Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Porter.
Steven, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always been a highly creative person. My parents introduced me to music at a young age with piano lessons, and my uncle is a music teacher. My brother and I began learning lots of other instruments (electric guitar, drums, bass, and keyboards) and I ultimately found my calling behind the audio mixer, recording and producing both original songs and other local musicians. I had developed an interest in photography around that time as well, and thought it would be fun to combine my hobbies. A few low-budget music videos and short films later, and I found myself neck deep in the world of video production and filmmaking. By the end of high school, I had interned for and worked professionally with multiple local brands as a videographer and editor. This interest in video production carried on throughout my education until finally, near the end of my education at UCSD, I decided to make things official by starting an LLC and forming partnerships with several friends who have worked with and helped me along the way. My company now provides high-quality video, editing, and music production services throughout San Diego county. Most of our work is for local businesses, but we often end up on film sets shooting horror movies, westerns, action, music videos, and much more.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s easy to see the journey through rose-tinted glasses, but looking back at my early years, I’m amazed how many changes I’ve had to make to keep things moving forward. I am extremely fortunate to have found my calling at such a young age. In many ways, this has helped me avoid making many mistakes that my fellow entrepreneurs have run into. However, the bumps in the road that I did run into were made even more challenging due to my lack of experience and resources. Throughout high school and into early college, I set unreasonable expectations for projects, promising results I couldn’t possibly deliver. I’ve gained and lost clients faster than I could have imagined. I’ve built my own camera equipment when I couldn’t afford the industry-standard tools and improvised crazy solutions to technical problems that should never have worked at all.
Like so many others, 2020 has brought my business and my family a whole new set of challenges, which we’ve done our best to meet head-on and turn into opportunities for growth. For example, as we saw more and more businesses close down as a result of the Coronavirus, we gave out more than $10,000 of free video production services to local small businesses. This has led to some great new relationships and, more importantly, assisted many San Diego entrepreneurs in starting, maintaining, and even saving their businesses.
Currently, we’re recovering and continuing to grow from our experiences during the pandemic. We just opened a new studio in January, anticipating new business to cover the expenses involved with our extensive renovations and upgrades. When the Coronavirus forced us to close the studio in March, we knew we had to quickly pivot and become a critical provider for our local video industry. I set out to convert our studio into a completely remote-controlled operation, with multiple cameras operable from a separate rooms. This allowed us to continue offering high-quality services while the actors and crew stayed in completely separate rooms. Now, we’re taking things a step further by incorporating 3D graphics and virtual reality with cutting-edge camera technology that allows us to recreate any filming environment inside our studio. This lets us greatly reduce the need for travel since we only need one person to capture a 3D scan of the filming location, then the rest of the cast and crew can stay safely distanced in our remotely operated studio.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about UDA Media – what should we know?
UDA Media is a full-service video production company. We help businesses and creatives captivate their audiences with top-quality video and audio production. Our facility is located in Escondido and features two video sets and a large soundproof booth for singers, podcasts, and musicians. In addition to a collection of 4K cinema cameras, our resident drone pilot has an impressive assortment of aircraft ranging from high-performance racing drones to massive 6-bladed monsters built to fly our full-size cinema cameras.
We’re best known for our commercials, real estate tours, marketing videos, and training content. Some of our clients include Escondido Unified School District, Hunter Industries, Major League Eating, Blooming Tables, Hardcore Fitness, DJO Global, and Size Stream. Personally, I am extremely proud of our reputation for quality, timeliness, and customer service. This business has felt like a pipe dream more than once, and yet somehow things just keep going. I’m extremely fortunate to have an outstanding team working with me, and sometimes I question whether this dream-job-come-true is really happening. We still have a long way to go with many goals still to achieve, but given the youth and small size of the company, I could not be happier with the progress we’ve made so far.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
The list of mentors, colleagues, friends and family who deserve my thanks is quite long indeed. As I mentioned earlier, this all began because my family encouraged me to pursue my creative hobbies and supported me in countless ways as those hobbies morphed into a career. My teachers at High Tech High North County, especially multimedia instructor Anna Petrick, also played a huge role as I learned the technical aspects of media production and started considering the viability of starting my own production company. I’ve had many friends over the years encourage me, teach me, and push me to continue pursuing my crazy dream. Among these many friends are Rocky Rock (my go-to assistant camera operator) Kayla Imhoff (professional writer and editor) and Shayn Mitchell (drone pilot and camera operator.) Shayn has been an especially important role in my career, as he has essentially made UDA Media the in-house production company at his studio, Cypher Studios. We work together on nearly all of our projects and constantly help each other out, whether that means loaning each other equipment, working together upgrading the studio we share or shooting commercials for each other’s businesses. There are so many other friends, instructors, and loyal clients who have directly supported my business, and I am sure that there will be many more in the future. This endeavor has been fueled by the kindness, generosity, hard work, and trust of countless individuals, and I sincerely hope that I will continue to have the opportunity to pass that along to others.
Pricing:
- Short, simple videos cost as little as $1000
- Most of our video projects are $1500-3500
- Studio rentals start at $75 per hour and include all necessary lighting, audio, and camera equipment
Contact Info:
- Address: UDA Media
925 S Orange Street
Escondido, CA 92025 - Website: www.uda.media
- Phone: (858) 215-3214
- Email: hello@uda.media
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/udamedia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UDA-Media-112017883581230
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