We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Elliott a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kevin, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
Wandering and working. My parents instilled a strong work ethic in me, so, whatever I did, I worked hard at it. That said, I was also trained with mindset of “get a steady job with great benefits and a 401k.” There’s nothing wrong with that life, I still live that life in part, but I have always had a creative itch and an entrepreneurial instinct.
I’ve always owned businesses, but they were “pay the bills” businesses, not creatively satisfying. Not my purpose.
So there I was, 45 years old, I had a great job and was an adjunct professor at a local college. Right on track for most folks. It was nice and paid the bills, but I didn’t feel complete.
Enter a student of mine who eventually became my business partner, Courtney. She was (and is) a naturally gifted videographer. A genius. When we met, I was making training videos for transportation agencies, so I knew how to make videos. They were helpful to the audience, but not highly creative.
When we added Courtney’s raw, astonishing talent and started making videos for private clients, I knew I had found my purpose. We started Wewa Films. In midlife, I had wandered into something that satisfies all my cravings – a business where the whole job is to be as creative as possible.
That success led to co-founding Redfish Film Fest, a documentary film festival in my hometown of Panama City, Florida. I’m right in my element. Working with creatives every day to build a creative endeavor for others.
I still have my day job, I still run Wewa Films, and I direct Redfish. And I feel purposeful. I understand now that I’m not cut out for doing just one thing for a living. I need the variety.
It took way longer than I expected, but I know where I belong now.
So, my advice to others who feel this way is to keep wandering and keep working. You’ll find your niche.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Wewa Films is an unusual company in the video production world. We specialize in a heartfelt, cinematic, documentary style. But most of our clients are corporate – McDonald’s, Toyota, HCA Hospital, Tyndall Federal Credit Union, etc.
We didn’t expect that when we started the company. We wanted to make documentaries. But we discovered that big brands didn’t really want the slick “corporate” videos they were getting. They wanted to connect with their customers, which meant showing the heart of the people behind their brand. They wanted our style.
So happily, that’s our niche. We bring high-end production value and storytelling to corporate brands. We’ve fallen in love with it.
Redfish Film Fest is a celebration of my favorite film genre, documentaries. I’ve loved them my whole life – from 6th grade when the teacher would roll in the reel-to-reel projector to when Netflix mailed DVDs to your house and on to today.
Redfish is also a celebration of my hometown, Panama City, Florida. We have the most charming historic downtown, right on a gorgeous bay by the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve always been enchanted by it.
So we’ve combined the two. Redfish is a documentary-only fest woven into our historic downtown buildings. It’s the best of both worlds. Locals can have a film festival in their neighborhood and our guests can watch docs while living like locals.
We also discovered that our doc-only niche is pretty rare. There are only a handful of documentary festivals in the whole country, and only one or two in the Southeast U.S. So we’ve claimed that niche. Our goal is to celebrate the documentary artform and showcase documentary filmmakers – something just for them.
I couldn’t be more excited for Redfish. The response we’ve gotten has been overwhelming and unexpected. I’ve been lucky to have a team of stunning professionals surround me to elevate this thing and make it special. We’re dying to show it to people this April 11-13.
So if you ask me what I’m most excited about – I get to make documentary-style films for big brands and run a documentary film festival in my hometown. What is this life?!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
- Learn widely – Learn everything you can in areas you know nothing about. They don’t have to be connected to your business or interests. It’s better if they don’t. This gives you a broader perspective on the world and other people, which gives you touch points you can share with as many people as possible. You wouldn’t believe how many business deals and valuable connections I have made because I had a little something in common with the person I was talking with. Read, podcast, YouTube videos, whatever your learning method is, it doesn’t matter. Just learn, learn, learn.
- Go to in-person meetings – This is especially important for young people, who have lived much of their lives digitally. They have been led to expect that all communication and personal brand building can be done online. Digital and social media are definitely powerful and should be part of the mix, but nothing will ever replace going to coffee with someone or chatting over donut holes at a local chamber of commerce meeting. Always take the in-person meeting when it is offered to you. If it is not offered, offer it. With my film company and film fest, I am reaping benefits and calling in favors from friends I met at in-person meetings more than a decade ago.
- Extend your time horizon for success – True, lasting success takes a long, long time. Don’t believe the TikTokers who say you can climb the mountain in less than a year. It’s a lie and that expectation will frustrate and discourage you. Are there people who have done it? Yes. But people also get struck by lightning. Compared to the 9 billion people on Earth, they are almost non-existent. So are overnight successes. Starting small, building slow, paying your way as you go, and working consistently over time works just about every time it’s tried. It’s not sexy or popular, and that’s why most people are not successful long term. But I promise, if you slow down and plod forward a little every day, you will thank me in 10 years.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout is my favorite business book of all time. It taught me how customers actually think about brands – how we all think about and engage with brands – and how, for some reason, we expect our own brands to behave differently.
For instance, Ries and Trout say there are only two big players in any category of product or service in any market segment. That’s why, in every category, we end up with a Coke and Pepsi, Apple and Android, Google and Bing. It always goes that way because customers can only hold a few names in their minds for each category.
If there are two big players in your market for what you offer and you are not one of them, you are doomed. You’ll never break through. But so many businesses try that and end up an also-ran.
The good news is, all you have to do is change one attribute or focus of your brand and you can stand out. For example, Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathey, when he started his fast food chain, didn’t sell hamburgers. All the big players did that, so he didn’t try to compete on their playing field. He offered chicken sandwiches, got really good at them, and Chick-fil-A dominates that category to this day.
There’s a reason I say my film company Wewa Films specializes in “heartfelt” corporate videos. Most corporate videos are not heartfelt. Our film festival Redfish Film Fest is a “documentary” film fest. There is only one other doc-only fest in our Southeast U.S. market. In that market, we can be Coke, Apple, Google. In the larger film fest market, we are nobody.
So, bottom line: Craft your niche so it’s just a little different than everyone else, and only do that. Nothing else. It’s scary but, if you do it and communicate it consistently over time, you will provide clarity to customers, they will see a clear choice, and your phone will start to ring.
I hope that wasn’t too nerdy. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://redfishfilmfest.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redfishfilmfest
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redfishfilmfest
- Other: Wewa Films: https://wewafilms.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/wewafilms Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wewafilms
