Inside Coffeezilla's '$10,000,000' Virtual Production Studio

Investigative YouTuber Coffeezilla breaks down his 10 million dollar studio, revealing for the first time the tips and tricks behind the virtual production studio he built for the Coffeezilla Cinematic Universe.

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https://youtu.be/4WOb5Y1Qcp0

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https://youtu.be/DdMlx3YX7h8

Fully Remote: Exploring PostHero's Blackmagic Cloud Editing Workflow
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📝 SHOW NOTES

Coffeezilla's Virtual Production Journey with Mo-Sys
https://www.vp-land.com/p/coffeezilla-mo-sys

3 ways to create a space that moves you by David Korins
https://youtu.be/SU8JYKGekXo

Aximmetry
https://aximmetry.com

Arri Alexa
https://www.arri.com

Previs Pro
https://www.previspro.com

Mo-sys StarTracker
https://www.mo-sys.com/product/camera-tracking/startracker

Blender
https://www.blender.org

GhostFrame
https://www.ghostframe.com

Kino Flo MIMIK Lights
https://kinoflo.com/mimik-120

Aputure
https://www.aputure.com

Sony FX3
https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/cinema-line-cameras/all-cinema-line-cameras/p/ilmefx3

Sony FX9
https://pro.sony/ue_US/products/handheld-camcorders/pxw-fx9

Sidus Link
https://www.sidus.link

Copilot
https://www.youtube.com/c/copilotco

Fearless Productions
https://www.youtube.com/@fearlessproductionstv

Linus Tech Tips
https://www.youtube.com/user/linustechtips

Mandalorian BTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk

MrBeast
https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast

MKBHD
https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd

Colin and Samir (MKBHD Studio Tour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz_qFyTrS8w

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⏱ CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
02:00 The 10 Million Dollar Studio
07:15 Virtual Production
09:16 Green Screen
12:15 Creating Maxwell, the Bartender Robot
13:40 Moodboarding
19:20 Set pieces and props
22:30 Workflow and tools
23:25 Previz
25:00 Mo-Sys
26:30 Blender
26:55 Aximmetry 
33:50 Mo-Sys StarTracker
40:15 LED Panels vs Green Screen
42:20 GhostFrame and MIMIK
43:15 Noir Lighting
44:10 Coffee Steam
46:00 Production Timeline
47:05 AI Tools
49:50 Cameras & Tech
54:45 Video Editing
55:38 Advice for New YouTubers
57:35 Outro

Transcript

0:00

This podcast is probably the first place I've ever been able to really, like, lay out a lot of this stuff. Welcome to VP Land, the podcast where we explore how making media is getting faster, easier, and less expensive to create, from AI to virtual production, and everything in between. I am Joey Daoud, your host. You just heard from Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla. Coffeezilla is a YouTuber and investigative journalist exposing online scams. With over 3 million subscribers, you're probably familiar with some of his work, from his three-part series investigating Logan Paul's CryptoZoo, to his interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried during the collapse of FTX. But what sets Coffeezilla apart is the way he delivers in-depth, sometimes complicated information, from animated evidence boards to conversations with Maxwell, his robot bartender. All of this is delivered inside a cyberpunk, film noir style office that Coffeezilla calls the 10 Million Dollar Studio. Welcome to the 10 Million Dollar Studio... The 10 Million Dollar Studio... The 10 Million Dollar Studio... And in this episode of VP Land, we are going to explore how Coffeezilla went from a basic set in his bedroom, to a full blown virtual production studio in just a few short years. I want to create something new. I want to create something original. I want to create a world that informs the audience and myself like sort of what this show is. We'll explore how Coffeezilla got into virtual production. I want to be one of the people who really pushes this landscape of indie virtual production forward in a practical way. The driving motivator behind every video he creates. Like, virtual production's great, but it always is subservient to the storytelling. Some tips and important lessons learned. Just a little high-level tip for you guys out there.[Important Tip] And a whole lot more. Links for everything we talk about are available in the YouTube description or in the show notes. And be sure to subscribe to the VP Land Newsletter to stay ahead of the latest tech changing the way we're making movies. Just go to vp-land. com. I think in a space like this it's fine to kind of pull back the curtain, tell you guys a few of my tricks. So let's pull back the curtain and dive into this chat with Coffeezilla. All right, well, Stephen, Coffeezilla, thanks for joining. I appreciate it. Let's nerd out about stuff that you don't normally talk about, your virtual production setup, the 10 Million Dollar Studio. There was a comment I came across in one of your older videos when you were still recording. I assume it was a room in your house, which just had a basic YouTuber kind of setup. Um, but the comment was semi recent. The video's from 2019. Comment was recent," Only just found Coffeezilla, watching the progression from fresh-faced crusader of truth into a grizzled, bearded, cynical detective of a dystopian future is, from a lore perspective, absolutely amazing." Sort of like, the comment captures this transformation from filming YouTube videos in a room to this elaborate cyberpunk film noir studio that you've got. So can you walk me through like how did this evolve and like what were the motivations behind it? Yeah, sure. Um, by the way, thanks for having me. So, to just to back up a bit, I started YouTube and it was really- I had no production experience, no film experience. And it was very clear to me that, um, you know, somehow you had to break out and create an original style. I saw, uh- the YouTubers are sort of like famous. We all kind of copy each other and that's good for a while. But eventually, if you ever want any, um, I feel like you uniqueness, longevity, you want to go out and develop your own thing. So at a certain point I really started getting serious about that. I, I built like my first ever set and I was like, oh, this is amazing. You know, you don't have to move cameras all the time. You could just like set stuff up. Um, and around that time, I heard a TED Talk by this guy, David Korins, I believe. Um, it's about three ways to design your life or something like that. I can send it to you and maybe you can link it in the show notes 'cause- Yeah. Well, or we'll find it. Yeah. This talk absolutely changed my world because basically this guy says, you can't, he's like, um, you basically have to design a set for what you want to be. Essentially, he used this word, which doesn't ring as true now because of recent events. He did a set design for Kanye. He's done set designs for, um, Hamilton, stuff like that. And he's like, the design of the world tells you something about what you're watching. And even for the creator, it tells you something about who you are. So he talks about like, you know, Kanye didn't tell me explicitly he wanted to be a god. But as I talked to him in the process of like how to create a set, I realized sort of we were actualizing who he was and wanted to be through this, like, creation of a set and this world. Um, and then he kind of lays out some simple ideas of, you know, how you can go out and do it yourself. And I was so taken by this idea. He's like, he's like, you know, Kanye can't be Kanye in his living room. Again. It means something different now because of whatever. But, um, at the time, at the time, nothing like, like he was like, pop culture icon, right? So I heard this and I was like, that's true. You can't be, you know, that in your bedroom. And then I looked at my set, like right over there. I'm like watching this video and I'm looking at my set and it's a dude in a bedroom. And I'm like, oh, I want, and so things started clicking. I'm like, I want to create something new, but I can't do this in my bedroom. Like, I, I can't. And so how am I gonna do it? So I looked around at other YouTubers, what are other YouTubers doing? What are other people even in film doing? And a few things tied together for me, which is, one, I saw Linus Tech Tips. He had built out this like giant, you know, warehouse and he had spent like $10 million. And he was able to fit like five sets in there, you know, five, like five different, you know? And, and I was like, dang, that's a lot of money for, um, you know, and he talks about like, you have to spend more and then when you buy the warehouse, now you have to spend even more to like, soundproof all this. Like, I was like, I, I can't do that. Um, and then at the same time I watched The Mandalorian behind the scenes, which I think hit a lot of people. And I just sort of had this like breakthrough moment where I was like, you can do infinite things with this one, you know, virtual production set. Like you can just, you can have a million sets. And I was, I was, struck by that. I was like, man, you can create a whole world functionally in a bedroom and like sort of cheat the whole system. Like you don't actually have to go out and get- so it started as this like quest of convenience and like, oh, it's gonna make my life easy. Um, little did I know by the way. Uh, it's it comes with its own set of problems. So, so I started this march down, like, okay, well I wanna create something new. I wanna create something original. I wanna create a world that tell, like, informs the audience and myself, like sort of what this show is. Um, so I started obsessing sort of like what that looks like. That's when I sort of started down this rabbit hole of, you know, the 10 Million Dollar Studio. That started 'cause all these scammers that I was talking about, the way they would establish credibility is they would talk about how rich they were. So obviously, I'm just a dude in my bedroom, but I'm like, but I'm like, it's funny to just kind of go way above them and just be like, oh, 10 million, just, just my studio is $10 million, and just fake everything. So like, for a long time, we had a Lamborghini in the studio, which was a whole thing. Because all these guys that I was talking about, they'd have these, like there's cars in these ridiculous places. Like they'd have it in their front lawn. Like you don't actually have that, right? You just place it there for social proof. So I just basically stole what they were doing and made it like a satire, like, like, um, pastiche. And then it sort of, which I kind of loved, kind of became like a joke that wasn't a joke anymore because, eventually, if you push your production enough, it is almost plausible that it's a 10 Million Dollar Studio. Um, so that's kind of like this like fun thing. But yeah, that's when I started down that like path of trying to work on virtual production and I knew nothing. I mean, I, I am like true, amateur who just like, studied people. I would shamelessly approach anybody who had a better key than me, a better anything industry professionals be like, how are you doing this? Why does your key look so good? And they're like, oh, well,'cause I'm not using OBS. And I'm like, oh, okay, well I was using that. Um, so then they're like, you should get, you know, the Ultimatte or whatever. Um, eventually, by the way, for a lot of reasons, which we can talk about, I, I now use Aximmetry for keying. I've, I've tried the Ultimatte, guys. I know You have tried- okay. Yeah, I saw your tweet from a few years ago- But I don't like- I, dude, I'm, I'm gonna say I put 'em in the head-to-head. I think Aximmetry is competitive and the compositing is like a million times better. I think people who are still, like on the Ultimatte train, you're on an old outdated system. I mean, it's not outdated in terms of, it's an amazing keyer. But the way you can like composite to me is so- maybe just someone hasn't explained to me the right pipeline, but I just think it's so limiting. In Aximmetry, you can just build stuff so much easier. So anyway, that's like a little aside. But yeah, like I start working on my key, then they're like, well, how are you lighting yourself? And I'm like, well, yeah, my light is just keying me and then it's lighting my green screen. And they're like, oh, no, no, no. Like, you can't, you can't do that. And they're like, how close are you to your wall? And I'm oh, like three feet away. And they're like, no, no, no, you can't do that. So, um, so just start to slowly, um, kind of work on it. And I think what's interesting is like a lot of the seeds I started developing like three or four years ago, um, are like paying off now, like the vision I had in my head then of like, sort of what I wanted to, you know, achieve, people are talking about like now, like, oh wow, like it's, you know, uh, they're noticing the stuff that I started trying to like build in my head a long time ago. So I think that's been interesting to watch, uh, happen and I'm very grateful that people kind of dig it. Sorry, that was like the longest answer ever. No, it was great. And I mean, yeah, there's a lot of tangents and stuff to, to jump in on and I mean, yeah, it's just been interesting even just going through the video history and how quickly your style seemed to develop from 2021. I think there was like sort of the first uses of like green screen, but you just maybe I, I assume it was like a photo or just some sort of like, bulletin board, uh, with the lines everywhere. You did the very first virtual studio build the Coffeezilla Studio. And that was somewhat interactive where you're hitting some button off screen and you could display your computer screen in your virtual space. What was the sort of first step from like just a green screen to you started building stuff and what were you like, uh, running on and, uh, doing it? Yeah. I was really interested in building my own space and, uh, kind of like I said, create, creating this cohesive world. I didn't want to just take off the shelf like little backgrounds. At the same time, I didn't really have the hardware to run a live like simulation behind me. I didn't have the hardware to like run an Unreal scene behind me. So I realized I'm gonna have to do some combination of a rendered MP4. But the set will be 3D. So if I want to get any new angles, we can just go pick a new angle, render out like a 5-second loop, and then basically like stitch that all together. I lucked out here because this is when I found my 3D artist who I've been working with like ever since the first, uh, thing. Ed Leszczynski, he's a Ukrainian guy, absolute killer. We've kind of developed together a style. I got very lucky there. I wanna be clear. I have probably sketches of my original idea and it's literally chicken scratch. I'm like, you know, this is what it should be like, just like one square. And then he turns it into whole developed idea. But it's kind of amazing how much thought you have to put into some of that stuff behind the scenes to make- to kind of give a cohesive world.'cause we thought so much about- we have so many mood boards, so many different things. And then it all just like becomes one finished thing eventually. But, um, we kinda went back and forth on that forever. And we've had several iterations of the same studio where we've like modified little things. A lot of it becomes out of necessity. Like you want the set to be functional, so you want it to display information. Sometimes, like, especially when we started, I had this gimmick where we had like a screen that would flip out behind me. The whole point of it was a way to display my computer in-world without it like just being like a little picture-in-picture. Because I, I just find that, you know, unmotivated information display kind of comes off as like, uh, cheap. I mean anyone could do it. Everyone does it. Like, just put me in picture-in-picture and then I just don't think that's that interesting. Um, more and more in my show, I'm trying to make the information like come in-world. This is like one kind of principle we established early on is anything that's like found digitally, we wanna make into a physical place. Like the Internet Archive. I can just go to www.internetarchive- that's not interesting. So since I solve like these, like, or not solve, but like, I, I bust these like, um, internet scams, I wanna find a way to make them kind of into a narrative, into a story. Uh, so we'll actually make an internet archive location. If i know the audience is gonna ask a question, but I don't just want to completely fourth wall and be like, I know you guys are thinking blah, blah, blah. I'll go to the bar and talk to my robot bartender and he'll like kind of play the audience. So things like that, um, kind of have helped us, I think, a little bit. But, um, that's kind of one principle we're trying to figure out. A new thing I think we're gonna develop is a, uh, a place for like Discord calls, like calls like this, like where I interview victims. I think it's so lame to just do like, oh, just cut away to a picture and, you know, just like, here's this guy in this random location. I think it's cool to bring stuff in-world, wherever you can. All right, real quick. Just jumping back in here again. If you are enjoying this conversation with Coffeezilla, then you will like the VP Land Newsletter. Each week, twice a week, we send you all sorts of news, links, in-depth articles, behind the scenes stuff about virtual production, AI and video, and all of the other latest technology and news that is changing the way we're making movies, how to make things better, faster, less expensive. From professional level to YouTube, not to say that it's not professional, we have got everything covered. So be sure to subscribe to VP Land. You can get the link in the YouTube description or the show notes, or just head over to VP-LAND.COM. And now, back to my chat with CoffeeZilla. Yeah. Um, no, and you've definitely mentioned a lot of things, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to navigate this because it's like a lot of high level questions and then, uh, nitty gritty questions that I've got. But going back to the high level, because you were talking about, you know, building out this space and delivering information in-world, which, uh, you know, something that you really do really well. Going back to the high level view of this, um, 'cause one of the articles that you mentioned, like you're, you're building out the Coffeezilla cinematic universe. Going back to your mood boards and everything, how much of this was driven as a way to more entertainingly deliver information for the story and also as like a competitive advantage for the channel of just raising the bar in quality versus like doing- I know your origin was like video essays, but like, versus just, you know, someone doing faceless video channels. Uh, so like, has that been one of the driving motivations as well? Yeah, I, I think the big driving motivation probably would be like some form of originality. Um, some type of self, I don't know, it's kind of like a self-expression thing. I really get a kick out of building this thing out and having some, um, I feel like there are two things that are going on, like you have these stories which come and go. Every video is just its own like kind of self-contained thing. And then I think it's fun to, as the channel kind of build something. So it's given me this sense of, um, progress that I don't think I would've otherwise had, had I stayed stagnant of just doing things the same way. I always find that channels that stay the same for 10 years, well, I won't say anything about it. But I personally would not wanna do- I, I want to develop as a creator and my audience to feel like, oh, his sense of style is he's not just like mailing it in and just getting lazy and just doing the same thing. Every video, it feels like he's putting everything on the table and trying to push um, little bit farther. So may, may, maybe that's my motivation. I also think in particular with virtual production, like think because it's a fledgling kind of industry, it's been so interesting to watch. On the indie side, we haven't seen as much practical application of virtual production. It's been a lot of tech demos basically. And I remember thinking really early on, I wanna be one of the people who really pushes this landscape of indie virtual production forward in a practical way where instead of talking about the tech, instead of which I, I love to do by the way, 'cause I'm a nerd, but, um, I wanna act, I wanna show that narrative. It can compete with building out a huge set and hiring a bunch of production and grips and whatever. Um, I wanna show that not only can it compete, it's actually I think in a lot of cases more competitive. Um, and people just sort of haven't figured it out yet. So that was what I was hoping to kind of give back to this industry that I kind of love, have a secret love for, I guess, um, is kind of just showcase hopefully how cool and interesting and, and approachable. I dunno, approachable is the right word. I actually think virtual production's really hard. I think do it right is like actually really hard. But um, but yeah, show, show, show sort of what it can do. Yeah, you have one of your videos where you sort of like lift the curtain a little bit and you're like, this is all virtual production. and that video's about two years old now, and you're like, YouTubers are sleeping on this. Uh, you know, you should get on the ground floor now. Uh, this is sort of a game changer. But that was like two years ago. So, I mean, and I feel, I mean, I feel like you're definitely the biggest, the most sort of virtual production stuff that I've seen, like from like a big YouTuber. I mean, Mrbeast is very practical. They're using a lot more visual effects for like set extensions, but I wouldn't call that- They do cool CGI stuff. Because everyone kind of- Everyone looks at like the top guy so I think he'll actually have a huge effect on bringing like set extensions, stuff like that in. I just think it's great. Anytime someone uses these tools and doesn't talk. Like- I think it's great to talk about it, but I also think it's great to just show it just invisibly. It's Right. Just to appreciate it and not, think of like, where's the, what's the magic trick? Right. Nobody comes to my videos thinking- well, not nobody, but a lot of people don't come to my videos thinking, oh, I'm gonna see virtual production today. It's just this invisible tool that just helps things look a little bit better, helps the narrative flow a bit better, and I'm happy to have that in the background. My other part of my question with that is have you seen more, like, besides this possible MrBeast set extension example, have you seen other YouTubers or people adapt this as much as you have? We could set that as a bar, but even just lesser, not as much as you have. Well, I think I've kind of just gone full sin down the rabbit hole. I kind of just like, my whole, the Your Sin City- Coffeezilla Sin City- Yeah. Like it's all, I'm fully devoted. I have no interest in, a fully practical set. I've come to appreciate the benefits of having some practical tools on set. And I think there are limitations that people like amateurs don't get. I think industry obviously understands it, but, um, On the amateur side, sometimes we can think we can paint everything green. That's what I thought forever. Like I was, I was like trying to paint like chairs green, tables were green, everything was green. That's a problem. Just a little high level tip for you guys out there. Anything you touch on set should be practical. It's so exhausting trying to manually track whatever, uh, uh, you know, stuff you touch.'cause you're gonna create all these shadows. It's gonna be a nightmare. Just do yourself a favor, floors, try to make them practical things you touch, like chairs or like, if you're touching a table, you know, please just make it practical. A, a cup. Make it practical. These things are supposed to help you. And I think if you get too overly zealous about I'm 100% virtual production, you're gonna be like me and trying to key out a green table where your arm's touching it and it's, you're trying to say save context shadows. It's a disaster. You don't want to deal with that. Last year I kind of took a little bit- went a little bit the other way and built out some nice practical like little set pieces, um, to help myself out a little bit. And that has been a huge game changer.'cause people will be like, wow, this composite looks so good. It's like, yeah, because the composite is half real, half green. And so it really, your brain starts to like be like, well, what is going on here? What were some of the sets? Like your desk or what, what, what are some of the set pieces you built? Yeah. So, my main desk, like at the main Coffeezilla set in the 10 Million Dollar Studio that's now practical with like some cups, some papers, some stuff like that. That's nice because it adds some depth. I think sometimes, you know, when you're just sitting like this, you're just kind of floating in air. There's no depth. It's just like sort of you are a plane and then there's this background plane behind you. And I think it always makes sense to have some type of, um, some things creating some like not illusion, but yeah, some sense of, uh, there's some depth to this scene, right, that we're not getting here. That's achievable a few ways. If your camera's locked off though, you know, it's, it's achievable by things like a desk or something like in, you know, in the background or, or something practical. I also did it in my bartender scene where we built an actual, kind of this bespoke bar top where, uh, we have like this like light tube going through the middle. All of that's real. There's like lexan plastic on it to diffuse the light in this really cool way that we shamelessly stole from The Shining. Um, And then it's kind of cool because the bartender, like, my robot bartender can like reach across this physical bar and then I'm touching the physical bar. And then like, it's just this cool- you can kind of just play with the audience a bit. Um, so, so those are some basic examples. But we've also like built out some floors. Like I have like a piece of plywood, put some vinyl, like flooring on it. So if I'm standing somewhere, we don't have to key out this green floor and try to pull context shadows. It's a nightmare. Um, it's a lot easier if you can just save it, you know? It's all there. So those kinds of things, um, were huge lessons. There's another one where I'm like leaning over a rail, so I actually went out and like bought a rail and like screwed it into, you know. A lot of it's so janky. Like, it's amazing how much, like, with props, things can be janky, but as, as, as long as you do it right? Long as it looks good. Yeah. Yeah. The audience doesn't ever have to know. Like, it's like it doesn't matter. Yeah. Even if you feel like, uh, one small push is is gonna break off. As long as it looks good, you're good. Yeah. So, so the green screen has just been a way to, um, I, I've come to appreciate it as a, uh, a way to just cheat what can be easier. I think James Cameron, like, is famous for saying, on green screen, things that are hard in real life are easy, and things that are easy in real life are hard. I think that's really true. If you want some epic sweep of the Himalayan Mountains, you could build it on Fiverr with a CG artist for $5 in like five minutes. Or you could hire a helicopter to go out there and shoot it for real on an Arri Alexa. So they're very two different things in scope. But if you wanted to go have a person open a door and walk through it, if you wanna do that fully in CG, it's actually pretty hard. And if you wanna do that practically, it's so easy. So I always, um, took away from that like nugget of truth to, to actually just use both for what's the best thing I think is, um, kind of like a little bit of a mix. You use the CG stuff where you can just really cheat stuff and make stuff look awesome for cheap. And then you use practical stuff when it's like, hey, I don't wanna manually track this thing in my hand, I wanna actually just have it. You know, get a cheap prop that looks cool for like 30 bucks and call it a day. Let's jump through. Um, let's just take more, some more of your recent videos as an example, um, since you've got this evolving higher end pipeline down. But can you walk me through step by step, I just like state by stage what the, uh, development process is from, from the research stage. Yeah. So, um, obviously we're talking a lot about like the virtual production side. There is this whole other like research journalism aspect, which doesn't have a lot to do with virtual production, but it is a big part of my pipeline. So we'll research stuff, then I'll start to compile it in a script. And then at some point we have to start storyboarding it. Um, which is sort of where the virtual production and actual facts come together. I've started to do this in pre-vis. I used to just skip pre-vis. Our shots were so simple that there was no point. I mean, it's like me standing, I could have done like 20 minutes of me standing in front of the desk and that was our pre-vis. Um, now we have, you know, a lot of narrative elements. So because our pipeline takes so long, it actually makes sense to put together like a simple render. I use this app on iPad called, I think Previs Pro. It's like a Sims builder where you can build out these little characters, basic 3D world. You don't have to be a 3D expert because I'm certainly not. And then you can just move a camera around and just kind of pick some shots, pick some shots, pick some shots. The point is not to get some kind of photo reel, you know, thing. It's just basically, basically to create an animatic as someone who doesn't know how to animate or draw well. Like the, the days of stick figures are really starting to fail me because as you wanna do more complicated shots, I think you kind of do have to be a bit more precise in, um, how it looks. You know, many a time I've been on a call with my CG guy, he's like, what are you doing with all these arrows? And I'm like, it's obviously a push in. And he's like, I dunno what you're talking about. So, uh, so, so, so there's that. And then we go from storyboarding to kind of a- we start to shoot it. Then we send that to my editor because, we'll, like, let's say we're shooting something, let's say we're shooting like a scene in the bar where I'm trying to do some things. We are gonna shoot four different angles for that. We're gonna shoot probably A cam on my face, B cam from the side, over-the-shoulder shots to catch my bartender. But we want my shoulder in there kind of reacting. And so, we'll shoot all that, but we don't want to have my CG guy just waste a bunch of render stuff by rendering all of it. We'll send it to my editor. So he edits some like finished green screen version of it. And then we will kind of, I've at this point captured all the data. So like relevant camera data is like the height of the camera, the distance from the subject, the focal length, the, you know, different physical attributes we're gonna have to match in CG that he's not gonna want to have to match manually. Are you measuring that yourself or are you getting that from like your Mo-sys tracker? I'm measuring that myself. The Mo-sys tracker's great actually for, 'cause it will provide all of that. But I don't have a lot of Mo-sys StarTrackers yet. I just have one. So, you know, when I'm shooting kind of this basic stuff. Like locked-off camera shots, I feel like it's kind of, it's like overkill. When you move a camera, obviously, you need, like a tracking system. But for a locked-off camera shot, usually we get, get by with like enough. I'll just shoot a little laser level down, shoot it at the, like where we're at, kind of get a few basic measurements, write it down in a little book, and then I'll, um, send it over. Yeah. A a lot of this stuff is kind of manual. And then we'll get a finished, cut from my editor. We'll send it to my CG guy. He'll go render it all out. We'll send it back to my edit. Well, we'll send it to review. So then we will all kind of look at it, what do we think, what's hitting, what's not? We'll do pickups where we have to, and then we'll send it for sound design and final editing to my editor. We'll do another review, probably a few more reviews. And then, um, we're kind of shooting pickups the whole way. Like, this doesn't work, this works. We need to cut away this sooner. But that's a, that's a way where we don't do too much double work. I mean, basically, with CG, your biggest costs are your, um, your artist's time and your artist's rendering, like your rendering capacity. You know, we've tried to do like build render farms and stuff. That's a whole other thing, but, uh, and we're not that sophisticated yet, but, it's still a problem. Like you can't just render, you don't have infinite render capacity, so you have to just manage that. So that's, that's our pipeline right now. And I will say to much to the chagrin of all of you Unreal Engine lovers out there, we do not use Unreal Engine. We're still in Blender. I mean, we're Blender lovers here. All our scenes are rendered out in Blender. That's how we've done it for the past, I think two years now. All of the world, the virtual, the, the rooms. Everything. Everything. So it's Blender. And then now's a good time, let's talk about Aximmetry. How did Aximmetry come on your radar and like what role is it playing in your pipeline? So Aximmetry came on my radar. Yeah.'cause I was exploring keying options and I was really not happy with hardware keyers because of how you have to loop, like the the loop thing. I hate that. I was like, this is so- this should all be done in software. Why do I have basically a computer separate from my computer doing the keying when I could just have my computer do the keying? Like it- So you don't overload your computers. Yeah, that's right. That's right. By the way, that's actually true. That's true. uh, but Aximmetry, you know, they have a, I don't wanna say lightweight, but they, they have a keyer that like basically could run with my computer. So I kind of, uh, figured that out, begged them to sort of work with me. They're like, all right, that's cool. So I got a license and then, yeah, I started working with that. And I was just amazed by how this like node-based system works. If you guys haven't used Aximmetry before, you basically, it's basically a node-based editor but for video. And so instead of like I dunno what a lot of people are familiar with, OBS or stuff like that, you basically like pull in a camera input, but then you can apply like a node layer of like a lut or you can add like some camera correction or some blur. Then you can add another thing, then you can add a keyer, then you can add this, then you can add that. And you can kind of add all this logic in with it, which I really like. So, um, I kind of jumped in that as a way to do what is essentially live, so live, uh, production without- Like a in-camera visual effect. Yeah. Yeah, like basically in-camera, visual effects without, um, Unreal. I dunno, I've just kind of always had a bad experience with Unreal. It never really runs fully real time on my computer. So I'm like, if it's not fully real time, then I get pissed and I'm like, we should just, if we're gonna just have to do it in post, let's just do it in Blender. Um, because I think the, like the renders outta Blender are slightly better. So Aximmetry provided me a real way with like rendered backgrounds. So if you're doing locked-off shots, you can do pre-rendered backgrounds that loop. And so I was like, for anything we're doing locked off, let's film it live so I don't have to go back and like, we don't have to spend computation or post processing keying or like let's just do it all live. Um, so that's our pipeline for live stuff. And then our pipeline for not live stuff, which is usually like bespoke shots where we're not confident the keyer is gonna, you know, pull everything the first time or we, we want it to be a little more anything that's sort of cinematic, and we're not sure which camera angle we're gonna pick yet, we'll do in post. But anything sort of at the desk, the main desk is all, uh, composited live. And that's just a way to save a ton of time because we used to send it all to KeyLight or to Primatte for like, keying in post, and that was just not good. Your main A cam, B cam shots where you're in your- the studio, you're at your desk, you're talking, you're kind of giving main storyline points, originally you were saying that you used to just record the raw files, green screen background. Composite it later in post. Replace the background- No, well the first time was in OBS for live keying that way. Then I was like, I want this to look nicer. So then we did it in post. I was like, this sucks in post. How do I do it live, but good live but not OBS kind of terrible keying. And that's when I found Aximmetry and I haven't looked back since. Sorry. Okay. So all of your Blender, the renders, the, the set pieces brought into Aximmetry, layered with your camera, your nodes, and that you're, you're rolling. And that is uh, final pixel in camera. You don't have to do anything to that in post? Correct. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and I'm super happy with that. And then recently we've kind of wanted to get away from the whole, like, uh, you know, everything's locked off. I think, I think for virtual production especially, it can start to like, like you can start guessing the world. You're like, okay, no camera's moving. You know? I kind of feel like this is a bit of a 2D world. I could push it over with like a, with, you know, I could, and the world would topple over. Um- Touch your background. Yeah. Yeah, I can just touch the background. So I really started to get obsessed with this idea of, you know, really if I can move the camera, it's gonna blow people's minds because how can you move, you know, it's just sort of like the next evolution of that whole thing. So I started getting obsessed with the idea of, you know, how do we do that? I looked into match moving. One theme with me is I'm always trying to cheat work. Like I'm always trying to make things faster. But then it ends up making me do more work. So, uh, so- I think that's the definition of life hacking where it's like I'd rather spend 50 hours to figure out how to do this task that I could do in two minutes when it wouldn't take me five minutes to do it. Yeah. I have a joke with my friends. Like, I'll work all night just to not have to do the same thing twice. just to not have to do the same five minute task twice. I will spend, you know, all night troubleshooting how to build a system for this. So I, I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna match move every time. There's gotta be a better way. Sure. Turns out there is, but it's, uh, it's with live camera tracking. And that's when I got into that. I feel like that's where a lot of the like tech demos, a lot of the progress on the forefront of virtual production is. So I started looking into sort of the VIVE trackers. You know, that didn't work too much jitter. I really think like trying to solve camera jitter with smoothing and de-jitter and all that kind of stuff is a fool's errand. Not a fool's errand, but- A lot of post product, like a lot of post fixing in time. Yeah, And it's crap in, crap out. Like you need really high fidelity data. I won't go into the specifics of why I feel this way, but I spent so much time trying to- Aximmetry has all these tools actually for de-jittering, camera smooth, like motion smoothing. And I spent forever trying to create the perfect system for that. You just need good data. Like that's what it comes down to. You just need awesome camera data if you're gonna do live tracking. And so I know they've actually improved, so I don't, I can't speak to where they are now with the Mars and stuff. When you, when you were using VIVE, was this like when you had to hack when you had just had to hack the puck without the headset? So to clarify, this is not the VIVE Mars- No, no. And I wanna, yeah, I cannot- Okay. So to clarify everyone, right, if you're this is not their dedicated VIVE Mars- I don't think they, I don't they had like a dedicated ethernet yet. Like it was, it just- No, that was my, this was my first experience too, and I bought the pucks and then I like realized, it's like, oh, it's like, where's your headset? I'm like, I don't want, I don't, I don't want the Find out you had to like jailbreak it to like get it I was like, uh, okay-- I was part of that wave of like trying that out. they tried like Antilatency. Uh, that was fine, but uh, I got the floor model 'cause I didn't have enough clearance to get the ceiling model. And what I found is as you walk on the floor, the sensors are moving slight, like, even though you won't even see it. Like, there's some, like a little bit, or you can include the sensors, and I just wasn't getting great data from them either. So, um, eventually I was like, who's the industry using, like what, what are, what is the industry using? I found there's not a super clear answer to that. The industry uses a lot of things. But one of the things the industry uses is like Mo-Sys. And I saw some of their demos and I was like, this looks really good, and it looks like a workhorse. And at that point, I was so fed up with trying to troubleshoot all the time. Caveat, nothing is set and forget in virtual production. Nothing. But I want something that is as close to possible set and forget it. And so, that's when I found the StarTracker. I started talking to them about working with them. Ever since I got that, that's been finally has gotten as close to pixel perfect as I can get. The data coming in as really good. At this point, it's more about like figuring out how to solve for camera lens distortion on different lenses and like, you know, focus breathing, the things that, you know, you take for granted you or you don't even realize are problems when you're just trying to solve the, like, tracking quality part. But then you're like, oh, now there's this whole new set of issues. But yeah, so that's been my process with figuring that out. It's super fun. It's super rewarding and it's super hard. I mean, it's like, it's all of those things. And I still think, like, I just wanna, I guess I wanna say this, virtual production, indie virtual production as far as locked-off cameras, I think is 100% approachable. I think Aximmetry plus some rendered scenes totally doable for a workable pipeline from every YouTuber. Mm-Hmm, and you can get final pixel in camera, like not have to touch it afterwards. Indie virtual production for moving cameras, I don't think is quite approachable for the layman YouTuber. And I mean that because I say that as like, I've developed my pipeline as my resources have sort of expanded. But I know when I started on YouTube, I could have never afforded the tools I needed for moving a camera. Like there's just so much you need to get a working workflow for, um, moving camera, virtual production that I think it's worth being really honest about that. And not saying like, oh, this is approachable to a guy who can only afford a camera and some lights. Like, it's not yet. You can do a lot with a basic green screen, some basic lights, and a camera. But you, but as far as like trying to get into the moving camera shots, unless you're willing to spend some time. I think match moving is maybe the closest thing to an app, like a cheap workflow for that. But even then, it's, it's hard. Yeah, I mean I think the only viable indie solution for that right now is if you're fine filming on your iPhone'cause there are a handful of solutions. Even Aximmetry came out with an app recently. And so if you're fine filming on your iPhone, 'cause the iPhone has all of these sensors that we need built into it. yeah. The, The kit's actually pretty good. Yeah. Um, so that, yeah, that's the most viable indie solution I think right now. Um, but yeah, if you want to get a bigger camera track that then it's gonna get more complicated. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a, it gets a lot more complicated. But it's fun to develop into that because I'm still budgeting every year, like to try to build up to a workable pipeline. I mean, I still, I just recently got my first dolly. And then you realize, oh, the dolly's not stable enough. I should have subtracts with this dolly. But the tracks cost like $2,000. I mean, it's like, this stuff is just ridiculously expensive to get into the kind of world of, you know, world of actual, you know, production. So, um, I always like to say that because I think it is fantastic that this world is becoming approachable, but you know, you also have to be, you know, I think it's just responsible to kind of be honest about where the world is approachable as of now, where it's not. I think what's exciting is to the people who are first come a lot of the spoils, I mean, I think the first people who can sort of figure this out, you know, get a lot of the benefits of, Hey, that thing's new. I haven't seen it before. That's really cool because in five to 10 years, I think what I'm doing now won't be as noteworthy because people have already done it. Everyone will be in their metaverse virtual studio recording their, uh- Everyone's gonna do it and everyone's gonna be like, oh, that's so- you're so lazy for doing that. And then it's stuff that we've all been like, spending hours right now trying to Yeah. Well, I think, I think of the, the MKBHD studio tour, and he's explaining, you know, why he has a robot camera, like a half a million dollar robot camera. You know, and he is like, it is just to differentiate the channel with these types of shots.' cause tech reviews are easy and no one's- right no one's gonna do this to go to that extent for the review. Um, with the shots that you are moving, uh, are you just recording on green screen and doing post stuff, um, afterwards, or are any of those shots final pixel or are you doing post work to them? Nope. All of them are post. I am slightly skeptical of, um. indie virtual production final pixel. And what I mean by that is, I think if you have a ton of people on set, a ton of experts, you can do all that.'cause basically, final pixel just means you move all your production to pre-production. And what I do is everything is negotiable after you film. That actually turned out to be a really good thing when you're limited by people. So when your problem is not time on set and like, like I, I think it's just a lot because I, my, my problem is not equipment just being here. I, I, I have all the equipment, but I don't have the people. Um, whereas, you know, if you're renting a space and you only have 30 days, but you can spend as much as you want on resources, yeah, it's worth moving everything to pre-production and, you know, solving it there. But, uh, I've been keeping an eye on the, like, live space and I think it comes with its own set of challenges. I think the green screen is a bit, it's just not like sexy 'cause it's not new. So I think people are sleeping on it. But actually it turns out to be really nice to be able to solve all your problems after you filmed it and be like, oh, we can just insert this. Oh, we can change this. Oh we can do that. Um, and we don't have to pull talent back on set because there is this part like, oh actually in the edit we should have had this for continuity reasons. What do we have to do? We have to put everything back, call everyone back to set, get a new take, make sure that take matches with the old take.. I mean, final pixel is like cool when you get it the first time, when you don't get it the first time, it actually sucks because you can't fix anything. It's final pixel. It's like it's done. So, um, yeah, all our like cinematic stuff where we're moving stuff, that's all- most of the work is done in post and, um, I'm quite happy about that. I'm, and I'm keeping stuff in post for that. This probably then answers my next question is like, are LED panels on your radar and going that route instead of green screen? But you probably just answered that question. Yeah. No- Just not enough- people power to do- just because you'd have to get it all set up ahead of time and like have- I I guess- uh, I guess the answer is never like a full no. I mean, I feel like it's the same answer of like CGI versus practical. It's like there are points where these things are more useful than the other. The point where, you know- right now I'm shooting in a, I'm trying to create a second set for a unrelated project. Anyway, I'm trying to use a really small space so I don't have enough distance from the, um, the wall. And I started realizing, oh, actually like an LED panel that I could pull some bulk on would actually be useful because instead of getting a lot of spill on me. I could just have natural lighting. So there's like cool stuff to LED panels, which is really nice. And if you get the right setup, I think also, um, shout out to , gosh, I forgot his name, the jet guy something jet, uh, on YouTube. He built a set where his windows, I wanna say potato jet. Oh, yes. I do know he had- he used windows but he used like an LED, like he used an LED panel. And I think, I thought that was genius. I was like, this is the perfect use case for that problem. And like it can cast real light on like window shades even. You can have this curtain that's semi-see- like sheer and all the lighting like looks nice. So I think everything's a tool. Right tool, right job. And you as an artist will find your own like preference for tools. Like, uh, this is true with, you know, anybody who's like, uh, like, like building a house. Everybody knows some tools are better for some jobs, but then there's those gray zones where it's like, I prefer such and such. I just like using it. And I prefer or I prefer this. So, um, I think that's true. You kind of have to develop your own style for, okay, I know kind of how these tools work. You don't wanna say no to any of them outright, but maybe I prefer this, I prefer this set of tools. I prefer, you know, Yeah. Two tools I sort of touched on what we just talked about, and I dunno if they're on your radar. One was, GhostFrame. It was a company we filmed at NAB last year. Their solution was sort of for this problem you're describing where they can display multiple images on the LED panel simultaneously. So like you can record your virtual background. But then you could also have a green background and like a tracker background. So you're recording like three separate videos where if you need to composite or switch out things later on. And then, Kino Flo came out with a MIMIK lighting, which is basically a super bright LED panel where you can feed it images and stuff and use that as like your lighting source. which actually leads me into one of my other questions. The noir lighting that goes across your face- and I'm sorry about the drilling in my background. Uh, the noir lighting that goes across your face, the coffee steam from your mug. Do you add those in post? Um, so sorry, I had to write down that MIMIK lighting, Kino. That's cool. I've never heard of that. I'm probably gonna check that out. And then as far as, oh gosh, you got to a bunch of great stuff. But, but let me answer your question about the, um, the noir lighting is, is actually practical. The window- Looks great. Yeah. No, no, no. So, so that i thought of, 'cause I found Aputure had some, uh, gobos with like Venetian blinds, like fake Venetian blinds. I was like, gosh, that would sell I, I think, feel like they made that for you, like- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and then we, we were like, yeah, and then let's put some CGI Venetian blinds in the background. And then it just works because you, it, I think that one light has sold my show so well. Because it, it creates this- like it's on me, but then it's in the background and so your mind goes, ah, it has to be, you know- anytime you can create stuff like that, like where you're, you have some kind of motivated lighting or in that case, it's not from the back. It's actually kind of, you're selling it in the background, in the, in the front. But, um, it's always worth it. Then the coffee steam is created actually in post. That's like CGI'd on as like a plate later. I just realized, oh, if I put my coffee cup up, I will never cross that boundary, so it'll never be a problem. Um, so I should just do this. Let's, I thought of so many ways to do that practically. It actually fun. These are like fun little- see if you- if you like problem solving, virtual production is for you because it's constant problems and it's con, sorry, I like, I have allergies, but it's constant problems. It's constant problem solving. Uh, um, so like one funny thing we found, I. I created, I got a little fog fog machine.'cause I was like, oh, let me just fog machine. I'll cut a hole through my desk and I'll get a fog machine and I'll just kind of have it drip. It was a great idea. But then you realize, one, the fog doesn't work like steam and like just blow. Like it doesn't, it doesn't work. So then I was like, well maybe I'll put a boiler under there and I'll perpetually be boiling water to like create real steam. Um, no one's gonna have seen this level of, you know, I'm such a genius. But then I, but then I started trying to key it and I was like, oh crap. It actually creates all these problems because the steam creates its own layer of like, opaqueness. So it's like half opaque, which tears can do, but it's like not great. And it just created so many headaches. And then I was like, well, I told my artist like, Hey, can you find me like a loop of steam? And I put it on and it just looked perfect like the first time. And I was like, all right, well I should've not wasted all this time trying to. So, um, yes, it, there is this fun thing when you're trying to like, figure stuff out. There's like this fun problem solving of should I do it in post? Should I do it in live? Should I do it practical? Should I do it CGI? And um, if your brain looks like- works like mine does, like, that's just a really fun part of the job is figuring all that out. Going back to the, the entire workflow process, um, assuming you know, your research and everything done, how long are these videos taking now from let's say the script's done to, you know, your, your, the video's complete. So I'm just gonna assume you mean like workable draft.'cause the, the script kind of will change a little bit over time. But a, a workable draft- Enough that you're going to production. Are you doing your previs stuff? For a full like show, it's a month to two months. But that's like a full, we have things where we're still at the desk and we don't do a ton. We'll do maybe a few graphics. And then we have our, you know, more in-depth investigations where we're trying to put together like a full narrative. And those will take a month to two months of actual production work. And how big is the team Just uh, myself. So I, myself, I have an editor and a CGI artist. And I am trying as hard as I can to stay that small. I believe in the power of small teams. I also believe in like, team bloat is a real thing. and so I believe in working with super talented people. I'm trying to keep it small for now. Nice. and what other tech is on your radar that you might try to incorporate, like might be interested in? Um, this could go from AI not just generated AI, but even AI for helping research. Um, all of the above. What's on your radar? Uh, for sure not AI to research. I think that's a disaster. One hallucination is the end of my- everything. like, um, analyzing documents or just like finding patterns or like, not even, Hey, ChatGPT tell me this, but like, just a ton I used AI for one thing. I was trying to analyze like 50,000 emails and I had to create a Python script. And I was like, I could hire it out, but then I was like, I wonder if I can figure this out, you know, with ChatGPT. I know a little bit of like a baby amount. Anyway, it helped me figure out like a quick Python script, uh, to pull a bunch of stuff. So that's useful. Again. You can't- I, I, I don't believe in saying no to the tool. I've found that for like mood boarding and stuff, actually AI is a great way to come up with some ideas, like for mood boards. Hey, I wanna create X, Y, Z, but I only- I'm not a great artist. I'm not a great, like, maybe I can't visualize everything in my head, but I can describe what I want. If I can describe what I want, I can create like a, a bespoke mood board basically if I'm willing to spend the time to kind of get it. There are a bunch of things I could go into there. There are some problems with all that stuff, copyright-wise, which, uh, I guess we won't dive into. But as far as like tech that's on my radar, I really am obsessed with trying to learn this craft. I mean, I don't think there's any shortcuts. I really wanna learn. I'm trying to figure out what's next in terms of operating the camera. Like, like grip wise. I'm trying to figure out like, am I going dolly, am I figuring out gimbals, am I figuring out Steadicam, which is all kind of old tech. Gimbals not so much, but the other two. And I think adding that to my repertoire is kind of huge. I don't think you ever also get above like sort of the basics of, you know, learning more about lighting, learning more about framing. At this point. I think a lot of like the cool gear, I'm starting to at least have my hands nearby. I'm like getting my hands near the gear. Now it's sort of about, okay, becoming a master of that gear. I, I am a big believer in the idea of like, just like virtual production is never gets above the storytelling. Like you, like virtual production's great, but it always is subservient to the storytelling. I think tools are great, but they're always subservient to your skill with the tool. New tech is always sexy, and I'm always like interested in things like MIMIK lights and all that stuff. But I really believe this, like, all these things are, like how you use it. So, what I'm excited about trying to push the world forward in is not necessarily like breaking new ground or, you know, creating anything, but like using them in kind of new artistic ways that hopefully people haven't seen before on YouTube. Yeah. Um, We didn't really touch on it, and I know this is gonna come up in the comments, but I'm gonna ask it. But what is the gear stack of like, cameras, lights, editing software of just the tech stack behind everything Yeah. Shout out to all my- all these tech people who make things like this possible. Um, so tech stack, I'm a Sony boy. Love Blackmagic, but I need autofocus. I need a snappy autofocus. I'm in the Sony world. FX3 I think is like the greatest camera ever for most things. For virtual production, you need time code. Um, so, or not, not Timecode. You need Sync, which is different from Timecode, which I learned, slowly. I literally had to. Anyway, that's the whole thing. I tried, I tried forever to like, like do use Timecode for Sync, it's a disaster. If you don't know what I'm talking about and you wanna get into it, learn before you buy. Um, anyways, FX9 is my like virtual production dedicated camera ' cause it has Sync. It's also just an amazing camera because the low light performance is so good because you have the, uh, true dual-base ISO. I know people say dual-base iso, it's not actually dual-base ISO, um, which is also a fun thing you learn. But generally I think the FX three is absolutely good enough for everything else. Um, such an incredible camera. Like from the picture quality to the sensor to the low light performance. Because actually, one thing I should say, when you're working with green screen, you want low light performance, guys, the reason for that is because you're always fighting between three things, which are always trying to pull away lighting. You're fighting for a deep focus because you don't want things bulked out because then you will have a hard time keying it, uh, because the blurred out part will be green. It'll be like a mix of green in your actual props and stuff. So you want that. You also want as low of an ISO as possible for low noise because you, you don't want a key noisy footage. And then you also wanna shutter speed that doesn't have a bunch of motion blur. So all of those things make you, like, have less light. So because of that, you, you don't want super noisy cameras. So the FX3 I think is the right place as far as their low light performance is good enough to where you can basically pull off enough lighting to kind of get what you need. But that's, that's a hard lesson that I've learned for sure. So that's on the camera side. Uh, my mics are a mix of like, uh, the, whatever that Sennheiser, like famous shotgun mic is. M418- 416, whatever. Uh, and then like this is great, the Shure SM7B, I think. Tracking stuff, Mo-Sys all the way. Huge fan of them. I've heard good things about Vicon as far as like production. I know like professionals use that. I would say if I was to do it all over again, I would've skipped a lot of the indie options. I just don't think there are attracting fidelities there. But I also haven't been in that world for a while, so people can correct me in the comments. Maybe it's come a long way. I don't know. Software side, I'm obsessed with Aximmetry. I think Aximmetry is the keyer people are sleeping on. Everyone's in the old days of the Ultimatte. I think software-based gears are far superior. I will die on that hill. I don't care. Um, I I'm just, I'm serious. I- you got like, like compositing with hardware gears. Anyway, I think it's, uh, trash. Oh, lights, lights. Real quick, lights. Aputure. I believe in going into one ecosystem. DMX is also a, uh, great system, but it's also kind of an old system. So I think the Sidus Link is like a game-changer in terms of lighting. Uh, I know other ecosystems do their own like version of an app-based, uh, lighting control, but it just saves a ton of time.'cause I have all these like pre snapshots saved on my phone and I can just like, press a button. It's like, hey, here's how you lit this set perfectly last time, we'll just give it to you. You can change it later and set up a new snapshot. But um, you can always go back to the other one. So, I, I think that's so good. Whatever you do with lighting, I think trying to find an ecosystem really makes your life easier. I mean, sometimes you can't avoid getting- I have a few lights that aren't in my ecosystem 'cause they're just cheaper or, you know, better with somebody else. But I believe in going with one ecosystem. And then, um, I use like a little modif- like a teleprompter here just to let me see you and me at the same time, which is really I can look directly in the lens. I think a huge thing. thing your scripts off a teleprompter when you're recording? Yep. Uh, mostly. Depends. Depends on the video. But I, I do like to, 'cause I, I think, at least my work, a lot of the facts, like, you can't- you don't wanna like- Whoops. But, yeah, you're off by like a factor of 10, that's a problem. So, um, and I have been wrong about that before and I've had to apologize. So that's something you don't wanna get wrong and so teleprompters are great for making sure you're like on track with that. And then, yeah, I think that's mostly it. I recently got a treadmill that I use for like my, like, uh, like I walk on my treadmill at work, but I think I'm gonna spray paint it green and that's gonna be a new addition to- speaking of things you shouldn't do, but I'm gonna do it 'cause. because I don't see how you can do a practical treadmill that's actually the floor. So I think I'll have to pull that. But, so I think that'll be fun. Nice. And, uh, I know you're not editing, but, uh, any idea of Premiere, Resolve the software- We're in Premiere, but I love, I love the tools. Resolve has, I think there's getting really competitive. It's kind of frustrating 'cause I'm like, I wanna do some things in Resolve, like camera or anything color related is so much better Resolve. Like Dehancer, I think it's available for Premiere Pro, but some of the tools for DaVinci is just so cool. So they're kind of screwing me over'cause they're making it a hard choice. I don't wanna switch over. I've toyed around with like maybe sending stuff to Resolve and then the Premiere, that's just kind of a whole nightmare though. I wish they would play nice'cause then we could all be happy. One happy ecosystem. Yeah. Never gonna happen. Yeah. So I mean, I know you, uh, don't get a chance to talk about this kind of stuff often, so anything we didn't cover worth mentioning or you wanna talk about? I will say, I will say, I think it's worth, um, mentioning, when you get into this stuff, usually you're like watching people who have figured a lot of stuff out. That's why you're watching them. But I think the great thing about this world and the great thing about YouTube specifically is you don't have to be a fully formed project. And I think my show is a testament to that. I think a lot of people's kind of enjoyment about the production is that I wasn't always polished and I'm still not as polished as I'd like to be. I think you spoke to that, like in the first question to kind of bring it full circle. People enjoy watching the journey. So if you're thinking about getting into this, you know, I know I've said a lot about, you know, where things are, where things aren't, you know, this technology moves so fast. Um, so I think you still very much are on the ground floor. And you can figure it out as you go on YouTube, which is kind of the best part. I think in Hollywood, in kind of more mainstream production, there's more of a, you kind of have to have it all done. You can't be figuring it out on the fly as much. But I think that's the great thing about YouTube. So if you're on YouTube, you're thinking about taking the plunge. I think it's awesome. This, this work is super sick, and I'm excited to see people, more people kind of take it on, not just from the tech side, but also trying to use it practically for just as a tool of, kind of building art. Yeah, just all about at the end of the day, all about telling more interesting and better stories. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Stephen. I really appreciate the time and, uh, nerding out about this with you. Yeah. normally I, I ask where can people learn more? But, um, in this case, just Coffeezilla. Go to YouTube. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I just have fun talking about this. I never, I never get the chance to talk about it. I do kind of love keeping the ambiguity of, is it green screen? Is it not green screen? But, uh, I think in a space like this, it's fine to kind of pull back the curtain, tell you guys a few of my tricks, a few of the kind of things we've been working on, because I've gotten so much help from this community of that is where the people who are playing around with the tech, just for the tech's sake they're also pushing it forward 'cause they teach people like me how to use these tools. You know what I mean? I wouldn't be, you know, without people like Matt Workman, people who are, you know, kind of in the throes of building some of the- um, I, I think there's these guys, CoPilot, I think, uh, Video Copilot, or- oh, no, yeah, Yes. yeah. Those guys helped me massively when I got my StarTracker. So the people who are building these, um, uh, tutorials and stuff, I didn't wanna poo poo on them 'cause they're also making- they're building the runway for the rest of us to sort of take off. Um, shout out to those guys. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, Stephen. Appreciate it. And that is it for this episode of VP Land. Many thanks to Coffeezilla aka Stephen for sharing all the insights and a peek behind the scenes of what goes on in making his excellent videos and his journey into virtual production. Links for everything that we talked about are in the show notes, either on YouTube in the description or over on the show notes on the website at VP-LAND.COM. And again, be sure if you enjoyed this episode, you'll most likely like our VP Land newsletter, which covers a whole bunch more stuff like this, so go get it as well. Same website. Let me know what you thought about this episode. Have you got any other questions or requests of who you want to see in the YouTube comments. Thanks for watching. I'll catch you in the next episode.