I felt personally attacked. There I was, sitting in my living room with a Frankensteined rig, justifying another camera body I didn’t need, and this dude, who basically lives in a cinematic Pinterest board, is telling me to stop buying gear?

We’re not just throwing logos into content. For us, brand integration isn’t about slapping a name on a post, it’s about telling real stories where the gear actually matters. If it’s in our frame, it’s because it earned a place in our life. And when you tell stories that way, honest, lived-in, rooted, it doesn’t just showcase a product. It tells a story and builds trust.

Two dads. A pack of muddy, bug-bitten kids. Three dogs who monitored every meal like underpaid USDA health inspectors. What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out, everything, in the best way.

From the moment we pitched tents to burnt pancakes, it was nonstop energy: missing shoes, constant “don’t poke the fire” reminders, and enough dirt to make you forget showers even exist.

Farming is one of the oldest and most honest forms of work there is. Yet, despite its history, it’s often misunderstood. For those unfamiliar with life on the farm, it's easy to reduce it to tractors, crops, and countryside views. But for those who live it, farming is a deeply personal, often challenging, but meaningful way of life.

This morning, we stood in the heart of a small town, no parade floats, no grandstanding, just a quiet, powerful Memorial Day tribute to the men and women who gave everything. The names read aloud didn’t ask what party you belonged to. They weren’t about division. They were about service. Courage. Loss. Honor.

There’s a moment every filmmaker chases, that one shot that makes people stop scrolling, lean in, and feel something. For us, unlocking that level of emotional connection in our video work started when we dove headfirst into FPV drone flying. But it didn’t come easy.

This winter, we took on an extreme projected in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Wilderness Area and surrounding wilderness, putting ourselves and our gear to the test.

Here’s the thing: 18 minutes is a small chunk of time—so small that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. But here’s what I learned: when I dedicated 18 minutes to focused creative practice, my brain adapted. Over time, those minutes became more than just a routine—they became a dedicated space for growth.

If you are a content creator, an artist, or a business owner of any kind, do you want to make your work matter? Do you want it to be impactful? The below thoughts are things that we at Gregg Media are constantly working on.  How to avoid the comparison trap, love the work you do, and give of yourself. We realize these are much easier written down than implemented. And to be successful, you must not only understand these points, but also be able to put them into practice.

Our brains are amazing and have fantastic memory, especially when it comes to taste and smell. So, even though we can’t actually smell the food in a video, if we have good visuals, along with good audio, we can trigger the part of our brains that remembers the smell and taste.

Whether you’re a novice trying to learn the basics or an experienced videographer looking for new techniques, making a better video can be challenging.

NASA study found that 98% of children at age 5 were creative geniuses, but by the time people reach adulthood that number drops to 2%, Why? I was listening to a Podcast called, The FUTUR with Chris Do. For those interested, it was episode 212 “The Laws of Creativity” with Joey Cofone. Their conversation was all about why people struggle to be creative.

I (Caleb) love the movie, “Miracle” produced by Walt Disney and staring Kurt Russel. It is about the journey of the USA 1980 olympic hockey team and the coach Herb Brooks. In the movie, they faced almost insurmountable odds and over came the challenges to beat the Russian team that was unbeaten. How?

We all have habits, good ones and bad ones. The life we live, to put it simply, is nothing more than collection of actions and choices.  What actions we take and the choices we make are linked to our habits.  We have been learning about habits and the dynamic role they play in our lives. When we finally got unconformable enough with our life, we knew we needed to make some big adjustments, create new goals, and change our family’s trajectory…but how?

Whether you’re making a movie, commercial, music video, or something else entirely, incorporating firearms into your production can be done safely!

Now that we’ve covered how to take cellphone videos with intention, by adding in transitions, let’s talk about how to edit these transitions. A lot of people will capture the content and then not know how to fully use it, so then they just don’t. We want to empower you on how to edit your cellphone videos in a way to put all the transitions to work and create a visually interesting cellphone video that you can be proud of

We covered quite a bit In Upgrading Your Phone Footage part 1 and 2 now are gong to dive into using transitions, planning for transitions, and how to spot opportunities to use transitions on the go. Using some well thought out transitions can really elevate your video and make it visually interesting. This is where all the pieces we talked about in the last couple blog posts start coming together. We’ll go over some basic transitions and how to use them. We’ve talked about shooting videos with the end goal in mind, now we are going to break that down and focus on getting the right transitions that will seamlessly pull all the video clips together in a way that sets your video apart from the average cellphone video.

Last time we talked about some basic tips on how to upgrade your cellphone footage to make it look stunning. Today we are going to dive a bit deeper in to how to use light, frame rate, and video sizing to make an even more engaging video that looks like it wasn’t shot using just your cellphone.

Technology has come a long way since the first cellphones hit the market and it’s now easier than ever to take high-quality videos with your phone. Amy and I will watch cellphone videos on Instagram to inspire our own creative abilities using professional videography gear. Have you ever taken the time to watch some of those videos? It’s impressive what we can do with just a cellphone. It’s inspiring and a great reminder that anyone can get pretty amazing videos, with just a cellphone and some creativity. From planning your shot, to editing, here are some tips and tricks on how to upgrade your phone footage to make it look more cinematic.

The Power of Storytelling for your Brand. Amy and I went on our very first trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is a 1,090,000-acre wilderness area within the Superior National Forest in the northern part of Minnesota . We used Sawbill Canoe Outfitters to rent our canoe from and during our time there, we were blown away by how the staff took amazing care of us, educated us, and provided lots of other supplies to us to give us an incredible camping experience. We left Sawbill feeling equipped and ready for our first Boundary Water Canoe trip. The trip was a great success!  We had a wonderful time and got to fully experience why so many people rave about going to the Boundary Waters. The wildlife and absolute quiet peacefulness made us lounging to go back again and again. Even though it was our very first time going up there, by going through Sawbill Canoe Outfitters, we were able to feel well equipped and therefor just enjoy up our time in the Boundary Waters.