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Kendall Guillemette (KG): Today in the show we have Evan Ellis, who is a live sports television producer. Evan, thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you coming on.
Evan Ellis (EE): Kendall was so excited, so excited to talk to you today.
KG: Awesome. The first thing I want to ask about I came to know about you through your Instagram channel. a friend of mine shared that with me. It’s called Producing Smoke and I would just love a little bit of backstory on the handle, what it means, where it came from,
EE: Yeah, so producing smoke kind of came about probably about year and a half ago. So my wife and I were sitting on our back deck and we had been kind of brainstorming ideas of I think you could become a content creator. I was like, What? Not me. Yeah, I think we could do it. We just kind of started like spitballing names. And producing smoke came out of the things that I’m really passionate about. Right. I love to make television. That’s my passion. That’s my job. but there’s also more to me than that. So I’m also what I like to call an amateur barbecue chef. I love to cook, I love to try new things on the smoker or on the back deck with the pizza oven or or whatever the case may be. I’m also a dad and husband. And the fourth pillar was kind of what had devolved in that last, you know, 18 months, which is I’ve been on a weight loss journey. So I’ve lost over a hundred and fifty pounds. since April of twenty twenty five. Feeling great. And
KG: Yeah, good.
EE: you know, that that was kind of that’s kind of the four pillars. So start every video with that and then get into whatever the topic of the video is.
KG: Well, on the barbecue tip, what’s your favorite barbecue style and or protein?
EE: protein, I’m a pork guy. I think pork’s very versatile. it’s something that you can test with. But the recipe that we do the most, here in our house is what we like to call Beezy’s chicken. So it’s a it’s named after my daughter. That was one of her nicknames we gave her when she was really, really, really little. But basically it’s a it’s a a boneless, skinless chicken breast that’s cooked like a rib. So basically you. You get it up to temperature with the smoke and then you wrap it and then you basically bring it up to like a two five and and work toward getting a pulled chicken out of it. So I I I call it we call it Beezy’s Chicken. It’s easy, it’s quick, it’s something that we can kind of do without thinking. And it’s something that you can experiment with, right? Like, I’m gonna try this rub this week, or I’m gonna try. I’m gonna
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: try a little bit more of this this week. I’ll a little bit of something’s a little spicier, something’s little sweeter. It’s all about method more so than recipe.
KG: Got it.
EE: and I think that barbecue is kind of like making television, right? There’s no there’s no science to making television. I mean there’s there’s science to technology and how we transmit signals and and how we get camera signals from one place to another or how we can bond people that are working across the country in different locations into some sort of a a Remy model. But at the end of the day, it’s art. It’s storytelling. It’s it’s all of those things that I’m passionate about and barbecue’s kind of the same way, right? You don’t need
KG: Hmm. Yeah.
EE: one tablespoon of rub on your on your pork butt, right? And I think TV is kind of the same way. So those are kind of how that all works together.
KG: Yeah, I love that. let’s maybe kind of go back a little bit, rewind into where you’re coming from. you’re from a town called Elizabethton, Tennessee. Okay.
EE: Yeah, Elizabethton Tennessee. so that’s a that’s a very small town in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee. in the very northeast. Yeah, so the very northeast corner, right? I was gonna get into it, I promise. in the very
KG: What are the tri cities for those? Okay. Okay. Okay.
EE: northeast corner of Tennessee. basically you come to an end of a highway from my parents’ house and you can turn left and go, you’d be North Carolina in forty-five minutes, and you turn right, you’re in Virginia in forty-five minutes. So right there in the tip. so the Tri-Cities region is Johnson City, Bristol, and Kingsport. Bristol, famous for the big NASCAR track there. Johnson City, famous for the Old Crow Medicine show song, Wagon Wheel.
KG: Okay, yeah.
EE: you know, those sorts of things. But, you know, grew up in the mountains. I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was adopted when I was 18 hours old. and then at nine months old moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Elizabethton, Tennessee. And lived there until I was eighteen, until I went to college. that’s where my parents are from. I wanted to get back to family and and I really, you know, grew up in that very rural environment in northeast Tennessee.
KG: Got it. And you played sports in high school. You were a football player.
EE: I was.
KG: And then you went to Yale University. Is that right? That yeah.
EE: I did. I did. So I was a college football player at Yale. and went, you know, high school in Elizabethton, Tennessee, in an East Tennessee public school. not very many people going to the Ivy League from East Tennessee public schools.
KG: Yes.
EE: so I I I I wasn’t the most athletic player, but I would outwork anybody. At least that’s what I tried to do. I I I was I wasn’t very fast. But I tried hard and and got myself seen. so went to Yale. that would have been in the fall of of 2008. And culture shock is an understatement. coming from northeast
KG: Sure, I’m sure it was.
EE: Tennessee, to New Haven, Connecticut, and to the Ivy League. And, you know, it it took a long time to figure out a lot of things. And and I probably didn’t even figure them out in my four years in college. It took a lot, lot, lot, lot longer.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: But you know, school was easy when I was in high school. It wasn’t when I was in college. Football was never easy, but I was I was good for where I lived. And then I had to work a lot harder. so I that that motivation and that hard work piece has always been something that I’ve prided myself on. And it’s something that, you know, got me into college. It got me through college. And and even though that I took a roundabout way from the end of college and to where I am now in my career, hard work was always a part of it.
KG: do you feel like because the culture shock was so great that being a part of a athletic team helped? Like because you there I mean, there’s a spot there for you. There’s a
EE: Yeah.
KG: place carved out already. Did that help you?
EE: That that helped, but to be completely honest, the Yale experience helped just as much as anything. you know, the the residential college system at Yale, basically the Hogwarts house, if you will, or the, you know, college system, basically you’re sorted into your your residential college. There’s fourteen of them now and twelve of them when I was in college. That friend group of people that I lived with that were not necessarily athletes was just as important as my team. So and and then, you know, finding where you belong. I kind of started dabbling in the broadcasting piece when I was in college in the off season. and being around the people that we had on our team of, you know, production folks and other announcers and and and those sorts of things were just as important to my belonging there as as my sports team was.
KG: you kind of touched on this a little bit. So you got started in TV production while you were in college and
EE: Yeah.
KG: then when you graduated, what was the the step there from where you were to starting to do it professionally?
EE: Yeah, so I think you kinda gotta go further back than that.
KG: Okay.
EE: when I was four years old, this is like a a myth, if you will, right? When
KG: Yeah.
EE: I was four years old, I remember hearing football on the radio for the first time. John Ward was the play by play voice of the University of Tennessee from 1967 until 1998. So when I was a kid, he was still on the radio. And I decided at that moment that was the coolest job in the world and that was what I was gonna do. So I came up wanting to be on the on air side. So when I was in college, I didn’t go to Yale to be a broadcaster, but I’m a broadcaster and I work in television because of Yale and because of the experiences that I had in college. So when I was a sophomore, I got involved in the student radio group. Our hockey team was really, really good at the time. So I I worked called hockey games, which if you call hockey games with the southern accent that I had 15 years ago, it’s pretty funny.
KG: In New Haven, Connecticut.
EE: so I I got started in that. my junior year of college, we kind of started live streaming really seriously for the first time. So I worked with a group with a student group and we put those games on the air and it was Spartan. Compared to, you know, what I do today. But the principles were there, right? I was the play by play guy. But I also kind of worked on, the the technical side a little bit. Not not a lot, but a little bit. And hey, what if we tried this? Or what if we placed the camera here? You know, just starting to get those those thoughts. So I did that, you know, through my college experience, basketball games, hockey games, baseball, softball, lacrosse, learning a lot of these sports for the first time. Especially hockey
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: and lacrosse being from northeast Tennessee. and I went into grad school at at Tennessee, back home, and I was a GA in the athletic broadcasting department there, what is now known as VFL Films. This is before schools were in charge of as much live production as they are today. Our streams that we were doing at Tennessee were just as Spartan. as the stuff that we were doing at Yale at the time, we just had a little bit more budget. Not much, but a little bit.
KG: Yeah. Yeah.
EE: and that was kind of where I started learning a little bit more about the b behind the scenes side. You know, I was given a camera and told go to practice, cover practice, you know, basically as a news reporter. you know, I was kind of learning E and G news gathering at Tennessee football practices in 2012. And had to turn around a piece in an hour and a half. You know, things that we don’t do anymore in in college athletics. But, you know, just kind of learning those basics. I still think I got to Tennessee a couple years too early. the launch of the SEC network came in 2014. the department that I was in went from a content creation outfit. That was in charge of a little bit of live streaming, content that was sold and then content into a packager, you know,
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: a live production packager in a matter of 18 months. And where I was at in my career at the time, I just wasn’t in a place where. I knew what I wanted to do I was still chasing that on air dream. So that was part of it there. So I’m still working these live productions. I’m a stage manager. I’m an A2, I’m a stats guy. Learning live production from the opposite side of the wall, you know, in the venue, with the talent. And I also, you know, were making relationships with talent and learning from those people just as much as I was learning from others. You know, Bob Kessling, who was a long time player, I played Voice of the Tennessee Volunteers, just retired. Mike Keith, who was with the Titans, just became the voice of the Vols He, was instrumental in things that I was learning by helping them, doing stats for them, taking care of their notes and and those sorts of things and really working talent focused but behind the scenes. So I probably needed somebody to kick me in the rear end in 2014 and say Evan, I think you would be like a pretty good producer, or maybe you should learn graphics. But I was still chasing that on air dream up and through, you know, 2016, 2017.
KG: Did you get that push?
EE: no, I didn’t get the push.
KG: No, okay. Okay.
EE: That was the thing is I was looking for that push. I was looking for that break. And you also have to remember that I was an offensive lineman in college. And checking in and out of a weight room was a job. Right. And I was eating like an offensive lineman. Still. And I wasn’t necessarily ready for rejection. And and working through all of those things. Basically, I ended up dropping out of grad school in my fourth semester kind of quietly. It
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: just kind of happened. It just kind of ended. And I took the worst, I took a full time job because my wife at the time basically said, You gotta do something. So I took the worst job I’ve ever had in my entire life. my first full time 40 hour a week job. I was a collections agent on mobile homes. I was an account representative for a mortgage company that is part of a vertical integration of a nationwide seller of mobile homes.
KG: It sounds rough. Yeah.
EE: It was not fun. you know, and so what I you know, I basically had to go chase money on the phone all day. And you know, I hated it because I still had this dream that I wanted to be involved in sports. I wanted to be on the air, I wanted to call the games, I wanted to be around that competition because that’s what I that’s what I had known my entire
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: life was the competition side of sports. and the personal side of sports. And kind of just drew up dried up.
KG: yeah, when you talk about your relationship with sports, you played sports, obviously. were you also a big sports watcher on television? Yeah, like and other sports other than football, like wide
EE: yeah. yeah. Yeah.
KG: r array, yeah.
EE: Yeah, and and mostly college sports, you know. Growing up in East Tennessee, there are several religions when it comes to to sports. So I you know, obviously everybody loves the Tennessee Volunteers. NFL wasn’t huge. but we got we had the Titans and the Titans came to Nashville when I was a kid. So I kinda I kinda got to be able to take. Up the Titans at the right time. I was nine years old the first season at the Titans. They go to the Super Bowl. I grew up in Braves country. the Braves were really, really good when I was my kid, right? So, like I I was so spoiled as a sports fan from the age of like five to twelve. Because my college football team was good.
KG: Good time. Good time to be spoiled. Yeah. Yeah.
EE: the Lady Vols women’s basketball team was good. The Braves were good. The Titans were going to the Super Bowl. Like Tennessee won a football national championship. That’s what happens every single year, right? My teams are good. Well, that all changed. But anyway, so like you’re watching these games and I had fallen in love too with college basketball through the radio with Tennessee basketball. because they weren’t on TV every night like they are now, Like I can watch every single college basketball game in every single league in Division One right now. with you know an eight dollar subscription that was not the case in 2002 2003 when i really started getting into college basketball
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: so i you know you’re watching sports i got into hockey when i was in college and lacrosse because i was calling those games i had to learn the sports and i’d always had this broadcasting piece so i’m a player. From the you know, you start playing T ball at five, I started playing tackle football at nine, was an all state player in high school, college, you know, it is such a part of my life from the for as long as I can remember. I remember reading programs that were on my my grandmother’s piano bench from games in 1992, 1993 like, you know, looking at you know, Peyton Manning on the roster at Tennessee. And I went to my first Tennessee game when I was six. I went to my first, you know, I like sports were such a part of my life. NASCAR. Huge NASCAR fan because I grew up, you know, 15 minutes away from the racetrack. so just a big part of my life. And here I am at, you know, twenty-four, twenty-five with a dream still, an Ivy League degree. And I make up phone calls on mobile homes and I’m miserable. I hated it. You know, you you you lose a part of yourself when you’re kinda in a situation like that. When you have something that you think you’re good at and you don’t have it anymore. Now I’m still working games, but the volume’s not there. You know, I was told, hey, the SEC network’s coming in in 2014, you’re gonna be a big part of our plans to be on air. And I don’t think that anybody realized the demand for those games, what it was gonna be. Everybody who was anybody wanted a part of those games in 2014. And I have a different perspective on that now, and we’ll get into that later. in terms of like how crewing works and how selection works, but at in 2014. Everybody who’s anybody wanted to be a part of those SEC network games. I got three. No, four my first year
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: after I left grad school.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: And I got three the next year. And three the next year, and then I moved to Connecticut. So t 2015 Anxiety had already always kind of been a piece of me. as far back as I could remember. You know, you wake up in the morning of a test and butterflies, you know, stomach hurts, then when you eat breakfast, things like that. I didn’t know what that was. But in, you know, and in college too, like, test day, lying awake at night. We we practiced in the morning in college. And I hated it. One, my brain didn’t work that early in the morning. And two, I was terrified of s of oversleeping and missing practice. It’s a lot harder to mispractice when it’s at three o’clock in the afternoon. Right?
KG: In the afternoon. Yeah. Yes.
EE: So I would lie awake at night. staring at the clock on the wall because I was afraid that I was gonna fall that that I wasn’t gonna wake up in my five fifteen alarm or five thirty or whatever time it was. I knew exactly how much time it was gonna take me to hear my alarm, walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth, walk to the bus, go to practice, and then give myself enough time to get ready. I knew exactly like I I knew I had it down to a science, but I was still terrified.
KG: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, same. I
EE: Every day.
KG: I swam in college and so morning practice, like you said, you know, whatever, six o’clock in the morning, and it’s just like it was division three, so I mean it was very n low low pressure, but still
EE: It’s all important.
KG: Yeah, but still the that anxiety that thankfully my roommate at the time was more of someone who was able to get up and around, that helped, but that that anxiety of of oversleeping and missing practices is familiar to me.
EE: So that was kinda like, you know, where I look back. And see the seeds, I was afraid that if I didn’t make a hundred on a test, that my parents were gonna be mad at me. was no there was no expectation that was set this way. these are the seeds of anxiety in my life. you know in college I would get, you know, I would I I played center in college and I’d never played until I got to college. I I was a tackle growing up. so I played center and big switch. I was a natural
KG: That’s a that’s a big switch, right? Like yeah.
EE: guard. Let’s be honest.
KG: Yeah.
EE: I’m a natural guard. I’m only 6'1. I was about 275, 280 in college. pretty short. But when you’re the center, you have the responsibility of going up and you have to make all the calls. You have to identify the fronts, you have to identify the looks, you have to know the play call and do all this stuff and communicate all these things. And also. The most important part is you have to get the ball to the quarterback. Well, sometimes my brain would get so out of whack when I would get up there and I would start thinking and I would be like, Okay, I gotta get this guy and you gotta go get this guy and you need to double team this guy, and I’m going through all this stuff, and then I would just get so geeked up that I would just snap the ball at the quarterback’s head. Or snap it too low. And it was all these maturations of what I now know of as anxiety.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: Well, in 2014, 2015, while I am on the phone every day trying to chase mobile home payments and hit goals and be someone that I don’t want to be. Because like the best people who are mobile home collections agents are the people that have no empathy, the people that have no logic. It’s just. Ask for money, demand money, get money. And
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: I’m over here trying to think up solutions. And that’s that’s not the best way to make goals. Let’s just be honest. Because
KG: Mm. Right.
EE: you know, you’re talking to people who don’t have the same life experience that you have.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: Or maybe they were a little bit of predatory lending, you know, and you know, we’re collecting on mobile homes with twenty nine percent interest rates. I am miserable. And depression and anxiety start taking over. And I’m not a fun person to be around. And I don’t feel good. I start drinking heavily. And because I could go to sleep at night and not, you know, worry about being a failure. And if I could just get up and make it to work the next morning and make it through that day, then I could do the same thing the next night. And I’m in a relationship and I’m married and I don’t know how to be an adult, really. I don’t know how to communicate with this other person. I don’t know how money works. I don’t know how being, you know, making good decisions work. I wanna have fun when I can. I want distraction when I can. And I wanna keep chasing my dream. And. I haven’t talked about it yet, but asking for help is something that was never really like taught to me.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: And when you when I look back, my college experience would have been so much better if I would have just asked for help at times. Hey, I’m I’m struggling in a Spanish class in college because I learned Spanish and English in Northeast Tennessee.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: You know, can you help me? Hey, I need a tutor in this class because I I saw that as weakness. And I don’t
KG: Yeah.
EE: know if that was ever truly. portrayed to me, but I had made up my mind that that was the case.
KG: Well, I wonder like I wonder about things being explicit versus things being implicit. Like, maybe
EE: Correct.
KG: it wasn’t ever said to you, but you got that message somehow. Like ‘cause I think we all do in different ways. Yeah.
EE: Yeah. Right. Right. And and and I don’t know if it I mean, like again, like I had the best parents in the world. My adopted parents are incredible people. But I had just like formed these thoughts and formed these opinions. And it kind of came to a head in 2015 So I started working with a guy. His name’s George Herbal. He’s in Knoxville. Was living in Knoxville at the time. And great guy. He’s a medical device salesman. Really smart guy. And he’s a little bit of a he he likes to help people, you know, get careers. Well, I I was a little bit of a mystery, right? I was someone who worked in a career that he had no idea about. And I was still chasing the on air stuff. So we came up with a plan.
KG: Was he like a career coach kinda like what was the it was just like a mentor or?
EE: And a little bit. I don’t think he Yeah, mentor, career coach, you know, just a a good person that I could trust. He’s a guy that I could trust, right? I could I could
KG: A guy. Yeah. Yeah, okay.
EE: talk to him and I could ask him questions. I could work through these things. through a family friend.
KG: How did you meet this person? Okay.
EE: And you know, I was kinda telling me he’s So you’re working at the international manufacturer of inner vertical integrated mobile homes. what do you wanna do? Well, call sporting events. I wanna work in sports. He’s like, Well, why aren’t you? It’s like, Well I haven’t found a job, like I gotta do this and this and this and you know, I I. Ran out of money or w you know, whatever, I gotta have a full time job. Okay, come up with a plan and ask for help. He said, I want you to go home. I want you to find out the names of ten people that you can ask for help. And if you talk about somebody that like is dealing with anxiety and maybe some imposter syndrome and like all these buzzwords and like depression and all of these things and hasn’t gone to therapy yet. that is a daunting task.
KG: I was gonna say I can imagine being frozen in that situation, you know, without the skills, yeah.
EE: But I started that process. And I came up with a plan. And my plan was, and it’s gonna sound crazy. I was gonna quit my job. We were going to move our rented house into a storage unit. We were gonna move back in with my then wife’s mom. I was gonna go home to northeast Tennessee for three months. And call minor league baseball. I made the connections, I got the job. They needed somebody for fifty dollars a game in 2015. To call minor league baseball. And I had some people that were like, think that’s gonna work. One of those people that thought I was crazy was my now ex wife and her mother. Let’s just say that this was end of May twenty fifteen. By the big middle of August, beginning of September, now ex wife had filed for divorce. And I had been seeing a therapist. I had wanted medication for anxiety and depression. But like it it I was I was afraid. I was afraid to ask for it. I was afraid to make those steps. I was also in a situation where that could be perceived as weakness. I was in a situation where that could be considered the easy way out, all these tropes that are false. And I was making progress in therapy. I really was. And and I was feeling some better. then I got nuked. So. I was continuing to make connections, right? I was continuing to work hard, make connections. And I had a plan. I had a plan to come out of the three months. I was willing to do whatever it took to make it work. And her cousin’s husband owned a catering company. I was gonna go work for him, cater, freelance, work games, make it work. I knew how much money rent could be. I knew I would have rather done that. Then go back into that office, And make those phone calls. You can’t be fixed. You are never gonna get you’re never gonna change. You’re never gonna get any better. And I still want a divorce. I’m a hustler. I had made some connections in Knoxville. I was gonna go work I basically had gotten myself into a job offer and I I say the the word job very loosely, a a gig offer to
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: work the next season for the Tennessee Smokies, double A affiliate of the Cubs in 2016. And you’re a baseball guy, right? Like 2016 was a pretty 2016 was a really cool year to be in the Cubs organization.
KG: Yes, Cubspan. Cubspan, yeah. I bet, yeah.
EE: But but before that came so that kinda came at the end of the s of the minor league season in 2015 I made those connections with Mick Gillespie, in Knoxville. Well, that didn’t change the divorce. And I was shook. I got some medication. basically triage, band aid on gunshot wound type of stuff. And I was prescribed Xanax by a psychiatrist. And I’m not in a good place. And in early September of 2015, I was working a minor league baseball game that night on the radio in Knoxville. I was working in the studio. Before I went to the studio, I stopped at a liquor store. I bought a handle of cheap rum and got my Xanax refilled. And I was going to use those two things to never wake up. I had a friend who let me crash on their couch that night. I came back from the radio station. And my friend Sam said, anxiety is lies that we tell ourselves and we believe them. And that handle of rum stayed in the back of my car for several weeks. I did an impatient stay. That was the worst four days of my entire life. Because if you have someone who has anxiety, putting them in a situation where you take them away from all of the things that that that like soften their anxiety. It makes you miserable. And I remember I I I only remember the dates of that because the night before I watched the Tennessee Oklahoma football game from Knoxville and I. Thought they were gonna pull it off that. And then, you know, coming out of that. I got to work. I got to work and I was driving an hour from a timeshare that my parents had that my dad somehow did some sort of math equation to arrange for me to stay in his timeshare for about a year. I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know like what kind of like backroom dealings and whatever, but I had a place to stay. And I work for a catering company in Knoxville, Tennessee, Brown Bag Catering. They have the best grilled chicken on the face of planet Earth. And if you put that with a spinach salad with a poppy seed dressing. And you put it on your forehead, as my buddy’s dad used to say, lips will beat your brains out. And that was starting basically in October of 2015. And I worked every single SEC network broadcast that I could as a stage manager and a stats guy. And I got after it. There was one month there that I got paid by like seven different people. I was working for a D2 college, doing football studio. I was doing some stat work. I was doing these SEC network games. I was doing whatever I could to make it work. I went to winter meetings in 2015. Nothing came out of it other than it kind of solidified. Hey, Mick was like, hey, come work for me. I can’t pay you much, but I’ll give you experience. Okay. And he was like, I’ll be as flexible as you need to. If you want to go work baseball series at Tennessee to make the money, you know, make money and you need to miss a couple games, that’s fine. if you need to go do this, go do that. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna make a TV show. Okay. If you have the equipment to make a TV show, Mick, yeah, I got the equipment. So I was handed a $300 camera. I had a computer that was like surplus from like the local chemical plant. And we put Avid on it and it like you had to like rub the hard drive to like make sure it kept going. we did that. we ended up selling sponsorship on said television show to a R V dealership in West Knoxville, which is as far as humanly possible away from the ballpark at the time. But they had air conditioning in these like million dollar RVs that we had to shoot the show in. Well, the air conditioner was really loud. So we had to like set up these shots in this and it look like we had a guy that was kinda like our correspondent and he would just come up with these off the wall ideas for segments. And we would do those segments and he would put barbecue sauce on a snow cone and like he would eat a eat whatever the hot dog was with mac and cheese on it that like a foot long and we’d put a T V show together and I did thirteen episodes of Bear Tracks. presented by RV Company X.
KG: Right.
EE: Live on location at R V Company X. And I
KG: Ha ha ha.
EE: was doing this for $700 a month. In 2015. And thank goodness I didn’t have any rent.
KG: Right. Yeah, what have been to
EE: I could barely afford food. Rent would have been hard. But I was still working at the catering company. So, you know, I was still. you know, finding whatever freelance gigs I could and and basically in the fall of 2016 I two things the the best two things to ever happen to me happened. One, I met my wife, online. And two, I got a phone call from a buddy of mine that Yale was gonna hire a video guy and that. They wanted it to be me. So I was moving back to Connecticut and I got my first full time job in the industry.
KG: That’s amazing. What a cool story of like perseverance, persistence, and I guess I just want to take a moment and say th thank you, Sam, for that conversation with you that night. Yeah.
EE: Yeah, he wasn’t the only one, right? I had a lot of friends that I leaned into.
KG: Yeah. I like I’ve I’ve watched some of your content. actually I probably maybe most of it in preparing for this, but you talk a lot about leaning in, leaning into your friends, leaning into asking for help what was the thing that enabled you to get past the thoughts of, that’s weakness or I sh I can’t do that or shouldn’t do that or whatever? What actually brought you to the point, whether it was something internal or external, to be able to actually lean into that?
EE: I don’t know if I have yet. It’s still really hard.
KG: Hm. Yeah.
EE: I I think that one. Not being afraid is hard. and I don’t I don’t still don’t think I’m the best at it. I’m still like nervous when I reach out to a packager or reach out to someone and ask for critiques or you know, trying to like find whatever that next gig is. I I still but I’m also like a little more confident in myself than I was.
KG: Yeah. The
EE: That’s part of it.
KG: yeah, and and I also I wonder, because I’ve experien I mean every I think everybody’s experienced that, being afraid or being nervous about reaching out, asking for help or or whatever. And like I don’t in my experience, like I don’t think that ever goes away. I I really don’t. And I think there’s a it the r our relationship with it maybe changes. to something where that feels a little more comfortable or a little more safe to be able to know that yeah, I can walk alongside fear. Fear doesn’t need to go away because spoiler alert, it does not ever go away. and so I think figuring out our relationship to those feelings that that are make us uncomfortable or that, you know, we don’t like or whatever, I think that might be the trick. I don’t. And I don’t like I’m not saying that from authority for sure because that’s something that’s that’s so difficult.
EE: Yeah. No, and I think too, like the big thing I was always like taught, you know, growing up what’s worst thing they can say, no? Well well yeah, it is. That is the worst thing they can say.
KG: Right. Yes.
EE: And you know, no sucks, but I think at the I think now I’m not as afraid of no. I think for a long time I was afraid of no and perception.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: Like, I get a no, but am I getting a no, but also like and don’t ever cut I don’t ever try again. Or like whatever.
KG: Right. Yeah.
EE: And and I’ve gotten past that a little bit. But I also think that I I have a confidence now that no is not permanent.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: because of the work that I put in. went to the Yale in 2017 had an incredible, you know, five years there. some ups and downs, learned a lot. learned a lot of ways to not make television. learned what I liked and what I didn’t like, learned really what I wanted to do. You know, I went to Yale to learn what I wanted to do, I just didn’t get the degree at that time, right? I already had the degree.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: I went to Western Carolina in twenty twenty two. The pandemic really made us feel isolated. You know, Katie and I were living in Connecticut. Katie’s from North Carolina. My family lives in northeast Tennessee. We wanted to get closer to home. different things were happening with frustrations and and all those sorts of things with jobs, right? So tried a lot of ways to get back to North Carolina. one finally came up in December of 2021. Long story short, we waited until I saw I waited until March of 2022. we did IVF through Yale. It was a great blessing and an incredible benefit that they had. And Western Carolina let me wait so that we could do one more round of IVF. we went there in March of 2022. was not planning to leave Western Carolina, saw a job posted in the fall of 23. Right after my daughter was born, she was three-ish months old that Virginia Tech was looking for their next lead producer. jumped on it, applied, interviewed, and got that job in 2023. So 2023, we moved to Blacksburg, Virginia. And that’s where I was basically until just a couple of months ago.
KG: I have like I certainly have a lot of questions that we can get into about the I guess I they all stem from, like I said, watching your content around the process because I’ll give folks who have not experienced producing smoke yet. Follow producing smoke.
EE: Follow producing smoke. Like and subscribe.
KG: Yeah, like and subscribe, all of that fun stuff. But it’s a view a view into the control room and how. How you go about your work and it is fascinating, mainly because speaking, like just from my experience, that’s not the view that we get of television. We get the other view.
EE: Mm mm. No. Yeah.
KG: And and so seeing how it’s made, like it’s fascinating, it’s chaotic. one of my favorite shows, I don’t know if you’ve watched it, but this is it’s a little bit dated. but Sports Night. I
EE: Absolutely.
KG: yeah, great show. The best show. Like Aaron Sorkin’s amazing. but it it so that watching your clips show me that that’s actually like this because that’s show, Sports Night, is chaotic and fast paced and everything. And so. That tells me that it captures at least some piece of that because watching your 30, 60 second clips or whatever they are, it’s a lot of chaos and a lot of talking. And you’re talking, other people are talking, there’s you know, like video screens and everything. And so I guess my question is around that. One, as somebody who has anxiety, that seems to be a very anxiety-inducing experience. Is it something where it’s like that is anxiety for you? Or does that feel there’s some calm, somehow there’s a inverse reaction to that?
EE: I think it’s an inverse. I think producing live sports is the closest thing that I’ve ever that I’ve found to playing sports, right? Like you talk about like football is a a six second car crash every forty seconds, where there are eleven different things that are all going into that process at one time. And there’s 11 different things on your side of the play, and there’s 11 different things on the other side of the play. And they all meet somewhere in that collision course. So producing live sports is the closest thing that I’ve ever found to that process. Not only is it the math problem, the equation of putting all the pieces together to be successful, but it’s also the camaraderie. the the people in the room, right? Everybody has their job and when everybody’s doing their job correctly, you can make magic. Like you can make content that people enjoy. You can what was the the line on why world sports like the the joy of victory and the agony of defeat, right? Like that is what we’re doing. We’re providing a service. and. The further along that you get in progressing in a career like this, the more people you get to pr to pr to provide that service to.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: And that’s kind of how I’ve always looked at it. One of the fur the first women’s lacrosse game I ever called, and I haven’t called very many Lim women’s lacrosse games, there were eight people watching. And I did the I produced the Lawrence Regional of the NCAA baseball tournament last spring. And our game that we did on Saturday night between Kansas and Arkansas was the third highest viewed regional game of the weekend. So that game wasn’t any more important to the people watching than the eight people that watched that Women’s Lacrosse game. But there were a lot more eyeballs on it. So that’s the big thing for me. And and it it is a sense of calm. I would be lying if I said that sometimes my toe wasn’t my heel wasn’t tapping underneath the table. And sometimes I’m sitting a little further up and and shaking a little more. But there is medication for that and there’s therapy for that. And and there’s I chew a lot of chewing gum. But you know, like a little bit.
KG: Is that that is that a anxiety pr like reduction kind of a thing? Yeah.
EE: a little bit. You know, it’s an oral fixation. I was a I
KG: Yeah.
EE: was a nicotine user for a long time. I got off. I just drew a lot of polar extra gum. it can be anxiety inducing, but I think with the better team that you have and the more people that you work with that you trust, it eases that anxiety. When I was
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: at Yale, and it was just me as the lone full-time guy in charge of broadcast. I used to lie awake at night. Like what’s gonna break tomorrow? I that computer was acting up when I left the office today. Is it gonna turn on in the morning?
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: that one cable to camera five is a little bit on the fritz. Is is it gonna break? Such and such broke this tripod the other day. Like I then when I got to Virginia Tech or I you know, I go work a a college football game or something like that. I don’t I don’t worry about those things anymore.
KG: Because the team is in place.
EE: Because I have a team around me that I trust. and that’s that’s a big part of it. That’s that’s that eases that anxiety. And I can just concentrate on what I’m good at and
KG: Yeah.
EE: what I you know, what I feel comfortable with, which is the the producing side. I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to do everybody’s job.
KG: So we when you’re in the room, you’re in the control room, tell me about the structure of the team.
EE: Yeah.
KG: Like, is it are you so I like on the show before I talked to a director of photography who, you know, shoots movies, and we talked about kind of the hierarchy of the the set the set, you know, the director runs a show, blah blah blah. So when you’re producing a show, like what’s the what does that look like? How does the how does it structure? Yeah.
EE: Well, everybody has bosses, right? So if you’re doing a linear show, and and by linear I mean on actual television, whether that be
KG: Okay.
EE: ESPN, ESPN two, ACC network, SEC network, whatever the case may be, right? and and you know, I we’re working for the majority. I’m working in the service of ESPN. I’m working for a packager that’s contracted with ESPN. I’m working for a school that’s contracted with ESPN. We are producing sporting events for them. So we have coordinated producers and vice presidents that, you know, are the ultimate, you know, say so on our shows. They
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: provide us with talent and make those talent decisions for those linear shows, and we provide the crews. So in a in a TV live sports production, the most important people are your engineers. Right. You have your engineers, they’re out to the side making sure all your equipment works. A lot of times you’ll have some sort of an operations producer. they’re there to make sure that everybody does their job safely. everybody has everything that they need, that they’re fed, that they’re watered, that they if they like Diet Coke, they they get Diet Coke. if they like Gatorade purple Gatorade, they get purple Gatorade. Like they take care of those sorts of things, and let us do our jobs. Inside the control room itself, you have your director and your producer. Technically, I think the producer’s in charge, but I see it as an equal. I have my realm as the producer, the director has their realm as the director, and I direct a little bit too. you see the big console, that’s your technical director across the pond. They call it a vision mixer, but. It’s a switcher for us and that’s your technical director.
KG: And does that mean they’re the people who push the buttons that that make the cam which camera, that kind of thing?
EE: They’re punching the buttons that makes, yeah, the the effects and the boxes and adds the graphics when the graphics are presented and all those sorts of things. They execute the director’s visual plan. I always kind of explain it as the director is in charge of everything the viewer can see. The producer is in charge of everything that the that the the viewer can learn. the story,
KG: So the story, the
EE: the graphics, the tape packages, the replays. That’s what I do. so you have your director, they’re talking to their camera operators, they’re talking to the technical director, they’re talking to the audio operator. I’m working with the talent. I’m in their ears telling them, Hey, we’ve got to do this reader, or we’re gonna show this package out of break. I’m talking to the tape room. Hey, we need we need to build a package of John Mateer, the Oklahoma quarterback. He he had a touchdown. Can we build that touchdown drive back? Or hey, such and such had 12 points in the first half. Can we get a package of that? And we’ll show that coming back from break.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: That’s your your tape room. two to three on a small show, two to three tape operators, six tape channels. each person usually has two channels, which is when you hear like. Red and blue and X and Y and And but then you might get to you know the NFL and CBS and they have twenty eight tape sources. You know,
KG: Right.
EE: ninety-six cameras for the Super Bowl or whatever it is.
KG: Yeah.
EE: and then you start getting like this wacky names. The name
KG: I’m sure.
EE: the naming conventions of tape channels could be a whole different podcast. and then
KG: Yeah.
EE: you have you know, you have your graphics operators. most of the time we’re like three graphics channels. We’ll have a bug operator. which is who’s operating the scorebug, you know, which is the the visual graphic that’s on all the time. And then you have a an associate producer that’s in charge of making sure the graphics folks know what they’re doing. So they would be underneath us and then also on the front bench. And and what I do a lot in the freelance world is the associate director. The associate director is kind of like the conductor, the train conductor. you’re the conduit for all communication to and from the control room, truck, et cetera. you’re talking to master control, wherever that may be. you’re talking to the tape room, you’re you you know how long everything is, you’re timing everything out, you’re keeping track of the commercial breaks, you’re keeping track of the sales elements. That’s the job that I do a lot of times on college football. And I think it’s I personally think it’s the best way to prepare yourself to be a producer because you have to think about the show from a timing and an element aspect. I did college
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: football bowl games that had like last year for the first time and we had like twenty four, twenty six sales elements in a college football bowl game on a two o’clock on a Tuesday. That was the hardest thing I’d ever done in television was making sure we
KG: Yeah.
EE: got all those things in.
KG: Yeah.
EE: And and how could we present them in a exciting way to the viewer?
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: whereas you might have a college basketball game that you have no sales elements. so that’s the you know, those are kind of the the hierarchical positions. You have an audio operator in the truck, you have a V one, you so like they’re basically they’re coloring the cameras, making sure everything matches.
KG: Okay. Yeah.
EE: you know, you have your camera operators, you have your stage managers, booth coordinators. all those sorts of things. But that’s really kind of the hierarchy. Your producer, your director, your AP and your A D, everything kind of flows through those four people. And then if your T D
KG: Got it.
EE: doesn’t know what button to push, then you’re you’re just you’re mounted it’s all bad.
KG: Yeah, yeah, it’s you sunk. so like I said, in the clips there’s a lot of people talking. Can everybody and this is all just like me being curious, can everybody hear everybody? Or is it like
EE: No
KG: you’re talking to a certain subset, the director’s talking to a certain subset? Okay.
EE: I’m talking to like my crew. So my tapeland and my graphics folks. The director’s talking to the the people in the venue
KG: Camera folks and
EE: and the the cameras. He’s also talking to audio. He’s talking to and he’s also talking to the tape room so that they know their role cues. He’s talking to everybody too.
KG: Okay.
EE: But basically the producer and the director are talking. Everyone else is responding. And then we’re talking to each other.
KG: Got it.
EE: And we you know, we wear the headsets and the microphones. The funny thing is, is that for the most part, we aren’t keyed to each other. So we have to talk loud enough. We’re sitting next to each other. We have to kind of talk loud enough to where the other person can hear. Now, some people like to listen to the direct you know, the producer. I don’t. I if I need to tell you something, I will tell you. That way I don’t get mixed up in the traffic. And then I’ve also got buttons that can talk to the talent in their ear offline. The talent can talk back to me offline. and and that stuff as well. So I’m
KG: Yeah.
EE: kind of talking to my people, they’re talking to their people, and then we all kind of meet in the middle.
KG: So you also I saw on one of the clips, again, follow producing smoke. that’s where there
EE: Instagram and TikTok.
KG: you go. you talked about not wanting to be on the sidelines. I think that was specifically referencing your daughter and weight loss And I was just curious if that also I think you said I don’t want to be in the sidelines, I want it back in the game. and it also that also feels like there’s an element to that around your professional life as well. So, I guess I don’t know what the question is, as much as maybe. I. I got a sense that there’s this idea of active participation, being present and yeah, I guess just participating in your own life. Is that something that has always been there? Is that something that’s grown kind of s as you’ve matured as a person? Yeah.
EE: I definitely think it’s a growth. It’s a definitely a growth thing. I think I just had to kind of figure out that. Stuff wasn’t just gonna come my way. I had to go seek it out and find it.
KG: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
EE: But but also like I I didn’t want to be on the sideline because, you know, I want my daughter to be a part of I want to be a part of her life for a long time. I knew that I needed to make a change. and also like I I just kind of knew that like feeling that I didn’t like of. Hey, like you go to the amusement park and you don’t fit on the ride. That’s that sucks. Like that’s that’s a that that’s a feeling I don’t want to have. If I can present myself better professionally because I’m in better shape. Or
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: I can present myself to my daughter and be there at you know, it not just be there in the moment, but be there twenty, thirty years down the road.
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: Like, you know, I’m I’m I’m thirty six. I want to be there forty years from now when she’s in the same situation that I’m in with kids and I can help. That was part of it too. But like also like professionally, like I want to be in those moments. even if I’m just a part of it. we’re nor we’re in Lawrence, Kansas for baseball regionals. And you know, I I took my Osmo camera and I went out to the ticket office, saw the kids lined up, did you know, this walk down through there and then walk back to the truck and said, Hey, I got the open for tonight. Because we
KG: Yeah.
EE: got like, you know, you’re in that moment and you’re in that environment. Of special and you get to tell a story. Cause I love to tell stories. You know,
KG: Yeah. Yeah.
EE: when we talked about George Herbold earlier, and George’s number one piece of advice to me is learn how to tell your story. resume will tell your story, but only you can truly tell your story. Everybody has a story. And I want to help tell those stories. My team has a story to tell, right? That’s why. I love the content that we put on producing Smoke
KG: Yeah. For like you want to tell the story. I guess yeah, maybe this this is a question about like because you’ve talked about producing a show and like what is telling the story of a baseball game or telling the story of a football game? What does that look like for you? Like how do you think about that?
EE: I mean obviously just find what’s important, I pride myself on preparation and like my weight loss journey, a lot of it was I would just ride the Peloton while I was watching film. So like, you know, active studying, I think there’s definitely a balance in telling the story of what is happening on the field versus telling the story of who is on the field. And you have to kinda work through that or where the field is. Sometimes that’s a story. So it’s it’s really that deep dive of learning who those people are. Virginia Tech, we had a baseball player whose father died on 9/11 And we got to. You know, we had a you know, a certain talent, I find that story, and they want to help tell it. we had a basketball player that came from Greece and his dad played an exhibition game in Blacksburg, Virginia t when he was touring with some sort of Greek professional team or something like in the nineties. And then he came to his first game. Virginia Tech, we got to tell that story. Or, you know, you talk about the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, you know every spring there is a there’s 3.2 mile run in remembrance. And I made myself I don’t want to say I made myself part of the story, but I participated in the story. we had a softball game that night. the run was that morning. There’s 10 to 15,000 runners or something like that. You know, like a ton, I don’t know. Like I can’t count people, but you know, there’s five to ten thousand people there, no doubt. I did the run. Well, I wouldn’t have been able to do the run had I not lost 130 pounds at the time. And I didn’t say that I shot all the video the package, but I did. And
KG: But you were able to. Yeah.
EE: I was so proud of, you know, my effort, but also I was so proud that I got to be part of the community. And but and also we got to tell the story. And I had really cool footage because I did it. You know, so like things like that is it’s definitely a balance, and that’s my job. is to weed through the information that we have and and talk through all the parties because maybe the graphics producer has something that they want to talk about and the talent has another thing that they want to talk about and the stage manager finds you know the the staff person finds something and it’s all about like that kind of traffic copping. But you know my my control room’s an inclusive environment in more ways than one. And mostly in a way that it is a it is a an inclusive place of ideas. Nobody’s opinion, nobody’s thought is any more important than the other, right?
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: If you have an idea, say it. If you want to do something in the show, say it. I’m probably gonna like it. we’re probably gonna get it in the show. And if we can, there’s probably a really, really good reason why we couldn’t.
KG: all of these like this conversation feels like it’s per giving me more questions and and just about the specifics of like running that control room and how
EE: Yeah.
KG: do you do that and building those teams and all of that stuff. So in our conversation today, in your content online, you have been very vulnerable about many different aspects of your life, the difficult parts, slow parts, also the successes and the the good things that you’ve had in your life. what is it that made you and you also talked about the origin story of producing smoke, but w what is it that made you make the choice to share these things in such a vulnerable way with with the world.
EE: I think that my number one quest and what I love most about what I do is I get to be a teacher and a coach. I get to work with students a lot. I get to work with young professionals a lot. don’t want what I do to be scary. I think what I do is really cool. I want to showcase what we do to the next generation. the coolest thing that’s happened since you know launching the channel, and we’ve been a little bit on the hiatus, and we can get into that as we close, but is you know you go places and you work with crews or work with people for the first time, and it’s like, my gosh, you’re producing smoke. You’re that guy.
KG: Really? That’s awesome.
EE: Yeah, that’s happened. Happened yesterday.
KG: Ha ha that’s cool.
EE: And I was like, no, I’m I’m Evan. I’m Evan and and I’m so excited to work with you today. But like just to see what we do. I want you know, I want people to know what goes through my head or goes through and and I also want to showcase my team. And I think that’s been the biggest thing is the teams of people that I work with are so good at what they do. I just happen to be the guy that’s on camera. Really, we’re showcasing the work of others. And if I’m not doing that, please tell me because we need to change. Now, you know, we we the videos have kind of evolved, you know, it started with a little bit of AI type scripting and stuff, and then I was like, this is not me. Like the first couple videos, like that’s that’s not me. Let’s make this more authentic, let’s make this more Evan. And and really that is kind of how it’s evolved. But I want to s I want to showcase what what what we do. we as the the teams of people that I work with, but also like show that this stuff is not scary. And if you’re interested in it, reach out to me. I can tell I I I want to help you get involved because there’s plenty of opportunities to get involved. Everybody has a high school nearby, or you know, they’re they’re a college student, they’re they an athletic department at their college they can get involved in. as someone who has hired those folks for a long time, we’re we’re always looking for more.
KG: I’m sure. Yeah.
EE: you know, to to get involved and learn. Because w you know, the the people that work in television are getting older, especially on the on the big shows, and and we’re looking for the next generation. And I want to show too that, you know, that I’m a I’m not a screamer and a yeller. I’m an encourager, at least I try to be. that this is a a friendly and an inclusive place, that this is a place where we’re gonna have fun, but we’re gonna work hard, and we’re just gonna do cool stuff. like fake telestrators and you know, take gimbal cameras into huddles and stuff. Like we’re we’re gonna do cool stuff. We’re gonna showcase technology. We’re going to and at the end of the day it’s about the games. You know, we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna get the game to the audience that the game needs to go to.
KG: And so you mentioned earlier too, what’s coming next. So what what’s coming next? Where are you now? What’s
EE: Yeah.
KG: you were at V Virginia Tech, now what’s next?
EE: In June, I was informed that my contract wasn’t getting renewed at Virginia Tech. It was a shock. a lot to process. And and we had made a home there. my wife and my daughter and I, we had we had spent as long there as almost anywhere. that
KG: Mm-hmm.
EE: was the longest place that we had lived in one place since w Katie and I have been together. and you know, over the summer we’ve packed up and we’ve moved. To Raleigh, North Carolina. I’m starting at NC State here in October. kind of doing the same thing. and I’m also, you know, going out on the road, doing doing college football. I’ve been to to Oklahoma. I’ve got some other trips coming up. so Producing Smoke will be back. we’ll be working on new content. we’ll be coming up with new ideas and and I’m always like, I want interaction. Because if people don’t ask questions, I’m gonna run out of stuff to talk about.
KG: Right.
EE: I mean, or I can just start showcasing the things that I, you know, I put on the grill. we can make Beezy chicken, we can make ribs, we can make, you know, all these sorts of things. But, you know, I I’ve learned a lot in this process. we’re really excited about this this next chapter and and how we can put our stamp on another community and and another group of students and young people that I can continue to teach and continue to coach.
KG: Amazing. Well, congratulations. so is is that through with all the movement in college sports? I don’t know. NC State, are they in the ACC or the SEC? ACC. Okay. Okay.
EE: They are still in the A C C so we’ll be back on the A C C network very, very soon.
KG: Okay. So ACC network, find Evan’s work there. Is it across all sports, like the whole athletic department?
EE: Yeah, I’ll work on a lot of sports. my main focuses will be volleyball, gymnastics, men’s basketball, and baseball. But I do a little bit of everything. Obviously, college football be
KG: Yeah.
EE: still around and about in a few different places. Follow the Instagram. I’ll start posting what I’m eating at these different college towns and you know, the the different sites and sounds. just got back from Norman, Oklahoma. I’ve I’ve been been to a couple other places here recently. So just trying to, you know experience culture, experience different places and you know, there’s always, always, always more stories to tell.
KG: Amazing. Well, we have a a bit of a tradition on this show. I ask you a lot of questions, but I want to give you a chance to ask me a question, give a question to our listeners to ponder and think about. So Evan, what is your question of the week?
EE: This is the hard one. I I’ve been thinking about this a lot. But I guess for me, not knowing you for very long. What stories do you want to tell? I know what stories I want to tell, right? I know what’s I know what’s exciting for me and how I like to relate to people. But what kind of stories do you want to tell, Kendall?
KG: Yeah, that’s a great question. I have probably two different answers. One is with this show, I think the the purpose or the my thinking around it is having conversations with interesting people and telling I think the story of connection in humanity because I think that. There’s an opportunity to do always an opportunity to do more of that. And so I think that’s a big part of it. and it’s for me, like this. I anybody who I talk to about it, I’d let know that this is a very selfish act for me because I just talk to people who I’m interested in and I want to talk to. so but I in in the same way, like I want to hear their stories. So I want to then share their stories because I f I find it interesting. So that’s one piece. And then the second piece is I’m an aspiring screenwriter. And so I want to share those stories. and so that’s another piece. So there’s a creative storytelling piece in my brain that has always been there. And I’ve just recently found the art and craft of screenwriting. And so I’m I’m focusing on that and trying to do that a bit. And yeah, so those are the stories I want to tell. But the and in in those two, I think that the biggest thing is connection, humanity. we’re all kind of doing our thing and trying to do our best. So that’s that’s really where I’m coming from. Yeah, that’s a great question though.
EE: We’re all doing our thing, trying to do our best, and everybody’s got a story to tell.
KG: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, Evan, thank you so much. I I’ve really appreciated our conversation. Thanks for coming on the show and everybody follow producing smoke.
EE: I appreciate you, Kendall thank you and it’s been fun.