Today we’d like to introduce you to Dalton Smith.
Hi Dalton, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Dalton Smith, and I founded NPI Productions in Satellite Beach, FL. I launched my company in 2012 right out of high school, and we have been chasing the dream for over 10 years now. Growing up, I was always a surfer, skateboarder, and Florida kid chasing adventures. I watched a show called Rocket Power as a kid, and it was based around the California lifestyle, with this group of kids surfing and skating every day. One of the kids’ names was Twister, and he had a video camera with which he captured everything. I remember distinctly feeling that I wanted to be that guy, and this was my first interest in videography/photography. I didn’t consider filmmaking a job, but it was so cool that he always captured everyone’s adventures. They would have movie premieres in the show, and there was just so much excitement around Twister capturing videos of everything they did.
Fast forward to high school, I had significant issues with drugs and getting in trouble, and I ultimately dropped out my junior year. After I finally escaped all the problems I had gotten myself into, I was about 19 years old, maybe 20, and I had recently gotten my first GoPro from my older brother. It was probably my 20th birthday, and I got the first-generation GoPro Hero 1. I had gotten heavily back into surfing at this point because that was the one good thing in my life that I wanted to keep doing, and the GoPro brought me to the ocean more than anything. I immediately fell in love with going out to surf and catching as many sick clips as possible, and that quickly turned into launching a YouTube channel.
The first month of the YouTube channel was uploading random videos we filmed partying in Orlando with friends, surfing, and being kids. We were about 21 at this point, and that was when things started to pick up. Over the first year, my best friend, Tyler Rago, and I were doing kayak tours and surfing lessons on the beach. We had come up with the idea to pitch videos as an upsell to the people we were taking on these tours, and both of my bosses at the time allowed me to do it. I’m making tiny bits of money, maybe $25 here and there, to put these videos together of my tours.
That was the first thing that got my mind rolling in a money way. Some of our YouTube videos had gone viral, particularly one where Tyler and I were jumping off hotels into swimming pools from pretty crazy heights. The song “Wild Boys” was viral at the time, so we did a remix music video called “Wild Boys 1” and “Wild Boys 2” where we did wild stunts and partied in our local area. They were crazy videos, but people loved it.
Being 21 years old at the time, the videos were a hit, and it just increased the speed of us getting out there on the internet locally. We were getting well-known, and more people were starting to follow not just the crazy adventures but also the filmmaking aspect and the stories we were telling. Fast forward, and we get introduced to Spectrum Surf Shop, which has unfortunately since closed but was one of the largest surf shops on the East Coast in its prime. When they found us, the concept was to relaunch the surf team at the shop, and this new guy, Dalton, could help us out.
So Tyler and I started working with the shop, making videos and taking photos of the team. It was a great relationship that helped Spectrum and got us up and running in the surf community. I’ll never forget the day I got a call from Todd Athey, who worked at Spectrum, and he told me we got a photo in Eastern Surf Magazine. I called Tyler, picked him up, and we drove to Spectrum. It was this tiny little 1-inch by 1-inch black and white photo, and it was a photo I had gotten just a couple of weeks earlier during a hurricane swell. It was this silhouette of Travis Shawhan, and they called him the Dark Horse. The article was in this tiny section, but it mentioned that Dalton Smith, this new photographer, was helping to revive the Spectrum Surf Shop team. It was the coolest thing that had ever happened to us. I remember feeling like we made it; that high we felt from our first photo was untouchable.
Through Spectrum, we were introduced to Corey Howell, who is still one of my best friends and one of the Ron Jon Surf Shop team riders. We hit it off, became best friends, and ended up on a trip to Puerto Rico for fun, but we nailed an epic photo during the trip. He linked me with Ron Jon’s, and they purchased that first image. That opened the door for me to pitch other trips, so I pitched a quick trip to Puerto Rico for a video project. After we crushed that, we locked in a one-year contract and kept that going for at least six years. We still work with Ron Jon Surf Shop on all their surf trips, billboards, etc. The Ron Jon Surf Shop relationship allowed us to travel, meet new people, and finally start making money as a business. This is really where it all started to blow up on a commercial level.
Simultaneously, I had hit it off with several other brands that were up and coming, and as those companies grew with their success, the same happened with NPI Productions. The series of events that followed is more than I could ever tell, but we just went from opportunity to opportunity and never turned down anything we knew we could take on and keep growing. Some key moments were in 2016 when Mitch Varnes hired us for his marathons and ultimately went to the Tourism Development Council and planted the seed that we were the creative company they needed to hire.
The TDC then hired us, which turned into years of fantastic work that helped grow our company and taught us a lot about scaling and how to keep up with a growing business. From there, the opportunities exploded and came from every direction, including music festivals, the World Surf League, huge airports, tons of tourism work, and thousands of small businesses. Since then, NPI Productions has grown into a powerhouse that now classifies as an agency covering many services from start to finish within the production and marketing industries. Recently, we had an absolute dream moment come to life in the form of a very special billboard in Cocoa Beach. In May 2024, we announced that we had secured a 3 billboard project featuring the world’s greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, using a photo I took last year in Hawaii. It was a combination of preparedness and luck, but we had received work. The local TDC was looking for a Kelly photo, and we managed to nail one on the last night of a 2-week trip. The best part? Kelly recently shared the photo on his page, tagging NPI and myself while showing some love and stoke for the photo. A partial version of the whole story can be found in this post below: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6ZE6KXuT-b/?hl=en&img_index=1
Now, we have a large team working around the clock and have even broken into multiple company sections with our services and work. This includes weddings, commercials, events, tourism, aviation, engineering, products, studios, short films, etc.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Like any business or person, we have had our fair share of hurdles throughout this journey. I’m huge when it comes to mental health, so it’s important to remember that real people run every business, and sometimes life plays a role in our work. We have to consider that when handling issues in our businesses.
Regarding work, we have had to jump through some vast hurdles, including being a small business surviving the COVID-19 pandemic when things tightened down worldwide. In March 2020, we lost 90% of the clients we had booked in less than a week. It was one of the scariest moments of my career, and I remember watching everything go down the drain. But I had this sense of calmness, knowing that the entire world was stuck like I was. I told my team to focus on their work, and I was going to work on our projects. For a few months, I got highly creative, dove into TikTok, and enjoyed sharing creative tips and fun videos that started going viral. Through that process, we built a studio in our home and started doing some incredible product visuals, which opened a new line of services for our company. Fast forward to the end of 2020, and all our clients returned. We rebooked most of those contracts, and not only did we survive, but we ended up coming out of the pandemic with an entirely new line of services.
We recently worked another massive job with a worldwide brand, and unfortunately, we had to jump through more hurdles than any project I’ve ever worked on. Without divulging too much into the details, it was an eye-opening experience that your passion and creativity will be tested by people who don’t value what you do. It’s not going to be easy, but there will be a day when you have to say no and stand up for yourself, stand up for your company, and stand up for your artwork. This was a very stressful and turbulent situation, but I only say that because I’m passionate and I care about what other people think. When I got to ground zero, I realized it was either to protect my team or watch them suffer. I decided to stand up for my team and say no, which was my best decision ever. I encourage everyone to pay attention to your business and see where you can make changes, but also stand your ground and not let these big corporations bully you. I’ve seen it many times and learned that if you stand your ground, you won’t regret it.
I’ve gone through many hurdles that are significant in my career. In 2017, I was engaged, and my fiancée left very abruptly. That was an incredibly challenging time and essential to my company’s journey. As many people can relate, flat-out heartbreak takes all the wind out of your sails, and I lost all my passion and drive. It got to the point that some of our clients were supportive but echoed that we needed to make some changes and get back on our projects, or they wouldn’t be able to work with us. When I got one of those emails, it was like a light switch, and I asked myself, what am I doing? Am I going to throw my career away over this situation that’s out of my control? Will I let this situation ruin my passion and the rest of my life? This shift ended up being the most potent and positive transition in my entire life to grow as a person and become a better leader for my company. Through that journey, I was led to my now-wife, Madison, and we have the most unbelievable life together. We’ve used each other’s stories to help encourage others and build our relationship to be stronger daily. Leading from this, we have recently had our first child, Kaia, who is now just over nine months old. She has been the most beautiful blessing in our lives but has also added a lot of complexity to a complex lifestyle. Being an entrepreneur and traveling the way we do already takes a lot of strategy, but adding a child is another game. It has forced us to make better decisions, be a stronger couple, and for me to be a better leader for my company. Everything happens when it should, and I was always so nervous about having my first child, but she has become the most essential thing in my daily life and inspires me to work harder than anything.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might need to become more familiar with what you do, what can you tell them about what you do?
At NPI Productions, we provide professional videography, photography, and marketing services for diverse industries. We have a saying around here: if it’s legal, we do it. At NPI, we pride ourselves on being creative visionaries across all realms. Traditionally, we are known for fun stuff—action sports, tourism, live events, and incredible storytelling.
When people think about NPI, they think epic, they think stoke, and they think pure passion. I’ve always said that there are many people out there with high-quality equipment and lots of skill, but that’s just a small part of what sets us apart. The feeling that people get when they watch our videos and the feeling people get when they work with us is what it’s all about.
People have a choice regarding who they work with for creative work, how the process feels, and how people work together, which translates directly into the final product. I’m most proud that we have built a giant operation with a tiny but highly talented creative team. If people knew how many people work with NPI Productions, they would be blown away. However, if they discovered how much those people do for NPI Productions individually, they would be blown away again.
Since I’m the face of most of what we do, people need to understand the actual scale of NPI Productions, how much work we do daily, and how many people are on our staff on any given day. Our company often runs simultaneously with a wedding, commercial, and live event, and we work on broadcasts for ESPN, all on the same day in different locations.
We have also jumped into every strange or unique piece of equipment we can get our hands on. From probe lenses and scuba diving housings to 360 and super slow-motion cameras, we love to mix things up. There are many talented people and companies out there, but no one can come close to the diverse and talented team that makes up NPI Productions and all our in-house skillsets.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Orlando is an incredible city, and it’s our closest metropolitan area. Living just an hour outside of Orlando on Florida’s Space Coast, we have always traveled for the theme parks, food, nightlife, and all the culture the city has to offer. Orlando feels like one of the more manageable big cities, and it also has a lot of variety in terms of things to do. Orlando has a great theme park and tourism scene, but there are also a lot of beautiful natural areas and outdoor adventures to explore. I can’t say there are too many things I don’t like about Orlando, especially compared to other cities, and that’s just because I’m a small-town guy. Orlando is more spaced out than other big cities, so it’s different from Miami, where you’re always in the middle of everything. The actual downtown area of Orlando is quite a bit smaller, but again, I enjoy it. It feels manageable and manageable, and you can move around. Not to mention, you can have an epic day adventuring out in nature and then completely shift gears and enjoy the nightlife and all the other entertainment Orlando offers on the same day!
Pricing:
- Commercial Advertising | $1,500-$,2,500+
- Weddings | $1,500-$6,500+
- Tourism | $500-$1,500+
- Small Businesses | $500-$,1500+
Contact Info:
- Website: www.npiproductions.tv
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/npiproductions
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/npiproductions/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daltonsmithnpi/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/npi13productions
Image Credits
Scott Murray
