My Promise

(First of all, if an “about me” is more your vibe, skip this first bit, it’s down there I promise.)

But odds are if you’re here, a part of you is thinking about maybe working with me, and that’s great! I’d love to work with you. I want to find what makes you our your product special, and show it off in a way that is unique to you. So, before we get to that, a couple of promises. 

First, of all, a fair deal. I’m not hear to price gouge and take more than my fair share of your hard earned money. I work hard, and I value my time, but I’m not here to cut corners, overbid projects, and provide sub par props, or locations, or actors, or whatever it may be. I want to find a ground everyone is happy with and creates the best possible end result for everyone involved. 

Second, I will take the time to get to know you. Be it a product launch, or headshots, it comes down to that person, or that product that makes it unique! And no matter how “pretty” the end result is, if it doesn’t match you, it has missed its mark! I promise to take the time with you needed to figure out exactly what you want to do, and then make it happen to the best of my ability. Getting to know you, and/or your product is how I make sure each project is special and unique and stands out in the crowd. Be it a product that you are launching, or a wedding you want to have a specific vibe to the photos of your special day, each project is unique and treated as such. 

Second, I promise to tell you what I can do, and what I can’t do. I can do a LOT. My gear kit is extensive, I’ve shot underwater, in the air, dangling from cliffs, on studio productions with 100+ people and on 2 man super crews that accomplish the seemingly impossible. I also promise that if I do end up saying “I don’t know” will be followed with “I’ll find out.” However, if I don’t know how to do something, I know someone who does. And I promise they will deliver their part of the project at the best possible price with quality that goes above and beyond. I am incredibly selective when it comes to people I bring onto your job on my behalf. All of my connections go back years, and I can tell you they are the best in the business at what they do.

Third, your project will have my attention and my priority. Big or small. I give all clients my 100% and do everything in my power to deliver the best results. I’ve worked with household names, and the smallest of mom and pop shops, and I always bring my absolute best no matter the size of the client, or scope of the job. 

Fourth, You are welcome to be as involved or as hands of as you wish. If you give me a goal, and just want a finished product to show up, done. (Of course, after we take the time to figure out exactly what you want.) If you want to be on set and have input, I can make that happen.  ]

Fifth, clarity. I will define the scope of the project, the expected costs, the timeline, and potential problems right off the bat. You don’t have to just guess at what’s happening and how we get to the final project. 

About me:

Hello! I’m Scott Minard. I’m a Photographer, Filmmaker, Divemaster, Freelance Gaffer and Electrician, Camera assistant, Expedition leader, Professional Deckhand, massive Space Nerd, and more. When you work in this industry independently, you have to stay creative to make ends meet sometimes, but I’ve made the most of that to have a wide variety of skills that make me uniquely capable to shoot anything, anywhere. Underwater? Absolutely. 15kft in the air in tiny airplanes? Regularly. Up a mountain? You bet. In the snow? Yep! (Even if I hate the cold.)

Sooner or later I’ll have a resume here but it’s a few years old at this point, and I’ve been busy enough working it hasn’t been worth updating. Short version though, I can say I’ve been an in house editor for USA Today, had a commercial I wrote, shot, and edited on PBS Arizona, had a photo above the fold on the front of the Business Section in the Wall Street Journal on a Sunday, was head of content both photos and video for an organic wholesale distributer Organic By Nature, I’ve been a Summer Camp Councilor and Photographer for Camp Norwester, had my music video played in every Hard Rock Cafe in the world during primetime for a month, won national awards for both Photo and Video, and created good enough Documentary footage to have FOX steal it outright and broadcast it nationally for daytime television.

If you want to get to who I am as a filmmaker skip to the next paragraph. But as far as me as a human, here goes. I was born and raised in Phoenix Arizona, I spent my weekends out hiking, climbing, mountain biking, trying to catch critters like snakes and scorpions and generally learning how to “bounce” as I was always falling, jumping, or slipping off of something in the dessert…only occasionally into a cactus. When I wasn’t outside I was watching Steve Irwin jumping off cliffs, catching animals and generally hurting himself (Yup, there might be a pattern there.) When I got to high school, I developed a passion for film and photography. However, my school neither had a program, nor a club to learn such things. So, I went and bothered a member of the faculty until there was an inaugural film club. Which, not yet understanding the concept of “careful what you wish for” I now somehow had to lead. As a 16 year old. But it went well enough! It’s now a 3 year program at my high school, having taken over half a building.

Wow, I really do hate writing about myself, so I’ll sum it up with this. Today, I am a space nerd. I think the grandest adventure man ever embarked on was to the moon, and you better believe I can tell you too much about the Apollo spacecraft. A tiny tiny fragment of it hangs on my wall. I work as a deckhand on a dive boat, and have for over a year. It’s how I earned the rank of Divemaster, and it’s where I am every weekend I can be. Helping others learn a passion for scuba diving when I’m above water, and exploring every nook and cranny looking for critters and treasure when I’m below water. I’ve seen giant sharks, Sea Bass big enough to swallow me whole, and if you check out my Instagram page you can see footage I got nose to nose with a sea lion. I’m also starting a training regiment to climb the highest peak in the Lower 48 with my 70+ year old father this October. I also have been lucky enough to go and shoot content in over 20+ countries, across 4 continents. This has instilled me with a deep passion for people, and their stories. I have made mini documentaries about people on remote cities in Myanmar, and interviewed a professional “Spider Man” who poses for photos in Times Square. This leads me to my next point, places are fun, adventures are cool, but people are my passion. Telling stories of people in unique ways is what makes me to continue to want to work in a relentlessly hard industry. Stories are really all we have in this life. Making stories. Our stories. The stories of others. That, above all else, is my passion. Well, that and occasionally trying to catch a snake I see on the side of the road when I’m back home in Arizona.

Among my different adventures I have found one common thing. I love people and their stories. I want to know the craziest thing you’ve ever done, and/or what’s the next dream you’re working to accomplish. Not just because that’s how you find out how to best present someone’s project, but because humans, and how far they can go, and what they’re capable of is my real fascination.

As cheesy as it may sound, what I love about what I do is the ability to freeze a tiny perfect human moment, a tiny part of that person’s story, and save it forever. That, and either taking the extraordinary and making it relatable, or taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. That look the groom gives the bride when he sees her walk down the isle on their wedding day. That moment of relief when the expedition pays off and you make it to the top of one of the seven summits, or, finding a new appreciation for how amazing your dishwasher is. (I mean think about, it you put dirty dishes in a magic box and they come out PERFECTLY clean. That’s amazing. That’s a video right there.)

As much as I do love working on the edge of the envelope, I find the opposite to be just as fun. I’ve worked with Lawyers, water bottle designers, clothing brands, medical companies, and more. There’s a universal theme that comes around with each and every client I’ve ever had, human connection. Check out the Shein video on the home page of my website. The video isn’t about the clothes, it’s about the people having fun buying the clothes, and at the end of it you want to go check out the Shein page, because you want to feel the excitement those people felt on a day out shopping. That’s what I love. Taking something, whatever it is, and relating it to the human side of the equation. If you can do that, your product/service/event/moment is sold, or immortalized forever. I have never in my life repeated a setup for headshots, or event photography. That’s just not the way it works, I took the time to find out about the individual, or event, and captured it in a way that was unique to that specific shoot. That’s what I love to do, and at my core, that’s who I am. I’m about people.