Filmmakers Behind the CrossFit Documentaries - Buttery Bros
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Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers are the filmmakers behind the hit CrossFit Documentaries: "Froning: The Fittest Man in History" "Fittest on Earth 2015" "Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness" and "The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth"
They have started a high quality production weekly vlog on YouTube called Buttery Bros that showcases various elite CrossFit athletes as well as friendly competition between Heber and Marston. The Bros also have a new docu-series coming out called "Fittest" covering the Journey of the 2019 CrossFit Games.
You may enjoy these episodes as well.
CrossFit Documentaries Filmmakers - Buttery Bros Transcript
Heber Cannon [00:00:01] The first day we launched on iTunes, we were the number three movie on the iTunes total charts, and they hit us up and said, "Hey, who the crap are you guys? Like, What is this movie? How have you done this?"
Javier Mercedes [00:00:12] On the fifty-second episode of Passion in Progress. Filmmakers, the Buttery Bros. Have you ever been scrolling through Netflix, Hulu, iTunes or even your in-flight movies on Delta and seen a documentary on CrossFit? Well, chances are it's part of the Fittest series produced by Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers. I came across these guys when I first saw Froning and I've been keeping track of their documentaries ever since. The way that they shoot and tell the stories of the athletes during the CrossFit Games is something truly inspirational. And not only that, the cinematography of their documentaries is super smooth and buttery, just as their name implies for the Buttery Bros. The craziest thing to me, though, is that they've taken their production value from their documentaries and translated it into a weekly vlog on YouTube. But you don't have to take my word for it, I think their work ethic and production value speak for themselves, if you were to watch any of their documentaries or videos on YouTube. And, speaking of production, if you dig what you've heard or seen on this podcast, I would love you forever if you share this episode out with a friend. You can tag me @JavierMercedesx. As always, thank you to my patrons that are supporting me through Patreon. I'm at Patreon.com/JavierMercedes. With all that out of the way. I could not be more excited to present to you. Episode 52 of The Passion in Progress show with the Buttery Bros.
Javier Mercedes [00:01:40] What is up #MerceNation. Javier Mercedes here for yet again another Passion in Progress show where we talk to inspiring individuals and hopefully, through hearing their stories, you too are motivated to go out and pursue your passions. And today on the show we are celebrating one year of doing this podcast, the Passion Progress Show. And I could not be more excited to have some of the fittest people that have ever fit been on…`
Heber Cannon [00:02:00] Oh, the fittest.
Javier Mercedes [00:02:00] The podcast and hands down taking YouTube by storm. The best vlog on YouTube. 2019. The Buttery Bros are here in Austin, Texas. How is it going?
Marston Sawyers [00:02:14] Dude, It's going good, man. We've just been here hanging out the past few days of the Fittest Experience and. Yeah, good to have us.
Heber Cannon [00:02:20] Yeah, thanks for having us on the show, man. God, look at that energy, man.
Javier Mercedes [00:02:25] Let's talk about Netflix. How you guys got your films onto the platform. And do you want to give a little [bit of a] broad background for the audience that doesn't know where you guys are coming from with your fitness series?
Heber Cannon [00:02:38] Yeah. so I'll kind of give you a brush stroke history. Ten years ago, 2009-ish, I was just getting out of college, had my own video production company was doing documentary work on the side. And my goal was like, I want to go make movies in Hollywood. Found CrossFit, fell in love with it in 2008, and was paying for my gym membership by making videos for the local gyms.
Javier Mercedes [00:03:01] I love how it's bleeding together already. It's so cool.
Heber Cannon [00:03:06] CrossFit, I reached out to them and said, "Hey, I'm here in Salt Lake City. I do videos for these gyms. If you guys ever need work, let me know." Within five minutes I'd [been] e-mailed back saying, “Let's have a phone call. That led to like a six-hour phone interview the next day. A year later, I was moving down CrossFit in Santa Cruz. My first, one of my first assignments was to help them figure out how to get a pilot for a TV show to then be able to get their sport on ESPN. So Marston and I worked together at the time. He came down and helped me and we produced a pilot that covered what the sport could look like. Three months later we're on ESPN and I'm directing that [program] sitting in like a TV truck. I've never done that and sound like I'm ready take one, take two.
Marston Sawyers [00:03:51] He was pale.
Heber Cannon [00:03:51] Yeah, like it was. It was a stressful six-day weekend.
Javier Mercedes [00:03:56] This is the live event. This isn't stuff that's recorded and then you get to process it later.
Heber Cannon [00:04:00] No, this is life. And then, after the live event of the weekend. We got into the post-produceg show. So like World's Strongest Man, and American Ninja Warriors they make kind of feel live, but there's definitely some post-production edits to them to make the story flow better.
Marston Sawyers [00:04:19] Yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:04:19] So we did that with our shows where we produced, I think it was like 12 shows
Marston Sawyers [00:04:24] Twelve half hour shows.
Javier Mercedes [00:04:26] Jeez.
Marston Sawyers [00:04:26] That like obviously, like we'd never done that before and CrossFit had never done that before, and it was a very new venture and everything like that, but it was probably one of the most growing learning processes of starting my career. He [Heber] did an amazing job. We'd be in the recording booth, re-voicing the competitions as if they were live. So, it was like you would get some pretty interesting reactions… We've seen this probably like 30 times, but we’re recording it as if it's happening live, you know?
Heber Cannon [00:04:59] Yeah. Like God, man, we need more energy because you haven't seen this 40 times, like this is the first time you're seeing it and we have to pretend it's exciting. It's not just someone lifting a weight. So we got through those that was like a crash course of like how to do this. I knew very early on I didn't want to do live TV. Like, that's not my thing, that's not my jam, I like to take time to process and tell the best story possible, not just the story that's happening and that you happen to capture. So, by 2013 I'd pushed away, I don't want to do live stuff and CrossFit was cool enough to be like, “No, we want you to grow. we want you to have creative freedom.” And I got a lot of creative freedom because of how successful the ESPN shows had been doing. In the end, they recognize the hard effort that Marston and I have put in and so we got to do some really cool things. In 2014, they said, "Hey, we want to do like a YouTube feature film. We want to do a documentary that covers the sport." I had done like a 30-minute short documentary on Don the 2013 CrossFit Games and the 2014 CrossFit Games. There was one story where I was like, that's the story of the year. It's this guy who's won the CrossFit Games from 2011, '12, and '13 So he's won it three years. He's going to come and win it for his fourth year, and he's told me in private that he's going to retire at the end of this year.
Javier Mercedes [00:06:16] Oh wow.
Heber Cannon [00:06:16] And I was like, this guy is this is going to happen. No one can touch this guy, it's going to be the only story that matters, and so I got the green light to then create this movie called Froning: The Fittest Man in History. I think it's still available on Netflix. It showed up on Hulu the other day. I don't know how that's working. CrossFit said, "Cool, let's do it," and so I shot it and it took me about a year to edit the whole thing. By the time I was getting close to finishing it, their plan for it was always to just go straight to YouTube. I was like, "Look. for me, this isn't just a YouTube video. This is an art. This is a feature film. We've put a lot of effort into this thing, let it go to a platform that is recognized by peers of filmmaking to be a feature film." That took some back and forth For them, they just wanted the eyeballs on it to then translate it into maybe people come to the gym or building the sport. Everybody that was above me within the company had different goals of what they thought the things should be. Ultimately, the person above me, Sevan Matossian and who is the executive producer on the film, helped us out a little bit and pushed it through. think we just went on iTunes initially. The first day we launched on iTunes, we were the number three movie on the iTunes total charts, and they hit us up and said, "Hey, who the crap are you guys? Like, What is this movie? How have you done this?" And I was completely blown away by the response. Like, people love the movie, they told their friends about it, they posted on social media about it, and it did extremely well. I want to say the movies above it were like Jurassic World, I can't remember the second one, and then it was our movie.
Javier Mercedes [00:08:01] Something in 2004.
Heber Cannon [00:08:02] Yeah, well it was 2015 at this point. So. it was pretty epic for me. I'm seeing my movie right next to Jurassic World on this big image thing on iTunes. From there the next day, Gravitas Ventures tweeted me and they said, "Hey, we've seen your movie, we love it, we want to represent you, we want to distribute your film".
Javier Mercedes [00:08:23] Ahh.
Heber Cannon [00:08:23] And so then from there, we jumped the process of, like, most people make a movie and then they shop it around at film festivals until a distributor goes, "Oh, I want your movie. I'm gonna buy it, and take it, and sell it for you."
Javier Mercedes [00:08:34] Umm hmm.
Heber Cannon [00:08:34] So, we just skipped that because we put it on iTunes ourselves and then they came to us because of the success of it. W had a built-in audience. So, because of that, they then took it and shopped it around and got it on Hulu, which then the next year led Netflix to being like, "Oh, well, we want that movie." By the time we got to the 2015 movie, Fittest on Earth, the Story of the 2015 games. Netflix was extremely interested and from there they've picked up every movie that we've put out.
Javier Mercedes [00:08:59] That's awesome. Money follows value.
Marston and Heber [00:09:02] Yeah.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:02] You guys put out the value. There's the money.
Heber Cannon [00:09:05] Yep.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:05] That's the first one and then there's three more, correct, do you want to?
Heber Cannon [00:09:08] Correct.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:09] But by the way, one of my favorite things watching those was, , sorry if I pronounce it wrong. But Sarah, umm.
Marston and Heber [00:09:15] Sigmund's daughter.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:15] Sigmund's daughter.
Heber Cannon [00:09:15] Yeah, Sarah's mom.
Marston Sawyers [00:09:15] Sigz!
Javier Mercedes [00:09:19] Which video is it where you guys are out with her working in the middle of nowhere? She's like in a parking lot.
Marston Sawyers [00:09:23] Probably sixteen.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:25] Yeah, that one, that shot.
Marston Sawyers [00:09:26] Back to the bar!
Javier Mercedes [00:09:27] Yeah, it's like, who are these guys that made this film? Because the shots in and of themselves in the way that the editing flows before and after that shot I stopped the movie and rewatched that scene.
Marston and Heber [00:09:45] Yeah!
Javier Mercedes [00:09:45] It's so intense.
Marston Sawyers [00:09:45] That's one of our favorite scenes of any of the movies.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:47] I hope it is because It's so good.
Marston Sawyers [00:09:48] Yeah.
Javier Mercedes [00:09:49] Can you talk about the relationship of what you guys do and how you get those intimate moments with the athletes themselves? Is that something built up over time? Was it like, you just showed up one time and then like, "Hey, do you mind if I just stick a camera in your face while you're trying to sling some weights around?" How does that work?
Marston Sawyers [00:10:08], I mean, when these athletes show up they catch our attention and we're like, “Who's gonna be good on camera? Who's gonna give us the best content and what's gonna be the best story? So, like with Sarah, she showed up in 2015 and we got to film with her before the games, but at the Games is when she really caught everybody's attention. And it's a relationship that we started early on that, over time and over years just grows. We were just filming with her in San Diego a few weeks back and we're really good friends with a lot of these top athletes and that's what we've really valued in what we've been doing is because the relationships that you build with these athletes, they trust you and they know that you're gonna make them look good. We're not trying to manipulate their story in any way. We want them to shine and we want them to help grow the sport. I think at this point, they may know who we are as filmmakers and what we do in the sport. And yeah, like they're just great humans, and they're easy to work with, and we want to keep doing that. Heber's been really close with all the top athletes, too. Like he's really good buddies with Froning. Fraser, we've become really good friends with just in the past three or four years. It’s great.
Heber Cannon [00:11:28] Yeah. For those that don't know, those are all like the top of our sport.
Javier Mercedes [00:11:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:11:33] The audience is customer-centric.
Javier Mercedes [00:11:35] They've been popping in and out of your guys' vlog. The production value on your guys' vlog is so superior to a lot of what's on YouTube.
Marston Sawyers [00:11:45] Thanks, man.
Javier Mercedes [00:11:45] And I commend you guys for it. Tell me about the process of what goes into what you're doing. From week to week at the end of your vlogs, You're like, "Tell 'em what we're gonna do next time," and then sometimes you're like, "Well, we're we're gonna [make] a movie. Yeah. We don't know what we're going to do this time. So. Just check back in next week."
Marston Sawyers [00:12:12] Yeah.
Javier Mercedes [00:12:12] How's the ride been these last three months, especially from what you were talking about, making a piece of content for what people look for in a film on a Netflix, a Hulu ,and those platforms, and now you're creating stuff for YouTube. Has your opinion changed of the platform? I feel like I keep asking questions, so I'm going to stop talking and let you guys talk.
Heber Cannon [00:12:33] Ok, so not that anything is ever wrong with, with YouTube, it was just something that we've already done. We've been there. We've made a lot of videos that have millions of views on YouTube. So for the Froning film, it was like, I want it to be on a platform where people buy it and watch it on a big screen.
Javier Mercedes [00:12:45] Yes.
Heber Cannon [00:12:46] Like we've shot this in 4K. We've shot it with big cameras. So, there's two sides of this. We're like, I want people to see this in the biggest format possible.
Javier Mercedes [00:12:53] Yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:12:53] I also am very understanding that like poverty, 50 percent of the audience is watching it on their cell phone while they're taking a dump, you know? [All laugh] So like, the production, we probably spend way more time than 90 percent of YouTubers because we come with the filmmaking background where I didn't feel like I could put my name on a vlog without it being like very crisp content on a regular basis. That's not to say we won't have raw and like regular content coming eventually, but for our channel right now, that's kind of how we stand apart from other YouTubers and CrossFit YouTubers, is the amount of time and brought production value that we've put into it. Then that makes it a lot easier for a sponsor to be like, "Hey, I want to invest money with you guys and have my product on your show," because it's a consistent look.
Marston Sawyers [00:13:38] Yeah, we approach it as [more] like episodes and shows than like just like another vlog because vlogs are great, but what we bring to the table, I think, is a little bit more storytelling as far as the preproduction and figuring out who we're going to have in our show, how we're going to incorporate them, how we're going to incorporate our sponsors, and the different brands, and stuff like that.
Javier Mercedes [00:13:59] Yeah, I was going to ask. So, one of the things that you guys talked about was the sponsors. In the grand scheme of most YouTubers, when you start a channel, you have X amount of videos. But right off the bat, you have sponsorship. How did that look when you guys went to go do the idea of the Buttery Bros channel and then when you started to implement everything, like what was the process beforehand and has it panned out what you guys thought it was going to be?
Marston Sawyers [00:14:32] Well, when we started the channel, the first episode that we shot wasn't even, like, intentional. It just kind of happened. Like, we were in Matt Fraser's garage. We did it a work \out from Dubai called Acid Bath. I went against Heber and we actually had Matt Fraser's girlfriend film it. [Javier laughs]. So, after we did it, it was just like we watch back the content and we're like, "Man, this is actually like entertaining and fun." And I was like, I think we could cut this together and put it on YouTube. And that was kind of like as much as we had thought.
Heber Cannon [00:15:04] We had toyed with it when we were in Dubai, we filmed like a little bit of back and forth, but we hadn't gotten anything to a point where I was like, we got a good show, we got something awesome. So when we got that, we're like, OK, I think we got idea here.
Marston Sawyers [00:15:17] Yeah. So the term buttery is something that we've always said whenever we like, hit a really nice shot or if it's like super smooth, it's like man that is a crisp blue, that's a buttery shot. [Javier laughs] So then when we're in Miami before we went to Lollapalooza, which was like the second sanctioned event of the year, that's when we put it up and then we're walking around the event that weekend and people are like, "Hey, is that the Buttery Bros?"
Heber Cannon [00:15:44] That's the Buttery Bros!
Marston Sawyers [00:15:45] And we're like, "Holy shit, people are watching our stuff."
Javier Mercedes [00:15:45] Yeah.
Marston Sawyers [00:15:45] And so we, at the beginning of the year, set out to make our fittest series. That's kind of like our big pie in the sky. Like, that's our big project we're working on this year. That's gonna be like [a] six to eight episodes docuseries and between all that is when we're trying to do these vlogs because we want to be able to turn out content regularly that's fun and that we can involve the athletes and give them a platform. Because there's nobody else really doing that right now, there's a few other people, but since then,it was kind of like: Alright, there's this, there's a lot of potential here. How can we sell this to a sponsor? Is like, is that even possible? How are we going to do that? And then around The Open is when we realized that CrossFit's not going to be doing the same produced open announcement shows that they were in years past. And we're like, how can we be the guys that can go to these announcements to uh present it in a way that's polished and that it comes out the next day? And it's basically like the best piece of content that comes out from the open announcements. And that's where the sponsors, I think, see the value.
Javier Mercedes [00:16:50] Can you give a breakdown of what The Open is just for the people that don't know?
Heber Cannon [00:16:54] Yeah. So The Open, to kind of give a backstory on all of this. The Open in the past has been… To get to the CrossFit Games, which where CrossFit crowns, the fittest person on earth, fittest male and female, or fittest team. To get there, the qualification rounds used to be The Open, which is an online competition that is five weeks long where people do one workout a week that CrossFit creates. So, they post to workout to a website. 400,000 people last year did the workouts. It was one workout a week. So, like you kind of repeat the workout multiple times, you submit your scores, and then the top 50 in seven regions around the world, or nine regions around the world, would move on to a regional level, location, workout, or event. So, you would go to what they had, the regionals, which [there] was nine of those. And then the top four from each one of those would go to the CrossFit Games, ending with like 40 people and 40, 40 men, 40 women going for that title., They've shifted that. They've gotten rid of all the region events. Those used to be owned and operated by CrossFit. They've allowed other local events to become sanctioned. So, if you win this event that we were at in Miami, the top male and female now have a ticket to the CrossFit Games because of their performance at that event. So, they're moving into a much more broad platform where any event in the world could potentially become a sanctioned event and send their champion to the CrossFit Games to try and get a title of the fittest on earth. So the CrossFit Games has very much changed...
Javier Mercedes [00:18:21] Umm hmm.
Heber Cannon [00:18:21] ...And part of that change is they got rid of all their media department.
Javier Mercedes [00:18:24] Umm hmm.
Heber Cannon [00:18:24] So those are all being outsourced. Part of that was for the last seven years, for each one of these one workout of the week things during The Open, they'd have this big show where they'd bring in two of the top athletes. They'd have a giant crowd and it was always a big reveal when okay, we were going to find out tonight, Thursday night at 5 p.m. Pacific, what the workout is for the week. And there's all these people tuning in because they want to see the show. They want to find out what the workout is. And then for four days over the weekend, everyone's doing that workout. So, when they weren't going to do that, they gave that show to local affiliates or events. So, there was a sanctioned event the first week in The Open in London, and had the opportunity to announce to the world, what, 19.1 the first workout of the 2019 season was. And, knowing what I know about live broadcast, I knew like there's no way they're going to have a great show. Like, not anything against these guys, just they don't have the time, they don't have the preparation, and uhh the biggest factor that they don't have is a good connection to make sure it like you put together a great show, but if you don't have a solid connection to the Internet and it drops, everybody's gonna be furious if you're trying to do a live. Like, unless you prepackaged it and put it on a YouTube thing, like no one's gonna enjoy it and everyone's going to be outraged about it. We saw that as an opportunity for us to be like, oh, well they're not going to do something polished, let's do it. And so we like maxed out credit cards, went to London, created this, this vlog, and that's where it really started to take off. And immediately after we dropped the first episode we had two or three sponsors call us and like, "Hey, some of this media is lacking in this area and we used to put all our money into that. We see opportunity here with you guys and like we want to try and work with you on this." And so it opened the door pretty quick.
Javier Mercedes [00:20:11] So now that you see both sides and, since 2019 hasn't played out all the way I know it could differ as the year goes, which way do you like better at this point? How it's decentralized or how it was before?
Heber Cannon [00:20:24] I think it's good. It'll be interesting to see. So, there's a lot of opportunity for the sanctioned events, there's a lot of opportunity for athletes. It's just a rough year and big changes have happened. People aren't used to them. It can be really cool. I think there's potential there. I think that they did it in a really, criticizing the company, I think they handled the direction in a really poor way. They could have done it a lot easier for their former employees as well as the community in general. I don't think they took care of their people.
Javier Mercedes [00:20:51] Umm hmm. So with that being said, let's talk about where it's at right now and what you guys are up to. Like I said, like from day to day, from week to week, how is the production? What are you guys doing on the backend that people don't see? Is it like you guys are taking a full week to piece together the footage that like just this weekend? What will happen when you guys go back home? Is it like you guys are on an airplane and you're like, aahhhh [laughs].
Marston Sawyers [00:21:14] Yeah basically, I mean, we're trying to have everything that we've shot in and basically cut and produced, put it together within a day or two after we shoot it.
Javier Mercedes [00:21:25] Love that, love that!
Marston Sawyers [00:21:25] The thing that makes it nice is the immediacy of it all and having this nice polished show that just happened, you know. So, we've got a lot of other things coming up and a lot of it's kind of cool, like people are reaching out to us from far stretches of the world that want to just kind of bring us out and show what they're doing. And we're like, "Yeah, we'll come to Aruba." So, yeah, like we've we're going to go to three more sanctioned events as of right now and, between all that, we want to do a lot of home visits with these athletes to be able to just catch up with them, get footage that we can put in the vlog, as well as in our series that we're working on. And yeah, there's a lot of possibilities and we take it week to week. Like this last week and the week before we're on the phone doing administration type stuff, trying to sell, vlog, sell and involve more sponsors, trying to find people that fit with what we're doing and what our brand is.
Heber Cannon [00:22:21] And then also talking to athletes. Like we came here, we met with someone who is like, "Hey, I have I have this going on next week. Do you want to come film it?" And we were like, “That sounds awesome. Like, had we had something planned we might have had something not as cool planned for next week. It gives a little bit of freedom and it's also a little bit of frustration because, like you joked about earlier, there are times where we end our vlog and we're like, “We don't know where we're gonna be but it's gonna be awesome so, you know, you're gonna want to be there.” That's what's cool about what we have going on right now is we know what we're going to do. We're only goint to do stuff that we find fun.
Javier Mercedes [00:22:58] Yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:22:58] And that's one of the main driving factors is: as long as we're having fun, I think people will enjoy what we're doing.
Javier Mercedes [00:23:04] As content creators, for everybody that's aspiring to be a content creator who is in the thick of things doing content (myself included) [what’s some] advice for, you mentioned [the] administration part. How much of what you're doing is more reaching out to people, contacting people, versus actually filming and editing things? Like, at this point of where you guys are at, what would you say, what would you want people to focus more on?
Heber Cannon [00:23:34] I would say, don't focus on sponsors until you know that you can sell yourself. Like, I wouldn't I wouldn't try to go to brands and be like, hey. Like, if I'm starting now and I have two subscribers, I could spend eight hours a day calling sponsors and not get anything 'cause who cares. Like, hone your craft, get really good at creating something and create something that you would wanna watch over and over again. Like, that's what I learned. watching those, creating those documentaries with Marston and the people at CrossFit. I created something that I had to watch literally 100 times before anybody else outside that office was going to see it. And so if going to watch it that many times, then for sure you would enjoy it once. [All laugh]
Javier Mercedes [00:24:17] There you go. What about you?
Marston Sawyers [00:24:17] Honing your craft. Find what your niche is, really.
Heber Cannon [00:24:20] That's a great point.
Marston Sawyers [00:24:20] Yeah, Like I think that we fit into a pretty good fitness realm, and that's like something that we also want to expand upon. We're in CrossFit right now and we have been for a long time, but we're also interested in all different types of fitness, and people, and involving them in any way that we can. So, we're trying to expand our reach as we should, I think. And for content creators, just have patience, too. I mean, we have to keep our own patience about us. You know, it's not like we're just blowing up all the time, you know. [Javier laughs] It's like, it's like you’ve got to have patience with what you're making, and figure out what your voice is, and what your message is, and we're still figuring that out ourselves. It's just fun to create stuff at the end of the day to be like, “This is what I made, you know? I have something to show for my work and that's why I even got into filmmaking and stuff like that. If I was just, you know, at a desk typing or something, you know, I just like having something to show for my work.
Javier Mercedes [00:25:23] Yeah. In your guys' realm, what does consistency mean to you?
Heber Cannon [00:25:27] Oh, I hear consistency and I just think nutrition right now is the number one [All laugh]. We both have little bands on that our nutrition coach gave me.
Marston Sawyers [00:25:40] Perfection.
Heber Cannon [00:25:41] Yeah, consistency, not perfection.
Javier Mercedes [00:25:43] Yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:25:43] So like uhhh.
Marston Sawyers [00:25:44] Working against gravity though, it's alright.
Heber Cannon [00:25:45] You're probably asking about like...
Javier Mercedes [00:25:46] Well, no...
Heber Cannon [00:25:46] Do you do this every day, do you do this every...
Javier Mercedes [00:25:46] I just wanted to see what it means to any, anybody.
Marston Sawyers [00:25:50] I mean, consistency as far as like publishing like that...
Javier Mercedes [00:25:53] Sure.
Marston Sawyers [00:25:53] ...That's very important. When we were doing The Open we were publishing every Friday because The Open announcement was every Thursday. We're a little bit off,we're within a week to 10 days of when we've been publishing.
Javier Mercedes [00:26:06] Umm hmm.
Marston Sawyers [00:26:06] So I think it's pretty important to be able to pick a day that you can consistently [post] because your audience will be like, "Oh, every Tuesday at 3 o'clock, they're going to post a video." That's what's important, I think,, is your audience knowing what to expect and like when you're going to be giving them more content.
Javier Mercedes [00:26:22] Yep.
Marston Sawyers [00:26:22] It's very tough. I've got to tip my hat to the people that can do daily vlogging because I don't know how people do that. Like, we're trying to do a weekly show that's a package, almost like a half hour for an episode, then like just like a ten-minute vlog of us…
Heber Cannon [00:26:39] Talking at a kitchen table.
Marston Sawyers [00:26:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the consistency in that regard.
Heber Cannon [00:26:44] To keep that entertaining everyday man, I got mad respect for those people.
Marston Sawyers [00:26:48] Yeah.
Heber Cannon [00:26:49] It's gotta be so hard.
Javier Mercedes [00:26:50] One of my good friends, Cody Wanner, he did a whole year of daily vlogging and he did a pretty good job, but he kept his to six minutes. But, he noticed as the year went on, he hit some pretty good highs with some of his videos, and the guy's really, really good at putting together videos. But, as the year went on, the audience retention and everything started to degrade and he wanted to provide value to the people that came and saw the videos. He just didn't want to put out a video to put out a video.
Marston and Heber [00:27:20] Yeah.
Javier Mercedes [00:27:20] So he stopped doing daily vlogging since then, but I think ff you are looking to create content, I think just setting a schedule like you're saying, and sticking to it. Just being like, "Alright, if it is daily, then hopefully by the time you get done 100 days, you're going to know what works and what doesn't work...
Marston and Heber [00:27:39] Yeah, exactly.
Javier Mercedes [00:27:39] And then go on from there. One the other questions I was going to ask is: With CrossFit in genera,l from your guys' first film to where you're at now, where have you seen your influence and how it's brought people to the platform?
Marston Sawyers [00:27:55] To YouTube?
Javier Mercedes [00:27:56] Not necessarily YouTube, but just out to do CrossFit in general?
Marston Sawyers [00:28:00] Yeah, I mean, I think with it being on… like our movies are on Delta flights now...
Javier Mercedes [00:28:05] Yeah, I love that.
Marston Sawyers [00:28:05] ...And they're also on Netflix and stuff. What's surprising is how many people have reached out to us that don't do CrossFit, that are just inspired by those stories and those athletes. Because I think you can learn a lot about determination, human condition, goal setting, and what goes into becoming a champion and stuff like that. So, it's motivating to see that for me because I would only expect like CrossFitters to come watch our films, but we've broadened our audience to anybody that's basically on Netflix now. So, the platform there has helped us and, what do you think?
Heber Cannon [00:28:41] Yeah well, same thing, which is that I thought the opposite. I made Froning with the intention of it not being for CrossFitters. So we have very basic explanations in there that help people understand, kind of wrap their heads around the sport, and then the 2015 documentary, we didn’t think it was going to go on iTunes like I’d just finished Froning, I didn't want to do another feature film. I was like, "Let's make a movie for CrossFitters.
Javier Mercedes [00:29:02] Mmm hmm.
Heber Cannon [00:29:02] And with the success of Froning coming, after we started the post-production of the 2015 movie. So we finished Froning, that had [to be] like in July of 2015, it took a few months to get it on the iTunes and in that window of time we were already into post-production on the next year's movie. So, because of the success of Froning, they were like, "Oh, we can't go back to YouTube with this, this has gotta go on iTunes."
Javier Mercedes [00:29:24] I love that!
Heber Cannon [00:29:24] And I'm like, “Well wait, we've almost finished this movie and it's not made for CrossFitters,” and they're like, "Screw it, put it out. People will like it." And sure enough, it was the number one movie on iTunes for documentary. For me, like my favorite movie, one of my favorite movies growing up was Rocky IV, right?. What's the best part of Rocky IV? Training montage! And that's like, we make a 90-minute training montage.
Javier Mercedes [00:29:45] Yeah. Yeah. that's actually [laughs].
Heber Cannon [00:29:47] So like...
Javier Mercedes [00:29:48] The route to success, really long training montages.
Marston Sawyers [00:29:51] Everything is better in montage.
Javier Mercedes [00:29:52] The people that you can find.
Heber Cannon [00:29:54] Yes, exactly.
Heber Cannon [00:29:55] They're doing the things, there's not like a cable helping lift these weights. They're actually doing this cool stuff. And so, for me, I would watch these training montages of Rocky IV and then be like, “I'm gonna go hit a punching bag. I may go do pushups.” And so, like, I saw this happen to myself as a young kid. I have, to think like, wow, if it happens to me, it's going to happen to other people.
Javier Mercedes [00:30:15] Mmmm hmm.
Heber Cannon [00:30:15] Let's motivate people to get to the gym and better their lives. And so that's sort of where a lot of my creative filmmaking in the CrossFit realm has been, to try and get people to better their lives outside of the TV screen.
Marston Sawyers [00:30:26] Yeah. That is what's been really cool. If we've motivated anybody in any way to be able to [be]like, “Hey, I think I should pursue fitness or I'm motivated to get off the couch and like do something,” then that's really cool. Because if we can help people improve their lives in any ways then, yeah, what a great way to do that with our films, and with our media, and our content, you know?
Javier Mercedes [00:30:48] I wish I had some sound effect where it was like [mock air horn sounds]. Zinger.
Javier Mercedes [00:30:57] [All laugh] Love it. So I'll pare it down to three more questions. I love how you talked about the maxing out your credit cards. It puts [out] that you guys believed in what you were doing and you went out and you knew that, from your past experience, you're proven in your skillset and what you can bring to the table. You did it. Money follows value, love it. With that being said, the team that you guys have with you sometimes and how does it look when you're creating these vlogs right now? And, I guess when you're doing the material, sparsing it between your documentary series that you're building and the vlog at the same time, how do you split your brain into, "Oh man, that footage that we just shot? Probably shouldn't put it in the vlog, this should be something for the documentary."
Heber Cannon [00:31:39] [To Marston] Tell them about going to the games and documentaries in the past.
Marston Sawyers [00:31:42] Documentaries in the past, we'd get to the end of the editing process and have so much extra content that it was like, wow, You're limited to 90 minutes and you've been shooting stuff from January until the end of August. So we did that with the first, the 2015 documentary, Fittest on Earth, and then going into 2016, we're like, how can we give more of this content to our audience so that they can just not lose all this stuff on the cutting room floor, right?
Javier Mercedes [00:32:09] Mmm hmmm.
Marston Sawyers [00:32:09] So that's why we decided to come up with this series called Road to the Games. We did three seasons of that on YouTube. So, we would be filming with these athletes for our documentary, but also creating episodes that that were coming out leading up to the CrossFit Games, and then we'd almost save certain scenes and repurpose certain things for our documentary. And that was what was being able to like, figure out what was more bigger picture for this particular character in the story, we would say of certain things. So...
Heber Cannon [00:32:40] It's like that Sarah scene where she is thrown down in the desert. Like, immediately when I shot that I was like, "This ain't seeing the light of day until it's the trailer." [All: Yeah!] You know, like this is trailer stock.
Javier Mercedes [00:32:50] Frickin' like the top five things I've seen in the past ten years.
Heber Cannon [00:32:53] Thank you.
Javier Mercedes [00:32:53] Love that scene.
Marston Sawyers [00:32:54] Yeah so, we kind of decided, let's turn the cameras around on ourselves. I was always., you know, behind the camera for all these years. Same with Heber. Now that we're able to, like, shoot ourselves and interact with the athletes and be in these spaces, and be the hosts of our own show. Whenever we're doing that, that's obviously going in the vlog and then when we're out on the competition floor, where we're back in the hotel room with athletes, that stuff that's a little bit more intimate, we're saving for the series.
Heber Cannon [00:33:25] Like London, London was where we've actually only had the time, London and Lollapalooza in Miami, it was a very clear distinction where I am with Patrick Vellner, We shot with Patrick Vellner and Tia-Clair Toomey for our docuseries. T is briefly in our vlog, Patrick's in it like for like five seconds, but we have a whole 45 minute to an hour-long show with just those two at that same location. So like, we try to find a very distinct line in the sand where we're we’ll shoot a little bit of this and then now it's time for us to go play.
Marston Sawyers [00:33:57] Yeah. Like when we were in Miami it worked out really well. They had their own competition for spectators if they wanted to sign up and do it. We're like that would be a great thing for me to go head-to-head against Heber and Tommy Marquez, one of our other buddies, another buttery bro.
Heber Cannon [00:34:12] Yeah, he's like a half-brother.
Marston Sawyers [00:34:14] So we can go shoot that specifically for the vlog and have that be, like its own thing, and the, we're back to filming with Patrick before he goes out to win an event when they win the weekend. So, it's pretty easy, I guess, in that regard to build a separate vlog from Fittest Series,
Javier Mercedes [00:34:35] Mm hmm. I also love how you guys go live and then you have the CrossFitter do the commentary while you guys are going head-to-head can you…?
Marston and Heber [00:34:44] Dude, dude that happened by accident.
Javier Mercedes [00:34:46] Can you explain just a little bit for the people that don't know?
Marston Sawyers [00:34:48] Dude, dude that happened all by chance. Patrick just started doing an Instagram live. And like...
Heber Cannon [00:34:53] Yeah, so let me explain it, so we're, we're in Canada. We're doing the 19.4 The fourth open weekend. The fourth, four out of five weeks of the CrossFit Games Open. w\We're there filming with Patrick Vellner. We film him go head-to-head with a bunch of people and then we're about to go. So that's kind of the stage to take it from there.
Marston Sawyers [00:35:09] Yeah, so we're about to go. Pat whips out an Instagram live and he films our entire workout. But, I noticed that he had done that and I was like, "Hey, do you mind like saving that before, you know?" So, he saves the video and he gives it to us, and I'm watching this back, and I'm like, "Dude, [Heber laughs] Pat crushed it on this commentary." [Javier laughs] Like, we need to, get this and insert it into our vlog because, like part of that is like. When we're going there's not any commentary or anything [to] tell the stories...
Javier Mercedes [00:35:37] Yeah, yeah.
Marston Sawyers [00:35:37] ...So that is like this. I don't know, this golden nugget that we kind of discovered by accident. We got that, put it in the vlog, people loved it, people thought Pat did an amazing job, and then going into nineteen point five, we were talking to Fraser. He was going to be competing in Miami. We're like, "Hey, do you think you want to, like, do our commentary. Maybe you like try and one up some Patrick Vellner stuff." And he was all about it.
Heber Cannon [00:35:59] Yeah have some competition there. Like, hey, this guy's second place in the CrossFit Games, don't let him beat you behind the camera, too.
Marston Sawyers [00:36:06] Yeah, yeah.
Javier Mercedes [00:36:06] And he's like, "Oh, I got this."
Marston Sawyers [00:36:06] Yeah, next time we go out to an Open Announcement whoever is competing, we're going to be like, “Hey, if you if you're comfortable with it, will you take a commentary of us going and we'll include you into the vlog?”
Heber Cannon [00:36:14] Tia also did it just by happenstance when we were working out with her in Miami where she was like, "I'll film", and she grabbed our camera, was walking around filming it and doing a little bit of it.
Javier Mercedes [00:36:25] Yeah, you guys put a little bit of it in the vlog.
Heber Cannon [00:36:25] Yeah. So, it's just a little bit.
Javier Mercedes [00:36:27] What I love is that it's cross-platform and now it's both on IG and YouTube.
Heber Cannon [00:36:32] Yeah, just like melding all of the social media together. Crushin' It.
Marston Sawyers [00:36:36] Yeah, it's fun.
Javier Mercedes [00:36:36] Two questions I ask everybody at the end of the podcast: First one is why do you do what you do?
Heber Cannon [00:36:44] For me, it's about building a life that I love. Like I love traveling, I love meeting people, I love fitness. I love being healthy, and I love movies. That, and, you know, I love my family. So, like, I get to go home and be with my family now and then I also get to go do all these really fun things that blend together into this really cool show that Marston and I get to produce. So, for me right now, it's just about finding joy and finding things that, Like I said earlier, like if I'm having fun and I'm in, I'm experiencing pure joy in my life, I think joy attracts audience and if you see someone that's like, man, that's a light I want to have that I want to watch, like I want to smile, I want to have fun. And I can virtually do that through this show that these guys are producing. Like for me, that's the best compliment, when someone experiences that as a viewer of our YouTube channel.
Marston Sawyers [00:37:31] Yeah. Like I got into this just because I enjoyed filming the world around me and sharing what I was up to and what my friends were doing - in high school. I made, all these crazy, like wacky videos and stuff, And that's kind of led to storytelling, and filmmaking, and doing what we're doing now. And like I said earlier, I like to have something that I can show, like my work. I think it's kind of cool to be able to sit back and show somebody the experience that either I had, or one that I witnessed, or something that I was a part of that could either lead to some sort of emotional connection or some sort of shift in thinking, or just laughter, fun, you know. Like that's where I'm at. I really enjoy laughing, having fun, telling jokes and that's just kind of like with this vlog. It's kind of cool tobe able to just be myself and... And yeah... Just have a good time, you know?
[00:38:25] Love it, especially with both of them. You are encapsulating what you're talking about. Like it, it's just like it exudes from you.
Marston Sawyers [00:38:32] Thanks.
Javier Mercedes [00:38:34] Second question I always ask at the end of the podcast is from the point in, I think in one of the vlogs you talked about slinging shrimp from a truck or something like that.
Marston Sawyers [00:38:43] [Laughs] Selling shrimp out of a van!
Javier Mercedes [00:38:45] Yeah, yeah, selling shrimp out of a van, or. [Heber laughs] Before you even hit up CrossFit HQ from that point to where you're at now, whether it be a content creator, somebody in fitness, obviously you guys just talked about how happy you guys are in doing what you're doing. What advice would you give to people to get to the point where you're at right now?
Heber Cannon [00:39:04] Oh, I don't know. Work, yeah man.
Marston Sawyers [00:39:07] Yeah. Just like if you're into filmmaking, , or editing it's just gonna take reps like I knew…
Marston and Heber [00:39:14] Yeah, reps.
Heber Cannon [00:39:15] Get in some reps!
Marston Sawyers [00:39:16] Like, I always had an interest from a real early age. Cameras just were something that I was interested in and figuring out how they worked and figuring out the best way to like…. Like, I remember in like ninth grade, I took a journalism class and that was the first introduction of video editing with iMovie and it blew my mind that you can manipulate clips in such a way and I was just like, “This is what I want to do. It was just like that. It was like this light bulb that went off. So, you know, everybody that starts out starts out, you know, just learning their style, and technique and what their look is, and how they tell their own stories. So you just got to, like, grind on it, pick up a camera, figure out what you want your niche to be and what you want to go out and try and pursue as far as subject matter and stuff like that.
Javier Mercedes [00:40:05] [To Heber] What about you?
Heber Cannon [00:40:07] I think that the [sighs]. To get to where we are took a lot of reps, and I don't even think. Like, we say where we are, like we're like super successful, like we're not [laughs] like we're starting out. Like we have a lot of success, but we're not near where we want to be and we have a long way to go. To get to where we are, took for me. It was a lot of reps and a lot of work. Like I've spent a lot of nights . Like, even before we did The Open. We keep talking about that five-week stretch. We would film all day Thursday, stay up literally all night to edit the video, to have it up as soon as possible. So like, in London we worked out at 2:00 in the morning, is when the show went live, so we did the workout. then went back to our hotel room and edited until noon. and then published the video. And so like, that's not the first time I've done that. I've done that for years. You know, when I was in high school, I was doing this, when I was in junior high, I was making videos. And I've always, like, fancied that I was super passionate about [it] and then I couldn't sleep until it was complete. That's a lot of work and I wouldn't do it if I didn't love it. So, find something that you love and you want to do and you can put up with. Like, drive, it makes you so excited about it that you have to finish it and you wouldn't be satisfied if it wasn't good. So like, that would be my advice. [Marston and Heber make air horn sounds].
Javier Mercedes [00:41:28] Thank you guys so much. Where can people find you?
Heber Cannon [00:41:31] They can find us both on Instagram as @butterybros. And then I'm @hebercannon.
Marston Sawyers [00:41:38] @marzmedia, is my Instagram. And then...
Heber Cannon [00:41:40] With a z!
Marston Sawyers [00:41:41] ...With the Z, m-a-r-z-m-e-d-i-a. And then also just on YouTube, our buttery bros channel.
Javier Mercedes [00:41:47] All I would say is if you have a free evening and if you don't, you should still just sit down, [Heber laughs] put it on the TV, and just watch any. That's the thing I love about your channel. You put on any of the videos and it's worth your time.
Marston Sawyers [00:42:01] Thanks, man.
Javier Mercedes [00:42:01] ...That's really hard to do on YouTube [Heber laughs]. So thank you so much for your time. If you would like to share out this podcast, you can tag me @javiermercedesx. That's j-a-v-i-e-r Mercedes x and, if you liked it, you could leave me a review on iTunes. 'Til next episode, live a life of abundance and I'll see you guys next time. This concludes episode 52 of The Passion Progress Show with Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers, The Buttery Bros. If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes.