, you know, people get so worn out by those tasks that then all their sort of great human tasks, which I think humans are great at, like, connecting with people. They're great at problem solving, you know, in creative ways. They're. They're great at, you know, sort of those. K Kevin Merritt 06:58 Those things that we can't quite explain of what it means to be human. Like, that's part of, you know, what. What I think humans do really well. So, like, customer service, things like that, especially before AI, you know, there was no other option for. For those type of things. And so I was like, well, you know, maybe we can free people up. So I always thought technology should be used, not just for technology's sake, to, like, sell an app or whatever, but it should free us up so that we can be writing scripts or we can be, you know, having creative meetings, or we can be connecting with people and doing, you know, sort of a lot of what you do in production is concierge type work. K Kevin Merritt 07:37 Like you're, you know, interacting with agents and performers and helping them understand what they need to do and helping them, you know, kind of, you know, figure out what the schedule is going to be. And all this stuff is, you know, what I feel is like, I call it being a concierge, like a hospitality manager. You know, how can we make this experience positive for you? And then, you know, so then, you know, one part was technology. One part was just pure logistics. Like, one thing I think I've always done well is run, you know, productions well and handle logistics of productions very well. And then the other third of the company was creative development. You know, I've always been a creative person. I've always loved creating my own ideas, bringing things to life. I'm a doer. K Kevin Merritt 08:27 So, like, if I have an idea for a show, I want to write it and then I want to produce it and I want to do it. So those were like the three elements of one for productions that I started to focus on. And that's when things started to come together and I started to think like, oh, yeah, this makes sense. It actually makes sense that I'm, you know, I'm having a company now and we're doing this. J Julian Brooks 08:50 Yeah, that's very cool. So what was like the first event you ever worked on and how did those different parts of the company play into that? You mentioned how there's like three separate pieces. I'm kind of curious how that first came into play in your first event. K Kevin Merritt 09:08 Well, the early events that I worked on, I, you know, God, it would. I'm not even sure I can remember the first event, but the early events that I was working on were the Tony Awards. I worked on the MTV sort of VMAs and there was a show called the Woody Awards, which I don't think they do anymore. And. And a bunch of these MTV style award shows. There was a show called the GQ Awards. So there was. I can't remember which was first, to be honest, and which was like, you know, I was working on before I started One Foot and which after. But it was those shows that Hip Hop Honors was another one that was happening at the same time. K Kevin Merritt 09:53 They were around the time where I SW a just a freelance gig worker to, you know, having a company. And there were two things. So the two parts of that I used the most were, you know, the technology piece and the logistics piece. So one of the things. And this was Very hard at the time because not. There wasn't a company that was doing this really in the same way that I was, which is I, rather than trying to say, hey, you know, license my software and use it on your show, I kind of would pitch to these larger producers, like, hey, let me come in and. And sort of handle all these elements of your show for you. And those are mostly related to what's called talent logistics, dealing with all the talent on a show. K Kevin Merritt 10:41 And with that, I'm going to bring technology that is going to streamline this, make it more reliable, make it more consistent, and. And then also offer that for you to use. So you're hiring my company, and with that comes the technology rather than, hey, license my software. So the software was part of what we did as One Foot, was never like a product that we would sell. It was sort of our secret sauce of how we could do things better. And so, for example, like on the MTV VMAs and shows like that, you know, there can be over hundred of celebrities that you need to bring into the wherever. You know, in a lot of cases, it was New York. Bring into the city. K Kevin Merritt 11:30 You need to manage all their travel, all their hotel rooms, all their rehearsals, you know, who's coming to the show, what they need in their dressing rooms. And so, you know, the database that I created, which, you know, we now call debacle, wasn't called that at the time, but was meant to sort of store all this information, generate itineraries, generate reports and handle all that. And with each show, we would just add to it to try to make it better and streamline it. So that was kind of the technology piece we bring to it. But then I'd have a staff of 25, 30, sometimes more, sometimes less, that are there also doing all this work and managing all the celebrities. And so they were working with the software, but also working with all the talent on the show. K Kevin Merritt 12:16 And so I bring those two things together and then, you know, when people started to see what we could do, they would ask for more. So one of the things that always becomes a problem on a show is just tracking all these people. Well, where are they? Have they arrived yet? Where are they? In their dressing room. So I built a system. And, you know, at the time, apps weren't that big. Not everyone had a, you know, this is like 2006, 2007, 2008. Not everyone had a smartphone. You know, that wasn't. It wasn't, you know, the iPhone, I think, just came out around 2005 or something. It took a while. And even when they had it, they weren't always connected. You know, like, cellular signals weren't everywhere, and a lot of people still had flip phones or BlackBerries were big at the time. K Kevin Merritt 13:02 So I created this system where you could text codes into. Into, you know, a number. And that code would provide a location information to where you were with a certain celebr. And so we could track the celebrities on a master screen just by people in the building texting. Sometimes it would be these talent escorts that were with a celebrity. They would text the code like, okay, we're moving to the. To the dressing room, or we're headed to stage or whatever. And sometimes, you know, we'd have spotters that would spot people. And it was all done by these little codes. I actually got the idea in New York City because they started putting text. They put numbers on all the bus stops, and you could text the number the bus stop you're at, and we'll tell you how long till the next bus came. K Kevin Merritt 13:52 And I was like, oh, well, that's a pretty good idea. Maybe I can build that to track celebrities on an award show. And I mean, that system we use over 10 years, you know, and then I. And then we could feed it and it cut down, you know, like walkie talkie traffic on a show, which is everyone screaming, does anyone know where so. And so is. You know, I need a location. And like, it would be screaming of that. And, you know, the tech system, it was super easy to use. Anyone who had a cell phone could use it. You didn't need a smartphone or anything. And it would give us real time updates. And so those were the type of things. K Kevin Merritt 14:24 I built a credentialing system for MTV for a while that we'd use so that we could handle all the approval of credentials as they came in. You know, a lot of that stuff, people have built out additional systems for now, but at the time, there just was. No one was. No one was like, developing these things for these big shows. And then, you know, the good part is, you know, that by being connected in these shows, I also started, you know, offering up my kind of creative part of my. My brain, saying, hey, you know, let me take a crack at this. And. And because I had the, you know, I knew people and stuff like that, people would give me a chance, you know, to say, hey, you know, give us some ideas for. K Kevin Merritt 15:11 For this moment in this show, you know, because were often booking the talent for the show. And so there's a, you know, a certain Creative part of that. And so, you know, we'd start to weave that in with those big shows. And then additionally, on the side, were also just developing our own creative ideas. So that's kind of how everything came together in the early years, huh? J Julian Brooks 15:33 Very cool. It sounds like. I was gonna say it sounds like a lot of moving parts. K Kevin Merritt 15:40 Oh, there were a lot of moving parts. Yeah. And not all these things were connected. Like, you know, when I was doing, let's say, you know, the MTV VMAs or the movie awards, a lot of what we're doing was focused on just logistics and the technology piece. You know, they. They. A lot of those shows come pre. They have a whole internal team that's handling all the creative elements and stuff like that. Some shows, I was really, you know, the Tonys, I got to be involved more creatively. I worked on the inaugurations during the Obama years, and I got to be involved more creatively for those NBA. You know, we wrote some original shows for a couple years at the NBA that I got to write on. So those were exciting. But then, you know, sometimes they were really two different worlds. K Kevin Merritt 16:29 So, like, we'd have creative projects. They do. I wrote a musical way back in. During those early years that was a totally separate project. And, you know, in that case, you know, we. We actually were just the creative piece of it. And then were. Theaters were producing it, you know, for us. So it was a lot of balls in the air, a lot of, you know, a lot of different hats that I was wearing. Not to mention just running a company with all the payroll and insurance and, you know, invoicing and all that stuff that you have to do when you run a company. It was. It was definitely. Yeah, I was juggling a lot and feeling, you know. Yeah, just jump. Jumping around. I mean, in one way, that was really exciting. K Kevin Merritt 17:13 And the other, at other times, it was frustrating because I just would want to focus one thing. And, you know, I had six different things. And as you probably know, like, when you're in that creative brain space, sometimes it's hard to jump into, like, a logistics and a, you know, programming brain space. And I found that, like, I couldn't program during the day. I'd have to, like, wait till night when, like, the world calms down, you know, and then I would kind of get on a roll for four to six hours. But then, you know, I needed to sleep. So it was. It was challenging, to say the least. J Julian Brooks 17:50 Yeah, I definitely know who that is. K Kevin Merritt 17:53 Yeah. J Julian Brooks 17:54 So looking back, what was the biggest lesson that you learned in your first year? K Kevin Merritt 18:02 You know, the biggest lesson I learned. Or. Yeah, gosh, that's an interesting way to put it. The biggest lesson. I. I'll. I'll answer this. You know, I. I think my philosophy in my first year, and very quickly, I. I kind of joined forces with. With another person in the industry, and we became kind of a joint venture and became business partners. And we. Our philosophy was like, let's just, you know, say yes and figure it out as. As we go. Like, I think the biggest lesson I learned was not to assume that you couldn't do something just because you didn't have, you know, the solution right away. and that's actually probably the biggest lesson I've learned from production, is that you're often presented with challenges that you've never. You've never faced before, and that's okay. K Kevin Merritt 19:06 You know, the experience doesn't mean that you know, have done this before, and so you know exactly what to do. Experience means that you know, have done enough things that you're able to really creatively tackle the new problems with everything, all the tools in your tool bag. And I learned early on that if I didn't say yes to something, someone else would say yes, and they probably didn't have any more idea how to do it than I did. So I might as well say yes, and at the very least, I'll hire them to help me. But what I realized is that, you know, most of the time they were. They were. People were asking us to do things because they. K Kevin Merritt 19:50 They, you know, believed in the results we could offer because they, you know, worked with us before, whatever, not because, you know, we had a proven track record of doing exactly what they were asking us. And so it was really great because. And I think the best jobs are the ones that you're constantly being challenged to learn new things on. And I was constantly learning new things. And, you know, many shows, you know, I'm always wanting to refine systems. So, like, many shows we would, you know, we would try things out on. I remember when we first tried to go to digital payroll, you know, it kind of freaked people out. But. But digital signatures were getting really popular. K Kevin Merritt 20:35 And I was like, well, this is silly that I'm having to, like, literally have everyone fill out this manual paperwork, sign it, and then I have to go scan it all, you know, or FedEx it to the payroll company. Like, why don't. Why don't we just do this all digitally? Like, digital signatures are now a thing, and so I, you know, I spent hours converting all our paperwork to, you know, digital signature and finding ways, you know, so that if you typed your name in one part of the form, it would fill it in all the other parts of the form. You know, seems obvious now, but no one was really doing that at the time in production and, you know, so we would just challenge ourselves with new things. K Kevin Merritt 21:11 And I was like, well, I don't really know exactly how I'm going to do this, but let's go it. And I think that go for it attitude, you know, really helped me just gain a lot of experience really fast. J Julian Brooks 21:26 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think there's a lot of really strong insights in there. K Kevin Merritt 21:31 I will say one thing related to that because I want to. I think it's an important point. Yeah, I'm not as much as I want to say yes to everything, I also really don't like bullshitting. I'm not afraid. And the older I get, even more so to say, yeah, I don't know exactly how I'm going to do that, but. But I'm confident that I can do it and I can figure it out. So, you know, the couple times in my early days that I sort of pretended to be something I wasn't, it was a disaster. Like, so I don't want people to get the wrong impression that the idea is just to walk around, you know, claiming that you can do everything. K Kevin Merritt 22:08 But what I find is, you know, when you're honest and actually I grew up with an uncle who really, his. He believed like, honesty was one of the most important qualities in life, but also in business is just to be straight up and honest with people. And, you know, I really admired that in watching him. And I've got to watch him. You know, I lived with him for a couple of years and watched him in his career and he said, you know, so few people are honest that it becomes, you know, kind of your secret sauce. If you are like people actually, you know, will. It will notice it because very few people are. And I thought that was always really good advice, you know, like, find that quality that, you know, a lot of people think is a weakness. K Kevin Merritt 22:58 Like, oh, don't show them, you know, don't show them your true colors and don't let them see you sweat and all that stuff. And he was the opposite. He's like, no, just be straight up and honest with people. If you're struggling, tell them you need some time. If you're you know, if you're not sure how you're going to do something, tell them, you know, hey, I need, I'm going to figure this out. I need a little more time, but I'm going to take care of this. And you know, they appreciate that so much more than people that just walk around BSing them. J Julian Brooks 23:25 Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And also I think I would trust someone a lot more if they're honest about their limitations, but then also have enough of a growth mindset that they, and, you know, feel confident enough in their skills that it's not a problem. Yeah, that's much better than promising someone the world and then it starts to look like you can't do it or there starts to be issues. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So did you have any, like, mentors or anything like that or idols that you looked up to when you were kind of getting started in event production or maybe even today? K Kevin Merritt 24:00 Yeah, I mean, I think my uncle, he was an entertainment manager in Los Angeles and he was definitely one of my biggest influences and mentors. I really did look up to him as a writer. I got the chance to work with David Henry Huang, who is, you know, very well known writer, and I got it. He saw, he saw a show I did at the Fringe Festival actually in New York, not the Edinburgh one, but the New York one, and offered to kind of come on as an advisor and mentor to me. And that experience of working with him was just invaluable. And he really, you know, he gave me such great feedback on my work and gave me a lot of confidence. There's a director that I worked with who is the director of the Tony Awards. K Kevin Merritt 24:53 And I was always, you know, I would offer to assist for him kind of for free, just like, hey, let me hang out near you. I loved watching him work. He has such an amazing eye and that was really inspiring and an inspiring person to be around. So there was not, I wouldn't say there was one necessarily that I can like call out as the one, but there were different ones in different places throughout my career and there still are, you know, and now often they're colleagues, you know, they're not necessarily people that are, in fact, a writer that I was working with on a project recently really inspired me by the way he approached kind of the collaborative process. And, you know, we kind of, you know, we do the same thing. We're at, we're at sort of the same level. K Kevin Merritt 25:45 It's he's not like a boss or anything. But I consider, you know, people like that I can learn from as mentors in a way. And, you know, watch. Watching them navigate. Well, you all say this too, like, the older you get, the more like you're going to have some tough times and things aren't going to always go your way, and you're going to have some shows that, you know, don't turn out the way you hope or you're going to have some, you know, some struggles. And I think, you know, now I'm really inspired watching those people who are able to navigate those moments with grace and with, you know, professionalism and just own that. You know, sometimes when you're in a creative field and in an entertainment field, like, you know, you have to make decisions really fast. K Kevin Merritt 26:38 And you, and you. You know, we're all trying stuff out. We're all, to a certain degree, throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. If there are magic formula, like, it would be easy and everything would be a hit. So it's really inspiring, you know, to watch people navigate the hard stuff just as much as, you know, watching people succeed. So I'm trying to think if there's any specific people I can call to. I'm sure I'll remember once. Once I stop talking. J Julian Brooks 27:13 No problem. We can come back to it still. K Kevin Merritt 27:15 Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I will say growing up, you know, my uncle, my dad was a very straightforward, you know, honest person and that he was really inspiring to me and my mom. You know, I mean, we'll say my family. My mom was a. Was a very. She. She just could be very Zen about everything. You know, I, she. She was not an extreme overreactor in any way. And I think I learned that ability to just keep calm from her, you know, in all sorts of craziness. And she was a very much of like a one day at a time. Okay, well, we're gonna figure this out. And having that stability in my upbringing really, I think helped. So, you know, I definitely. My parents in many ways were mentors. I will say I had. K Kevin Merritt 28:12 It's funny now that I think about it, I had one boss, my very first boss out of college. I managed a summer camp for four or five summers. I think it was around five summers. And I was really young, in my early. Well, mid-20s. Yeah. And so I was probably too young to be managing 50 to 60 people who were only about five years younger than me, if that definitely, probably should not have been hired for this job. Maybe I was the only one who applied, I don't know. But my boss was in his 60s, probably, maybe even older, I don't know. And he was really a very much more rigid than I. When then I was, I will say, you know, and I, I, at first, that would just drive me crazy. I'm like, come on, let's be creative. Let's whatever. K Kevin Merritt 29:08 But he taught me one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned in business and in life is. So I managed a summer camp. It was a family camp, like Dirty Dancing, where people come with their families and then we take care of the kids and the adults kind of hang out by the pool and relax and stuff. And there was. There was something going on where all of a sudden there was construction at the camp this one afternoon that I wasn't told about. And, you know, campers were complaining about it. And of course, then I'm on the front line of the complaints and I was getting really upset. And so I, like, ran into his office and just, you know, in a really, I'm sure, immature way, just laid into him and was like, what are you doing? K Kevin Merritt 29:50 Like, how could you do this? And blah. And he just stopped. And he's like, are you done? And I was like, yeah, like, tell me what? And he said, first, I'm going to give you one piece of advice. Question before you accuse. Always question before you accuse. And then he proceeded to tell me what happened, which was, you know, what happened is he. There was this emergency and he couldn't, you know, he had to. He had to take care of this, and he couldn't get a hold of me. And whatever it was, there was a reason for it, right? But I always took that forward. I was like, you know, it's really easy to get upset, to react, to assume, you know, everything, to just kind of act on that. K Kevin Merritt 30:33 And I've really tried to take to heart in everything I do when I feel myself getting upset by something. I'm like, okay, what. Where can I just question first? Where can I just ask some questions to get more information? Because maybe if I have more information, this will all make sense. Maybe it's not that everyone's stupid. Maybe it's not that someone's trying to, you know, drive me crazy or take me down or whatever, which are all the things, like, we think about when we're angry and frustrated. Maybe, maybe I just need some more answers and, you know, I can just question. K Kevin Merritt 31:05 And, you know, generally when I question, I never get to the accusing state because generally, you know, I understand better why decisions are made or at the very least, you know, I can just give feedback and say, well, that didn't work for me. So. J Julian Brooks 31:20 Yeah, yeah, it's funny, I've kind of learned, I have a similar way of thinking where like I started telling myself to just assume that I'm being stupid. Like, I'm the stupid one here. Like anytime I'm sitting there, just what on earth are they thinking? I'll just stop and be like, I'm just going to assume that I'm the dumbest person in the room right now and think of it from that perspective and say, okay, like, what are the reasons there might be, like, what am I not seeing about this situation? And you know, it's a fun way or funny way for me to kind of take a step back for a moment and analyze the situation. K Kevin Merritt 31:55 Yeah, yeah. Well, without needing to put yourself down, you're not the stupidest one. But you know, my version is, you know, maybe I don't have all the information. Yeah, no, exactly, yes, same idea. J Julian Brooks 32:10 So over the last 20 years, how has one foot production's grown and evolved? I mean, obviously we've covered that a little bit, but we're nearing that 20 year anniversary now and just kind of looking back like, yeah, what would you say has been the biggest change? K Kevin Merritt 32:28 It's interesting, I think. Well, the biggest change or you know, I would say up until Covid, you know, because that changed the game for a lot of production. But up until then, I mean, were just growing every year and doing bigger shows, bringing on bigger teams. And I think the one thing that I really loved is people just would trust us more and more with all, you know, elements. And so we started really just handling things like smaller things like talent production or sometimes just, you know, ground transportation or travel management or all these things. And, and you know, as we grew bigger and bigger, people would trust us with more. K Kevin Merritt 33:08 Which, you know, I, without wanting toot my own horn or anything or, you know, the early days of One Foot with my business partner, I do think were one of the few companies in the, in what I would call the talent logistics space, which is, you know, a big part of production is managing the artists and the creatives that approached it as a company. Usually what would happen is an executive would get hired and they just hire individuals, you know, individual people for each little job. And we came in as a turnkey solution and said, you know, we're just going to negotiate kind of for the scope of this job and then we'll hire the people we need to hire and we'll put the teams together and we'll apply the technology we need to apply. K Kevin Merritt 33:55 And that was really the only way for us to work because we needed our team who understood the technology and we could just be way more efficient because we could have certain people working on two or three shows at once and it would just be a waste for these people to only work on, you know, one show. And so I think things just. That growth was really exciting to watch and watch us, you know, grow into some pretty big teams on these big shows. And then, you know, I think the other extremely exciting thing happened, which was really my overall vision is we started just producing our own stuff and feeling more confident about, you know, generating our own creative from top to bottom, you know, whether it be we come up with an idea. K Kevin Merritt 34:45 I mean, our music festival came out of that. And that's, you know, that was 10 years into To One Foot Productions. We decided to start our own music festival. And it was somewhat of an accident. We were hired to develop a music festival for this summer camp, ironically or not, the summer camp that I had worked for in my early days that I talked about, and then they got cold feet, you know, right about a year before were supposed to launch this thing. And I was so invested in the idea and wanted to just, you know, produce something of my own that my business partner at the time and I said, let's just produce this ourselves. Let's just see if the camp will let us rent it and do it ourselves. K Kevin Merritt 35:30 And that was like a big step because, you know, previously we had done a lot of work under big networks and TV networks and big production companies and things like that, but we hadn't really stepped out on our own to produce an event top to bottom of our own design of our own, you know, idea where we're also on the hook in all sorts of ways financially, liably, you know, so that was scary too, but. And that kind of freed us up to start doing more and more of that. And. And then the other growth that happened over the years is, you know, from the creative aspect is people started to. Early on, I think it was actually hard from. K Kevin Merritt 36:12 For when you're doing so much logistics and so much technology, it's then hard for you to get people to also see you as a creative company. They were more like, oh, yeah, but don't you just handle all our details and you know, we'll hire other creatives and. But slowly people started to see that more. And I think I mentioned, you know, the NBA brought me into to. We were doing all logistics for them anyways, but they brought me in to write, you know, some original pieces for their All Star Week and the inauguration. We did this show for Michelle Obama, this kids inauguration show. And I got to do a lot of the creative on that. And so that was too as One Foot evolved because ultimately that's really what I wanted. K Kevin Merritt 37:02 You know, that's why I got into this business is because I wanted to be in a creative business. And so it was nice to finally get those opportunities. And that's, you know, that definitely took time to grow over, you know, the first 10 years. And then I feel like the second 10 years it's almost gone the other way where, you know, and Covid actually really affected that because logistics kind of shut down during COVID and we started mainly doing creative stuff because shows were virtual and stuff, so the technology wasn't really that hard to execute. And so then it became, well, how can we make this creative with such limited tools at our disposal? K Kevin Merritt 37:49 And that's, I think really when the tide started to shift more into us, you know, primarily being a creative company and a technology company and less of the big logistical stuff. So that's really the growth that I've seen. J Julian Brooks 38:07 Huh? Yeah, it's just a really interesting journey. I didn't realize it was, yeah, all complicated like that. And I was also kind of curious what had happened during COVID Maybe we can touch on that real quick just for my own curiosity, like how did One Foot Productions handle doing events or kind of maintaining business during COVID Yeah, it's really interesting. K Kevin Merritt 38:34 You know, we had that year. We were, you know, for the last couple years before COVID like 16, 17, 18, 19ish. Those years were averaging anywhere from 20 to 25 shows a year. Now some of those would be really small things. Some of them would be like as big as NBA All Star Week, which we work on for like six to eight months if you know, if not more. But were really, really busy and traveling everywhere and doing shows, you know, all over the US at least and a couple international. But mainly us and Covid. I mean, I remember when they shut down within, you know, that was like March around this time in 2020. Literally within two weeks, every single show just canceled. And you know, it really went to zero. And I. We still had these clients. K Kevin Merritt 39:35 They, you know, they didn't know what to do. I, you know, was still, you know, a technology person and very comfortable in the creative space. So I was like, okay, well, you know, maybe we can essentially grow with these companies. Like, maybe we can figure it out with them. And one of the things we started to do, too, is we started. We knew it started to look like were going to have to cancel our music festival. And we knew that these artists that, you know, had all these tours that we had booked for our music festival, everything was canceled of theirs, too. And so we're like, well, they've got to be in the same boat we're in. So the very first thing we did, literally, I think within a month, if not less of. K Kevin Merritt 40:24 Of the shutdown, is we started producing, like, virtual house concerts. Essentially, we figured out, you know, we. We just spent our time going online. We figured out a way to get Zoom to sound pretty decent if we could plug instruments into, you know, like a. A digital interface and get it into the computer. And we figured out how to teach the musicians to sound pretty good on Zoom. And we started doing Zoom concerts. And I mean, when I look back at them now, like, no one would watch those now, right? But during the time, people were starving just for some connection, and that was just the first thing we did. And honestly, we did it just to try to get artists money, you know, because we felt really bad that these artists tours had been canceled. K Kevin Merritt 41:20 And from there, we started to realize, oh, we, you know, we're pretty good at this. Like, we. Not just from the tech side of things, but we kind of know how to structure a show. We've done so many shows that we know how to put together something that's interesting, you know, even though it was a little virtual house concert, we break it up into acts. We'd have a little video at the beginning. We'd then have a couple songs, and we do a little interview. Like, we broke it up into a show like you do an award show. Made it interesting, made it fun. We'd have sometimes some Q and A periods and. And we just ran those. K Kevin Merritt 41:53 And then the Apollo Theater that we had, you know, a long relationship with said, hey, we, you know, we want to do a virtual gala, you know, benefit, because, you know, we think it's important to connect. And so we put that together, and that was a really big undertaking. You know, we had to film remotely. We had to send cameras to people, you know, and once again, we built it like, we would build any, you know, award show, you know, benefit, whatever, that was mostly prepackaged. So that was stuff that we built, you know, all together, we edited together, and we. We aired it live. But it was all, you know, kind of filmed ahead of time, although some of it being filmed up to the very last minute. K Kevin Merritt 42:39 And I think once we had those two things kind of under our belt, we just started getting referrals, and people started, you know, contacting us. Everything from. One of my favorite things we did during COVID was this digital experience for this company called Dova Dance. And they had filmed during COVID I think it was 10 dance things that had all been filmed remotely by dancers in their private spaces. And they were beautiful, and they had spent a good. Like, they filmed them really nicely. So they sent the dancers cameras, and they're really well edited, and they didn't know how to present this. So we built a whole experience where it was like a book that unfolded every couple days. You could open a different page. It was like a digital flip book type of thing. K Kevin Merritt 43:25 And in that page, there were things that you could click on and get more information. And then eventually you could watch this video of this dance. And we built a whole narrative around it, a story about a grandson and a grandmother who were separated by Covid but were trying to keep in touch. And then it kind of turned out to be a sad story where the grandma gets Covid and passes away. But, like, all the dances were weaved into this story, so we made the whole thing into a narrative, and then we dealt with all the tech, too, and presented it. And it was actually. It was really beautiful. It was one of my favorite things we've done, you know, all just online. And. And I. Honestly, I. K Kevin Merritt 44:05 I never heard of this dance company before, and I've talked to them maybe a couple times since, like, you know, it was just. I don't know how they got our information, but they did. And people were really open to. To kind of whatever you could come up with. We did a wonderful show for the Ronald McDonald House fundraiser. We did a show for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music that was like a whole kind of adventure story where we. We was also on Zoom, and you come into Zoom, and then you get thrown into different breakout rooms. And in those breakout rooms, stuff would happen, and you'd learn more of the story, and there'd be a performance, and then you get thrown into another breakout room. And then from there, when it was over, you could. You could go online and you could click. K Kevin Merritt 44:52 There was like A picture of this Victorian, like, mansion. And you could pick different rooms and jump into different virtual performances that were happening live in those virtual rooms. So we. We just built shit and we played and had fun and. And it just sort of came together. I, you know, we just kept. People kept, you know, they need. They needed creative ideas. And you know, what I realized and what I, you know, I'd always known that I'm really good at, like, just being given a problem to solve and just coming up with some interesting ways to solve it. But Covid kind of like it, you know, it. It kind of highlighted that superpower, I guess, because, you know, people would come to us with, like, I don't want to do another boring zoom show. And I'm like, perfect. K Kevin Merritt 45:44 And so, you know, we'd start creating one of the best projects actually during COVID that I was most excited about that got canceled at the last minute was a whole virtual scavenger hunt around Brooklyn where were going to plant clues in small businesses all over Brooklyn. You know, businesses that needed to try to keep open during COVID restaurants and things like that. And it was thing that was going to last over two weeks. And you could kind of use. There's the Instagram account that would prevent clues and whatever. And you could. If you could figure out where these little tokens were, you could go to these businesses and ask them, and they would give you a token. And if you collected enough tokens, then you could be invited to this virtual thing that were going to do. It was so cool. K Kevin Merritt 46:31 I was so excited about. It was like kind of like an, you know, alternate reality game type of thing. And then the world opened up and they're like, oh, shoot, like, we don't want to do a virtual thing. You know, no one wants to do that anymore. We're just going to have a cocktail party instead. And I was bummed because I like the idea. On the other hand, I was with them. I'm like, no one wants to do, like, now that the vaccine's out and the world's opened up, people want to be in person. So, you know, I couldn't. I couldn't argue with them. But I was just bummed because I actually thought it was a really fun idea. J Julian Brooks 47:06 Yeah, no, it definitely sounds like that was a fun idea. That's pretty cool. I mean, it sounds like you guys had to adapt a lot, but, like, some cool projects still came out of that. K Kevin Merritt 47:17 Oh, yeah. Some of my favorite projects, honestly, especially from a creative standpoint, you know, there's nothing. I'm always a believer in that, like limitations are the best thing for creatives. You know, when you're presented with limitations, that's when you really start to, you know, churn out some interesting ideas. J Julian Brooks 47:36 Yeah, that sounds very cool. What do you think is like the future for virtual events? Do you think that's something that could maybe make a comeback one day without a global pandemic? Or do you think it's more of a situational type of thing? K Kevin Merritt 47:54 You know, it's really interesting. I, I don't know. I, I don't love virtual events simply because, yeah, I find them draining. I find, you know, zoom meetings draining and I do miss, I'm one who just loves in person contact. Like, you know, if I'll go to all, you know, take the subway, you know, an hour to go meet with you in person, just to have an in person meeting. I feel like I just get so much more from that. That said, I totally understand the efficiencies of it and I think there is, there will always be a market for it. I'm encouraged watching. Just recently, Google's been announcing some new technology that they're testing that can allow you to create more 3D environments virtually. K Kevin Merritt 48:47 And they've been actually testing zoom fatigue with, you know, they call it zoom fatigue, but any virtual fatigue on these systems and finding that people are less fatigued with them and the way the technology is. I'll send you some links if I find some. It allows for better eye contact. It, it feels just more real. And so I think they're getting closer to sort of creating engagement. I have done some, I've participated in some demos of like this hologram type stuff that's, that people are promoting. I think there's something really interesting. The technology is just too expensive right now to do it, you know, for anything. You know, every day it's like at least, you know, from what I've seen. But you know, prices will come down. K Kevin Merritt 49:35 I think there is, I think there is interesting things to play with in virtual and the hybrid space. The one thing I do love about, you know, virtual things is that when I do sign up for like in a virtual event or whatever, I can jump in and out of it quickly. I can often save it for later, you know, so there is some advantages to that, you know, it, I'm. Some events I'm just more likely to go to if they're virtual because, you know, I'm not sure I'm going to commit to, you know, going, you know, Commuting in somewhere for a certain type of event. And if it's, you know, something I'm interested in, but I don't want to make that commitment, you know, I can do more in terms of the entertainment that I do. Like music and theater and stuff. K Kevin Merritt 50:22 Yeah, I haven't seen something that excites me. You know, if I compare it to a real life experience, what I'm more interested in is kind of the use of technology in the live space. So, you know, how can we use, you know, what we know about creating virtual shows and stuff to augment and enhance, you know, a live production that seems cool. And you know, I don't know what the possibility is there, but you know, I do think. And we kind of do that anyways, like we have our music fest. This is like in a really minor way, but we have our music festival once a year, but every month we have a meetup that's on Zoom, just to talk about new artists and share new music and stuff like that. K Kevin Merritt 51:20 So I think that's kind of where people are now, which is, you know, they're, they're doing some stuff virtually still, they're doing some stuff in person and they're kind of balancing it that way. But in terms of the technology, honestly, this thing that I saw just recently in an ad that Google's developing is kind of the most exciting. You know, I haven't tried it out in person, but from what they're saying, it sounds like it could be something to change the game a little. J Julian Brooks 51:54 Yeah, definitely. I mean, one thing it reminds me of, it's this newer company I saw recently that basically is just creating virtual office spaces. And so right now it almost looks like Pokemon game or like a Zelda game or something, like something on the Game Boy. It's pretty cool. But essentially it just allows remote teams to. You can like walk up and like start a meeting with people or kind of like gamify some of the process. Maybe like Google Docs is like if you had it pulled up on your screen, you could literally walk to a file cabinet to like open Google Docs or open like shared files. J Julian Brooks 52:27 But essentially it got me thinking already about kind of the concept of like virtual office spaces, virtual events, things like that, and kind of what that future might look like in the context of things like the Metaverse, all that. K Kevin Merritt 52:42 I was just talking to a friend today actually at coffee. How. I don't know. You know, you know, the younger Generation, you know, kids that are. Are coming up, you know, in high school, middle school, you know, and younger now. Like, when I started in production, you know, there was no virtual anything. Like I said, there was a computer that, you know, everyone had to take turns to get on the Internet. So much of what I learned from just observing the world around me. Observing the office, observing how people interacted, observing how directors talk to actors, observing how, you know, I remember one of my jobs was just to get coffee and food for the overnight editors on this show I was doing, this Christmas show I was doing in Nashville. And, you know, I was a production assistant. K Kevin Merritt 53:35 I was probably 25, 26, whatever. And I would just, you know, go get them food or coffee if they needed it. A lot of my job was just sitting around, but in that sitting around, I was watching what they were doing. And I learned so much about editing. I learned so much about working with an editor as a producer. I learned so much about just even terms that I would hear them say that I started to pick up on. So it's so valuable to have a communal space that people work in, because when you're young especially, I don't know how else you learn. There's no way I could tell everyone all the different things that I know how to do that I just learned on the job from watching other people and listening to other people and seeing how they talked. K Kevin Merritt 54:23 I mean, part of the reason I know how to talk to certain agents is because I hear the people I work for on the phone with these same agents, you know, so that stuff is really hard to learn. And I feel bad for people who never get the experience of working in office because as pain in the ass as it can be at times, and office politics are not always positive. And I've definitely had my share of negatives. Like, you do learn a lot that you don't even realize you're learning until later in life and you're like, oh, yeah, gosh, I guess I did pick up on that. So I don't know how all this remote work is going to affect everyone's ability to learn through watching. J Julian Brooks 55:07 Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like if a company doesn't have a strong remote culture, it can be a little bit difficult if your teams are smaller and really rely on that interpersonal collaboration. I've definitely noticed that being an issue, especially when I worked at a startup. I the difference between working remote and then getting to actually be in the office. I realized how much information I was missing and how many different little Opportunities I was missing to where I just started going down there monthly, like, however I could. You know, it's just realized that's where a lot of that value was. K Kevin Merritt 55:40 Yeah. Yeah. J Julian Brooks 55:41 It'll be interesting to see how that kind of evolves in the event space. K Kevin Merritt 55:44 Yeah. And honestly, some of the best ideas I've ever had are on my lunch breaks with my colleagues, you know, like, yeah, let's go grab lunch. And then you sit talking, and all of a sudden you come up with a great idea for a show and you're like, wow. J Julian Brooks 55:56 Yeah. The reason all these tech companies started investing so much in just like, these crazy salad bars and food bars at their HQs was because they found out that a ton of people's big ideas were coming while talking at lunch with their co workers. K Kevin Merritt 56:11 Yeah. J Julian Brooks 56:12 So they just started facilitating that process more. Yeah. That's very interesting. So my next question is just what are some of the most memorable events that you've produced? K Kevin Merritt 56:26 Such a good question. Well, I'll say memorable events that I've worked on. Not all of them. I've been like a lead producer on. I've been different levels and different ones. But, you know, one of my. One of the earliest event, and this was actually before I started One Foot Productions, I got to work on that 2004 Democratic convention, and I remember I got to hear Barack Obama speak when he was just like a senator. And what was so cool about that was, you know, whatever you, you know, people feel about politics, I don't necessarily need to get into that, but you just got this sense when he was talking that this, you know, this was. This was someone I don't know. And I've had this before with performers, too, that I've seen early on in the careers. K Kevin Merritt 57:17 You get the sense that, okay, there's something different about this person. You know, they're. They're, gonna, you know, they're gonna do something, you know, something big. And that was really cool because I hadn't really had much interest in politics. I didn't know who any of these people were at the time. I was just. It was just a production job I got. And, you know, to get the chance to sort of witness that and then, of course, track it, you know, later when he became president, was. Was really cool because, you know, I got to meet him and I got to, like, be like, oh, wow. You know, like, this person ended up being President of the United States. That's kind of cool. I got to work on Prince's halftime show at the super bowl where he performed Purple Rain in the Rain. K Kevin Merritt 58:01 And that was just probably one of the biggest highlights of my. You know, just. Just watching that, being kind of down on the. You know, I think it was like, stage left side on the floor in the rain. Watching him was just thrilling, you know, because he was such a legend. There was a Tony Awards that. A couple. I mean, I worked on a lot of Tony Awards, and a lot of them were just so exciting and fun. But there was one that had an opening that Neil Patrick Harris did that was, you know, still to this day, I think it's considered one of the best opening performances of a Tony Awards. K Kevin Merritt 58:49 But what was so cool about it for me is I was assisting the director at that time with some things, and so I got to watch it from inside the video truck, and I really got to watch firsthand, like, just how quick and how fast this. I mean, this director is sort of one of the ones I mentioned as a mentor, just how facile he was at just, you know, calling cameras and getting the right shot and just keeping track of it all. And just. It was so exciting to see that. So that was like, one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had creatively. I got to work on a show with the Roots, and I got to write with Black Thought, you know, for. K Kevin Merritt 59:37 For probably a month, kind of two or three times, going into 30 Rock and meeting him, you know, before his Tonight show stuff. And that was really cool because I learned how to write with someone, you know, I didn't really know what my value would be to be honest, because I'm like, well, here's the guy who's, like, one of the best rappers in history and, you know, can write circles around me. What am I doing here? You know? But what I realized is, you know, and I wrote. We wrote an article about this, I think that may still be on the website. Was my job was really to create, like, the structure and the scaffolding. And that was the first time I realized that, like, that alone is a skill that, you know, some people have, some people don't. K Kevin Merritt 01:00:31 But structuring a story and structuring a narrative is often, you know, as important, if not more than the actual words like that, you know, get written. And it was really such a positive experience because he was such an amazing person to write with. And he wrote so fast, and he would say, okay, you know, give me the framework. What. What do we want this to be about? What is, you know, where are we coming from? Where are we going to? And I sort of would build the framework of the story and then he would say, okay, hold on. And then he would sit there and he'd write a bunch of stuff and then he'd just text it to me. And I'm like sitting next to him, you know, and he's texting me verse. You know, that's, you know, no Google Doc. K Kevin Merritt 01:01:21 No, you know, write it on paper even. It was all just in a text message. J Julian Brooks 01:01:26 That's hilarious. K Kevin Merritt 01:01:28 That was so cool because I was like, you know, it was a great lesson too, of like, you know, to be a great writer, you don't really need any special tools like, you know, pen, paper, cell phone, text message, anything. It doesn't matter. You know, you can be a great writer and put it down anywhere and you know, but it was really special experience. And then, you know, I ended up writing some of the interstitials in this piece, like the narrative moments. And what I would do in those is I would write like the placeholder. I would say, hey, this is the placeholder. Copy, copy. You know, this is just the bad version. We, I call it the bad version. I'm gonna write the bad version. And then you're gonna make it better. And I'd write the bad version. K Kevin Merritt 01:02:11 And a lot of times he'd keep it, which was cool. It was on, you know, I felt like a little bit, you know, validated. I was like, oh, he didn't change that line. That's cool. Okay, good. I'm not as bad as I think I am. So that was just one of, you know, to this day, one of most special experiences that I've ever had as a writer. And you know, I, I think producing the other thing I'll say is producing the Virtual Apollo show right after George Floyd had been murdered was really powerful. We were working on the show for the Apollo, which was during COVID and then about four days, I think, or five days maybe. It was a week before the show, George Floyd was murdered. And we realized that we had to change the tone of our show. K Kevin Merritt 01:03:03 Like just, you know, we, we couldn't ignore the moment that were in, in history. And so literally I worked non stop. I'm not sure I even slept for those four days to rework the format, to change some things up, to try to, you know, we filmed a couple new things. We rewrote a whole opening speech that was different and barely delivered it at the last minute so it could air. And I really felt so proud of that show because I Think it. Even though it's a virtual show, and even when I look back on, I'm like, you know, people recording stuff in their living room, like, doesn't look good. K Kevin Merritt 01:03:42 But the content of that show and what we did and the message that were sending out and the connection that were offering to people in a time when, you know, most people were locked up still in their homes. Yeah, it just meant a lot and I felt very proud of, like, how hard I worked on that and that was cool. So those are some that come to mind. I'm sure there's. There's more I could think of because to be honest, you know, I'm pretty lucky. Like, there's been a lot of really, really amazing shows that I've gotten a chance to work on. Yeah, those are just ones that come mind off top of my head. And honestly, my music festival, you know, it's this teeny little music festival in California, but it just. It's a blast. K Kevin Merritt 01:04:34 And I feel like there's something really unique and special about it. And I've built such amazing connections with artists and the audience too, but just, you know, just bringing live music to people in a really intimate, small setting in the middle of nature. I don't know, it's like. It's like my dream come true. So. Yeah, those. Those are. Those are there. That's a good question. I feel like I could come up with 10 more. J Julian Brooks 01:05:04 Yeah, maybe I can. I'll send you these questions. Maybe you can go through and like, just add some stuff. Yeah, I think a lot of thoughts might come up, like afterwards. So maybe throughout the day, even if you just want to, like, throw random insights in there just on your phone or whatever, we can match them up. Okay, so where was. Sorry, I lost my place for a second here. Yeah. So stop me if I've already asked this one, but were there any pivotal moments that shaped the company's direction or anything that really like, stands out to you as a moment that change the company's direction? K Kevin Merritt 01:05:42 Yeah, I mean, I think the pivotal moments, you know, working backwards, I think Covid was a. Obviously a very pivotal moment, and I think that really has changed the direction to the point now that, you know, we're mostly doing creative work and stuff like that, we're doing a lot less big logistics work because that became just what we wanted to focus on and what we love. And we. I think the years we worked on the VMAs was really pivotal because MTV at the time really invested in us and our software and bringing technology into that show. K Kevin Merritt 01:06:28 I felt really, you know, they were one of the first set of producers that I felt really got it and really valued what we could bring that was unique from, you know, from other people who were doing what we do could bring to a show. I think the NBA in the same way. So, you know, those were a period of over like seven, I think for, you know, VMAs. I think that was probably seven or eight years that we did that show. But it was really pivotal. I think we grew a ton as a company. We use that to really refine a lot of our systems and things like that. A big thing that happened. So when it comes to the software growth debacle as a software product, which wasn't called debacle at first, started around 2003. K Kevin Merritt 01:07:23 I had written little programs before that just to help myself kind of in my own work. And around 2003, I started on the Tony Awards and I started to try to. I wanted to like, get everyone using this. So I was like, okay, I gotta make this collaborative, you know, not just a system that I can use. I think it was originally in a FileMaker Pro database that I just used. And I was like, okay, I gotta, you know, let me build it. And php I think I did at the time. And let me put a flash front end, you know, which was called Flex at the time. You know, let me make it cooler, let me make it collaborative, let me make it, you know, so it can sync and all that stuff. K Kevin Merritt 01:07:57 Which, you know, this was pre Google Docs too, so there wasn't a ton of other solutions out there like that. And, you know, I cobbled stuff together. I was the only person programming it. Then I hired another little, you know, like a kid who was like 17 and just graduated from college or from high school. But he was like a whiz programmer and he would, he worked for me and we sort of were just building things, this thing on our own. And yet were, you know, starting to use it on some really big shows and with some big entities. And were using it at one point with. On a big show for bet and the servers crashed and I was able to get them back running. But it was that point where I realized, like, I was overextended. K Kevin Merritt 01:08:53 I was like, okay, like, because I was in the middle of a thousand other things and all of a sudden now I'm like the IT department because I didn't have an IT department, you know, and that was a big pivotal moment. It was, it's sort of like one of those things where, like, you know, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You know, thank goodness that didn't kill us. Like, I was able to get it running, were able to make it through that show. But I was like, okay, this system, we need to do something. And I made the decision to at that point bring on a third party company. And I gave them, I said, you got six weeks. Because we had the vmas coming up. I'm like, you got six weeks to rebuild this software that I built. K Kevin Merritt 01:09:42 But I wanted on and, you know, I wanted a more stable system. I went on there and I kind of gave, laid it out and they said, all right, we're gonna do it. And they like threw all their energy at it. And you know, it wasn't perfect by any means, but in six weeks we had a working product that we could use on the VMAs. And at that point, like, it all solidified into a much more, you know, a proper tech stack, a proper development cycle, you know, because it no longer was, you know, me, you know, and one other kid that I hire off the street programming this thing. But, you know, that was a pivotal moment because at that point it freed me up. We really, you know, could develop this more. K Kevin Merritt 01:10:28 And, and you know, so, you know, I, I name that as a pivotal moment because I think that server crash really was like a gift from the universe. And just the fact when it happened to, that it happened kind of with this lead time into this other show that gave me time to kind of react and, you know, I made the choice to, you know, invest in changing things around and that, you know, made all the difference. Yeah. And then, you know, I, I think as I said earlier, I, I think starting our own music festival was a major pivotal point in One Foot's growth. And I, you know, I think for any company, you know, went from being like a service provider to being like a kind of, for lack of a better word, like a product creator. K Kevin Merritt 01:11:30 You know, I, I mean, you could call it a content creator, although, you know, we're creating live content, not necessarily digital, but, you know, when you go from being a company that is constantly providing services for other people to a company that's actually internally developing their own products, you know, it's just a mind shift and it's, you know, and all of a sudden we have different Things to think about and different concerns. And I think that was the beginning. That's when we really started to see, like, oh, we like this, we're good at it and we want to do more of it. And that. That was a major shift. J Julian Brooks 01:12:09 Yeah, it's very cool. So, sorry, I was going to ask a question. I decided we already had kind of covered that one. So just as like a quick, maybe as a quick kind of addition for the AI to read. What are some of the organizations you've worked with and what events did you help produce? K Kevin Merritt 01:12:39 Well, the big organizations that I, you know, over the years, I'd say the big ones are the Tony awards, the MTV VMAs and movie awards. We did many years with BET on BET Experience and BET Hip Hop Honors. NBA, you know, for many years was a big client. And we did, you know, I think I did 15 or 16 or more NBA All Star Games, All Star Weeks, including also then other stuff during the year. The Rocket Rock and Roll hall of Fame was a show I've worked on for years and years. They were a really big client. And the Democratic conventions, some inaugurations. And I did a really wonderful show at the White House called Music and Poetry at the White House or something like that. I can't remember the exact name, but James Earl Jones was in it. K Kevin Merritt 01:13:41 Lin Manuel Miranda premiered his Hamilton song in that show. And so that. Those are really special kind of events and shows that I've done over the years. But, you know, if I had to pick the big ones, I really think, you know, the Tony Awards was a big one, VH1 for many years. When they were doing a lot of live shows, they were a great client and a great partner. And yeah. So MTV, Tony Awards, VH1, MBA, those are probably the big ones. There are many, many that I, you know, smaller little things. You know. One thing that has changed and I don't know if we really want to, you know, how much we want to dig into it is, you know, I did have, for many years, I had a business partner. K Kevin Merritt 01:14:31 We kind of had a joint venture. She had her own company. I had One Foot, but were really acting as business partners under the One Foot name. And she and I parted ways two years ago. And she has kept a lot of the logistics productions and I've, you know, kept more of the creative stuff, creative production. So that has been like a huge shift in my focus. And that was kind of happening anyways at the company where I was moving more in the creative direction and shift. She and another woman that worked for us were kind of more in charge of the logistics side of things. K Kevin Merritt 01:15:13 And so when we split, it just became natural that I, I stuck with the creative stuff and she stuck with logistics stuff, but that, you know, so that is sort of one of the reasons I no longer do the NBA All Star or Rock and Roll hall of Fame or those ones is because I kind of want to focus on the creative stuff. And, you know, she's doing. Focused on the logistics stuff, so those make more sense for her. J Julian Brooks 01:15:40 Yeah, that makes sense. So what are kind of the key differences between, like, creative and logistics? And what is your, what does your role now look like now that it's more on that creative side? What is your kind of your main focus look like more specifically? K Kevin Merritt 01:15:55 Yeah, well, I think my, you know, as I get older and I'm like, okay, what do I have to offer? You know, what have I learned? I think one of my biggest skills is being able to come in early on any sort of event or show and really help structure a concept and a creative narrative. So what do we want this to be? You know, I always go back to, like, with anything, like, what are we hoping to achieve? How do you want people to feel when they see this? What, you know, is there a overall message that you want them to get? And it can be different for different things. This, this musical that I'm starting to work on, we don't know what it is yet. K Kevin Merritt 01:16:38 You know, I, we, I think the band that has created the music has a loose idea of kind of what the story could be, but I'm not sure we're there yet where we know exactly what it's going to be. This musical, actually, that we just wrapped in Chicago just last week, we did development, production, you know, that was meant to be a love letter to hip hop, you know, and so we knew early on we wanted to create something that celebrated 50 years of hip hop. And so we, so I, you know, my kind of involvement is that is to come in and say, okay, well, what is, what does that look like? You know, what is that? Just a bunch of our favorite songs, you know, performed, you know, in a row. K Kevin Merritt 01:17:25 Like, you know, like, there's very basic, or, you know, can we craft a greater narrative around it? And, you know, that Dova dance thing I, I, I talked about earlier was a great idea, a great example of, like, where my creative input would come in. So they came with existing material, which was these, you know, short films, these dance films. And I help them structure this into, you know, a piece that rather than just, oh, let's just play film after film. Let's take people on a journey. Let's. Let's, you know, engage them in a broader way and weave the films, you know, into this. So the films still become, like, the highlight, but they're. They're stepping stones along the way of a larger. A larger. A larger journey and picture. K Kevin Merritt 01:18:16 And that, to me, is like, the creative part of my job. And, you know, sometimes it could be as simple as also meeting with the set designer and saying, okay, what do we want? How do we want the set to look? Where do we want projections to be? What, you know, what do we need in order to have the band fit on stage? You know, and then. And then they give me drawings and renderings and we talk about them. And so for the music festival, a lot of it is listening to music and. And going to see bands and saying, okay, what. What is the vibe we want this year? And what. I think story is so important. Like, when you have a band that's awesome and they play great music. Wonderful. K Kevin Merritt 01:18:54 And then when they have a really interesting story, even better because you. You get. Feel connected to them. You can engage with them. They're real people. They're not just like, you know, someone behind a. A, you know, a good song, they. They have a story that. That, you know, people love to invest in. Where are they from? How did they get there? What's their songs about? You know, where do they want to go? So the creative part of my job that I love is crafting. That is, you know, making. Making those choices that help, you know, build the overall story. J Julian Brooks 01:19:35 Okay. K Kevin Merritt 01:19:36 And that's what I think I'm good at. J Julian Brooks 01:19:38 Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense, though. I don't think I ever really. I mean, obviously I saw the difference between creative and more logistics, but, yeah, I guess I hadn't fully understood the full scope of that, so. That's very cool. So how has the event production industry changed since you started? K Kevin Merritt 01:19:58 One sec. I answer that in just a second. I need to answer a message really quick. J Julian Brooks 01:20:02 Okay, no problem. It. K Kevin Merritt 01:21:12 Okay. Sorry about that. How much longer do you think you need? J Julian Brooks 01:21:16 We could wrap up whenever. If you want to wrap up soon, I could ask you just kind of two or three more questions to round it out, and then maybe you could just answer the rest and whichever, like, just pick and choose which ones you want to answer. Throughout the week or something. K Kevin Merritt 01:21:28 Okay, yeah, let's do that. And, and we can do that. Cool. Okay, so repeat that last question. J Julian Brooks 01:21:35 So actually I'll go ahead and skip that last question and then just go into. We're on section five. Just challenges and lessons over the last 20 years. So the main question being basically just what's the biggest challenge you've run into running One Foot Productions? Or maybe the hardest lesson you've had to learn in doing event production? And then a second question to that. How did you overcome that issue? K Kevin Merritt 01:22:03 Gosh, I mean, I think the hardest, the biggest challenges just have to do with just the overall, you know, kind of financials around production. You know, I think, you know, there are booms and kind of busts when it comes to entertainment. And I think there were years that everyone was doing live entertainment. Everyone was doing these big award shows and big concerts and, you know, stage shows and musicals and it's still that way for sure, you know, in the sense of like, people will always be doing that and always be creating things. K Kevin Merritt 01:22:50 But, you know, I do find that like, stuff has gotten more expensive and when it's more expensive to produce, you know, there's less and less, you know, kind of shows and certain shows just get all the kind of funding and other shows, you know, struggle or don't make it. And so, you know, I think the biggest, one of the bigger challenges is just to keep, you know, keep finding interesting things to work on and, and then funding those things. K Kevin Merritt 01:23:21 You know, I think that, you know, another challenge that I think is difficult is just navigating the communication space because people are so fractured and working on 10 different things at once and everyone's so busy and now everyone's remote that I find it's really hard often to kind of be cohesive on a show, you know, until like the week before, two weeks before. Often you're just never in the same room with these people. And I find that becomes really hard, you know, production wise. You know, a lot of these are sort of boring things, but I think those are kind of the things that have made it really challenging. You know, particularly in California, like insurance and fires and stuff like that has become really challenging for the, you know, the kind of out any outdoor events. K Kevin Merritt 01:24:25 You know, weather is always a challenge for outdoor events, but now that we have all these extreme weather things, it just feels like it's harder and it's harder to get things insured and it's Harder. You know, contingency plans are hard. So, yeah, those are all sort of nuts and bolts things that I find hard to do. And you know what? I think the way, you know, that I've overcome them is that, you know, I, I really try more and more I try to build things with contingency plans kind of in place. Like, let's, you know, let's build something that we can, we know we can pivot on if we need to. K Kevin Merritt 01:25:12 Let's, you know, and it's a little more what I've learned even from programming and of like, you know, iterative programming, like, you know, put things out there and then iterate, then iterate. And I really, you know, like the idea of, you know, starting small with projects and building them and letting them grow organically and always, you know, kind of finding ways where a project can have like, you know, different turns, twists and turns it can take and not get too focused on it. You know, I guess less focus on the end goal of it needing to look a certain way or be a certain way and more allowing the process to guide me to what it should be. K Kevin Merritt 01:25:57 And an example of that is a show that I'm really hoping to pitch sort of as an audio show that started as a. As more of a stage show and then a visual show and then maybe a TV show. And as I've continued to sort of explore this idea and develop the project, I realized, oh, you know, actually maybe the show makes more sense to be something, you know, that is all audio that we don't film at all, you know, or at least isn't meant to be digested that way. Maybe that provides a different experience that would really fit this, you know, this topic and subject matter. So, you know, I think being. K Kevin Merritt 01:26:37 Being able to be that flexible with medium and that flexible with, you know, projects, it's, you know, it's just as much creativity as it is like survival instinct, you know, well, hey, if I can't get this produced on tv, maybe I can get it, you know, into a radio show or a podcast or something, you know, some of that's just like I want to. We want to get this idea out there. And a lot of it is that, you know, entertainment is going that way in general. Like, you know, the Squid game, you know, is launched as a series on Netflix. And then it has an immersive event, and then it has a, you know, a, A store. And then it has a, you know, and, you know, everyone's exploiting IP all over the place. K Kevin Merritt 01:27:22 But also, like, there's something fun about, you know, experiencing these things in different ways. You know, I, I think it all boils down to, you know, story. You know, when there's a good story, people want to see it. However, you know, they want to listen to it, they want to watch it, they want to experience it, they want to, you know, buy the T shirt. So. Yeah, I don't know if that answers the question, but I think it does. Yeah. Yeah. J Julian Brooks 01:27:57 Good. K Kevin Merritt 01:27:57 No, I'll see if I think of anything better. J Julian Brooks 01:28:00 Okay. K Kevin Merritt 01:28:01 I can add to it later. J Julian Brooks 01:28:05 Yeah. So I'm just going touch on some kind of, like, key insights that'll be good to have as we wrap this up. What's, like, the best piece of advice that you've received in your career? Does anything kind of come to the top of your head? Or maybe what's one piece of advice you wish you had when you started? K Kevin Merritt 01:28:26 One piece of advice I wish I had when I started was to keep my mouth shut more often and just listen and learn. I think I was like, I don't know what people would say about me, but I, I think even if it's my internal voice, that I needed to keep shot more. But I think I was cockier and more threatened. You know, I think I, I wanted to prove myself. And when you want to prove yourself, you see everyone as, you know, sort of this thing to, you know, to kind of one up. And so, yeah, I don't, you know, maybe I did keep my mouth shut. Fine. K Kevin Merritt 01:29:00 I, you know, I don't think I was rude or anything like that most of the time, but I think even my internal voice, to really humble myself and be like, you know what? Just learn, just learn. I, I do think one of the advice I got when I was younger and I, I've tried to follow, but I didn't do as well is like, you know, sort of if you want to do something, do it. You know, like, don't think that there's, you know, that, you know, a time magically is going to appear that is, you know, gonna open an opportunity for you. Like, I do believe that every project has its own timeline. And some things take six months and some things take six years, and sometimes things take 30 years, you know, to develop. K Kevin Merritt 01:29:47 But I also think that, like, you gotta show up every day, pen to paper, and, you know, one of the best advices I got from my writing mentor was you just got to write every day. You don't have to like it. You don't even have to want to. You don't even have to have anything to say. You just got to sit down with a pen and paper. And I actually write with pen and paper a lot to start. I don't write on a computer, I find, you know, I try to write at least for an hour a day, just pen and paper. Sometimes it's journal, like stuff of how I'm feeling. Sometimes it's like, oh, I got an idea for a story. Sometimes it's little am doodling because I don't have anything to say. K Kevin Merritt 01:30:22 But I forced myself to do it and I try to do it every day and like, it doesn't matter how you feel, you just got to do it. And I think that's really great advice. I think we can kind of get caught up in like, oh, but I don't, I'm not inspired today. And it's like, you know, I remember old mentor used to say, inspiration is for amateurs. Like the pros don't need inspiration, they just write. And I love that. Right? Just like a, you know, a professional athlete. You know, they show up to the game whether they feel like it or not. That's their job. K Kevin Merritt 01:30:59 So that was great advice and very helpful advice when, you know, in the freelance gigging world, like, you know, you have a lot of downtime, you have a lot of time that you could really sit there and just do nothing and watch TV if you want, you know, between gigs and stuff. So that type of discipline is great. I really, you know, wish I had learned when I was younger how valuable sleep was. But I think that's a common thing. Like, I wish I slept more. I wish, you know, I didn't try to think that I could pull these all nighters or that I needed to. I wish I had, you know, I don't know. I mean, why? K Kevin Merritt 01:31:40 Look, it's worked out, but I think like, I could have enjoyed certain experiences more if I hadn't driven myself insane trying to, you know, get everything done. I did get advice when I was in my 20s, when I worked at that camp. I met this guy who was older and he was going through a hard time in his life, I think, and he just, he was the one who said, look, just follow your bliss. Good things will happen if you follow your bliss. And I, you know, I don't know if like, that's just Pollyanna advice, but like, there's times where like, I'm like, what am I doing? Is this really the right thing to do. And that always comes back to me. K Kevin Merritt 01:32:24 It's like, you know, what if I really enjoy this, I need to keep doing it and I need to, you know, the rest of this stuff will figure itself out or I'll figure it out, like, you know, how to make it work financially or how to, you know, juggle it all. But, you know, what's really important is, you know, is. Is it, does this make me happy? Is this exciting? Is this something I want to spend my time doing? And the older I get, the more I'm like, you know, hey, it is. As you get older, you do think about, well, is this what I want to spend my time doing? Because I have less of it left. K Kevin Merritt 01:32:59 So, you know, that's the sort of, you know, luxury of youth is that, you know, you feel like you have a lot of more time, so you can kind of just experiment and play around and have fun and that's wonderful. And then you get older and it's like, okay, but what I really want to put my energy. So. Yeah, I think that's a lot of it. Yeah. I mean, be just. I've also realized like, you know, I mean, this is kind of common advice that you hear all the time, but I think it's just so important to remember, like, people mostly remember, you know, how they feel around you or the experience of working with you more than what you actually did. K Kevin Merritt 01:33:49 And when I remembered that, I, I can really put everything in perspective and say, you know, even if this is hard, even if this is stressful, we can still be kind to each other, we can still have fun, we can still smile, we can still take a break. And that's really important because it's really easy in event production and entertainment production to get very self important and somehow think that what we're doing is like so important. And you know, I learned that the great saying that, you know, things that are important are often not urgent and things that are urgent are often not important. And I think that's really great advice. Sometimes we mistake urgency for importance. And there are definitely things that are urgent in life, but they're not always that important. K Kevin Merritt 01:34:49 So, you know, event production can feel very urgent. Has to get done right now. We need it. Oh my God, the show's gonna start. We don't have this. But like, in the bigger picture, how important is it? You know, probably not as important as you think. J Julian Brooks 01:35:08 Yeah. I think I learned a similar lesson when I was young working in kitchens and stuff where I remember just like, it was a terrible night. Like, people were just so stressed out. One of the cooks was quit and I just stopped and went like, hey guys, is the whole restaurant going to shut down if they get their lobster five minutes later? And I was like, no, wait, hold on. I was like, are we all going to be fine tonight if we just are able to take a breath and maybe things come out a minute or two later because it's super busy. J Julian Brooks 01:35:39 It's kind of like, I think I've had a lot of those moments where I've realized, like, okay, maybe we can just like relax for a moment, take a step back and you know, maybe it's not too urgent or too important. K Kevin Merritt 01:35:52 Yeah. J Julian Brooks 01:35:55 So I guess in that same theme, where do you see One Foot Productions heading in the next five to 10 years? K Kevin Merritt 01:36:10 Well, it's a great question. I mean, I think. I think what I would like to see is, I would like to see us be able to just build some of these creative properties that we're working on into, you know, kind of see them through their potential. I'd like to see Bear Music Fest sort of, you know, become really. I don't want to grow it in the sense of, you know, size wise, I think it's. It's pretty good, you know, but I'd like it to become. Feel more sustainable and, you know, maybe even help get a team on board that can kind of run that without as much, you know, involvement and effort from me. I'd like to start another Bear Music Fest on the east coast potentially. And I'd like to really look at expanding my interest in music discovery, which is. K Kevin Merritt 01:37:07 Is, you know, we didn't really talk about that, but like what Bear Music Fest is about, which is discovering new artists and giving them a platform to build audiences. And I think there's so many ways we can do it outside even the festival environment that I'd like to explore. You know, there's. There's then these other projects. There's, you know, a couple musicals that, you know, and plays that, you know, I'm kind of interested in. I'm really interested in sort of immersive entertainment and the combination of. Of immerse the immersive world with sort of the alternate reality world with the sort of escape room world with the, you know, kind of. I, I like this idea of entertainment that sort of engages you in different ways. So you're not just a participant. I mean, you're not just an observer, you're also participant. K Kevin Merritt 01:37:59 And I'd like to explore some of that stuff. Yeah, it's funny, I don't have like, I mean, aside from like, and Debacle, I'd like Debacle to, you know, grow and become sort of a sustainable software solution that people really, you know, enjoy. And, and I want to keep it simple, but I want it to be something that feels really productive for people and helps them. You know, I always thought like, software should make you do your job better. So part of, you know, writing good software is also like teaching people a way to do things that might benefit them, might be more efficient. I know sometimes people approach software is like, okay, I'm going to take the way people do things and try to like, accommodate everything. I'm not as much a believer in that. K Kevin Merritt 01:38:48 I think like, you know, the good software out there actually teaches you how to work smarter versus, you know, just takes your bad habits and digitizes them. So, you know, I'd love to see Debacle grow in that way. And, but I, you know, it's funny, I don't necessarily have like, hard and fat. Like, there's ideas that I just would love to explore, but all of them I'm excited about in different ways. So part of me, you know, a little bit is just being open to the fact that I'm probably not going to get everything I want to get done. And so what, you know, what really is exciting me now and feels of the moment. So, you know, right now, like, you know, it's the Bear Music Fest. K Kevin Merritt 01:39:30 It's this hip hop show that we just, you know, kind of did a first version of. It's, you know, continuing to work with the Apollo, which I really love. It's, it's, you know, the debacle work. But I also am really kind of excited about, like, to see what also, you know, we brought us, you know, I love the phrase attraction, not promotion. You know, I believe that if we do good work, a friend of mine said, no, good work goes unpaid. And I really believe that, like, if we continue to do. Do what good work for ourselves, you know, for others, you know, for just to be of service to people, like, we will attract the right customers or the right audiences that want what we have. K Kevin Merritt 01:40:23 And I believe definitely in attracting people to what we do versus promoting things to try to push people. I really like that you're never gonna please everyone, as they say. But I do think there's people that you know, really would resonate with the work we do. And I hope that they'll, you know, provide an audience that we can keep doing that work. J Julian Brooks 01:40:53 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So last just few questions here. Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that you're really excited about? K Kevin Merritt 01:41:03 I'm really excited about this hip hop show called she Came from the Bronx. It's a collaboration with the Q Brothers. We got to do a development version in Chicago and I thought it was really awesome and amazing. There is a show that I've been wanting to launch, this audio show that it's not really a collaboration. It's, you know, we would do it, but we would collaborate with some of the artists that have worked, we've worked with on BARE Music Festival. And it's. Without getting too deep into it's like, it's like a reimagining of kind of old classic albums from the past and looking at them through a new lens, a different generation and kind of see. Seeing the, you know, people don't really make albums in the way they used to. K Kevin Merritt 01:41:56 And there was a period, sort of a golden age of album making and seeing that as sort of like a time capsule into culture and into, you know, art, politics, all that stuff, and just kind of exploring that. That's sort of a personal project that excites me. Very cool. Yeah, those are some. J Julian Brooks 01:42:18 And then a last question. If you had unlimited resources, what's a dream event that you would love to produce? Maybe this is one you can come back to a little bit later if you, if some ideas kind of end up popping up and stuff, we can just keep adding to this. K Kevin Merritt 01:42:30 But yes, what comes top of mind if I didn't have to worry about anything. I have always wanted to go to every national park and film a band performing in the park, somewhere in the park. But essentially document the whole experience of trying to find the right band to align with that park and why, and figuring out where we're going to film them and what they're going to play and how we're going to film it and then how we're going to get there. With the idea being that like, you know, we're not going to pull on, you know, roll in there with a ton of trucks and stuff like gear. Like we gotta, you know, most of these places we gotta pack our stuff in and pack out. You know, maybe we need animals to do that. K Kevin Merritt 01:43:26 But like the whole adventure, you know, like if we're going to perform on the Top of Half Dome or something in Yosemite or, you know, maybe that would be too scary, but, you know, like, who should do that? How would we film it? You know, but really as a way to honor. My dad was a forest ranger in his later years and he really, you know, influenced just my love of nature and the national parks and, you know, really these being kind of. Yeah, I feel like, you know, he felt when he was out there in wilderness, you know, in the parks and stuff like that he was, you know, as close to God as you can get. And I have always been inspired by that. K Kevin Merritt 01:44:12 And so part of this too would be a deep dive into these to bring attention to them and that, you know, we can get really caught up in sort of our material lives, especially those of us who live in cities and stuff. And, you know, yet some of the most amazing places in the world are, you know, just out there existing without any effort, you know, except for us to protect them. And, you know, how could we highlight them? It would bring together my love of music and nature and, you know, kind of documenting, you know, these things. So that's one I've always wanted to do. K Kevin Merritt 01:45:00 I feel like it would be a really hard sell to a network except for maybe like National Geographic or something, but, you know, I don't know if people would be that excited to even watch it, but it would be really fun to do. To do. Yeah. J Julian Brooks 01:45:13 I think it sounds like a really interesting idea, so. K Kevin Merritt 01:45:17 And I've seen people try to do little mini versions of it, but never one quite like, I imagine. J Julian Brooks 01:45:24 Yeah, I think that'd be a really cool project to see in the future. Well, Kevin, I really appreciate your time. It's good to go through everything. I. I'm not used to this format of, you know, having all these questions I'm trying to get to and like, balancing that with, like, being conversational. So sorry if I came off a little awkward or, you know, if it was. K Kevin Merritt 01:45:47 Not at all. Actually, you were really good. Okay. J Julian Brooks 01:45:50 There's a great time where I was like, man, I gotta get to these next. Like, there are things I wanted to dive in more on or ask you just out of personal curiosity. But then there's also all these, like, more, you know, key insights and social media points I'm trying to hit. K Kevin Merritt 01:46:03 Oh, yeah, it's fine. And honestly, you know, take it as it goes. But I thought that worked really nice. And we can always do another one of these. It's fun to Talk about. And I also think it's nice for me to document this stuff. You know, it had me going back and thinking about things in terms of just, you know, the history. It's. It's been a wild ride, you know, in a good way. J Julian Brooks 01:46:25 Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. And I think it'll be cool to maybe like, as. As I said, throughout the day today or just throughout the week of more things kind of come up or if you think about, like, different points in the conversation, feel free to just like, hop on this Notion doc. It's under the document hub by now. Instead of having those tables there, I've just put the documents just easy to click and select. And so then you can just go there and just type in maybe some responses to questions. Even if it's just basically a bunch of notes, it doesn't have to be one big cohesive thought. It can just be a bunch of different notes, or it could just be kind of a stream of consciousness. All of that is perfectly fine. K Kevin Merritt 01:47:05 Okay, you're gonna send those to me or just notate them, mark them up. J Julian Brooks 01:47:09 That's in Notion on the interview questions page. K Kevin Merritt 01:47:13 Oh, yeah, but sorry, I might have. I was texting someone. Did you say that. That you're gonna high
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