Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Daniel and Bayou Lir. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Daniel and Bayou, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I believe my purpose first came to me while at NYU Film School when I got an editing job working for music legend and Academy Award Winner, Isaac Hayes. What struck me about working for Isaac was that community involvement and being a positive role model was so important to him. He was an honorary King in Africa, he gave his time and resources for literacy programs and going back to his roots he was part of the civil rights movement.
When I got invited to his birthday party, I saw that the whole party was oriented toward celebrating his life and accomplishments but also to raise money for a charity, The World Literacy Crusade, he was deeply involved in that educated kids in South Central Los Angeles.
This was a huge inspiration for me as a Creator and Filmmaker. When I met my co-director/co-creator and now wife, Bayou Bennett at a vegetarian cafe on the Lower East Side in 2007, our two purposes to uplift the world united. It was as if the 80’s robot, Voltron came together out of different but perfectly fitting parts.
We both wanted to tell meaningful stories and unite around topics that matter. Our very first projects together took off, had inspiring messages and we instantly knew we really had something together that was grounded in positive impact through entertainment.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Bayou and I are a married couple that early on formed a partnership in making inspiring films, documentaries and content for celebrities, non-profits, brands etc.
Our first film we wrote together, “Text Me” was a comedy about the decline of human communication in the digital native generation. We were so excited that the film went viral, was chosen to play for three days to the public in Time Square, won multiple awards and its actor at the time, Matt Bennett became famous. It was incredible to us that a couple who met and started working together as independent creators could make waves in Hollywood.
We are driven by passion to follow our purpose as storytellers. Week by week it’s always overcoming obstacles, dealing with personalities good and bad, strategizing, taking risks and dreaming big. Every week kind of feels like an episode of “Emily in Paris” where with our agency we have to come up with a story that will be wildly popular and our clients will love.
Just last week we pinched ourselves while we were filming with music icon, John Legend and Oscar Winner, Jane Fonda for a campaign to protect communities from toxic oil drilling. We were overwhelmed yet again by the power of our work and the good fortune we have to work with the greatest and most influential people in the world for the common good of the world.
It’s really exciting for us to that as a team we are helping people we love and admire like Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer to launch her non toxic fragrance, Henry Rose and also writing and directing amazing fiction films that have won over 75 awards.
Recently Bayou and I decided to take all of our experience and secrets working with the top brands over the last 15 years and share it with business owners and start ups with our online digital course, “The Ultimate Content Creator Course”. This course teaches brands how to create pro video content on their mobile phones while doing expert branding and marketing. Why? Well, we just find it exciting to help business owners build their brand, their following, their empire with something we all have, our mobile phones. Education has always been important to us building our skill sets so we decided to give back.
To help business owners, Bayou and I are thrilled to offer everyone reading this article our free e-book “A Modern Guide to Captivating Customers” which teaches storytelling and branding techniques we have applied with top brands like Adidas, Coldplay and Mastercard. Link to our free E-book: https://www.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The most important skills in our eyes are 1. Team Building 2. Sales 3. Management and Finance.
We strongly believe that no matter how good you are as an artist you need to learn these three critical areas. Most of the success we have built was only possible by building a team of positive and able people who believed in our vision. In the very early days we didn’t know many people and we suffered because we put people on our team who weren’t positive and they infected the whole set with negativity and it was distracting.
Now we interview every person who works on our projects before they are hired and we are very careful to build not only the best team but the most well mannered, hard working and optimistic one. This has been a dream come true.
Sales is and always will be the key that opens every door. As one of our mentors, Grant Cardone taught us, “sales is selling people on your dreams”. You have to show people the benefits of working with you and you have to persist and handle objections until you get the sale. So that is a huge part of our business.
Lastly, we studied what we felt we were really missing as artists at the prestigious Hubbard College of Business Administration. There we learned how to manage our money and professionally direct our careers with administrative tools. This was game changing and is what has transformed us from artists to successful artists who have built a known and viable brand. Artists who know how to deliver an amazing product that our clients desire, admire and love.
To accomplish these skills you simply have to know WHERE to get the knowledge. We highly recommend Grand Cardone and his amazing courses such as “Closers Survival Guide” and the Hubbard College of Business Administration.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
Our ideal client is anyone focused on making the world a better place with their products and services. Companies that focus on empowering others and that seek to create bold new standards that will lead the human race upwards.
We have done the most work in the fashion, cosmetics, fragrance, music and non profit areas and this is our area of specialty.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dreamteamdirectors.com
- Instagram: @dreamteamdirectors
- Linkedin: daniellir
- Twitter: dreamteamfilm
- Yelp: dreamteamdirectors
Image Credits
Bayou holding award with me in background is by Eric Curtis Me opening the Best Picture envelope is by Matt Cali With viral artist Lindsey Stirling and band is by Jenna Capozzi Bayou and I texting is by John Kelly Facing each other with camera behind us is by Roberto Canali Me behind camera is by Chris Maltese The photo of us with the backlight and me holding the screenplay is by Matt Cali
