The following is the transcript from the radio show.
Mike:
You’re listening to Good Morning Greater Latrobe on 98.7, Westmoreland Gold and thisisgold.net. Welcome back to Good Morning Greater Latrobe. I am Mike Dudurich. I’m the media writer for the chamber of commerce. My sidekick as always is the president of the chamber, Briana Tomack, and we are joined by this month’s member of the month and Matt Fridg is here. And Matt, tell us a little bit about Headspace Media.
Matt:
Well, thanks, thanks so much for having me and thanks for the honor of being chamber member of the month. That’s really awesome. I’m the owner of Headspace Media. We’re a marketing and video production content agency, and we’re located actually right across the street from the chamber of commerce, right in downtown Latrobe. We’re in the old Mellon bank building or, some people call it the Quatrini building. It depends on how long you’ve been in town, I guess. So, yeah, we’re there. And, we started out as part of the incubator that Jared Trunzo and the revitalization group put together. And, it was an awesome opportunity. After being there for about a year, we made it official and actually started renting the space and became a business and joined the chamber and, you know, and the rest is history, except we’ll talk about it.
Briana:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s been a good history though. I mean for the last couple of years you’ve grown and done some really cool really, really cool things. So tell us about your most recent exciting accomplishment.
Matt:
Oh yeah. Well, I mean, first off it’s been really cool how Latrobe has really embraced me and the business and I’m not originally from, Latrobe, I’m originally from Indiana, Pennsylvania and have moved here and it’s just been really a great experience overall. But you know, recently, we’ve done a couple of really cool projects, but we recently won a Telly Award for the Latrobe High School’s fall play. So about last summer, maybe it was August of last year, you know, COVID restrictions were in full swing and the dramatics director over there, Allison Duda, who also happens to be my neighbor, came to me and was like, we might not be able to do a real play because social distancing and masks, and we can’t have an audience and the rights to a lot of the plays and things like that were very expensive and then how do you stream that and all these kind of issues. So we set out to write a completely original stage show that was designed for the camera. And so it’s strange, it’s a movie on stage or a stage that’s a movie and it’s kind of this cool mix, but we wrote 11 vignettes or segments. And I wrote, and Allison, her husband, Jeff and my wife Jennifer all contributed. We wrote 11 segments that all centered around the idea of how there are barriers, mental, physical, emotional barriers that have come through this whole pandemic. You know, whether it’s physical masks or whether you weren’t able to meet with people physically There’s one segment where a granddaughter and a grandfather have to converse through a window at a nursing home. Then another about this love story that takes place on the rooftop of two different buildings, which is sort of inspired by a couple of different true stories that happened. And so we filmed that, streamed it online and had a great reception for the first time they’ve ever streamed a show, you know? And then it ended up winning a Telly Award for social impact, being all about social issues, and not only that, that was really awesome to be able to win that award, but I know that Allison was really excited that the students were able to have an experience doing a show when everybody else was canceling. And that’s a big deal for these students to have that experience. And, you know, that’s one of two shows they do. And I mean, I was a drama student in high school and that’s, that’s part of your life? You know?
Briana:
Yea, that’s a big part of your life. Kids that are musical kids, theater, kids, band kids, that’s really kind of part of who they are. And I feel this, the whole pandemic thing, was detrimental to a lot of art kids, mine included.
Matt:
Yes. And I mean, I had to give a lot of credit to Allison and the administration at Latrobe for being okay with trying something new when there were a lot of question marks. So it’s really cool that those students worked really hard and they learned something. We were writing it as we go and, you know, they’d rehearse it and change a line here and there. And so it was really fun. And then it was really great to be rewarded by the Telly Award committee, which is, a pretty good committee of people.
Briana:
Who give that award?
Matt:
It’s the Telly Awards and they have judges from all over the industry and some notable names and people who have been in the industry for a long time.
Briana:
And what was the name of that show and how can we still watch it? Is it available online to watch now?
Matt:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s called Love No Barriers and it is available to watch at lovenobarriers.com.
Briana:
Cool. I have not seen that.
Matt:
Oh yeah. There’s a ton of information on that website and then you can watch the show, right?
Briana:
Yeah. I would love to watch that. And, but one of the things that I did watch that you have done, is Saving Amelia. Do you want to talk about that for a few minutes?
Matt:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I went to school for communications and video and really film was my big desire. And after graduating college, I worked on some Hollywood films in the lighting department. That’s kind of when Pittsburgh was getting a lot of films back in the city. And so I was able to work on a lot of them. So my heart and my passion is really film, you know, narrative storytelling through film. So I’ve always been writing and looking for ideas and ways to make it, you know, it costs a lot of money to make a good film. So when the lockdown, like when the actual lockdown happened, I think it was like in April of 2020, like when we weren’t allowed to leave your home except to go to the supermarket or I don’t know what else, ha. So I thought, well, my kids were also on spring break during that time, so they didn’t have any virtual school or anything. And I was like, what am I going to do with them? They’re going to drive my wife crazy. I’m working from home in the attic. And I had this script that I had written a couple of years earlier and I was like, well, let’s try and make a short film. I just thought, well, we’ll just use whatever we have. I had an old camera that I would never use on a professional project, but it’s all I had. And we had no lights and no anything. Cause I mean, we couldn’t really leave the house to go get it. You couldn’t rent. I mean, nobody was open. But I did get this old radio from the Spring Street Gallery, which was up the street from my house.
Matt:
And, and so we did this short film and the film is about two girls who are stuck in their home and they go kind of exploring their house. And when they go up into the attic, they uncover their grandfather’s old, stuff, you know, grandfather had passed away and they had all his stuff in their attic, trying to figure out what to do with it and the girls uncover this radio. And when they’re messing with it, it comes alive magically. And they find that they’re speaking to Amelia Earhart through a glitch in time, you know? And they ended up finding her and figuring out where she is and doing their best to see if they can avert the disaster that happened to her. And to find out the rest, you’ll have to actually watch the film. And so it’s my two daughters and they acted in it.
Briana:
It was amazing. Like I watched it when it first came out and I was thinking, you know, you had a premiere night and everything, releasing this film. And I didn’t have any expectations. I didn’t know what it was going to be like, I just wanted to watch it because I know you and I knew that you had done it. And I was like, I’m going to watch Matt’s movie. And so, you know, I’m sitting at home watching this on my computer and I was like, wow, this is really cool. I mean, the quality of the film and everything, it looks like a professionally done anything you’d see on TV. Not like the videos I take with my iPhone or anything, which of course I would expect, you know, because you’re a professional.
Briana:
But I was watching it and it was a 30-minute film and I was very engaged. I was really into it from the very beginning. And I was also impressed that Matt’s two daughters probably have no acting experience, but they were really good and very believable. And the story was good, it was great. I watched all the way to the end and I was like, this is so cool. And I’m like did anybody, like everybody, did you guys see that? And I mean, I shared it, but I was so impressed. I thought it was a really great, a really great story. And for kids who don’t know that story, it was a history lesson, because not everybody knows who Amelia Earhart is sadly. And they may not know the history behind that. So I thought it was cool. So, well done you. And that won an award too, right?
Matt:
Yeah. Well I submitted it to some film festivals on a whim just thinking hey, we’ll try and see what happens cause like I made it in my attic, you know? But it was immediately nominated for best short film and best family film at the Canadian International Film Festival in Toronto. And then after that I had film festivals actually emailing me asking, could you submit this to our children’s film festival or our family film festival? And so it’s won several awards. It won best local film at the Pittsburgh Short’s Fest. And then WQED picked it up and played it. They aired it on one of their shows.
Briana:
I mean, you’re kind of a big deal.
Mike:
I was going to say we’re in the presence of, you know…
Briana:
Greatness
Matt:
And we just got asked to be part of the Taiwan International Film Festival, which is the largest film festival for children in Asia. So yeah, it’s kinda going around and you know, people seem to really like it and it was a lot of fun and, we just tried to make it a fun movie, like if you’re watching one of the old nineties kids adventure films, and just be fun and have an adventure.
Briana:
I could tell your girls were having fun too and doing it like they were just very relaxed and stuff. I would tell people, it’s kind of like a, you know, a 30 minute, kind of like Goosebumps. If you ever watched that, it wasn’t scary or creepy in any way. My kids, they always used to love those 30 minute goosebumps on PBS but I mean, yeah, great job.
Matt:
Yeah. But the girls did great, I was a little worried, I thought, oh, this is just going to be like, just something to keep them busy. And then they surprised me. I didn’t think we would show it to anybody but family, but then some people saw it and they’re like, they actually did a really great job.
Briana:
Yeah. Do you have any intention on doing anything more? Do your girls say like, hey, we want to do more of that?
Matt:
Yes and no. I mean, the process of making a movie is not glamorous. My one daughter wanted to do one take and then was like, why are we doing another take? And then I’d move the camera. And we have to do the same lines over again from a different angle. She was like, she just wanted to say her line and move on. So I don’t know how much she’ll want to do more. But they loved the experience. And they want to do another one, but I have some ideas that may or may not include them as the actors. So we’ll see.
Briana:
Very cool.
Mike:
What do you see as things open up now, business-wise, are you seeing more interest in your company? It’s crazy to me when I think about it, that people are finding all these ways to get through what they do under these other circumstances. And I wonder how that’s going to turn as we get past the pandemic.
Matt:
Yeah. I think we’re all noticing that things are opening and people are coming together and people are feeling a sense of safety and whatnot with all the things that are going on. And I think that is definitely helping people to think again about how do we get customers, how do we sell our products? How do we get the word out? I mean, really Headspace Media is about putting the message of your business into the headspace of your potential customer while we take the burden of marketing out of your headspace, because, you know, nobody goes into business to do more. I mean, unless you’re marketing, you don’t go into business to be a marketer. You go into business to bake pies or to make something or fix cars because that’s your passion and you want to contribute to your community. You want to make people’s lives better. But so many people are then just like, oh my gosh, I gotta post on social media all the time. And now they’re telling me, I gotta make all these videos, I gotta write blog posts.
Briana:
People don’t have time for it.
Matt:
They don’t. And then the people that do, do it and are ambitious and, you know, they get tired or they just don’t have the resources to do it well. And so then that time is almost wasted. And so our goal is to help people and brands that we believe in, stay ahead. And we do that through brand development. So if you need more than just a logo, but like a look, a feel… How do people interact? You know, whether it’s, how do we answer the phones? What type of print material do we have? What is our slogan? Really who are we and how do we represent that? All the way to building physical websites, we build all our websites from scratch. They’re easy to use, but we don’t just copy and paste websites from a template or whatnot. We run Facebook ads and campaigns for small businesses. And we’ve even run ad campaigns for businesses up to $50 million in revenue. We actually ran over $325,000 worth of Facebook and Google ads in the first quarter of the year.
Briana:
Wow, so you guys are busy.
Matt:
Yeah. And we got a 3.2 return on ad spend for our customers. So you give me a dollar and I give you $3.20 back. So I mean, that’s a pretty good deal. I mean, if you gave me a dollar and I gave you $3.20 you know, why not?
Briana:
It’s just like you invested in Bitcoin or something, ha.
Matt:
Probably less volatile, ha.
Briana:
I know. So I talk to people and it’s hard because like you said, they go into business because they are an expert in whatever they do. But they don’t have time to market. They don’t sometimes know how to do some of the behind-the-scenes business stuff. They have to pay people, have to pay taxes, be compliant with human resource things. So the technicalities of running a business, including the marketing, that’s the services that you provide and the chamber also provides to help people learn how to run businesses and you’re providing to help market them. I mean those are the things that people don’t think about when they want to start their own business.
Matt:
Oh yeah. And I mean between the chamber and the small business development group through St. Vincent, they helped me with a lot of those behind the scenes things, accounting and helped me find an accountant. I’m not going to do my accounting on my own because I mean, maybe I could literally watch some YouTube videos and learn a little bit, but when there’s something that important at stake you want a professional that’s been doing it for years.
Briana:
Right.
Matt:
And even though Headspace as an organization has only been around for a year and a half or so our team has been doing this for 10 to 20 years in different capacities. So we’ve just sort of codified it under this banner recently, doesn’t mean that the experience isn’t there. So when it comes to marketing I would say it’s the same as accounting or insurance or what not, you want a professional because if you want really, really good results, if you want somebody to hand you $3 back, basically in the value, you got to focus on making the widgets in your business or making that business amazing, making your service amazing, your customer service amazing, so you have something to market, right? I mean, it’s very difficult to market a bad product or a bad service.
Briana:
Right. And also if you’re trying to do your accounting and do your own marketing and doing your own payroll, then who’s doing what you’re good at. Like you’re the expert at what you’re doing. If you’re a baker that’s just less time for you to bake if you’re trying to do all those other things on your own, that’s why it is good to be able to outsource some of those professional services if you’re able to do that.
Matt:
You know, when I think of marketing I think of more than just, I need to run some Facebook ads or I need to really get my social media page in order. The way we think about marketing, when we partner with a company is, if you’re really passionate about what you’re doing, if you’re a baker, to use your example Brianna, you’re busy and you’re baking cakes and donuts and whatnot. And you’re busy. What if you want to take a vacation, who’s gonna take over your business for that week? Do you close it? Maybe you need to hire somebody? There are a lot of businesses who are in that place where they don’t have quite enough business to take a vacation, but they know they need to take a vacation and they don’t want to close.
Matt:
So marketing is a way to help you take a vacation. We help you bring more business in so that you can hire that assistant baker, or open a new location, or hire an office manager or to hire a general manager and go open another business. You know, whatever that dream is that you have, whatever those goals or objectives you have for your business for growth, we really see ourselves as a partner to come in and help you achieve those. So we do have some clients that we’re just kinda like business consultants, which is not really one of the big services we put on the front, but that’s what we end up finding is a need. I’m working right now, consulting with a former CEO of a hundred million dollar home security company. And we start out talking marketing and then realize they have these bigger goals in life. And then we can help them think about a lot of different things. Cause marketing really does encompass a lot of stuff when it comes to business and growing.
Mike:
Well Matt that kind of makes me, who’s not in your business, kind of shake my head and say, wow, all that’s going on inside the old Mellon building. Congratulations and congratulations on being the member of the month for July. And we appreciate you coming on with us this morning.
Briana:
Yeah. And we appreciate all you do to help the chamber with your expertise by participating on our marketing committee because that helps us do a lot of things too.
Matt:
Absolutely. I think giving back to the community and being part of the community is key to being successful. And, you know, I want to see our community be successful as much as I want to be. And so, yeah, definitely being part of the chamber and the different committees around town is key to that. So I’m grateful to be part of that and being part of this community.
Briana:
Well we’re all glad to have you.
Mike:
That was Matt Fridg, who is the owner of Headspace Media, right there in downtown Latrobe. And it’s time for our next break. You’re listening to Good Morning Greater Latrobe on 1480 WCNS 98.7, Westmoreland Gold and thisisgold.net
