Meet Daniel Yates | Commercial Video Strategist & Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniel Yates and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, what role has risk played in your life or career?
This question is huge for me. You can look at an individual or company from the outside and not know the level of risks and challenges they have gone through to get to that point. For me, everything I have done in the past 5+ years of my life has been built upon risks and faith. In fact, everything created had to be created, from ideas, from my ongoing experience, from my tastes, perspectives, and values. Here’s a glimpse into the past 5 years.

2018 started with meeting the love of my life online. Having established myself after college in my home city of Evansville, Indiana and working in healthcare, I was determined to find someone I could build a strong family and successful life with. Only 3 months after meeting, I flew to meet her and propose, while also losing my job in the same week. Upon my return, I began work at a psychiatric hospital and took my hobbyist photo and video work more seriously. That spring was the rebranding launch of my wedding and event video company Yours Always Films. The next year and a half was spent navigating immigration, seeking stability, and financially supporting my fiancé and our future wedding plans.

In 2019, my wife left her life behind in Mozambique and united with me in America where we married within a month and started our studio apartment life together. For the next year, Maria was a stay at home wife, unable to work, while I poured into my job and my business. With a calling to relocate to North Carolina for work and to start a new life together, I spent long hours overworking and also researching best locations to move to, with intentions to transfer jobs to a sister hospital in Raleigh, NC and to continue growing my videography business. These plans were interrupted, of course, by COVID-19, which only hindered me further from growing connections in NC. It pushed me to double down on marketing my brand online and networking as much as possible. Before moving in 2021, I quit my job at the hospital, working with a health care clinic and the city of Evansville on several big video projects for little to no compensation.

In early 2021, we moved to Raleigh, NC. Instead of transferring to the hospital, I decided to focus on my business, with nothing on the calendar, leaning on my wife and her tutoring business financially. The next year was spent traveling all of North Carolina filming weddings, events, and commercial projects, taking as much work as possible and improving my craft. Our plan was to buy our first home after a year of renting, but with the difference and spike of cost for living, and with our first full year of self employment, we ended up spending all of our savings and more on self employment tax, putting us at square one all over again.

2022 was a year of growth and opportunity, in which both my wife and I continued growing. The financial and time management challenges were painful, as we pursued marriage counseling and ongoing therapy to keep ourselves together. Working two businesses out of a one bedroom apartment was absolutely not ideal, and it only made our pursuit of working smarter and serving the high end clientele that much more of a priority, due to the work we were putting in.

2023 was a pivotable year for us personally and professionally. We had both worked so hard the year prior that we were able to pay off our debts and buy our first home in north Raleigh. At this point, my intention was to take on a full time job so that we could finally start a family, so I spent the first two months of moving in job training. Two months was all it took for me to realize how much more video creation, commercial work, and filmmaking was my element. I realized almost immediately how easily I could walk into a company to sell them video services, as opposed to seeking employment, and how much my video services would benefit them immensely. So two months in, I quit my job, started my commercial video production business Cinegate Productions, and invested everything I had into developing a video marketing strategy that would help health care and service providers scale their clinics and practices. And that is where I am today. 

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At Cinegate Productions, we help health care providers and service providers scale their clinics, practices, and companies with a custom video marketing strategy and become unforgettable, trusted leaders in their community. What sets us apart is our strategy, to build trust for your brand professionally, and help you scale exponentially.

What I have found is, service providers will prioritize their marketing in one way or another, but unfortunately will undercut their growth potential by skimping on asset driven strategies that could compound their ROI tremendously over time. I’ve seen business owners DIY their own marketing and struggle to keep up with content marketing, while feeling slammed more than ever, overwhelmed doing what they love, without the certainty of a brand to fall back on. This leads to burnout, and I’ve not only seen it in every market – I’ve been there and was for 4 years.

[Skip to my timeline in the other section before finishing]

The launch of Cinegate Productions was sparked by my intense realization that video production was my true passion and expertise. Up until now, I had worked endlessly, early mornings and late nights, to grow my wedding and event video production business to a high end level, filming luxury weddings across North Carolina at top rated event venues and shooting commercial videos for occasional service providers. After finally settling down in Raleigh though, as mentioned in my timeline, I came close to pursuing a whole different career entirely, with the intention to finally start a family together. During 2 months of training for this new sales position with a local company, I realized how much more I believed in my own video marketing product/services. This ultimately led me back to what I do now with my new elevated brand Cinegate Productions, blending “cinematography” with my last name Yates, meaning “gatekeeper”. Since then, I have, with the help of experts and video marketing strategists, developed a scaling system that I truly believe in, and I look forward to continuing to elevate trusted professionals in our community and beyond.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
First, my wife and I would set them up in our guest room, and encourage them to save their accommodation expenses on a night or two at the Umstead Hotel or Renaissance Hotel in North Hills, depending on their interests. Here are several outings or activities I would plan for the week to give them the most enjoyable experience.

– North Hills for shopping, lunch at Yard House, and ice cream at Kilwins with a walk around the park.
– Sunset walk around Lake Lynn (our first home), Dinner at Panera Bread, and drive-in movie at Triangle Drive-In.
– Afternoon shopping at Crabtree Valley Mall and dinner at Perry’s Steakhouse OR shopping at Triangle Shopping center and dinner at Olive Garden or City BBQ.
– Pick from our favorites on Glenwood Ave and take a ride on the scooters.
– Catch tickets for an event or comedy show downtown Wake Forest.
– And of course, we’d have to plan a game night/movie night, because we love entertaining and enjoying simple time with family/friends.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My wife. My wife has inspired and supported me all the way, from day 1. While my parents taught me responsibility, the golden rule, and values, my wife has been my greatest challenge and rock through every ounce of the past 5 years, and I wouldn’t be at the level of success that I am today without her.

Website: www.yoursalwaysfilms.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/cinegateproductions AND www.instagram.com/yoursalwaysfilms

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/yoursalwaysdaniel/

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@yoursalwaysfilms

Image Credits
All images and video content by Cinegate Productions