Pilots, Pitches and Off the Cuff Video Production...
…That Has Nothing to do with Football, but everything to do with flying.
Every business or entrepreneur needs a pet project. I learnt that from one of my dad’s oldest friends and a mentor to me I will never forget. Uncle Monte, RIP. When growing up, we’d make regular trips out to Hong Kong where my parents were stationed for many years and Monte had his own publishing, board games and printing business that he ran for many years. In fact, without even knowing, it was THE Uncle Monte who gave me the confidence to start up in the entrepreneurial world. He made me realise that my ideas didn’t always have to just be a dream, but always reassured me that, your biggest successes will come from living the dream; work on the day to day, but pet projects running in the background may well turn into something big, or at the very least, give you another life long lesson.
The boyzzz (AKA our videographers: Lee Skillett and Chris Jackson) and I were out in Asia for our clients AIA running around Singapore, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City over 9 days of craziness, meeting new people, and capturing the essence of South East Asian street food, with our main hat on thinking about ways and means of making these quite often, deep fried snacks and ghee driven curries healthier and cookable in the home kitchen.
Our collaborative work with AIA actually started as a collaboration between us to bring together some of the best football players in the world and enlighten them with Asian cuisine through our sister company, School of Wok.
Although, this particular filming project was nothing to do with exercise, whilst we were running around from hawker centres to wet markets and jumping in and out of tuk tuks with our cameras and sweaty paws, we felt it would be rude not to entertain the idea that some time in the distant future, we may be able to produce our very own TV Show. And so, after each 10-minute lunch break if we felt we were in a cool enough place that just deserved its own Jeremy Pang monologue on it, the guys would get me back in front of camera and ask me to turn my head to a different style of filming.
Working in front of the camera and presenting in a public setting vs sitting behind the camera and looking at the whole process creatively are two very different jobs, but they do go hand in hand. Perhaps this is why, the transition to becoming the Creative Director for Curious Crab has been so relaxed and so much fun. Some people may call this type of video a pilot to a show that is yet to be produced, but for my team, it was always just a sizzler, a short-sharp-action-packed film that I have shown and sent to numerous TV production companies over the last 3 years, as a show of what we can do in terms of off-the-cuff production, but also a show of me in my own comfort zone, surrounded by amazing local food, and people who are so comfortable in their own worlds, they just sit there and laugh at all the mistakes I make in front of camera and tell me to smile if I’m gonna do it properly! And the buzz and excitement of being out and about on an adventure with the boyzzz.
So far, this particular pet-project-video hasn’t taken us to our own Curious Crab Productions TV pitch or proposal, but it has certainly opened doors for my meetings with TV production companies who since then have taken that leap of faith and got me presenting shows like Ready Steady Cook on BBC and more recently, my very own show: Jeremy Pang’s Asian Kitchen on ITV, currently showing every Saturday at 11:35am!
Uncle Monte was right, follow your dreams, work hard on the day-to-day, the route to market may seem a little convoluted at times, but stick to the rough plan, and it’ll be worth it in the end. The amazing jobs that come out of pilots and pitches are few and far between but often the most exciting pet projects you may ever work on and the memories of our incredible trips out to Asia have certainly kept us in the air and made us feel like we’re flying even through the numerous groundhog days that we have had in the last couple of years.
