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Light, Composition, and the Art of Visual Storytelling
Ever wondered how filmmakers navigated the shift from physical tapes to digital cinema? Brian Hill takes us through his unexpected journey from science labs to global documentary shoots across 40+ countries.
Brian's story begins with a borrowed camera and an opportunity to create videos for kids at a nonprofit. What started as simple, fun content creation rapidly evolved into filming projects from remote African villages to Kazakhstan, all while teaching himself the fundamentals of visual storytelling through experimentation and dedication.
The technological evolution he's witnessed is remarkable—from struggling to connect his first Mini DV tape to a computer in 2003 to now running Kombi Creative with a fleet of RED cinema cameras and professional gear. Yet despite this progression, Brian's core philosophy remains refreshingly simple: "People started it. The camera is just a tool to allow you to talk to somebody and get to know them."
For aspiring content creators, Brian offers wisdom that cuts through gear obsession: "Don't chase equipment. Choose subject matter that excites you." He explains why understanding composition and light still separates professional work from amateur content, even as smartphones put capable cameras in everyone's pocket. Most importantly, he emphasizes that story remains the ultimate differentiator—if you can tell compelling stories, you'll connect with audiences regardless of your equipment.
Whether you're just starting your visual storytelling journey or looking to refine your approach, this conversation provides both practical insights and inspiration from someone who built a career by following his curiosity and prioritizing human connection over technical specifications.
All right, hello and welcome to another episode of Autofocus. I'm your host, brooke, and I am here with Brian Hill. Thank you for being here today, brian. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? What do you do?
Speaker 2:Combi Creative. It's just me and my partner and, yeah, we create videos and do a lot of fun projects in Northwest Arkansas as well as everywhere. I mean globally. I was going to stop in the United States, but no, we go everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the furthest you've been?
Speaker 2:Oh goodness. I mean I've been to 40-ish countries probably, so all over Africa up into Kazakhstan, through Europe to Asia, yeah, so not many places I haven't been.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. What were you doing there?
Speaker 2:All kinds of projects, Anything from government projects with USAID to things for nonprofits working with people with disabilities, all things like that.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's really awesome. How did you get into that, like, where did you develop your passion for all things? Video?
Speaker 2:People started it. So talking to people and getting to know people is the first and foremost. The camera is the tool to allow to talk to somebody and get to know them and disarm them in some ways and just kind of make it happen. So, yeah, I think people and then the camera was the tool. So I am a learner. I love to find information and learn things. So it's been a 20 year process of learning how to continue to make stuff and better myself. But in the process it's always who am I meeting? Who am I talking to? What's their story? What do they love? And that's kind of my career.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. When did you get into it? Did you get into it in like high school, college, after college?
Speaker 2:After college so biologists and chemists, so no light and no chemistry and no, all that stuff. But so there is a little crossover. If you went super old school but now everything's digital, it's not. But yeah, so after college was working with a nonprofit working with kids and started making goofy videos to make them have fun and so that I could get to know them better and that kind of thing. So that's what it was was me just making silly ones. And then it became Go here, make a video for this, go to this nonprofitprofit, travel to Mozambique, travel to Costa Rica, travel to Paraguay. And then it was US government called and then yeah, and then you're everywhere, literally like wasn't ever a plan, it just kept happening just happened.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, amazing. Yeah, what was your first camera?
Speaker 2:my first camera was, see, if I can remember Panasonic Panasonic, it was a 100B. Yeah, so it was a mini DV. Put a tape in standard format.
Speaker 1:So mini ones yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was my first video camera. My first still camera that did video was a Rebel T2i. Put the lens on, get that bokeh, that depth of field that everybody was chasing, and so, yeah, I mean it's just been fun to see Go from tapes. I remember the first video I made, I filmed something with a camera, walked to the computer, I was like I have a tape, I have a computer, what do I do? Like literally, and just started looking it up and trying to figure it out. And that was back in like 2003, I think.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Oh, my goodness, that's hilarious. So yeah, I'm going to show you. So I brought this because I knew you would get a kick out of it.
Speaker 1:So I started doing photography when I was 14. So, in like the early 90s, love it. And so my first camera was this one. It's like literally, my first camera. So this is a pentax k1000 and I love it. So they're people are still trying, they're making cameras look like this now, like really vintage, except those cameras have a screen on the back. This one does not have a screen on the back. Um, I think this is so funny, but, yeah, it's a little pop open you can see how clean it is, so good. It's so good because, like literally, my parents had this camera. I ruined it at the beach in 1997 when I went to the after after my senior year, and, um, and so they, my parents had it repaired and I had no idea until like 2020.
Speaker 2:That's so fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, yeah, yeah and so I, but they, they had it repaired and then no one used it cause no one else knew how to use the use it. But my parents gave me this when I was like 14. It was their camera, but they let me have it, so it was like it was vintage when they gave it to me what lens do we have on here?
Speaker 2:it's like a 50 yeah, it is a 50. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately it costs almost a house payment to shoot film, but it's worth right, it's so fun.
Speaker 1:I haven't even put film in it, I just took it home. It's more like a come on, let's get some film.
Speaker 1:I need to get some film today, yeah yes, I know I was like I need to, I need to shoot with this thing, so it's just, it's been um. So yeah, I totally understand like like shooting with like all the old gear and, like you know, just kind of like going down like nostalgia. Did you have like a video camera as a kid because, like we had the big panasonic's that you put the full vhs yeah, so my parents did.
Speaker 2:They had a shoulder shoulder one with the full tape and and they would more film us it. It probably cost too much for to let it be in my hands. Um, I do wish I could have I did you say that? I did have a handy cam that we bought, and I remember one of the only things I ever did with it is I took a road trip when I was 18 from here in Arkansas to New York and then all the way down the coast and we made it to New York.
Speaker 2:Um, it was August of 2001 and we went, went to the World Trade Centers and I have video of me filming up and down and my cousin worked in the towers and literally like three weeks later is when 9-11 happened. And so, yeah, I remember that and carrying that camera all over that trip and filming stuff, and so that's one of my first times like go out, explore with the camera, kind of I feel like we all do it now. We capture moments like crazy, even to a fault. Maybe I'm not being in the moment, but yeah, having a small Handycam then was pretty fun just to capture those things. That is fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, we did. Yeah, my parents, they let me play with it. We were. We would make music videos of us. Yes, Seeing new kids on the? Yeah, no one can watch them because they're on VHS. But no, I think my parents have started moving. I was like there's solutions to this. There are. Yeah, I know they started moving stuff on the cloud and things like that. And my favorite thing my parents love to do is find embarrassing clips of me in like third grade and then sending it to my son. Absolutely, I know they're like you want to see your mom in the third grade dressed as the purple people eater.
Speaker 1:You just need to do recreations of the music video and do side by side. That's what should happen. I'm going to honestly, oh, that would be amazing. Okay, so you came in. So were you more self-taught than anything else?
Speaker 2:One million percent self-taught.
Speaker 2:Okay, did you have any kind of like mentors, teachers. There was a job. I worked at a summer camp and started doing some videos for them and there was a guy there that helped me with some stuff kind of figuring out. But at that point I kind of knew enough. But yeah, no, I mean it was, there was very weird websites that you go to, like YouTube wasn't, yeah, and so you're kind of just going and finding random people's sites and seeing what tutorials are out there and then trying to make it work. So, yeah, 100 self-taught figuring out cameras, evolving with technology, all that that's crazy.
Speaker 1:So how did you yeah, how did you go from like biologist to like photographer?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean it strictly was a um, seeing a need that they're. So when I started working in the non-profit with the kids I was with, there was a guy who left and he knew how to make videos and so I stepped into a role and the expectation was we have videos to entertain kids. So I was like, ok, well, I guess I will figure out how to make a video to entertain kids.
Speaker 1:That's so fun.
Speaker 2:So that's literally the transition. Didn't think it was anything other than I was like I love this, I love learning more about it, and what else can I do and how else can I push myself?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, did you. How did you learn like aperture, iso, shutter speed, the differences between them all, when to use them?
Speaker 2:There was a book like there's like three books that I that I got and bought. That helped a little bit and I knew science and new physics. I had every physics class under my belt and so none of like. It all made sense really fast in terms of like. There was no issue with me like oh, the fall off of light or how this all works. So the learning curve might have been faster for me because I strictly started with science and understood that and loved it to where. Then it was OK, composition, and why do we do this this? Why is this aesthetically pleasing? What are the things that you do? Where should light hit somebody to make them more attractive or less attractive or moody or that kind of things?
Speaker 1:yeah, that is kind of weird, you know. I remember like, yeah, learning about like lighting and like why, like in horror, old horror movies, like the light comes from below, you know, because like no one's used to that. Like the light comes from below, you know, because, like no one's used to that, because the light comes from above, where the sun is. And so, yeah, it's interesting to see like how you know, even just back in the day when you watch old movies, like how they use light to like inflict a mood.
Speaker 2:It's everything like. It's so much of what we do. Right, like everyone can have a camera today, but you probably don't have a lot of light, so manipulating light can make things go to the next level. Now more than ever, I feel like, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Okay, we wanted to talk to you about just the equipment.
Speaker 2:So when you got started, what did your pack look like when you would go to, like Africa? Yeah, so it was very small. It was a collapsible tripod that would maybe hold 10 pounds of weight. It was, like I said, a mini DV camera that had DV tapes. And then when I went to a Rebel, that's basically just a DSLR. Rebel still exists.
Speaker 2:Audio was a boom that would I would boom in over someone's head yeah, it's a long stick and put it on and run that into the camera. If I could, um, most of my cameras had XLR on them at that time, and so that was it. No lighting. Uh, we would have a, uh, a six in one, five in one balance reflector and use that diffuse or bounce the light for any interviews. And so, um, yeah, I diffuse or bounce the light for any interviews. And so, um, yeah, I mean that's, it was as simple as it could be, because at the time not everybody had a camera. So just putting a camera in in those places means you're getting content that wasn't being had before today. You could find a cell phone in the middle of the sahara desert and film something. Then you couldn't. So, yeah, I mean just getting a camera. There was a win in that kind of way that's awesome.
Speaker 1:What, what kind of mic did you use?
Speaker 2:um, it would probably been one of the cheapest ones, considering budget restraints and me not having any money. Um, I feel like it was like an aztec brand or something crazy cheap. That was literally like what's the cheapest mic I can find that will at least be better than the onboard mic of the thing. What did your post look like? Yeah, so post. I've been Adobe since day one, so I was way, way back, well before Creative Suite. I may or may not have pirated copies of Adobe at one point to learn. Um, I did become clean on that and purchase, but yeah, so I learned after effects before I learned for Adobe premiere.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, weird, but the special effects side of things was a lot cooler to kids If I could make somebody's head float or somebody why or what. So that's why. Um, so after effects and premiere were the two things that I learned really quick and, yeah, just yet again self-taught. So just spending hours staying up all night doing something that is really simple today and laughable, like how to put text somewhere. You're just like I don't know how to do this and you just have to figure it out you just go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't as easy back then. It was not easy. Yeah, I it was not easy. Yeah, I learned on iMovie. Yeah, because it was free, exactly. And then but yeah, but Photoshop, I've been like, I've been using Photoshop since it came out, uh-huh and so, but yeah, then like just watching Photoshop, go. But yeah, premiere I, yeah, I upgraded to Premiere like like late I know, and now we're starting to work with DaVinci.
Speaker 2:DaVinci, davinci is it. It's been so great, davinci is where it's at. I mean no shade to Premiere, but the fact that you can do everything in DaVinci and the color engine and the AI in there and tracking and magic masks and everything, davinci is wonderful. If I was giving advice, I would say learn it. If you don't know a software yet, well, get DaVinci and learn it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:And there's a free version.
Speaker 1:And there's a free version and we finally upgraded to the paid version, like literally this week. It was totally worth it Because the AI stuff is so good, like it's amazing, so yeah, but yeah, so back to what you were doing. So back in the day you guys had, you basically went with a really small thing, yep. What does it look like now?
Speaker 2:What does your pack look like now? We have a high top, full length sprinter van with a million different stands and big lights and rails and, yeah, combo stands. I mean we have four red cinema cameras. We have Hassel hostile blood still cameras. I mean we have more gear than I can load and unload but it's just two of us but we have all the stuff for crews. So we have flags, we have 12 buys, 20 buys, eight buys, so there's nothing we don't have in our magic kit. Now to where we can show up for the most part and do most, do everything, drone, I mean you have the drones.
Speaker 1:Do you have? The cranes or anything, or do you it's like, do you have any kind of crane, or is that mostly drone?
Speaker 2:now mostly drone. We had a jib for a while that was a smaller one that we could travel with, but, um, kind of got rid of it. Uh, yeah, we have dolly tracks that we move side to side push-ins, but yeah, I mean a lot of it now is gimbals get most things, drones get others.
Speaker 2:So if you're talking moving shots, you kind of do less gear and get the same idea it's like so much less heavy, it's so much yeah so much easier now, there's time and place for everything right, like if you're pulling focus and need these marks and need this to happen and you're more that kind of structure. But if you're just filming for the sake of getting a beauty shot or documentary work, like yeah, you can, you can carry in three backpacks enough to do some incredible work, that's really cool all right, so, um, what is your favorite thing to shoot?
Speaker 1:do you like the scripted more or do you like the candid more?
Speaker 2:Candid, yeah, mostly because I for me a beautiful shot I love, but also getting to know somebody and talking to them and being like where'd you come from, who are you, how did this happen? And getting those moments. It's everything unscripted, either documentary or even crossing it over to corporate. One of the big projects we've been doing this year is going to find real people for a brand, who love that brand, and getting their statements and it seems scripted, but I 100% tell you it's not.
Speaker 2:I'm literally just like why this, why that? And they're just like oh my gosh, so much better in my life, so much faster, so much this. And I'm like awesome, love it. So much better in my life, so much faster, so much this. And I'm like, awesome, love it. So there's just more joy in that for me. Uh, personally, getting to know somebody and being authentic in that way script is stuff's fun and you get and in the moment happen the, the excitement of that's in pre-production and then in the final thing coming together. There's a magic in that, for sure, and it can be surreal and kind of cool, but yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker 1:It's different when you're seeing like here's your idea on paper and then watching it come to life, versus like this is just I just showed up and we were just gonna do this thing. Yeah, and as a uh, so I was a journalist before I was doing this and so I love like, I love candid, I love just showing up and I love documentary style. You know everything, just like I want to be in the middle of it. You know and like literally in the middle of everything, absolutely like. Yeah, it's like I don't I don't even really have a telephoto lens, because I want to be. I want to be like up close, like I'm like. I'm like let's do wide angle, let's hang out, let's get to know each other and totally, and it's fun.
Speaker 2:It creates something that I think comes across as authentic. No matter what I mean, if you stay true to yourself and you allow them to stay authentic, then you're going to get something that is unlike anything else, and that's the magic of that.
Speaker 1:I know I do, I love that stuff so much. All right, so back to the gear. Yeah. What is your favorite piece of gear right now?
Speaker 2:Favorite piece of gear right now? Man, there's so many things for so many different occasions. Honestly, the DJI Osmo handheld gimbal camera comes in handy. So much for getting travel stuff to even commercial work. Getting some B-roll when you just need to jump out and grab something and it goes vertical and horizontal, it's great. It's just easy and affordable and gets stuff to happen.
Speaker 2:360 cameras the X5 just came out, but DJI is coming out with a 360 camera as well. 360 cameras are getting better and better and you can just put it up and have three angles at once. You can reframe and do whatever and capture things. So that's fun. But I mean, yeah, it's hard to say what gear is my favorite, because every project calls for something different. Like shooting on an anamorphic lens that we have is so magical in how it looks and the lens squares and the width. It's just different than anything else. The wide aspect like you're shooting a movie, but the ease of carrying around something in my hand and being able to get stuff so easily that looks great and I can color grade and all that stuff is really fun too. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:All right. So thank you for being here. I just wanted to you know. Thanks for talking to me about old school, like film and just all of the fun stuff and your progression. What is the biggest thing that you think has changed over over the last couple of decades?
Speaker 2:Um, I think the barrier of entry of being able to capture stuff is gotta be the biggest thing. I mean, there is a camera that is high quality in everybody's pocket and then there's tools to get anything and everything, from motion stuff to still stuff, to everything. I mean, I think it's just the accessibility there is. You have a camera that can create and I think that's really cool. I think you lose some stuff in that, and especially with AI and all that like authenticity still matters and wanting to put yourself in a position to get stuff. But I think it's a win to have more cameras and have people able to capture stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, so it's almost like it's almost like anybody can be their own like photographer. Now, it's not, it's like it's it's making it less special, but so what keeps it? What keeps what keeps like pro photographer or like you know, different than like you know anybody?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me, I think there is a still an aspect of composition that is that matters a lot. Lighting, as I said before, you can have a camera, but do you understand light? And a lot of that can be manipulated and AI is doing an amazing job of. Yeah, I can get into all the depth mat stuff and relighting and everything, but at the end of the day like, if you know what you're doing, give a shot, nobody's going to take the time to do that. So I think lighting and composition still win in a lot of ways. Like if two people had a camera, you you should be able to tell.
Speaker 2:Now I say that some people can, and there is something about just putting content out. So some people win by just putting out content all the time, and that's also a way to just finishing. Something is something, and so some people are good at that above the highest quality. Yeah, you win the race by doing that. So there's two kind of things, like there is the people who know what a really really good photo is is probably a really good photographer. You probably don't know all the nuances if you don't. So sometimes we take photos for each other more than we do for the general public, I think, and which is just a fact of life.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think that's. Those are the things that still set people apart. What's that worth? I don't know. Like, how do you monetize stuff? I don't know Like, yeah, that's to be determined, but it is. I also feel like storytelling comes into it too. Always, yeah, like people that are good storytellers are gonna gonna gonna attract more people. Story matters, story is the ultimate, and if you can tell a story, you'll win. If you can pull out soundbites from people and have a vision for how it goes, then, yeah, every time you win in the video world likes telling a story, or even in a photo, like if you can capture that moment that tells a story yeah, that's awesome and awesome.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, also, I really liked, you know how you said, you know just like just being able to understanding that composition, understanding the light, you know, I think all of that's like super, super important.
Speaker 2:It is. You need to know that, yeah, you can get a camera and you can book up an engagement shoot or whatever. You can have a video camera and go out and make a video, but knowing story, knowing lighting, knowing composition if you don't have that dialed in, you probably won't like it as much as you could.
Speaker 1:I think you'll be like I know I can't tell you how many times like uh, um, new, new moms. I've taught new moms how to use their cameras. Like they get, they, get they, they, they're like, they like I have a baby now. I have a really nice camera, I want to take really good photos and share it with my family. And then they're like why don't my photos look like yours?
Speaker 2:You're like okay, 100%, and you try to teach them and then they're like I don't want to learn. I'm just going to use my phone, use your phone. Algorithms built into those phones are so daggum. Good, this is good Half. That's going to take a lot of work to get this to look like. Hey, that's great.
Speaker 1:I've used my phone more than anything else now and it's my poor camera, I know, and I'm going to take this baby out with my son, I'll be like all right, we're doing old school, uh, but yeah, okay, the but I want to end on. I was in on on the get started on like content creating and what do they need? Like, what kind of gear Do you need the big gear? Do you just use your phone, kind of what advice would you give?
Speaker 2:I would say don't chase gear. You have gear, Don't chase it. The jobs of these companies is to make more money, so they need to sell another camera this year. So just because a new camera comes out, you don't have to buy it and you are fine with what you have, even if it's an iPhone, even if it's a whatever like you can make something work.
Speaker 2:Choose subject matter that excites you to start with, but also choose subject matter that you want to shoot. Moving forward to have a client pay you for, Because if you're shooting stuff, that's even if somebody says I'll give you $500 to shoot. Moving forward to have a client pay you for. Because if you're shooting stuff, that's even if somebody says I'll give you $500 to shoot a wedding, you can say yes, I just wouldn't go post it everywhere if you don't want to keep shooting weddings for the rest of your life. So go shoot something, a spec ad, shoot what you want. Go barter with local businesses if you want to do commercial work that way, whatever it is. So yeah, shoot what you want to shoot, Don't chase gear. And then just yeah, choose subject matter that matters to you. That makes a difference. If you want to do that, that is compelling, that's sports related, that's whatever, Because if you're doing that, you're going to want to shoot it more and you're going to have better ideas because you know it better.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you'll finish it, like you were saying. Yeah. So many people like, yeah, you'll, you'll, you start and then you never finish. I literally have a whole documentary that I filmed and I was doing it for my master's degree and then I ended up getting. I ended up getting another job and not being able to finish, and so I literally have like a master's degree like film, like a documentary, just waiting to be edited, like everything is there except to be, except to edit it's crazy and people come up all the time like we finished a documentary, we went to festivals and it's.
Speaker 2:It was a wonderful experience and we loved doing it. Actually, we have a few of them, but people always come up. I have an idea for a doc. I was like that's awesome, do it. Like don't look at. Like, don't look at me. You have no idea how much work it is. From that point, yeah, the ideas are great and there are some doc ideas anyway. But yeah, same thing like finishing is so hard and if you can do that, you're going to be better off in the long run.
Speaker 1:For a little bit, she was yeah, it's like a shot for like two semesters. And then all I had to do that summer was edit. And I was like I'm gonna edit, it's gonna be great, I'm gonna get my master's, I'm gonna graduate, and then I got, and then I got another job and it didn't happen, you know it's all I mean honestly with our last documentary the relentless ride.
Speaker 2:That's what happened. Like we hit a big wall because we started getting a ton of paid work and we're like we need this paid work, but we need to finish this doc and we just could not find the margins to do it. Yeah, but eventually we did. But yeah, it was good job.
Speaker 1:Yeah hard, I'm telling myself I'm going to finish it. Yeah, and I'm going to finish it before everybody like not everybody that was in the doc has passed away. Like I feel like it's going to be. I'm like it's going to come out. I mean there's going to be like a memory piece at this point, you know, cause it's been like 10 years.
Speaker 2:So no, it's a. It's a real thing. I mean, finishing is a real thing, and it's something that I think is, um, it's difficult, it is there's no other way to say it of every project, no matter what you're doing, that aren't either what you like or aren't capturing the vision, and you have to be able to pivot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, thank you this is great, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, you're always welcome back. Come back whenever you want, and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.